Mid July

I am having a rest from The Oaks at the moment due to my inability to be able to catch fish there. On my last match a couple of weeks ago, I managed to tip back somewhere in the region of 25lb, and that is after walking round the lake for about an hour or so. I was on peg 47 on Cedar Lake and I had Andy Hampson to my left on peg 46, with Gary Jubb for company on peg 49. Andy fished his peg all day and tipped back approximately the same weight whilst Jubby and John Allerton, on peg 50, both weighed in approximately 50lb.

So this week, I ended up going with Tyersall club, who are based in Bradford, to Risby Park lakes, just outside of Beverley. I had heard good reports about the place, and the match was taking place on Folly Lake, so I was looking forward to the trip. I offered to give a lift to one of the young lads who goes up to None-Go-Bye lakes, Louis Hamilton aka F1. F1 is very keen and on the way to the venue I got the usual questions, what line, how deep, what hook, what elastic, which peg, what line, what line, how deep, what hook, what elastic, which peg and so on and so on. By the time that we arrived I hurriedly went for a breakfast in order to give my bleeding ears a rest. Whilst eating my breakfast at the onsite café, all I got was would I be ok with one net or do I need to buy another? F1 chill out!!!

Tombstone, Catkiller and Coco to name but a few, where all in attendance. After asking one or two people that had fished the venue before the general consensus was that you needed to draw pegs 25 – 30 as most of the big fish lived there. After breakfast, I had a quick walk round the lake to see what was what. I started at peg 40 and walked round to peg one. To be fair, apart from a few extra reeds on the inside, there was nothing special that separated the so called good pegs from the bad pegs.

By the time of the draw there were 25 of us in attendance. I put my hand in the cap and ended up with peg 14. I would have preferred it on the other side. F1 snared peg 28, Tombstone was on peg 12, Ray Keay was to my left on peg 13, Catkiller was on peg 25 and Coco was on peg 35.

In view of the depth of the lake and the amount of fish swirling in the upper layers of the water, I opted to have a shallow approach as the basis of my attack. I set up the following rigs:

Rig one was a .2 Garbolino DC6 float on .18 Ultima Power Match line tied direct to a size 14 Colmic B500 hook. This was attached to Purple Hydro elastic. I plumbed up down the side next to nearside reed cover and found that I had approximately 2.5ft of depth next to the reeds.

Rig two was a Gaz Malham float taking 4x10 shot. I set this up on .16 Ultima Power Match line. I hair-rigged a Korum Baitspike at the business end of the rig, attached to a size 16 Colmic B500 hook. I attached this to the Drennan pink elastic. I set the rig to fish approximately 12” deep.

Rig three was a duplicate of the above rig, set to fish slightly deeper at up to 2ft deep should the fish drop down in the water a bit.

My fourth rig was set to fish at depth at about 4m where I had 5ft of depth. I set up a .4g Garbolino DC4 on .16 Ultima Power Match straight through to a size 12 Gamakatsu Pellet and Paste hook. I planned to fish paste on this rig.

For bait I had put 3 tins of luncheon meat through a Mal Bailey 6mm meatcutter. I then separated half of this and covered one half in Carp Vaders’ Predator Plus liquid additive (http://www.carpvader.com/index.asp?function=DISPLAYPRODUCT&productid=3) This gave the bait a red tinge and also added additional flavouring.

I also made some paste from some micro pellets to which I added some scopex liquid, additive also from Carp Vader. In addition to the meat and paste I also had 2 pts of casters, just in case. I was ready.

At the start of the match, I cupped in some micro pellets in at 5m, then I cupped in some casters and meat (both the normal and the Predator Plus) at 13m. I immediately started to fire some casters and meat over the top. I threw some pellets in down the side. I baited up the deep rig with some paste and dropped it in on the 4m line. I waited less than a minute, carp no.1 was in the net. My first fish was about 1.5lb, but at least I was off the mark.

I managed to snare another 3 before I got linered(?) to death. I went out on the shallow rig at 13m. After feeding a few pieces of meat, the float shot under and a ‘ghostie’ carp of about 2.5lb was on it’s way. I fished up in the water for the next couple of hours catching the odd ghostie along with some corking ide, to about 2.5lb.

I fed a few pieces of bread down the margins, when all of a sudden, I heard some slurping. There was about 5 or 6 carp down the side in the marginal reeds, taking the bread off the top. I quickly knocked up another rig consisting of .20 Ultima Powermatch line tied direct to a size 12 Colmic B500. No float, no shot. I baited up the hook with a piece of bread about the size of a 50p piece and dropped in. After about 2 minutes, a ghostie approaching 6 or 7lb came up and slurped on the bread. What an awesome sight. Your heart is thumping, you’re a coiled like a cobra, waiting to strike, when..

Whack. I was in. The carp went mad in the reeds, it shot out into the lake (with the line still in the reeds), then went back into the reeds, like some sort of slalom. The hook pulled and embedded itself in the reeds. I pulled for a break and ended up dragging in some of the reeds instead. I quickly inspected the line and although it had appeared to be stretched, it seemed ok. I’ll tell you what. The Ultima Powermatch line is incredibly strong.

About time to go back out on the shallow rig. I dropped and immediately caught a carp of about 5lb.

I continued to fish up in the water until the last hour, when I decided to go down the side. I had been baiting up down the side with meat and pellets for the duration of the match. I dropped in down the side with meat on the hook, in about 3ft of water and caught a ghostie of about 3lb first drop in. Over the next hour I managed to snare another 8 carp to 4lb. That was it. Time over.

I would estimate that I had about 80 – 85lb, mostly caught on meat either up in the water or down the side.

I thought that I would have a top 3 finish. By the time that the scales arrived, Tombstone had snared 70 odd pounds, which included a fish of 11.5lb. Ray Keay snared 95lb odd, that included a near double figure fish that he played after time. My first weigh went 59lb and my second weigh went 18lb for a 77lb total. I walked round with the scales and watched as I got further away from framing as Peter Cressey plonked 114lb on the scales, all caught on paste at 4m.

One of the last to weigh was ginger Kenny. He weighed in 127lb odd to win the match by using 20m floating pole and floating dog biscuit as bait. I ended up 4th and they only pay top 3. Blinking Eck!!

If I could have done a couple of things different, I could have added another 15lb or so, I reckon. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Halfway through the match, I added more Predator Plus to my meat to form a red cloud that hung in the water. When I did this, I managed to catch more carp than ide. Maybe if I had gone down the side half an hour earlier, I could have added a few more.

As far as the weights go, F1 weighed in 44lb, which was a good result for the ‘young un’. The lowest weight weighed in by those that knew(?) what they were doing was 49lb by Coco Harrison. Nobody DNW’d. What a place. There were 6 other 70lb plus weights without the top 4. What a place.

If you decide to have a dabble, take your net as you can use them whilst pleasure fishing.

Tightlines!!!