Sunday 25th February 2007

No travelling partner this week, so I decided to scare myself with my driving. I drove with my eyes closed. Most people probably think that I do already, especially following one of Chappy’s comments on the Oaks Banter website.

I arrived at The Oaks in plenty of time to have a breakfast followed by a quick visit to the onsite tackle shop to buy some more B911 eyed hooks for more Hook In The Loop fishing.

Come 9 o’clock, there were 52 anglers present and one angler who hadn’t arrived. I decided to peg the match as 2 pegs together, miss 1 peg all the way around the lake. The angler who hadn’t turned up WAS going to be responsible for one of the sets of scales. Tom, the pond owner’s son, asked if there were any volunteers. I volunteered Jasper Scarlett.

On the subject of Jasper, whilst I was round his house yesterday getting some stuff to elasticate his pole for him, I spotted a picture of some one holding a small carp on the cabinet in the living room. I asked Jasper, who was it. It transpires that it was Jasper in his leaner days, if he ever had them!!!!

Chappy rang me up on Friday night quizzing me about the hook in the loop method, seeing as I battered his travelling partner off the next peg last week. His questions ranged from what float, how deep, where do the shot go, why does the hook move in the loop to name but a few. He then informed me that he was going to make up a couple of rigs himself using the information gleaned from yours truly.

Chappy decided to make up some rigs for Saturday and Sunday. I received a call on Saturday night, asking if I could make up a rig for him as he had left his at home. Fearing a Chappy Slap, I decided it best to pull something together for him. My head was still thumping from last weeks slap (or was it 4, I can’t remember). Just imagine how many brain cells he has damaged.

Jasper pulled the jackpot peg out this week, which ended up in the hands of ‘Blue’ Cardiss. Well that is safe then isn’t it. My quid’s were there in the form of Fullstop, Rumpole, Chappy and Jasper.

I put my hand in the bag and snared peg 62. ‘Flier’ or words along those lines were fired at me by ‘Woody’ Baron (formerly known as ‘Lizard’) as the sun was out and he had obviously warmed up. To be fair, I was not a happy teddy bear. I was on the same peg a week ago Saturday and ended up with 22lb. Shaun Cameron was on peg 62 yesterday and had 40lb and Big Mark Calvert was on peg 61 yesterday and had mid teens.

My quids were going in the direction of pegs 15 (Fullstop), 80 (Rumpole), 36 (Chappy) and 59 (Jasper).

I arrived at my peg to find that I had Garry Parr on peg 63. Another quid side bet was struck. Looking to the peg to my left I spotted ‘Dino’ Drury, Marco’s brother. The last time we had a peg to peg tussle, I took his quid. I asked him if he wanted a chance to win it back. With the two fingered salute, he was either telling me that he wanted £2 quid or to go forth and multiply. We will probably find out later when the scales have arrived and whether or not he had ‘done me’.

Pimmy was on peg 65 and John Allerton was on peg 66. I was in good company for once!!!

I set up 1 rig for down the middle, a Gaz Malham special, which took 4 x 14 shot. I set this rig up to fish ‘hook in the loop’. I was going to have another go at this method following last weeks result. The rig was set up on .13 Preston Powerline straight through to a size 18 eyed Kamasan B911 hook.

Then the experimentation began. I set up 4 rigs for across on top of the shelf. A ‘standard’ rig that comprised a .2g Garbolino DC6 float set up on .10 Novotech line straight through to a size 20 Preston Pr 23 hook. I intended to fish either 4mm pellet or maggot on the hook.

A .2g Garbolino DC 6. My favoured choice of float.

My Hook In The Loop.

I then set up 3 ‘hook in the loop’ rigs for across all of which were set up on .13 Preston Powerline straight through to a size 18 Kamasan B911 eyed hook. Rigs 1 & 2 were the same float, a Garbolino DC6 taking .2g. One of the rigs was for one area of my peg and the other was for another area as the depth varied by about 4” between the two areas. My third and final rig was a .3g Garbolino DC3. Let me explain a little about my choice of floats. In order to get the best from the hook in the loop, it has been suggested that you should have 2 x No.8 shot (or equivalent) at the top of the loop. A .2g float cannot take this weight, if you also have a bulk at half depth. It has also been suggested that a float with a buoyant tip is preferable to a standard thin nylon bristled float, hence the reason for the .3 Garbolino DC 6. It can take 2xNo.8 Preston Stotz (with a small bulk mid-depth) and it is also reminiscent of a ‘caster’ type float.

The deep rig and one of the DC2 rigs were attached to Maver Yellow Dual Core elastic and the other two rigs were attached to White Hydro elastic. I tend to find that White Hydro elastic is softer than the dual core.

For bait I had 1pt of micro pellets (courtesy of Jasper, for doing his rigs), some 4mm ringer expander pellets, a small tin of corn and about ½ pt of groundbait mixed on the dry side.

At the all in, I baited up one of the DC2 rigs with pellet, put a pinch of micros in the fruitshoot top and went out to my first marker. I tipped the bait in, laid the rig in against the slope and manoeuvred the float around until I got it sitting spot on. After about 3 minutes, nothing. I brought the rig back, put some more bait in the fruitshoot and went back out. I tipped the bait in, let the rig settle. Some 2 minutes later the float buried. Carp number 1 was soon in the net. A little F1 weighing just over a pound.

I repeated this process again and to my amazement I didn’t have to weight half the time for the first fish. Over the next hour, I continued to fish to the same area. After about 1 hour, I felt as though the peg was starting to go on me, so I cupped in some bait to my next area in preparation. I would estimate that I had about 15lb in the first hour consisting of 12 fish.

I moved to my 2nd swim and continued in the same vein as above. Once I got into a steady rhythm, I decided to have a go with the .3 DC3. There was a slight chop on the water going from left to right. I went across to the far side, dropped in and for the next half hour or so, struggled to read the float in that it was bobbing with the rhythm of the water and I wasn’t able to read every little dimple. I still managed to snare a few, but I just wasn’t comfortable with the float, nor the indications/bites.

I changed back to my original float and set up. After 2 hours 15 minutes, I rang Chappy to see how he was getting on. He said that he was getting a few and had tried the hook in the loop rig and it worked! He almost sounded surprised. He asked me how I was getting on. I told him that I had an estimated 30lb. I wasn’t kidding this week following last weeks tap on the head. Did I tell you that he slapped me 4 times, but I hadn’t felt the last 3. Oh yeah, I did. My memory is suffering nowadays.

I then decided to go to my 3rd and final swim, which was further round to my left, which meant that with every fish hooked, I had to drag it back 90 degrees before I could ship my pole back. I could have just shoved it back behind me, Gaz is a tad bigger than I, so I thought better of it.

The next 4 fish, all of which came off my 3rd line put the icing on the cake for me. First drop in resulted in a mirror around the 4lb mark. The next 3 drop in’s resulted in a further 3 fish for about 8lb, so I had put 12lb in the net in next to no time.

I then went through a stage of foul-hooking fish and I managed to loose 6 fish in succession. It was all starting to go wrong.

My peg was starting to die, I was having to hunt around for bites and indications. The wind was starting to pick up which was having the effect of pulling the hook out of the fish whilst trying to ship back. What else could go wrong.

In the last 2 hours of the match, I managed to catch 9 fish, 6 of which came in the last 30 minutes or so. Where had they gone? That was it. TIME.

At the end of the match, I lifted my net out to get an idea of what I had and thought that I had somewhere between 40 & 45lb. Gaz confirmed this. Bram came trundling round and also backed up our estimated weights.

The moment of truth.

The scales arrived and I lowered a decent amount of fish into the weigh sling. This weighed in at 40lb 12oz. My first weigh. I put the remainder of the fish onto the scales and managed to force the scales round to 20lb 3oz, which was written down as 23lb due to the confusion between Jaspers voice Bob Harrison’s ears. This was quickly rectified and my total weight of 60lb 15oz was recorded.

To my surprise and amazement that put me 2nd overall, ‘where are all my quids’ quickly raced through my mind. Another thought was also going through my mind ‘where are the other quid’s that haven’t been attending, namely Orc, Pacifier, Macca, Nightie, Bedpan’. I’m on a roll and there is hardly any money flying through the air in my direction. I quickly accosted everyone as for my quid as they came to congratulate me (just because they say ‘well done Mick’ doesn’t mean that I am going to let them off a quid). Fullstop raided his missus’ purse whilst in the pub in order to pay up and Jasper only had 40 pence, yes, forty pence on his person. I still took that as the first instalment.

Graham ‘G2e’ Twohey was pegged next to Chappy and proceeded to batter Chappy off the next peg. As the scales approached both Chappy and G2e agreed that G2e had somewhere in the region of 40lb’s. I would have loved to have been there when G2e pulled his net out to find a great big gaping hole, that even Chappy could have fit through, and about half of what he had caught still in the net. A possible section winning weight down the drain. For the record, G2e weighed in 22lb 8oz to Chappy’s 21lb odd.

Maybe Chappy ought to make up his own rigs as it’s obvious that mine don’t work, he may have caught more if he had remembered to bring his own rigs.

All round good guy and ‘Dons’ stalwart, John D Illingworth won the match with 72lb. Back up weights consisted of a 58lb, 55lb, 46lb and 43lb. All sections were won with more than 30lb. You can’t get any fairer than that.

I wonder if it is too late to have an attempt at the Kamasan leader board!!!

Giles, thank you very much for your advice, I’ll get you a beer at Go Fishing.

Full Result:

John Illingworth (Daiwa Dons) 72-01, carp, pellet, peg 26
Mick Herrington (Bob.Co/Oaks) 60-15 Peg 62
Andy Middleton (Oaks) 58-6 Peg 30
Chris Hall (Oaks) 55-12 Peg 29
Kirk Grainger (Tubertini Clay Lane) 46-6
Andy Dargue (Shimano Quaker) 43-0