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Tuesday, February 27, 2007

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

Monday, February 26, 2007

Bruce 'Age Concern' Poland.


Don’t you think that he looks like a saddle bag with eyes?

Friday, February 23, 2007

Sunday 18th February 2007

Well here goes.

Bram was away on a club match at Birkin (?), which I was reliably informed, he won with about 70lb (ish), with no one to travel with, I ended up travelling all by myself. Well at least I can listen to Margaret Thatcher’s Greatest Speeches in peace.

Looking at the list of names down for the match, I was hopeful that it would have been a 50 pegger, but by the time of the draw there were 43 anglers in attendance.

I pegged it 2 pegs, miss a peg, all the way around the lake, then I took some of the worst pegs out, with the intention of trying to make some of the not so good pegs better, but still giving everyone at least one side of there peg as an empty peg, but you can’t win them all, as people still complained.

Nightie, Chappy, Fullstop and Rumpole were all in attendance.

Floatman quickly accosted me for the money for the floats that I borrowed yesterday. Well, when I say that he accosted me, he only paid £3.00 for his match. He can have them back when I have finished with them. Besides, he said that I could pay for them when I have tried them, well I haven’t even tried any of them yet. I want a full refund. I wonder if he does 30-day payment terms?

Whilst in the draw queue, Pete ‘Woody’ Baron (he informed a few of the lads in the pub that he had to get off early as it was ‘Line Dancing’ night and he was gonna take his missus) commented on Mick Grant’s new teeth by shouting ‘Steptoe’s Horse, keep the noise down’. You could have heard a pin drop, before we all started laughing.

I put my hand in the bag first – as always (question to all you other match organisers, do you go in first or settle for second best?) and managed to snare peg 21. YUCK!!!! Wished that I had waited now! Peg 21 is on the outside of a bend, with the island going away at 90 degrees, leaving you with a little bit of the island to go at, but hey, that is how the pegging went. I even complained to myself.

Oh well, you can but try. Nightie drew Peg 2; Fullstop was on peg 30, Rumpole – peg 44 and Chappy on peg 69. I was gonna be 4 quid down at this rate.

Upon arriving at my peg, I found that I had former Fisho-Mania champion ‘Dave Pimlott’ on peg 23. I quickly turned round to him and said “I would have had a quid with you, but I remember the last time we had a peg to peg” and Mark ‘Giant One’ Calvert on peg 18. (Think about it with the pegging, pegs 17 & 18 in, peg 19 not in, peg 20 taken out, peg 21 in, peg 22 not in, peg 23 in and shake it all about).

Whilst getting my gear out of my car, John Illingworth enquired about which peg I was on. When I replied, ‘21’, his face said it all.

Following my debacle yesterday, do I fish with the hook in the loop or not.

Sod it, go on then.

I set up 5 rigs, 2 across, one for the top 2 + 2sections, one at the base of the island and one for down the deep water down the side.

In view of yesterdays efforts, I set up a similar process or rigs in terms of a normal rig and a hook in the loop rig across. A hook in the loop at the base of the island slope and a normal rig on both the top 2 + 2 rig and the deep water down the side rig.

The island rigs; I set up the hook in the loop rig to fish across on top of the shelf. This rig, as yesterday, incorporated a .2 Garbolino DC 6 float on .10 line direct to a size 18 Kamasan B911 eyed hook. I plumbed up and found that I had 2ft of water across. My other across rig was the same rig, but I fished a little deeper, just down the shelf at 2.5ft deep. I also plumbed up to the hay bale down the side with this rig until I found the same depth.

My top 2 + 2 rig was a 4 x 14 Drennan Roach float on .10 Preston Powerline straight through to a size 20 Preston PR 23 hook. I plumbed up and found that I had nearly 6ft on this rig. The deepest part of my peg. I set up this rig, as yesterday Chappy had approximately half of his weight (not his body weight stooopid), on his top kit alone.

I also set up a hook in the loop rig as above, for the base of the far slope at 14m going towards peg 20.

My final rig was set up to fish in the deeper water down the inside and incorporated a .3 DC 6. I set this rig up to fish in the standard way – if there is a standard way.

Before the all in Haircut (have you seen his number plate? – P ??? ERM, I kid you not!) told me that he was on peg 20 yesterday and had 31 carp for 31lb and he caught most of them going towards peg 21. All on pellet!

At the all in, I baited up with double maggot and put some micros in my fruit-shoot top and shipped out with the rig that I was planning on fishing just down the slope. I dropped the bait and the rig in and settled back. After about 10 minutes, I got my first indication. I waited a little longer (about 1 minute), nothing. I lifted the rig and dropped it back in. The float had only just settled, when it buried. Fish No1 was in the net. An F1 about 1lb. I repeated the process and caught 6 fish over the next 40 minutes or so.

I then decided to try to spread my feed and also changed my feed by feeding 4mm pellets, whilst fishing pellet on the hook. After some 10 minutes, the float buried and a little F1 was again with its brethren in the net. My first fish of the day on pellet. What I did find was that if I fed the 4mm pellets, I waited that bit longer for a bite.

After about 1-¼ hours, I went over to the far side with the hook in the loop rig, baited with pellet and micro pellets in the fruit-shoot top. I dropped the rig in and got an indication straight away. After a couple of missed bites/liners, I got used to the bites/indications and plundered my peg for the next couple of hours or so.

Pimmy by now was panicking and saw nearly every fish that I caught. Exman’s head had also developed a ball joint and was also looking my way with every fish netted.

Wind Up Time.

Halfway through the match Chappy rang me to find out how I was getting on. I told him that it was really hard and I was struggling for bites. I said that I had about 6 fish. I told him that Pimmy had about 8 fish and Exman was bagging and had about 20 fish. Chappy informed me that he also had about 6 fish, but one of them was a decent fish.

With about 1 hour of the match remaining, the peg was starting to die on me and I had to go to 16m towards peg 20 to try to keep bites coming. I had tried on the top 2 + 2 rig on 3 occasions and never had an indication. I also tried down the side on the shallow rig and never had an indication. At this time of the year, I think that the matches are so tight, that you have to plunder the shoals whilst you can. Everyone else has to then play catch up.

With about 30 minutes of the match remaining Chappy rang me again. In answer to his question of how was it going, I doubled my earlier quotation for Pimmy, Exman and I.

That was it. All out.

I would estimate that I had about 30lb (ish) made up of 44 fish. By the time that the scales had arrive, Gandhi was winning it with 51-12. Shrek Middleton weighed in 49lb (38 fish) and Ron Jeremy weighed in 38lb.

Pimmy got absolutely fish caked. Exman plonked 51lb on the scales for 2nd overall and I put 35lb 13oz on the scales for 6th overall. Pimmy managed to scrape together a respectable 30lb. The Giant One ended up with 26lb, but that was only after he got of his box to have a pee in peg 20, saw what I was up to, then went back and started to fish pellet.

New rule – No walking on matches, and no eye spying on those catching around you.

Apparently, I got 4 Chappy Slaps for winding Chappy up. I must admit, I hadn’t felt the last 3, as I was still numb from the first one.

My thoughts on the ‘hook in the loop’? Well, rightly or wrongly I managed to snare nearly 36lb by using a light line (.10) and a smaller hook (size 18) than yesterday. I foul-hooked 3 fish all day and managed to get 2 of them out, one was hooked under the mouth, the other was hooked just outside the side of the mouth. The general consensus seems to be that you have to use a thicker line, would I have caught more fish? Or have I proved (if that was the case) that you can also catch fish on lighter gear as most of the comments seem to be along the lines of people don’t like the idea because you have to use heavier lines. Who knows? I will however be continuing my own trials and tribulations.

Also, if I had started off my second line earlier, would I have continued to catch for longer or would there have been more chance of splitting the fish into two shoals. Who knows? Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

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.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Update No. 1

Just trying to bring you up to date with my activities over the past month or so. So, what have I been up to since my last update?

Work, work and more work I suppose.

Both of my administrators have decided to hand in their notice, one of them left on 5th January 2007 and the other will be leaving at the end of Feb (after I persuaded her to stay until the end of Feb as she was hoping to leave mid Feb), see picture below!!!. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not an ogre or anything, one of my staff left to go and work for her friend/cousin which included a promotion (wait until it’s pay day, she may be back), the other one is leaving in order to dedicate more of her time to setting up her own business. All that I seem to have been doing is interviewing of late. In addition to the girl that provided me with a list of her attributes (see below), one of the girls that attended for an interview was a tidy trainee fitness instructor (in her spare time). She was nearly offered the position for that alone, but alas, the job was offered to someone else with a steadier career history. You never know, she may be offered a job in the near future if the new girls don’t work out (geddit?). At the moment, I am trying to do my job and help with training and to assist the other staff with their job/tasks.

Well then, how has my fishing been going. So, so, is the straight forward answer.

For a breather, I went to an old stomping ground of mine, Raker Lakes just outside York. After gathering a bit of info, I went armed to the teeth with the intention of catching a few roach and the odd carp as the carp haven’t switched on yet. I had a word with Paul Connolly in the car park and he informed me that it was a roach affair, fishing with caster, some areas are ropey and other areas are full of fish. He advised to fish and feed caster. NO Groundbait. Paul ‘PK Peanuts’ Kozyra (try saying that when you are Brahms and Lizst) told me to fish caster over groundbait. Who to believe?

I put my hand in the bag and managed to snare peg 16. When the weather is warmer, the carp can be plentiful, but at this time of year it is stuffed with roach and skimmers, with the possibility of carp over to the far side. The peg is some 18 – 19m wide and the base of the far slope is at 16m. 5 minutes before kick off, I had a quick walk around the lake to see what was on people bait trays and to get an idea of who had drawn where. Connolly had no groundbait and Peanuts had groundbait.

I decided to knock up some Sensas Roach (neat) laced with a few pinkies and Casters. I set up 3 rigs:

Rig one was a 4x14 Drennan Roach rig on .10 direct to a size 20 Preston PR 23 hook. I plumbed up down the middle at 13m and found that I had about 7ft. I used white hydro to complete this set up.

Rig two was a .8g Series Top float on the same set up as above. The reason for the heavier float was to try to get the bait down quicker if I was getting a lot of fast bites and was also in case the wind decided to pick up. White hydro completed this set up.

Rig three was a 4 x 12 Series Top. I attached this to .10 Fox Match Plus line direct to a size 18 Preston PR 23 hook. I plumbed up at the base of the near slope, which was some 7m out to my left. Maver Yellow Dual Core completed this set up. The reason for the bigger hook and the stronger elastic, was that I felt that there was a better chance of a carp on this line than on my 13m line.

At the all in, I catapulted a few pinkies out to 13m and put some maggots and caster in at 7m. I baited up with a single maggot on the hook. My first indication some 10 minutes into the match resulted in a roach of about 2oz. Although it wasn’t a monster, a fish is a fish at this time of the year. After some 30 minutes and a couple more pairs of eyes, I took a gamble and decided to put in a golf ball of groundbait at 13m. I also put some micro pellets in at 7m with a few more maggots.

I started to get indications some 10 minutes after putting in the groundbait. I caught a skimmer of about 10oz. The bloke on peg 15 had managed to snare a carp and the bloke on peg 17 had a couple of roach. I started to cup in about 10 casters after every fish and the fish were starting to come thick and fast. After about 20 minutes, some bubbles were coming up on the 7m line where I had fed the micro pellets. I quickly swapped over to my 7m rig, baited up with double maggot and dropped in. The float buried straight away, a liner. I dropped back in and waited and waited. After about 5 minutes, the float buried and a roach of about 8oz was soon in the net. Not what I expected, but it’s 8oz more than I had.

I swapped back to the 13m line, baited up with caster, put a few casters in the tosspot and proceeded to catch roach for the duration of the match. I put in a few micro pellets to try to bring in more skimmers, this failed to bring in the skimmers and it also knocked the roach on the head for a time. I put in another couple of balls of groundbait throughout the duration of the match and proceeded to plug away, fishing caster over the odd ball of groundbait and feeding casters via a ‘TossPot’. At the all out, I weighed in just short of 9lb of roach and skimmers. The lad on peg 17 had a carp of about 7lb and 2lb of bits for just over 9lb, and the lad on peg 15 sat it out on the floating pole all day for 6 indications and 4 carp for 11lb odd. 22lb of skimmers won the match, with 21lb of little pasties second.

I enjoyed myself. Every time the float went under, you had the anticipation of the fish being a skimmer (they run to over 7lb), a good roach, a tench or even a double figure carp. I might have to go again sometime soon.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

This is a picture of one of my staff that is leaving.


I will be sorry to see her go for one or two obvious reasons!!!!