Sunday 30th April 2006 – The Oaks Lakes, Sessay

Before I start on my write up of Sunday’s match at The Oaks, I MUST recall two mishap's, one from last week and one from this week:

Age Concern – Post It.

I am considering changing Age Concern’s moniker to Post It!! Following the end of last week’s match, Age Concern (oop’s) POST IT loaded the car with all of his gear and made the 20 mile return trip home. Upon arriving home and unloading his jet fighter, he realised that he had left half of his tackle on the bank including his keepnet and rod bag.

Upon realising his error, he asked the missus if she wanted to go out. She beamed at him lovingly and replied ‘Yes dear’ or words to that effect. He got in the jet fighter and made the return trip to The Oaks to retrieve left items of tackle. So much for taking the missus out, eh?

He drew a couple of pegs away from me on the match today and I mentioned to him that I will get him a pack of Post-It’s from work, so that he can label his gear and put one on his forehead so that he doesn’t forget.

Pegging.

What a complete and utter Ballcock I made, and I admit it. At the draw there were 50 of us there for the match, so in order to make it fair for everyone I decided to peg the match 2 pegs, miss a peg, etc, etc. In order to check that the pegs are all there, I arrange the pegs in 10’s (1 – 10, 11 – 20, etc). Anyways, by doing the above, the pegging went as such – 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, and 20. Fine and dandy!

For some totally unknown reason (I think I had a Post It moment), I then went (from the top of the column of numbers) 21, 22, 24, 25 etc, etc. As people had come through the draw queue I indicated to various people that they had an empty peg on at least one side. I sorted out all of the monies then proceeded to my peg. Upon arriving at my peg I had an irate Mal Bailey moaning and groaning about being in the middle of the pegs (19, 20, 21 & 22). What do you do? I suggested to Mal, that Tom (the pond owner’s son) pulls out one of the spare pegs and he fishes that, in order that everyone has an empty peg on at least one side. He ended up on peg 63. Thank you Sting Ray for taking him round the other side of the lake with his gear.

Quid’s

Panic wasn’t in attendance as he was at Woodland’s trying to get on the Fisho so I was a quid down to start with. Perverted had the usual £2, Orc - £1, Poison (dwarf) - £1, Chappy - £1 (I wanted to win my money back) and Reg Melton - £1. Bloody Eck, £6.

The Rigs.

I drew a peg that I fancied, Peg 24 (23 was second yesterday and there was no-one on peg 23 today). After sorting out the pegging, I had about 20 minutes to set up (still more than Mal) and set up the following:

2 foot rig – 4 x 12 Colmic float on .13 Preston Powerline to a size 16 Kamasan B911. attached to white hydro. My plan was to conker on top of the shelf in 2 foot of water with this rig. (I also plumbed up down the side with this rig to find the same depth as across).

Shallow Rig – a 4 x 10 Colmic float on .13 Preston Powerline to a size 16 Kamasan B911, this was attached to the orange hollow elastic (which I have now found out is the Vespe stuff). I set the rig at 1ft deep with a bulk of shot at ½ depth. I was planning to fish tight across with this rig, pushing conkers up the slope.

3rd and final rig was a 4 x 14 Drennan Roach (Carbon stem) on .12 Fox Match line to a size 18 Kamasan B911 hook. This rig was attached to grey hydro. I plumbed up at the base of the slope in 5ft of water.

All Gone Pete Tong!

At the start of the match, there were a lot of fish topping and swirling in the peg, with this in mind, I fed a large ‘Toss Pot’ of pellets over to the mud line and also repeated the same on the other two lines. I had a few casters left from the Woodland’s match yesterday and I started to flick 4 or 5 over to the 2ft line on top of the shelf whilst fishing with the 2ft rig. After about 5 minutes, I had my first indication and missed it. I dropped in again, and a carp of about 10oz took the bait before the float had settled. They are up in the water, or so I thought.

After continuing in this manner for the next 30 minutes, I could tell that I was going nowhere and felt as though I was messing about too much. I had been feeding a few micro’s down the side and decided to have a drop in there. The float dipped and buried, a carp of about 1lb was soon in the landing net. By about 1 hour into the match, I estimate that I had about 5lb.

Bag Up Time

After speaking to one of the lads that fishes tight over to the mud line, I was told to fish with an heavier than normal float over to the far side with a bulk of shot some 3 – 4” from the hook. In view of the wind starting to pick up and the surface skim, I set up a 4 x 12 Drennan Carp 1 tight across to a .14 MAP Carptek line to a size 16 Kamasan B611 hook. This was attached to white hydro through the number 2 section only (no. 1 removed).

I went over to the far side, fed a ‘Toss Pot’ full of bait and waited. I waited no more than 1 minute, the float shot under, the elastic bottomed and a carp of about 5lb was soon in the keep net.

I repeated the process and another carp of about 2lb was soon on it’s way. I had another of a similar size, then I caught a carp of about 4lb, this one also bottomed the hydro. I quickly swapped the rigs over and put the rig on the orange Vespe elastic.

I went back over to the far side and had another carp of about 3lb. After each and every fish, I fed a full ‘Toss Pot’ of bait. I had put an estimated 16lb in the net in the space of 20 minutes. I was starting to count my winnings, when everything from this moment forward went wrong.

The bites dried up completely across to the mud line. I dropped back on to the 2ft line and managed to snare the odd fish but, I was having to wait too long for bites.
I had another look down the inside. I hooked a carp of about 2lb, which charged all around the swim. The hook pulled, the rig went over my head, so I flicked the pole forward to stop the rig from tangling and the No. 3 section of my pole snapped clean in half about 8” up from the female part of the pole. Basket!!!!

I was now 3 hours in to the match, Perverted called me to see how I was getting on and I told him of what had happened so far. I estimated (according to my clicker) that I had about 22lb.

The Final Stages

I then seemed to be going through the motions and couldn’t wait to call time at the end of the match. I was having to rotate through all of my swims and trying to catch fish of each line. The wind was getting stronger and it was blowing left to right. It was getting colder and colder as the match went on. The fishing was getting harder and harder, do you get the idea that I wasn’t enjoying it. I had Martin Craig on peg 25 and someone else on Peg 22. I don’t really know them so there wasn’t even any good banter flowing. I could shout to Post It, but then again he might have forgotten what I said by the time that it got to him.

After shouting time to finish the match my ‘clicker’ said that I had about 27lb (although I had not put on the barbel that I had caught and missed off one or two of the smaller carp (6 – 10 oz’ers).

I rang Perverted to see what he had and he estimated that he had about 30lb. It was going to be close. I walked up to Post It and asked how he had got on. He said that he had lost about 50lb off the hook and had about 40lb. He has weighed in 41lb on his last 3 matches and he wouldn’t be surprised to do it again today. I asked how everyone else had got on, he told me that everyone up the straight (from peg 28 – 35) had bagged and that included Orc who was on peg 28, next to Post It.

The Scales, The Scales.

By the time that the scales had got to Coyney on peg 20, Chappy was leading our board with 78lb. I hadn’t seen Coyney catch much all day and he still weighed in over 50lb (54lb odd to win the section, and it was the lowest section winning weight).

The lad on peg 22 weighed in 31lb; I didn’t think that I was going to beat that and ended up putting 36lb 5oz (have to highlight the 5oz bit here). Martin to my right weighed in 41lb odd – caught on chopped worm after spending the first 2 hours fishing pellet for about 7 fish. Post It achieved what he set out to do and that was to catch 41lb again.
I was getting my quid ready for Orc on peg 28 (as Post It informed me that he had bagged) and was surprised to see his ‘bagged’ weigh only 35lb odd. £1down, £1 up.

Reg Melton had tipped back - £1 up (although he had done a runner without paying). After getting back to the cabin, I had ‘ounced’ Perverted – he was weighed in on the other set of scales so there was no Jiggery Pokery going on. £3 up. Only Poison to beat. Poison came to me with his hand out. I told him he was taking the pith, but alas no, he had weighed in 38lb odd. Again, most of his fish were caught when he had switched to worm. Oh well, still up Perverted’s £2.

Mal weighed in 49lb odd from peg 63, but didn’t bother going back to the cabin. I wonder why?

There were no errors on the scales this week as young Adam was not here, he had also gone to Woodlands to try to get on the Fisho match.

Analysis

After speaking to Chappy and Pimmy, it transpired that I had possibly put too much bait in. The Castleford Munchkin had told me that he had to put in 3pts of pellets yesterday in order to catch 60lb of fish. I went for it at the start of the match and possibly blew my peg up.

The Official Result

John Chapman (Garbolino Elton), 78-08. Peg 11.
Paul Taylor (The Oaks), 76-04. Peg 54.
Andy Middleton (The Oaks), 65-10. Peg 31.
Bert Poole, (The Oaks/West Park), 64-14. Peg 5.
Rob Minikin (Harrogate Angling Supplies), 64-08. Peg 37.
Tim Moran (Waterline Wibsey), 63-13. Peg 60.

Footnote – Respect!!

Respect had made the long trip over the Pennines to fish our match again. On his last visit here he drew peg 8 and weighed in 42lb 3oz for 3rd place, I know because I was on the next peg. Today he again, drew peg 8 and, was looking forward to bagging up the only thing not in his favour was that I was not on the next peg. Her managed to beat his weight from last time, but only just – he weighed in 42lb 14oz.

I think that I will call this one a day to forget.