Saturday 17th February 2007.

Perverted rang me early on during the week to see if I wanted to get off on a fishing match on Sat 17th Feb. I said that I would go, then the debate started about where, The Oaks (No, Perverted thinks it’s sh?te, probably because he can’t catch), Woodlands (I said no, as it is really sh?te, especially if you don’t draw on any fish) and Lindholme. Perverted said that he would get back to me in connection with Lindholme on Friday. Friday arrived and it was still a No!! – too far!!!!!

As a consolation, I made arrangements midweek with Bram to let him know what I was going to do. A quick call to Bram was made on Friday night and it was agreed that I would scare him to death before we got there as I would drive us both. Andy ‘Shrek’ Middleton runs the Saturday matches and by the time of the draw there were 50 of us in attendance.

I was somewhere towards the middle of the queue and by the time that I arrived at the draw bag, I had missed some of the better pegs. I put my hand in the bag and peg 62 jumped into my hand. Bram ended up on peg 12. Peg 62 is considered by most to be one of the best pegs on the whole lake. Bram’s peg is a bit so, so. I arrived at my peg to find that I had Andy Hamilton on peg 61 and none other than the legend himself, Chappy Chapman on peg 64, with no one on peg 63. Chappy is gonna get a right battering today!!! Peg 64 is crap, 62 is better and with peg 63 being empty it got even better. There were only 2 of my usual quid bets around, Martin ‘Rigsby’ Holmes (the tight git) and the usual Chappy quid were the only pounds going around.

Floatman Malham was on peg 65, on the other side of Chappy.

Having been intrigued by the discussions taking place on Total Fishing and Talk Angling forums, I decided to finally have a go at the ‘Giles Cochrane’ Hook In The Loop method. This basically entails having an eyed hook moving freely within a 2” loop at the business end of your rig.

I set up 4 rigs, 2 for down the middle and 2 for across to the island. Both sets of rigs utilised the same floats, ie. .2g Garbolino DC6 floats for across and 4 x 14 Drennan Roach floats for down the middle. One of each float was set as standard, the other was set up as a hook in the loop rig. All of the rigs were set up on .10 Preston Powerline direct. I always prefer to fish direct for the reasons of having less knots on your line therefore having less week spots.

The ‘normal’ rig across was shotted with a bulk at half depth in 18” – 2ft of water. A size 20 Preston PR 23 completed this rig. My hook in the loop rig was completed with a size 16 (the smallest eyed hook that I had available, when I made up my rig) eyed hook, not sure what pattern. (When I showed Chappy the rig at the end of the match, he commented that it looked like a forged hook that still needed some work doing on it).

My normal deep rig was set up to fish dead depth at the base of the slope in about 5ft of water. A size 18 Pr 23 completed this set up. My hook in the loop rig was exactly the same, aside from having the same animal hook as above.

For bait, I had micro pellets, maggots and corn.

At the all in, I baited up the normal across rig (as that is the rig that I had confidence in using) with double red maggot, shipped across to the far side and dropped the rig in. No feed had been put in the peg at this point.

The float had only just settled, when it shot under and an F1 of about 10oz was soon in the landing net. White Hydro through the No. 2 and 3 match sections of my pole is suffice for the stamp of fish at the moment. I put 3 maggots in my fruit-shoot top, went back over to the far-side with my ‘gozunder’ float rig and waited, and waited. I even tried my hook in the loop rig across to the far side. The wind was blowing the rig onto the slope and a couple of times I struck at dips, that were either fish in the peg or more likely, the shot blowing onto the slope causing the float to dip.

After 45 minutes, of dropping the rig all over the far side, I decided it was time to have a look down the middle. Chappy also helped persuade me to go down the middle as by now he had about 6 fish to my one. The quid was in jeopardy already, even at this early stage.

I baited up one of the deep rigs with corn and dropped in down the middle. Some 5 minutes later, I got my first indication and struck, nothing there. I dropped in again. After about 2 minutes, the float buried again, a little F1 about 12 oz was soon in the net. I was using Yellow Maver Dual Core elastic through my pole tips down the middle as it is less forgiving than white hydro, especially in the deeper water.

One of the common mistakes that I see a lot of people do is to fish with tight elastic in their pole kits. This has the effect of keeping the fish in the fish catching area for longer as it cannot ‘run’ out of the part of the peg where it was hooked. I have just elasticated two poles for a couple of the lads that go to The Oaks. They had about 1 ft of elastic through a Tournament Pro top two, now figure that out.

I decided to take the plunge, not literally, and try the hook in the loop rig. I baited up with corn on the hook and stared at the rig in disbelief, thinking to my self ‘what am I doing?’. I dropped the rig in and waited all of 20 seconds, the float buried, carp No.1 on the ‘new rig’. I was converted. I fished down the same whole for the next 3 hours and had about 24 fish, nothing bigger than 1lb. Chappy meanwhile was about 6 or 7 fish in front of me and he had a slightly bigger stamp of fish. In the last hour, just about every square inch of my peg seemed to be devoid of fish. I couldn’t buy a bite anywhere. Not down the middle nor across, not even with the ‘new gozunder rig’.

That was it. Match over for me.

By the time that the scales had arrived, Phil Sellars was leading with 49lb (no didn’t have that much), John Allerton had 46lb (didn’t have that much either). Bram had managed to plonk 31lb (didn’t think that I had that much, but it might be close) on the scales and there were numerous other 30lb weights. Panic put 24lb on the scales from peg 59. Andy Hamilton weighed in 15lb off peg 61. I put a disappointed 22lb on the scales. I honestly thought that I had more than that, some where nearer to 28lb would have been better. Now for Chappy. I got a proper Chappy slap as he put 39lb on the scales and got the section win.

Floatman managed to snare 23lb from the other side of Chappy and Rigsby managed to snare 25lb odd. What a poor day at the office, £2 down already, that is before I pay for my floatman floats. I even bought Chappy and Pimmy a pint and he was the one who won the money, there’s something wrong here.

My thoughts, there is definitely something to the hook in the loop method. I think that I may have got it wrong for trying to fish up the slope a little rather than fishing on the flat of the lake. Maybe I used the wrong hook, who knows (If Giles reads this, he may let me know, please?).

If there is one thing that I learned today was the Chappy fished his big heart out. I think that it had a lot to do with the fact of drawing next to me and stamping his authority around.

There’s always tomorrow……….. come back and find out how I got on.

Back in the pub afterwards, I quickly surveyed my surroundings and promptly raised a quid bet on Reading beating Man U with ‘Rosie and Jim’ Stonner. After about 10 minutes of the match starting, Chappy reminded me that I should have asked for the draw. A quick discussion followed with a lot of cussing, and I finally got the draw. No to say that I don’t understand football (not in terms of the offside rule, more like, I couldn’t tell you the names of 3 players that play for Leeds, could probably name about 3 Man U players and as for Arsenal and West Ham, I haven’t got a clue), but I felt as though I had jumped from the frying pan into the fire on this one.

WELL DONE READING!!!!!!

Tight lines.