I went to Risby again on Saturday 29th July, to fish a match on the Tench Lake. I went with Tyersal Angling Club again, so I had the pleasure of fishing with Catkiller, Coco the Clown and Tombstone to name but a few.

I gave F1 a lift again, but this time I invested in one ear protector, due to being deaf in my left ear, I only needed to cover up my right ear and I couldn’t hear the little twerp. Saying that, he talked that much, he melted my only ear protector. Talk about enthusiasm!!!

Following a decent breakfast in the lakeside café, we were ready for the draw. At the draw, I put my hand in the hat and managed to snare Jackpot peg 25. There was the obligatory comment of ‘That’s safe then?’ and the like. But some one also said that I wasn’t eligible to win it as I was not a member of the club. Should I win, it will be interesting!!!

I arrived at my peg to find that a few fish were crashing about at 15m plus and there were a few carp cruising about. It looked promising. I had match organiser ‘Beamer’ to my left on peg 24, Catkiller was on 23, Pete Cressey drew peg 18, F1 was on about peg 30 and I had Lee ‘Spiceworld’ Helliwell to my right on peg 27, peg 26 was empty. Coco Harrison was on about peg 10 and Tombstone was on peg 14 (or thereabouts).

Some one told me that Tombstone had applied for a Jockeys Riding Licence, but was turned down for being too small. Ho Hum. During the match, whilst he was setting up, he went for a walk and went missing. It was only when the wind blew and moved a blade of grass could we see him. He owns a Brilo Stax box with about 10 empty pole trays on it. I think that they are so that people can see him when he is sat down on his box.

I set up 4 rigs as follows:

Rig one was a Gaz Malham float taking 4x14. I set this up on .16 Ultima Power Match line direct to a size 14 Drennan Barbless Carp eyed hook. I made this rig from the hair backwards in order to fish direct and to also tie a Korum Baitspike onto the rig. I plumbed up at 5m slightly to my right, where I found 4ft of depth.

I also set up one rig to fish at 14m on the deck. I used a .5g Garbolino DC4 float, again with a Baitspike also, on .16 Ultima Power Match line. I used this diameter of line as it is quite thin, yet strong and supple and I wasn’t sure of what size of fish I was going to encounter. I plumbed up and found that it was about 6ft deep.

I then set up 2 shallow rigs as follows:

The first one was a 4 x 12 Gaz Malham float (still not sure of the pattern), which I set up on .16 Ultima Power Match line direct to a size 14 Drennan Eyed Carp Match hook, incorporating a Korum Baitspike. I set this rig to fish at half depth (about 3ft deep).

My second shallow rig was a rig that I was going to use by varying the depth, anything from 12” to 2ft deep. I used a .1g Garbolino DC2 float, which was attached to .16 Ultima Power Match line again, fishing direct to a size 14 Drennan Eyed Carp Match hook also with a Baitspike. When fishing shallow for carp and using either pellets or meat as bait, I am a firm believer in using the Baitspikes as you are able to slap your rig and bait down on the water, without the bait falling off.

For bait I had 3 tins of meat, ½ of which, I covered in Carp Vaders’ Predator Plus, which I then placed in the fridge overnight, and the other half ‘au naturale’, I also had some pellets and I took along a tub of Carp Vaders’ Method Mix Groundbait, in order to see whether or not I could put it to use. I mixed the two ‘meats’ together for feeding. Prior to fishing with the meat, I covered it in water for about 5 minutes, this pales the meat. Think about it this way. If you leave meat in water what colour does it go? It pales.

We’re off. At the start of the match, I put some meat in a Fox toss pot and shipped out to 14m with the full depth rig baited up with some red Predator Plus meat. I dropped the meat in and the rig over the top. I was in, literally as quick as that. I was the first one into a fish. Most other people on the match were still potting in their bait. After a brief tussle, I managed to get it into the net. 3lb first put in. Not bad. I re-baited and dropped back in. After a longer wait this time, about 3 minutes, I was in again. I started to feed a few pieces of meat with the catapult. I got my second fish out, this one weighed about 1lb. I managed to catch another one on the deep rig before I started to get linered, time to go shallow me thinks.

I baited up the DC 2 shallow rig with meat on the hook and set the rig to fish at about 2ft deep. I shipped out and dropped in. After a couple of minutes of feeding meat and lifting and slapping the rig back down, I was in. My first fish up in the water. I had it on for no more than 10 seconds before I lost it. Probably foul-hooked. I brought my rig back and threw the scale into my net (not really). I shallowed up a touch, to about 18” deep and went back out. 1 hour into the match and I had about 10lb. The only other person that I could see catching was Spiceworld on the next peg. What was he doing?

After seeing Spiceworld ship out some chopped worm and Predator Plus, I devised a cunning plan. In order to introduce some Predator Plus into the swim, I got the Method Mix and added lots and lots of water to create a sloppy mix. Once it was over-wetted, I then added a huge squirt of Predator Plus to the mix. Here goes.

I put some of the mix in a Fox Tosspot, baited up my hook with a piece of red Predator Plus meat and dropped the mix in and the rig over the top. After some 30 – 40 seconds, the float buried and with the way that it was nodding its head, I was attached to something quite substantial. The Black Hydro tried its best to get dragged from the pole and I found that I had to play the fish at 14m, which is against my religion as I usually, just start to ship back slowly. This was a good fish!!! After a 5 minute battle, I had the fish back to the top 4 kit. I unshipped there and played the fish on that for a while. I started to think that the fish might be foul hooked as I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, when all of a sudden, it’s head poked out of the water. It was a really good fish. After a further 3 or 4 minutes, I managed to fold it into my landing net. I was giddy, and I would estimate that the fish weighed about 14lb. Boy, did I give a huge sigh of relief. I had a rest for a minute or so, to catch my breath.

I then proceeded to catch a carp every put in (considering not many other people were catching) whether I was having to wait 30 seconds or 10 minutes. The fish were moving up and down in the water and I had to keep swapping between the two shallow rigs. Since I had started to introduce the Predator Mix, my peg had turned into a Jacuzzi and bubbles were erupting everywhere. The fish were blowing all over and they were not on the bottom.

The method mix had lots of particles in it (pieces of corn, hemp, maize, pellets and such) and was a very sticky mix until I added copious amounts of water. I think that due to the varying weights and sizes of the particles, and the Predator Plus, the fish were feeding at all depths in the water column and I was having to find them by continuously changing depths and rigs. Every time that I dropped in on the deep rig, I got linered to death and couldn’t connect with a fish.

Halfway through the match, I observed Coco playing a fish. Observed is sometimes a scary word. Just as Coco struck, I am sure a jumbo jet in the jet stream had to swerve to avoid the top of his pole. He then proceeded to try to drag it to the top of the lake whilst trying to bend his pole past the realms of technology and beyond. It looked like he was using a 10m swingtip. After everyone had observed that he can catch a fish, he then went on to net the fish to a round of applause. It must have weighed all of 4lb, but at least everyone knew that he had it on.

With about an hour and a half of the match left, I decided to try to up the pace by shortening the line between the pole float and pole tip and also introduce more meat by the catapult whilst still feeding the Predator Mix. Over the next hour, I managed to snare about 4 fish. Something wasn’t right. I put my other rig back on that was set to fish at half depth and added 3 more fish in the last 20 minutes or so. I had messed up, big time, but would it cost me?

Towards the end of the match, Mark, who is the travelling companion of Captain Mainwaring, snagged the near side reeds using his Daiwa Tournament Professional pole. After a prolonged tussle, he managed to break his pole at the No. 4 and 5 sections, leaving his top 3 floating in the lake. He then grabbed hold of his sections that were behind him and threw them into the trees behind him, with such force that Steve Backley would have been proud of his javelin attempt, breaking some further sections. ‘YOU DIDN’T WANT TO DO THAT, DID YOU?’ At the end of the match, I asked him what line had he been using and he replied 20lb, as he had been done on 16lb line!!! Yeah, whatever.

I was hoping to have 70lb + with a possibility of having nearly 80lb. I had managed to snare a few, but not sure on numbers as I don’t really count the number of fish that I have caught. Coco failed to catch any more fish following the Sonic Boom that was created from his strike.

As I lifted my net out and I saw the big carp again, I had a change of heart about its size. I would estimate that it weighed about 12lb and not my original 14lb guess. I got Spiceworld to take a photo, but upon looking at it, they had made a mini movie and Catkiller was in the back ground taking the piss. Catkiller is that ugly, I won’t bother scaring all you readers away from this or any future blog's by publishing the movie or any stills. My first weigh went 49lb odd and I still had a few fish left in the net.

Spiceworld's first weigh went 53lb 4oz. He had a few fish in his net, this was gonna be close. His second weigh was just shy of 15lb. Bugger - he has ounced me (8oz to be precise).

Spiceworld (He informs me that he is no relation to Ginger Spice), won the match with 68lb 2oz. I was second with 67lb 10oz and Alan (?) was 3rd with 44lb.

Following the results, and after having a chat with a couple of the other lads on the match, I was still left with a question. Why do they call it the ‘Tench Lake’ as there were no more than a dozen tench caught throughout the match by 25 anglers?

Went to the Fisho this year for the first time, here are one or two pictures that I took...

So, are we gonna have that quid side bet?

I had a couple of quid on Jacko. Go on my son!!

It was this big - Honest.

Shame about the coat.

I can always dream......

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!!!