Saturday 7th October 2006 – Woodland Lakes, Thirsk.

Bram had been e-mailing me at work all week trying to persuade me to go to Woodlands on the open match, as he was going to get a little practice in for his club match taking place tomorrow.

I finally relented and agreed to pick him up. Following Haircut’s 2nd place in last weeks match, I gave him a call and asked for all the inside information (remind me not to do that again). His final words were, ‘you need to draw’. Oh well, ruined already and I haven’t even got there yet.

What to do.

In view of the bomb rod being a very viable method at Woodlands, I finally took the plunge and purchased a Preston’s Hardcase, Ready Rod case thingy-what-do-you-ma-callit. I lovingly prepared my bomb rod, which is a Maver 11’/13’ multi-tip. After setting the rod up at 11’, I then proceeded to fold my rod down, so that it would fit in the rod bag. This is where my plan fell to bits. The main section of the rod is too long. I had to take the butt section off the middle section of the rod, so the rod is now in a heap in the rod case and it would be quicker to take the rod down and re-set it up rather than try to sort out the mess.

The question is, do I take back the rod case, or do I purchase a new rod? As no doubt, I may need to carry a ready prepared rod in the future. A new bomb rod it is then.

Upon arriving at Bram’s house, he appeared a little shocked that I wasn’t in my warp machine, as he e-mailed me to pick him up so that we travelled in style. I was in our works van as we are selling it. I think that it was a good job that we had the van, as I think that I may have struggled to get all of the gear in my motor.

I made slow but steady (and safe) headway to Morrison’s for a quick bite to eat. Bram elected to watch me eating as he had already had some rabbit food for brekkie.

I arrived at Woodlands with about 10 minutes to go before the draw and a large queue had already formed. I paid on, then spoke with Beanhead Norris, who so happened to be right at the front of the queue. Why is it, that when you want to speak to someone, they are usually just where you want them to be. By the time of the draw, there were 74 of us in attendance. The wind was blowing an absolute hoolie, fortunately, it was blowing more across the ponds, rather than straight up and down.

Kenny ‘Floppy Hat’ Wilson was in attendance, the obligatory quid was struck up. Nightie accosted me for the quid from my last match at Woodlands, a quick double or quits was agreed. I paid Young Adam his quid from my last match at Woodlands. I’m just glad that Chappy is at White Acres this week, that will be one quid less to pay (no doubt he’ll come back skint and try to rope me in for more than a quid to get some money in his back pocket).

I was the first one in the bucket. I put my hand in, gave the pegs a good swirl and managed to drag, kicking and fighting, Skylark 12 out. Well that improves the chances of someone else drawing a good peg.

I asked Haircut for a little bit more info, only to be told that it is in the middle of ‘Cyanide Straight’. Cheers mate.

Bram faired a little better, he had at least drawn the right lake, Partridge, peg 9. Right lake, wrong peg.

Talking about the draw. Lee Barrett won the match last week off Skylark peg 1. Where had he drawn this week? Partridge peg 1. I walked past Beanhead, who was on Skylark (about peg 4). I had one of the young Newbury clan next to me on peg 10 (11 empty as they double pegged, then left an empty peg) and I don’t know who I had to my right on peg 13. Damien Bracken was behind me on Partridge peg 27. Andy Dargue was opposite me to my right, on about Skylark peg 23 and Deano Smith was also opposite to my left, on about Skylark 26.

The rigs.

I had already set up the rod, all I had to do was to attach a hooklength, with a Korum Baitspike using the knotless knot. I tied a Preston Powerline .015 diameter hooklength to a size 14 Preston barbless eyed hook.

For the pole, I set up:

Rig 1: A .2g Colmic float with a thick bristle. This was attached to .15 Preston Powerline, straight through to a size 16 Colmic WN501 hook. The rig was attached to black hydro through my match kit. I set this up to fish up in the water, wind permitting!!!!

Rig 2: For rig 2, I used a .3g Garbolino DC 6, attached to .15 Preston Powerline straight through to a size 16 Colmic WN501 hook. This was also attached to black hydro. I plumbed up at 6m to my right with this rig and found about 3 ½ to 4’ of depth.

Rig 3 was a 4 x 16 Middy pattern with a long bristle and carbon stem. This was tied to .14 MAP Carptek line straight through to a size 14 Kamasan B911 hook. I plumbed up at 14m with this rig and found about 5ft of depth. I added on about 4 or 5 inches to allow for the tow and the wind.

Rig 4 incorporated a .2g Carp Devil float attached to .16 Maver Genesis straight through to a size 14 Colmic WN501 hook. This rig was attached to the Drennan pink hollow through a power kit top two. I plumbed up down both sides with this rig and found that I had about 2.5ft of depth.

Before the off

Whilst I was getting all of my rigs ready and within about 10 minutes of putting my keepnet in the lake, the peg started to cloud up on my top 2 / 3 line. Every now and again, I could see the odd tail pattern.

A La Carte at Chez Big Pellet

For bait today I had 2 small tins of corn, 1 tin of hemp and 1.5 tins of meat. I also had a pint of micro pellets which I could either feed or turn into a paste if needed.

I was nearly ready, but not quite, when Billy Brierley announced the all in. I checked my watch and there was still 4 or 5 minutes to go, and I thought that I had a Mickey Mouse watch!!!

Ready at last

After about another 5 minutes just getting my self in a position where I could start fishing without having to break off to do something I was ready.

Following the signs that had been in my peg whilst setting up, my first line of attack was to drop in down the side to see if I could catch the offending culprit. I baited up with a grain of corn on the hook, put in a ‘Tosspot’ of hemp and corn, and waited. Whilst I waited, I catapulted a few grains of corn and hemp out to the 6m line and I also catapulted a few pieces of meat and hemp out to the bomb/long pole line.

After some 15 minutes and no indications, it was time for a change. The lad my right on peg 13 had caught 2 carp, both around the 4lb mark. These came off his 6 metre line. He had a small tosspot attached to his pole and was feeding both corn and hemp and fishing with corn on the hook.

I swapped rigs, switched to the 6m line to follow suit with the lad next door. After 20 minutes, nothing. I was now 30 odd minutes into the match and I had not had a sign from neither of the two swims that I had tried. My inside line had started smoking again. I came back in on the inside and tried with a piece of meat on the hook, over the hemp and corn that I had put in earlier.

I waited 15 minutes before I got an indication, the float went sideways (usually the sign of a big fish), then settled again. The float dipped then buried. I struck with some vigour, nothing, apart from a boil as the fish swam out of my peg.

I dropped back in again and managed to snare a roach. It was time to go back out to the 6m line.

After nearly 3 hours, I had managed to snare a couple of small carp, the biggest was about 2lb, a couple of roach and a skimmer. I had chucked the bomb out and was getting the odd liner, but couldn’t get a wrap round. I had fed and fished down both sides and also at 6m and also on the long pole line. Nothing. The lad to my right had about 5 carp and a couple of bits by this point.

I went back out on the bomb and hair-rigged meat. The rod settled and after about 2 minutes, the tip went round slowly and stayed round. I struck and managed to snare a carp of about 10 oz. 10oz? I didn’t even know that there were carp that small in the lake.

I managed to snare a couple more by the end of the match. I would estimate that I had about 20lb made up of 10 carp, a couple of skimmers, a perch and two roach. The bloke to my right had about 35lb, made up of half a dozen skimmers and about 12 carp.

Damien tipped back about 25lb made up of 5 or 6 carp. Andy Dargue won the opposite bank section with just over 40lb. The winner weighed in about 105lb from about Partridge peg 14. Coyney who was on the next peg had a good 90lb (ish) and got in the frame.

Chris Kitchen ‘Sink’ had 11 carp for 69lb from Wagtail 11. Bram tipped back approximately 25lb. Both Floppy Hat and I agreed to tip back as we were both agreeing to a similar weight to each other. Phew, managed to save a quid. Nightie had a good 60lb+ weight and managed to beat his young ‘un.

I have had so many discussions with various people and this year, my drawing arm has let me down severely. All you have to do is to have a look at the weights that are coming from the area’s that I draw.

Oh well, there is always next week.