Sunday 14th May 2006 - The Oaks Lakes, Sessay.

What a weekend, weather wise. It has been glorious sunshine nearly all week, then come Saturday, it rains all day (just about), then on Sunday it rains some more, with cloud and wind for good effect.

Let me ask you a question, how many of you where a hoodie when you are fishing. I do, and on this day, I made my first mistake (well second if you consider getting out of bed). My good lady wife invested in a couple of hoodies for me. One of said hoodies didn’t go down to well with the anglers on the match as it was a ‘Champion’ brand hoodie. Unfortunately for me, the hoodie was emblazoned with ‘Champion’ on the front of the hoodie. The first comment was along the lines of being a tea leaf, then followed that I must have bought it, and other unprintable comments, etc, etc,. One of these days, mark my words!!!!

With all of the rain and the conditions on the day, the lake water temperature had dropped some 5 or 6 degrees. The air temperature, according to old man Frank, was 11 degrees. There was a strong southerly breeze blowing for most of the day.

At the draw, I accosted Orc for his £1 that he owed me from last week, another £1 was struck along with a quid with Chappy and Purverted. Panic decided not to attend, his missus was poorly and poison was now going with clubbies.

68 ‘anglers’ turned up to fish the open match at The Oaks, Sessay. Two jackpot pegs were drawn, pegs 32 and 22. As people were coming through the draw, they were all talking about the two crackerjacks that had drawn the jackpot pegs. Alwin ‘maggot man’ Ingham had drawn peg 22 and Mark ‘Minty’ Whittaker had drawn the other jackpot peg. Maggot Man had over 60lb from peg 23 on the Saturday match, and if you give Minty half a peg, he has a good chance of doing some serious damage. Minty had previously held the lake record with 129lb until Big Mark’s weight last week of 154lb.

I put my hand in the bag and pulled out peg 25, not unhappy with the draw. On the match yesterday there were two 70lb+ weights from the area with a couple of other 60lb back ups.

Purverted drew peg 27, a corner peg with the southerly wind blowing into it. Chappy was on peg 19, still within shouting distance and my other quid, ooops sorry, Orc was on peg 73. Of late most of the pegs in the 70’s had been producing fish. My quid’s were looking a bit ropey.

I had Jack Fergusson for company on peg 24, and John ‘Big Pot’ Kelly on peg 26.

Jack was telling me that he had celebrated his birthday on Friday. I asked him how old he was. He replied that he had just turned 58. I apologised, then said that I thought that he had retired.

Plan(s) of attack

I set up 4 rigs:

Rig 1. was a 4 x 14 Drennan Roach float on .12 Maver Genesis line straight through to a size 18 Colmic 501 hook. This was set at 5ft deep to fish at the bottom of the far slope.

My next three rigs consisted of Colmic floats and were planned to fish across to the mud line (1ft deep), on top of the far side shelf (2ft deep) and to fish down the inside (again 2ft deep, with a bit more line between pole float and pole tip to allow me to fish further along down the inside and still be able to fish the top 2, the added bonus was that I could also add more depth and go into deeper water down the inside. All the rigs were set up on .12 Maver Genesis line straight through to size 18 Colmic 501 hooks.

In view of the weather change and the drastic drop in water temperature I got some maggots to accompany my micro pellets, 4mm and 6mm hook pellets. I also had a tin or corn to hand – just in case.

All In

At the all in Big Pot made is first big, big mistake which affected his whole match. I watched as he big potted 3 lots of worm over to the mud line slope. He put 1 pot straight in front, and 1 pot both left and right. He also potted bait down the middle.

I decided to err on the side of caution and went across with a fruitshoot of pellets with a couple of maggots in the cup and double maggot on the hook. I tipped the pellets in and dropped the rig over the top and started flicking about 4 or 5 maggots over the top of the rig.

I proceeded in this vain for the next 20 minutes, working left to right, and back along the far shelf when the float dipped, and I connected with a carp of about 1lb. Dropped straight back in and caught another. I then started to get silly little dips and the culprit(s) were little gudgeon.

Some of the maggots that I had loose fed with the cattie had landed on the mud line and every now and then a carp would appear and cloud the water. After seeing such and indication, I put a conker on the mud line rig, shipped out to the far side and waited, and waited and waited.

I could wait no more.

I came back and had a look down the inside. After a bite less 20 minutes, I sacked this line (for the time being).

By nearly 3 hours into the match, my clicker estimated that I had 7lb of fish – things were looking very hard.

Whilst I was planning on my next line of attack, Big Pot had gone in down the middle and was missing bite after bite after bite (or liner after liner after liner).

I decided to have a go on the deep rig. I put a pellet on the hook and a few micro pellets in the pole cup. I dropped in and caught a carp of about 2lb within seconds. I repeated the process and caught a barbel about 12oz and a smaller sample followed. Whilst tipping in micro pellets, I was getting liners so started to catapult pellets and maggots over the top of the float and was getting linered all the time. I put on the shallow rig and continued feeding over the top. Nothing.

I put on the deepest of the shallow rigs and proceeded in the same manner, nothing.

I put the deep rig back out, but had shallowed it up by about 1ft, dropped in, the float didn’t settle and a carp of about 1lb was soon in the net. This was the only fish that I managed to catch just off the bottom. I had all the while been observing Big Pot and he wasn’t fairing much better. He was fishing a little bit shallower than me, but also a bit further over, so was probably fishing about 4ft deep on the bottom but further up the slope.

With about 20 minutes of the match left, I decided to start again on the shelf. I went over with a conker on the hook and dropped in over the top of a few micro pellets. The float settled, then dipped and a carp of about 5lb was trying to do the 100 metres faster than Justin Gatlin.

Of all the lines and rigs that I had planned to catch fish, the score was approximately as follows:

Far shelf – 3 fish - 8lb.
Inside shelf – 4 fish – 4lb
Mud line – 0 – zero, zilch.
Down the middle – 15 fish – 14lb.

Jack on peg 24 hadn’t caught any fish down the inside, but had a late burst of fish both across and down the middle. He says that he got broke, but I don’t think so, I think that his rig had come off his stonfo connector as the sliding locking sleeves have a tendency to come loose. The fish took his whole rig including the loop that you attach to the stonfo.

Big Pot had about 5 fish across and 1 of those was an ide and approximately 14 or 15 fish down the middle.

The match in general had fished quite hard considering how the lake had been fishing. Although I did have a little bit of pleasure in that I had beaten 2 pegs to my left and one peg to my right. Jack had 16lb and Big Pot DNW’d although I think that he may have had about 18 – 20lb. I was, all the same, interested to see if Big Pot’s method would work so I had kept an eye on his lines and methods throughout the match. His result shows that Big Potting didn't work (at least on this ocassion anyway).

And it got worse!!!

Chappy was very worried after the scales had got to him and he weighed in 36lb 8oz, but he had nothing to worry about, I only managed to put 26lb 14oz on the scales, Purverted weighed in 42lb 4oz and Orc had managed to snare 28lb 10oz. So to cap of a bad weekend I was down £4. Oh well, there is a first time for everything.

How much are golf sticks????

I hope that Panic goes next week and that Poison comes back soon, I need the quid’s to give to Chappy and Purverted at this rate.

Back in the cabin, I gave Purverted his £2, but gave a pound to Xman, as I thought that Purverted hadn’t given Xman his quid.

Xman should have kept his gob shut, and he would have had a quid off me – for nothing, as Purverted had already given X his quid.

Full Result

Ian Exley (Middy Team Dons) 71-00. Peg 55
Andy Middleton (The Oaks) 62-11. Peg 54
Derek Jackson (Diawa Goldthorpe) 62-11.
Dave Topham (Sensas Wibsey) 57-12.
Robbie Minikin (Harrogate Angling Supplies) 56-02.
John Clarke (Bob-Co) 54-02