Sunday 16th July 2006 – The Oaks Lakes, Sessay.

Panic cried off this week, so I was left to travel by my own devices. I arrived in plenty of time and after a light breakfast, I started to get everyone in order and take the names for the match.

I was expecting low numbers this week as most of the Manchester contingent were absent due to practising for a forthcoming team match, but by the time of the draw, there were 56 of us hardy souls in attendance. The weather was forecast to be damn hot with a tad more heat for good measure with a slight breeze (no such thing at Sessay).

My now obligatory quid was struck with Purverted (£2), Chappy, Orc, Nightie, Topshop and Geri (atric Movley).

Two jackpot pegs were announced, pegs 25 and 31. Age Concern drew peg 25 and there was a slight anticipation that it may go following his 2nd place on last Sunday’s open. Mala Dunlop was on the other jackpot peg. I put my hand in the bag and drew peg 32, so I had Mala on one side and Timothy (Sorry) Moran on the other side, peg 34. Chappy drew peg 7, Purverted was on peg 69 (and cried his way to the peg, don’t know why, there was a few fish down the last week).

Preparation

I had been out to Bob-Co tackle shop and purchased a selection of Garbolino DC1 and DC2 floats in a variety of sizes from .05g to .5g. I like the floats has they have high visibility bristles and you can ‘read’ your bites. I had spent all last night making up about a dozen rigs on a variety of lines from .13 Preston Powerline to .16 Map Carptek line, all that was needed was for me to add shot to the rigs on the bank, which is the easy part. I was ready.

The rigs

I set up 3 rigs to start with as follows:

Shelf rig. I set up a .2g DC1 float for on top of the shelf at 12m. This was going to be my main line of attack. When plumbing up, I found approximately 2ft of depth. When fishing for carp I like to have most, if not all of my shot set at half depth. Mark Lucas got me doing this, as it allows the fish to watch the bait as it flutters down and your bites are positive when they take it as they feel less resistance than if the shot was closer to the hook. The rig was set up on .14 MAP Carptek line tied to a size 14 Colmic WN501 hook.

Rig 2. Whilst plumbing around my swim, I found that if I went both left and right of my peg number, the peg shallowed up so I set up a rig to fish the shallower water if needed. I used a .1g DC1 float and again had a couple of No.9 Preston Stotz just pulling the float to the base of the bristle. This float was set up on .13 Preston Powerline direct to a size 16 Colmic WN501 hook. (I realise that although .13 Preston Powerline may be thicker in diameter than .14 Carptek, the fact that it says .13 on the packet makes you assume that you are actually fishing finer??).
My 3rd rig was a Drennan Roach set up to fish in 5ft of water at the base of the far side slope. This was set up on .14 Maver Genesis line tied direct to a size 14 eyed barbless hook (Kamasan B981).

Both rig 1 and rig 3 were set to fish approx 3 – 4” over depth, this follows on from the bites that I was getting last week when it was a tad windy and I was having to fish well over depth.

A La Carte Menu

The menu for today was going to be pretty much basic. Meat, meat and more meat with a splash of hemp, just for something different.

I have finally got my meat cutter from Mal Bailey, but, assuming that he wasn’t going to turn up, I had asked Chappy if he could do me 3 tins of meat when I arrived in the morning. I let Charisma Pawlett, Kev McKie and Purverted use the meat cutter. When I went to get it back off Purverted, I wanted to do another tin of meat; the wires had been snapped at one end. I spoke with Mal; he has taken it back to repair it for me. Mal told me that they had snapped as whoever had used it, had done the meat on an angle and pressed the plunger onto the wires at an angle. So, I had to borrow Toddy’s cutter. Saying that about the meat cutter, most of the Woodland’s regulars have them, so if they are good enough for them, it is good enough for me.

On Your Marks, Get Set!!

At the all in, went out with the shelf rig. I filled a large Tosspot full of hemp and meat and shipped out to the 2ft deep swim. I dropped the bait in, waited about 5 minutes and caught my first fish, an ide of about 10oz. I rebaited, loaded up again and went back over. After about 5 minutes, I caught my first carp of about 10oz. Over the next hour, I was catapulting bits of meat onto the shelf line, with a few pieces of meat being fired over to the mud line at 14m.

After 1 hour, I estimate that I had 6 carp and 2 ide for about 6lb. I was now starting to miss bites, liners. I shipped out with the shallow rig (this was probably about ½ depth), dropped in with meat up in the water. The float buried and a mirror carp about 2lb was trying it’s best to get away. After a 5 minute battle the carp was in the net. I was using white hydro through the match 2 & 3. I immediately swapped over to white hydro through the match No. 2 only.

Over the next 2 to 3 hours, I proceeded to catch a steady procession of fish (although I wasn’t breaking any records), all of which came up in the water. Mala on the next peg was struggling (he fished paste down the middle) and Sorry on the next peg the other way was starting to string a few fish together. Granddad and Calvert were both bagging on pegs 28 and 29.

To save time and to create a bit of noise, when fishing shallow, I flick the rig from one side of the pole to the other, going up and over. This allows the rig to land in a straight line, which also slows the fall and as an added bonus, creates noise.

I tried to go shallower with the shallow rig, but it didn’t seem right. I quickly made up a polyball rig set about 6” deep on .14 MAP Carptek line to a size 14 hook. I dropped in; the float was bobbing, but not going under. After about 2 minutes, the float shot under and a carp of about 3lb was soon in the net. On the next drop in, the polyball buried, and I never saw the fish or the rig again, I had been snapped where you tie the knot at the top of the rig.

Going into the last hour, I felt that the fish had disappeared, I was still getting liners, I was fishing between 12” and 6” deep, (I kept on altering the depth to try to find the fish). I went back onto the bottom for about 20 minutes, thinking that they had followed the bait down to the bottom (I think that I got the feed amount wrong). I caught a quick succession of fish, but they were generally smaller.

That was it, time. I had caught a few fish and felt confident of a good 50lb weight. Both Granddad and Calvert had emptied it, and I felt that Granddad would have over a ton. Sorry had started to catch a good few fish at the end by fishing up in the water at about 7m. Mala had had a bad day and was already packing up.

How had I faired?

The scales finally arrived at Granddad and there were a few decent weight with the majority of the weights being between 50 – 65lb. Granddad put 95lb on the scales. I knew he had a good weight. Big Mark put 98lb on the scales off the next peg to win the match. I weighed 63lb odd (my best weight for a while) and Sorry, whom I kept on trying to cajole into a quid, weighed 68lb odd, thank god that he didn’t want to have a quid. Mal Bailey won my section from peg 41 with 75lb, by default, as Minty Whittaker had 86lb off peg 37.

Purverted tipped back about 40lb and he left without paying. Chappy weighed 54lb (up a quid), Topshop had a lowly 40lb (up another quid) and my other quid’s all went without paying, so presumably I had beaten them all.

I feel as though I was there or thereabouts, a little tweaking with the feeding pattern and a few more fish may be on the cards.

The full result

Mark Calvert (Garbolino Elton) 98-08. Meat over hemp. Up in the water at 12m. Peg 29
Bert Poole (Oaks/Westpark) 95-12. Meat over hemp in the deep water. Peg 28
Adam Richards (Garbolino Elton) 88-08
Mark Whittaker (The Oaks) 86-13
John Allerton (Tricast Oaks) 79-15
Andy Dargue (Shimano Quaker) 76-02

The lowest section winning weight was 61lb odd. I had 63lb for about 15th.

Dean Smith had 74lb and didn't win his section.