Sunday 23rd July 2006. Cedar Lake, The Oaks, Sessay.

Panic was away on holiday duties, again, so I was travelling 'on my tod'.

In view of getting my meat cutter back of Mal Bailey, I had already prepared my meat ready for today, so it should save me some time after getting everyone else ready.

In view of running the matches and sorting out all of the monies, prior to starting the match, I still get one or two people who are always saying, can't we start earlier as I am ready with about 20 minutes to go, etc, etc. I do the draw at pretty much 10:00 (give or take 5 minutes and generally no more),and by the time that everyone has come through the draw and I have added up all of the money, sorted out the prizes and sections, etc, etc, I don't generally arrive at my peg until 10:30, that leaves me about 45 minutes to prepare myself, (30 minutes if I was to start the match at 11:00) hence the reason for an 11-15 (usually) start.

By the time that the draw came round there were 64 anglers (for want of another word) ready to try their best. We had 3 jackpot pegs, peg 8, 23 and 41.

Following my run of pegs (namely drawing pegs 4 or 5 over the last few matches), I asked Tom (the pond owners son) if he would do me the honour and draw me a good peg. He put his hand in the back and there was a look of anticipation from yours truly as he then pulled his hand out of the bag. Tom looked at the peg and gave a groan. Sugar. He showed me peg 70. Basket!!!!

Peg 70 is at the end of a straight of pegs, which goes from peg 66 - 70. It is on the inside of a bend with peg 71 being to your right about 15m away. Peg 71 can also go down to the bend. You do have the island to fish to, but it seems a short peg as the island has a 90 degree angle going away from you and from the marker in your peg to the end of the island only seems to be about 2m or so. The fish seem to come so far up the straight, turn round and go back down again. Oh well, I have got a peg, you can only do your best and sometimes you get the results.

The obligatory quid's were struck with Chappy, Orc, Bedpan (Roger Movley), Topshop, The Pacifier (Vinnie Diesel) and Macca (both £2 each).

I arrived at my peg to find that I had Tala on peg 71, Pacifier on peg 69 and Macca on peg 67 - peg 68 was empty (not put in the draw bag).

Bait Tariff

I recall a few weeks ago, Big Mark Calvert was in this area and had 40lb by fishing with maggots up in the water. So for today I had 3 tins of cubed meat, 1 tin of frenzied hemp, 3 pts of maggots and a handful of hook pellets.

I set up the following rigs:

Deep Rig No 1: a .4g DC6 float tied direct to .15 Preston Powerline straight through to a size 16 Colmic WN501 hook. I plumbed up at the base of the island slightly to my left where I found about 4ft deep. This rig was attached to grey hydro.

Deep Rig No. 2: a .5g Drennan Roach float tied direct to .15 Preston Powerline straight through to a size 14 Kamasan B611hook. This was also attached to grey hydro.

Shelf Rig: a .2g Garbolino DC6 float on .14 MAP Carptek direct to a size 16 Colmic WN501 hook. This was attached to white hydro through the no.2 section of my pole only.

Shallow rig: was a .1g Garbolino DC6 float set up as above, with approximately 18" - 2ft of line between pole float and pole tip (in order not to spook the fish).

At the all in, I potted some meat and hemp on both deep lines and went across to the far side with meat on the hook and a bit of hemp and meat in a Fox Toss Pot.

I waited for about 10 minutes and I got my first indication and I caught a scale, I ‘unhooked’ my scale, went to put it in my net and the wind blew it away – ho hum. I re-baited and went back out. Whilst fishing across I had been feeding maggots at about 8m all the time and I was now starting to see swirls and boils up in the water. I caught a small carp off the far side for about 8oz.

I decided, now was the time to attack it with the maggot approach. I dropped in with double maggot on the hook and missed an indication immediately. I dropped back in and caught a roach. It was that small I wondered, how had it got double maggot and a size 16 hook in it’s mouth?

I unhooked the ‘eyes’ and went back out. I caught another 'plip', then another, then another! Bugger!! I upped the amount of maggots and started to feed 15 – 20 each go. I managed to snare a couple of ide around the 12oz mark.

I carried on in this vein for the next 20 minutes or so catching the odd ‘plip’ and ide, when all of a sudden, the elastic shot out from the pole tip – carp No. 1 was on it’s way. I re-baited and did the same again and caught a few more 'plips'. I felt as though I was going nowhere – fast. I decided to try a pellet on the hook and feed maggots. I dropped in, had a few dips, then the elastic shot out. Carp No. 2 was in the net. I had got it sussed, they wanted pellet on the hook over loose fed maggot!!

20 minutes later, I had nothing further to add for my efforts. I had by now fished maggot/pellet hook bait over loose fed maggots for about 1hr 15mins. I had managed to feed 1.5 pts (nearly) of maggots. What to do????

Tala was struggling to catch on any line (albeit, he was fishing predominantly down the middle). The Pacifier was stringing the odd fish together and I could see that occasionally Macca had his elastic stretched out a bit.

I decided that the maggot approach wasn’t going to work and went back to a meat approach by fishing meat at the base of the slope whilst catapulting a few pieces over to the far side.

Landing 2 fish at once.

After about an hour of fishing in the deeps I caught a fish, to go with a couple that I caught earlier, as I played the fish, I swooped to net the fish and lifted the fish out of the water in the landing net. On closer inspection, there was a little F1 carp (about 1.5lb) in the net along with the fish that I had just caught (a mirror carp about 1lb). I had almost doubled my weight in one go, now then, where is my dragnet!!

Another spawny fish!!

Whilst I had been flicking the odd bit of meat and hemp across to the far side, I saw the odd fish come out of the water to get at the bait. Now was the time to go across and empty it. I baited up with meat, went across to the mud line and waited. After about 5 minutes, the float shot under and I played a fish. As I was bringing the fish to the landing net, a top kit appeared next to my float, as I lifted higher, a float appeared next to my float, then some shot, then the fish with the offending top kit and hook attached. I had caught a fish without hooking it. The carp was approximately 2.5lb (my biggest fish today) and was dragging round a paste float rig with a shark hook attached (which I later found to be a size 12 method feeder hook). The pole had broken just at the base of where the elastic was tied to the bung. The elastic seemed to be the Drennan pink hollow stuff (bit heavy). After the match, the lad that had lost his top kit was on peg 61, the fish had gone round to peg 56, as Chappy reported seeing the top kit, then it had gone past all of the anglers between pegs 56 and 69 to be caught in my peg.

Whilst all of this was going on and I was shouting to all and sundry, The Pacifier broke the number 5 section on his pole – he had caught a fish, got giddy and grabbed hold of his pole whilst the pole was jammed and snap. I didn’t laugh much. I offered him my spare section from my pole knowing that it wouldn’t fit. We were both using Garbolino poles, but my pole is made on a different mandrel. After trying the section and getting nowhere, he got out his replacement pole – a banana bazoocarp (or something like) and due to the stiffness (lack of), set the pole up at 14m but could only fish at 11m to allow for the bend in the pole.

I persevered to the end of the match picking up the odd carp, and I mean the odd carp.

That was it, time, thank god.

The scales

I felt as though I fished a really bad match and that all of my decisions were the wrong ones. By the time that the scales had arrived, Chappy had 69lb; there were a couple of 80lb weights and a couple of 70lb weights, that was on my half of the lake. Macca put 37lb on the scales, Banana man put 44lb (ho hum) on the scales and I have to weigh in as I have so many quid’s, that I hope and pray that at least someone won’t weigh.

I weighed in 19lb 1oz.

This weight put me LAST IN THE MATCH out of all those that weighed in. All of my other quid’s weighed in, it has cost me £8-00 today in £1's (including a couple of £2'ers), but hey, it is not that often that I end up having to cough up to all and sundry. After speaking to Age Concern, who was next to the lad that was 3rd, he said that he had probably tipped back no more than 20lb.

Tala on the next peg tipped back what I would assume to be less than me as most of his fish were skimmers.

Where did it all go wrong? My last 3 results have been 54lb, 63lb and 49lb (in that order) and today I weighed in 19lb 1oz. I think that it is time to take up golf; then again, just maybe I would be worse at golf than I am at fishing.

Full result:

1. Jon Jowett (Drennan Northwest)- 88lb odd (peg 54)
2. Simon Beswick (Tricast Rochdale Angling) - 83lb odd (peg 55)
3. G Scott (Mosella Rochdale)- 77lb (peg 61)
4. Dean Smith (Garbolino Elton) - 76lb
5. Dave Pimlott (Garbolino Elton) - 74lb
6. John Chapman (Garbolino Elton) - 69lb (peg 56)