Lindholme/Duane Memorial Match – 21st October 2006

I signed up to this match from the Total Fishing website. I had originally intended going with Purverted, but seeing as he has forgotten how to use his fishing gear, he declined. I rang all of my contacts, and quickly ran out of ideas who could be a travelling companion. Panic considered going, but was busy installing a kitchen at his lad’s house. Oh well, have to go under my own steam then.

At the beginning of the week, I went in search of quid action although I hadn’t even got there yet. Let me explain. I posted a thread on Total Fishing.com inviting all comers to have a quid with me for the first 10 posters, this was in addition to the obligatory quid’s that had to take place with Poolfodder May, O’Dreary Driscoll and Nightie Richards. It was open to anyone and everyone off the TF site and I had interest from the following:

Young Adam (Son of Nightie), Juzzy, RH1NO, Corndawg, Real Ideas (Clever Claw), Stevie Broadbean, RobB and Scoop, the junior reporter. This could turn out to be an expensive day. Just a thought, doesn’t RobB remind you of ‘Dave Hedgehog’ and Juzzy remind you of ‘Spud gun’ from Bottom.

After a quick call to Beanhead, I was ready. All I needed was a tin of corn and pellets in all sizes and guises. I had 4mm expanders, 6mm expanders. 4mm Skinz, 8mm Skinz. Skinz for feed. 4mm for feed, 6mm for feed and 8mm for feed. I decided to take some micro’s just in case. I hope that I catch on pellets.

In view of there being in excess of 200 booked in the match, there was a rolling draw, which I thought was a fantastic idea. I arrived at Lindholme just after 8:00 and promptly paid on and drew my peg. I put my hand in the bag and Beeches 27 stuck to my hand. I had previously fished Lindholme twice, both in connection with the Fisho held there earlier this year. On a practice match I drew Loco 34, and on the Fisho, I drew Willows 32. I didn’t even know which side of the lake my peg was on or even how to get to the lake.

I was quickly informed that Rob Hitchens had won the match off my peg the previous week, with 47lb. I quickly went in search of the aforementioned. He told me that I needed to be geared up. I asked him where he fished, and being the gent that he is, he told me to go to my peg and he would show me. Neil told me that I can drive to my peg and park at the back. After writing down directions, I set off. The only problem with driving to my peg, was that some one had blocked all access to the pegs, so everyone that was trying to get down to the other end of the lake could not. I just abandoned the van (sorry guys if you were trying to get out after the match).

Rob soon arrived at my peg and told me exactly which stick up he had caught to and how much and how often he had fed. Good lad. He asked what bait I had. I retold him of the conversation with Beanhead and he quickly asked me if I had any micros. Good job I threw them in the bag.

Following my chat with Rob, I only got one pole out of my rod bag. My trusty Garbolino Power Maxim. Throughout my angling career (?), I have swapped and changed poles as and when. The Power Maxim is the only pole that I have kept for any length of time.

The pole was elasticated with a 12 Vespe (I promptly threw this up the bank), and I had another 2 kits with 22 solid and 20 pink hollow set tight. I suppose that you can gather that the peg that I had drawn was a yank and bank peg. I had reeds going out to 8m both left and right. I was at the right hand side of a peninsula, with a guy on peg 28 (about 5m away) then the person to my right was about 30m away. There was a clump of something or other in the water at about 3m out, which as you will find out, doesn’t move.

I only set up 2 rigs as follows:

A .3g Maver carp type float. This was attached to .16 Maver Genesis straight through to a size 16 Colmic WN501 hook. I attached this rig to the Pink Hollow elastic. I pulled at the bottom of the rig to see how much elastic would pull out and nearly cut my finger in two. Upon plumbing up to my left, I found that I had about 4ft next to the reeds. This was on a slope; well more of a small slant as at the base of the slope, the difference was only about 4”. I plumbed up to my right to the spot that Rob had told me about and the peg shallowed up some 5” or so. I set this rig to fish to the left of my peg.

My 2nd rig was a .2g Drennan Carp 2 float. This was attached to .15 Preston Powerline straight through to a size 14 Colmic WN501 hook. This was attached to the solid elastic. I plumbed up to my right and set the rig to fish next to the reeds as told.

I put a Fox Tosspot on both top kits, got my micro’s out and put my expanders out. I was ready.

John Allerton had walked round to see ‘Gorgeous’ George Grundy and was soon at the back at my peg. Ally had drawn on Strip pond and was planning a maggot attack. I walked down to the car park with Ally for the one minute silence being held at 10:00 in memory of Duane. As I walked back to the car park, I walked past Boilie Bitch (Kirsty from Fishing Republic to the uninitiated) who was on my lake, on peg 36. What a peg. It screamed carp. There were reeds galore, it was a corner peg and there was a 3m x 3m square of reeds in the middle of nowhere at about 5m out.

Upon arriving at the car park, I became aware that this had turned into a star studded event as dual Fisho and Whiteacres Festival (and Chappy batterer) winner, Neil Machin was in attendance, as were a whole host of names. Sorry guys, too many to name drop.

The match kicked off at 11:30. I was ready. At the all in, I cupped in some micro pellets to both left and right of my peg to the reeds. I baited up with a conker, dropped in to my left and waited. After a couple of minutes, my float bobbed, then shot under. I struck, the elastic came out all of 2ft. But alas, it was 2ft too much. The carp was in the reeds. After a brief tug o war, the fish managed to shed the hook.


I re-baited, dropped in again, the float buried almost immediately. I struck harder and faster than Zorro. The carp came out. It was about 2lb and took about 10 seconds to get out. One in the bag.

I swapped rigs, and put another conker on, and went to my right. The float hadn’t even settled and 2ft of elastic shot out, I was ready, I pulled and pulled to try to keep the fish out of the reeds, but no good, my hook had straightened. Pigging Eck, I was fed up all ready, you could get bites, but it was going to be fun getting them out.

I promptly removed the rubber hook and put on a hook that had been forged by Bilbo Baggins himself in the depths of Mordor. It was a Bilbo Baggins special – a Forged Eyed size 14 hook. Eyed hooks tend to be heavier in the wire, and it was forged so much, that you could see that the hook was square. When the going gets tough and all that.

I swapped rigs again, and went to my left again. I followed this pattern for the next hour or so and after an hour, I would estimate that I had about 10lb or so in the net, made up of 3 or 4 tench and half a dozen carp.

The carp had seemed to be disappearing. Every time the sun came out to play, the carp went further into the reeds and wouldn’t come out. I adopted the ‘shaker’ approach. This would only tempt out the odd carp, but as the match progressed, the carp were becoming few and far between.

After about 2 hours, I managed to hit into my biggest carp of the day of about 4lb. I played it skilfully away from the forest of reeds, including snapping some of them as I dragged it out of the reeds. I got it into the 5ft x 5ft square of open water and was winning. As I shipped back in my comfort zone, the fish shot forward into the previously mentioned mass of whatever. A big cloud of mud, weeds and all sorts clouded the water and the carp stayed put. I couldn’t pull it out, the fish had shed the hook and was gone. Ho Hum. The score was 8 (carp) to me and 4 to the carp. At least I was winning. From my vantage point, I could only see the lad immediately opposite and the lad to his left and they weren’t fairing too well at all, so I felt that I wasn’t doing to badly.

The next couple of hours were a little slow, the sun had got its hat on and the fish were having a siesta. After 4 hours, I would estimate that the score was 11 – 6, excluding the tench.

As the sun started to drop in the sky, the carp started to have a peck again and over the next hour, I managed to get another 5 carp and 5 tench, things were looking up, except for the fact that I had now run out of time. That was it, match over.

Whilst waiting for the scales to arrive, I had packed up and was talking to the lad who was further round to my right on about peg 26 or 25. He had ended up with 14 carp. I walked round to Boiler, (oops sorry Kirst), Boilie Bitch who was confessing to 28 carp and having also lost a few. Whilst in mid conversation, the lad who was to my right told me that he had weighed in (21lb) and that they had already weighed me in. I sprinted to my peg to find that I had put 28lb 6oz on the scales. The 2 lads to my left had DNW’d. Gorgeous put 29lb on the scales. Where was my section starting and finishing?

The whole venue had switched off. I walked round to Kirst to see that she had weighed in 48lb and was looking good for a top 5 placing.

Back at the café the results were read out, 58lb had won the match, with a couple of other 50’s. Kirsty had managed 48lb for 4th overall and the top total-fishing.com finisher. There was a 41lb, then a couple or so 30lb weights, so my 28lb would probably be good enough for a top 12 finish, out of 207. In view of the match paying top 3 only (the money was generously donated by Neil from Lindholme), Kirsty managed to snare the section, I’m just glad that it wasn’t Gorgeous that won the section as I was closer to Gorgeous’ weight than I was to Kirsty’s.

Well, there was the raffle to look forward to. OOOOOOpppppp’s nearly forgot. The quid’s. Well this is where it all went right for a change. I was shouting round the lake to ‘Scoop’ to see what he had weighed and quickly went in search of a gold one. I also managed to get a gold one from Clever Claw, Dave Hedgehog, Nightie, Son of Nightie, O’Dreary (who wouldn’t give me a quid until he’d weighed, thinking that it was close), Broadbean, RH1NO, Corndawg, Poolfodder (and no guestimation of weights involved). I was denied a clean sweep though, as Juzzy had fished the best that he has ever, ever fished and managed to snare 34lb from Bonsai. No more quid’s with him, it’s too hard.

By the way, I shouted round to Nightie so see what he had weighed and he shouted back something. I know that I have hearing problems, but I think that he said 3lb. I asked him again, and he did reply that HE HAD ONLY CAUGHT 3LB. Oh well, there is always next time.

Back to the raffle, there was a whole plethora of tackle items, bait, rod’s, t-shirts, etc, etc all donated by the good and the kindly for presents for the needy and infirm. I purchased £20 of tickets, well it is all for a good cause. My tickets managed to blag me a bottle of whisky and 3 tins of BCUK hemp. I finally left Lindholme at about 7:15. I felt that my luck was in and I went in search of a shop to buy my lottery with my lucky £1 coins. I couldn’t find the nearest shop in time, sod’s law.

I would just like to say a massive thank you to all concerned in the organisation, Corndawg, Juzzy, Neil G to name but a few. A fantastic day out, topped off by a fantastic attendance, fantastic raffle and a good bit of banter to boot.

WELL DONE EVERYONE.

See you all next year, if not before.

Tight lines.