Saturday 10th March 2007.

It’s amazing how much Saturday fishing I am getting in at the moment. I think that it is because I am taking some envelopes home, so the kids are able to eat and I give a few pennies to our lass. It is reminiscent of Al Bundy off Married With Children, they form an orderly queue next to the door when they hear me reversing my car onto our drive. I open the door and they are stood there, 4 of them in a line. Our lass starts with ‘Well’, the next one ‘Have’, the next one ‘You’ and the last one ‘Won’, all with their hands out.

The Saturday matches are currently nearly sell-outs with in excess of 70 on nearly every match and this week was no exception. By the time that I had put my hand in the bag, there were 71 anglers in attendance. Today was also being run as another optional super-pool and following my result from last week, I had to give it another go.

I put my hand in the bag and peg 26 was stuck to my hand. Not bad, could have been better. Pegs 24 & 25 have been the form pegs around this area to date. When I arrived at my peg, I found that I didn’t have any empty pegs around me. Lee ‘Cueball’ Harrison was on peg 22, can’t remember who was on 23, Graham ‘Wolfman’ Skirrey was on peg 24 and I had a Boroughbridge angler on 25. One of the Manchester Mosella lads was on peg 27. Chappy was in shouting distance (and in sight, so I would be able to keep an eye on my quid) on peg 30, with Marco next to him on peg 31.

The wind was blowing all over the place, coming from both left and right as it came down the arms of the lake. I set up 4 rigs, 2 for across and 2 for down the deeps.

My across rigs and deep rigs incorporated the usual Drennan Roach’s’ (4x14 & .5g) and Garbolino DC6’s in .3g and .2g. Due to the swirling wind, one of the shallow rigs was set up with a .3g float and the other shallow rig was set up using the ‘normal’ .2g float. All of my rigs were set up HITL style.

For bait, I mixed up some ‘Pallatrax’ groundbait, to which I added a liberal amount of micro-pellets. I had some 4mm and 6mm pellets as hookbait. That was it. I was either going to catch on pellet or not at all.

At the start of the match, I baited up the .2g shallow rig then I put some ‘Pallatrax’ groundbait into the fruitshoot top and went across to the far side. After about 3 minutes, I hadn’t had a bite. I came back put some more bait in the fruitshoot, then went back to the same spot. By this time, Wolfman had caught a fish off the aerator by fishing at full depth. I waited a further 3 or 4 minutes, and repeated the process.

Some 15 minutes into the match, I got my first indication and a mirror carp of about 1lb was soon in the landing net. I continued to follow this routine of feeding a little bit of Pallatrax every 3 or 4 minutes or so for the first hour. The sole intention of this is to keep putting something in, whilst having minimal food content.

After the first hour, I would estimate that I had managed to snare about 7 fish for approximately 10lb. Wolfman was getting the odd fish, but the blokes either side of me on pegs 25 & 27 seemed to be struggling and I would estimate that they had about 3 fish apiece.

I persevered across for the next hour and a half and managed to put together a steady run of F1’s and small mirrors, with my biggest fish going just over 2lb. I would estimate that I had about 20lb with half of the match gone. I had been steadily putting in the odd nugget of groundbait on the inside line at 3m down the slope. My far side swim was dying on me. It was time to drop in close and bag up. I recall that J D Illingworth had a weight from this area and caught most of his fish close in. Some 25 minutes later and only 2 fish (1 carp and 1 gudgeon) to show for it. I decided to sack this line.

Wolfman and Chappy were the only two anglers that I could see that were catching fish. My Chappy quid was seriously in the mire today!!

I went back over to the far side in the hope that the rest had brought the fish back into the peg. This was not the case. Although I managed to get the odd fish, I was waiting longer and longer for bites after each fish.

There was about 1 hour of the match remaining and I would estimate that I had about 27lb. I decided to come down the base of the far slope, with the .5g Drennan Roach rig.

I potted in a golf-ball sized nugget of groundbait, then baited up with a pellet on the hook. I dropped in and no sooner had the float settled, a barbel of about 1.5lb was fighting like mad, I would have said ‘and it was soon in the net’ but you know something, barbel are initially one of the most difficult fish to actually tell what you have got on the end of your line. You strike; they set off at 300mph. They turn and run towards you and straight away, you are thinking, is it foul-hooked, is it a ten-pounder. Your elastic nearly bottoms out and the fish has got bigger. You get it in the landing net and it is smaller than the gudgeon that you have been catching. Bugger!!!

The lad on peg 25 didn’t go across to the far side. Every time that he did, he soon shipped back as he couldn’t control his rig due to the wind. The lad on peg 27 was able to go across and hold his pole, but hadn’t/wasn’t feeding his peg regular enough.

I continued to fish down the middle and snared a few more barbel and carp. I started to foul-hook and lose fish, the carp had come off the bottom so I shallowed up my rig by about 6”. I was no longer foul-hooking (and losing) the fish that were in my peg. I had to wait slightly longer for my bite but when I got a bite, it was fish on and hooked in the mouth.

That was it time. End of the match.

Gandhi was doing the weighing of my section and he immediately asked me what weight I had. I asked him what he had weighed in. 36lb odd was the reply from the toothless one, with a big grin. I responded by saying that I didn’t have that and that I had about 33/34lb or so.

Cueball plonked 40lb 1 oz on the scales – I didn’t have that. Wolfman weighed in 38lb which consisted of 4 carp and the rest being barbel, nor did I have that. I lifted my net out and had completely underestimated my weight again. I managed to weigh in 42-10, which consisted of mainly carp with about 5 barbel. Next one to plonk a decent weight on the scales was my ‘protégé’ – Chappy. He managed to snare 39lb 4oz. And now the best bit, Chappy was another quid down!!!! Oh dear, what a shame.

I approached Nightie for my quid and his response was “we don’t have quid’s on Saturdays!!!” I think that I will have to do a bit of research from my blogs to check this out.

9 Kamasan points in 4 matches, made up of 3 (yes, three) second placings, two of which came on a Saturday, when there is an optional £4 superpool – which I obviously entered. Not too bad in anyone’s book, even if I say so myself.

Back to the pub and a few shandies all round for those in attendance.

Full results;

Sean Cameron (Spring Valley) 53-10-0, carp, pellet and maggot (peg 42)
Mick Herrington (Bob-Co Oaks) 42-10-0 (peg 26)
Kevin Worth (Castleford) 40-12-0 (peg 62)
Lee Harrison (Scunthorpe Blue) 40-7-0 (peg 22)
John Chapman (Garbolino Elton) 39-4-0 (peg 30)
Graham Skirrey (Turners Tackle) 38-11-0 (peg 24)