Sunday 30th July 2006 – The Oaks Lakes, Sessay

Following my debacle last week, I nearly never made it to today’s match as I was contemplating suicide all week. But hey, you can’t have a bad draw all the time!!!

Or can you????

I had prepared a list of all those people that had booked on from last week’s match and had 46 names for the open match, it was going to be close for a 50 pegger.

I texted Panic on Friday to see when he was back off his Jollies and he replied "Back Sat 9pm Number 5 38 Degrees Time For A Beer". So I took that to be that he was back at 9pm on Sat 5th Aug. So I travelled on my own, again. Just call me Billy Nomates.

Whilst driving up the A1, I was trying to make a decision, do I fish pellet up in the water all match, as most of the recent winning weights have all come on this method, or do I do as most of the other people and fish meat on the deck? Choices, choices.

By the time that I arrived I had made up my mind, I was going to fish pellet up in the water if I had a calm(ish) peg and meat on the bottom if it was windy.

Whilst preparing my bait prior to the draw I had none other than Mr Scotthorne asking me questions. What had I done? Big Al had been a couple of times within the first 6 months of Cedar Lake opening, but commitments etc had kept him away. I said to him 'don't ask me nothing, I was last last week!!'. He was asking me about methods, distance, stamp of fish etc and being the good egg that I am, I gave him as much bum info as possible, not!!

at about 9:00, Panic rang me to ask if I had set off yet. I said that I was already there. Anyways, his text meant that he was back on Sat @ 9pm. I don't what the Number 5 referred to.

By the time of the draw, there were 68 of us for the weekly payroll. Where had everyone come from?

I had the obligatory quids with Chappy, Orc, Bedpan Movley, Pacifier (£2) and Panic.

Due to the Jackpot peg(s) still not being won, I, again, put 3 jackpot pegs into the draw, peg no's 41 (Ian Bowman), 55 (Tim Moran) and peg 77. Of these pegs, it was thought that Tim had the best chance of going home with the extra loot.

In view of Tom being crap at drawing, I decided to draw my own peg this week. Where had I been in previous matches? 4, 5 and 6 (although not necessarily in that order). I put my hand in the bag and drew........

Peg 3!!!

What's up, when I put my hand in the bag do all the pegs between 3 and 6 jump up to my hand and I only pick out of those. I shake the bag, as does Tom prior to my putting my hand in.

Oh well you can only do your best (although in my case it ain't good enough). I did have a weight (and won my section) when I was last in the area (peg 4).

Geoff Scotty has been doing well by fishing with paste across to the far side (or on any other line for that matter) and he had drawn peg 1, which is scales help for his sins and Deano Smith had drawn peg 7. Both of these pegs are at either end of the straight before they go around the corner. The only (dis) advantage was that the wind was blowing into their respective pegs and as most of the regulars know, when it is windy at The Oaks, it is damn windy!!!

Marco drew the same peg that won yesterdays open, peg 73 (Ian Exley with 115lb) and literally run to the peg carrying all of his gear.

Let's get on with it

I arrived at my peg to find that I had D Edwards (sorry, don't know him) and N Rogison (Sorry, Don't know him either) on either side of me.

In view of my deciding to fish with pellet up in the water, I made up 3 rigs as follows:

I set up a rig to fish on top of the shelf whilst I was feeding the up in the water line. I set up a .2g Garbolino DC6 on .13 Preston Powerline straight through to a size 16 Colmic WN501 hook. This was attached to white hydro. Someone asked me a question as to why I was fishing with white hydro. When you lift/strike into a fish, it allows the fish to run out of your peg whilst you play the fish, hopefully causing any remaining fish to spook less.

I set up 2 shallow rigs, one was a .1 Garbolino DC1 set at 2ft deep with a long line between pole float and pole tip (about 2 ft). This was set up on .12 Maver Genesis line tied direct to a size 18 Colmic WN501 hook. This was attached to white hydro.

My other shallow rig was a .1 Garbolino DC1 float set at 2ft deep with a short line (about 4") between pole float and tip. This was also set up on .12 Maver Genesis tied direct to a size 16 Colmic WN501 hook. This was attached to grey hydro.

Bait

for feeding, I had 2 pts of micro pellets (for shaking up in the water), 3 pints of 4mm hard pellets (for catapulting) and 2pts of Ringers 3mm expander pellets, which I had pumped to make them sinkers (again for catapulting).

For the hook, I pumped some 4mm and 6mm BBPC pellets and I also had some 4mm 'Skinz' This is the first time that I have used some Skinz. I read the info on the packet and covered them in a little bit of water (just to help to soften them, as I felt that they were a little hard)

All in

At the all in, I put some micro pellets in my Tosspot and a conker on the hook and shipped out to the shelf and started to shake the pellets over the top of my float. I got the 'cattie' out and started to catapult bait at about 9 -10m. I was alternating feeding the 3mm Ringers and the 4mm hard pellets (with the intention that the noise of the 4mm would bring in the fish and the noise and texture of the soft 3mm would give them something to eat).

After about 10 minutes, I got my first indication and caught a gudgeon. It was that small, the scale that I caught last week would have weighed more (had it not blown away).

I re-baited, shipped out again and after shaking in some more micro pellets, the float buried and a carp of about 10oz was trying it's best to get off, but it failed. I had increased my weight 10 fold with one fish.

I persevered in this manner for the next 15 minutes or so, as every so often (well maybe not that often) after I got an indication, I would re-bait and quickly drop the rig in on the shallow line as I shipped out for about 20 seconds or so, just to see if there was anything there.

On one of these '20 second' drops, I got an indication. That was it. The fish were there, it was solid. I quickly came back and swapped my top over to my shallow rig (not the bagging one). I baited up with a 'Skinz', shipped out and caught a carp first drop in - a mirror carp of about 2lb. This was 1 hour into the match. Images and visions of a phenomenal weight was before my eyes as I still had 4 hours to go.

I continued to feed in the same manner for the duration of the match, but for some reason, I just could not string any number of fish together. No-one else around me was fishing up in the water (and neither were they catching except for Scotty and Deano), so I had the method to myself.

I would catch the odd fish, then I couldn't get another bite for 10 - 15 mintues or so, but everytime that I caught a fish, it was a decent stamp of a decent stamp (2lb'er). I was lifting and dropping, slapping the rig in, I swapped over rigs, I short lined, I run out of ideas.

After about 4 hours of the match, Marco came round for a walk, he was admitting to about 12lb, off the match winning peg from yesterday?????. For some reason, the lake seemed to have switched off. Could it be because of the airpressure with the storms that had and were due to take(n) place.

It's All Over - It Is Now!!!

By the time that the scales had arrived, Scotty had weighed in 63lb off peg 1. The lad at the side of me on peg 2 weighed in 26lb odd. I weighed in 25lb odd. Peg 4 had 17lb, peg 5 had 14lb, peg 6 had 22lb and Deano on peg 7 had 69-08 for a match win.

The Pacifier

I got so much abuse last week of Pacifier and Macca for coming last in the match with 19lb. There were only a few DNW's. There is a lad who books on the matches week in, week out. He arrives at about 9:55 for a 10:00 draw. Doesn't speak to anyone and hardly ever catches anything. I think that his best weight has been about 20lb.

Anyways, this lad generally fails to trouble the scalesman, but today, for whatever reason, he decided to weigh in. He weighed in 14lb odd for last in the match. The Pacifier had been saved from a mauling. He weighed in 15lb odd for 2nd last in the match. Next week I am going to pay this kid a quid to tip back!!!

User Report

I was planning on doing a User Report every couple of weeks or maybe even every month, but after using the 'Skinz' hook bait I feel that I just have to write about them.

The first time that I saw someone using them was John Emmerson at Lindholme. He was fishing shallow feeding pellet and fishing with a Skinz on the hook and was bagging.

I bought a packet from Bob-Co tackle yesterday and thought that it was time to give them a try. I put one on the hook and you could get so many dips, blips and indications and yet still feel confident that your bait was still there. At one point I caught 3 fish on the same Skinz'. If small fish try to 'rag' your bait off, it is still there. I think that after fishing with the Skinz for most of the match, there was only a couple of times that the pellet had come off.

When I took them out of the packet, they felt a little hard so I covered them in a little water. Even at the end of the match, they were still perfectly hookable.

Bloody fantastic. I recommend them with a big A+ - go out and try some.

The top 8 all weighed in between 60 and 70lb, so it was probably the closest match that we have had for a while, with no outright winner. 5 of the 6 sections were won with 50lb + (including a couple of 60lb section winners). Tim Moran had 61lb and didn't win his section. So all in all, it still fished ok.


Full Result:

Dean Smith (Garbolino Elton) 69-08
Alan Scotthorne (Shimano) 69-02
Jonny Bradshaw (Mosella Garbolino) 68-06
Chris Hall (The Oaks) 67-02
Robb Minikin (Harrogate Angling) 65-03
Geoff Scott (Mosella Rochdale) 63-00