Osprey Lake, Kippax, Leeds

Round 4 of the Robin Hood AC matches was to take place at Kippax Lakes, Leeds on Osprey Lake, and rumours were that it was going to be a hard match.

Daz came to pick me up and I had my nets out drying a bit.  He got out of the car and said you do not need your nets, you use their nets. I thought about it for a moment, then put my nets away.

We arrived at Kippax and there were 16 of us on the match.  The wind was blowing towards peg 2 and peg 30.  When there is a breeze elsewhere, Kippax always seems to blow a gale.

I put my hand in the lucky bag and snared peg 6.  Woofer Clough was on peg 15, one out the corner with no one on 16, Pid Farley drew corner peg 2 with no one on peg 1, Frank Crook Brook drew peg 30, Colin The Worm drew opposite Woofer on peg 19.  I arrived at my peg to find that I had Andy Limbert on peg 3, (pegs 4 and 5 empty), Lurch Moorhead on peg 8, Stuart Wilson on peg 9, Daz drew peg 10.  There wind was blowing from right to left.

I set up the obligatory method rod, then I set up 3 pole rigs as follows:

Across to the island - I put 16m of pole in front of me and I was still about 1m short of the island.  I put on a 4x14 Preston PB Carp 1 float on .17 Preston Powerline to a .12 hooklength and a Preston PR490 hook.  I had about 2ft of depth on this line and I attached the rig to Daiwa White Hydro Elastic.

I also set up a rig to the next peg, this was a 4 x 14 Carpa Chimp.  I had about 3.5ft to the next platform.  The hooklength on this rig was .13 Presont Powerline to a size 16 Colmic 501 hook.  This rig was attached to Preston 13h Hollow elastic.

My final rig was a .5g Drennan Roach set to fish top 2 and 2 in about 6ft of water.  This rig had on a .12 hooklength.  Upon plumbing up, I had about 5.5 - 6ft of depth.  This was also attached to Daiwa White Hydro Elastic.

For bait, I had 2 tins of 6mm cubed meat, some micro pellets and I mixed some Sonubaits crushed expander pellet groundbait with some Dynamite baits Meaty Marine groundbait on a 50/50 basis - minimal food content with strong aroma.  I also had some Bait-Tech 6mm expander pelllets and 1.5pts of mixed red and white maggots, as I had been told to fish maggot on 2+2.

That's it, I was ready.

At the start of the match, I threw a good handful of maggots in on top 2 + 2, I then got my across rig and baited up with a piece of meat, I loaded the tosspot with some groundbait mix and about 4 or 5 pieces of meat.  I shipped out to 16m and lowered the rig in.  After about 2 minutes, I'd had a couple of dips and blips and then the float buried and I was in.  A carp of about 2lb was soon in the keepnet.  Oh, talking of keepnets......YOU HAVE TO TAKE YOUR OWN NETS NOW.  Cheers Daz.  :-)  Because I had to borrow a couple of keepnets - one for silvers and one for carp, I had one net that thought it had brewer's droop and the other net had no thread on the screw in connection.  I had banksticks all over the place holding them upright.  Pah!!!

I shipped back out to 16m and repeated the process.  The float buried almost straight away and I soon had another carp about 1lb in the net.  Two fish in 2 put ins.  I was on fire.  I went back out to 16m and lowered the rig in and waited about 5 minutes for the next bite.  My meat had come off the hook. I went back out and promptly caught another carp, a common carp about 1.5lb.  It was now about 30 mins into the match and I had caught 3 carp.  I would like to say that I continued in this manner to the end of the match, but alas, no.  Over the next hour, I had not had anymore bites across or on the top 2 + 2 on the maggot line.  Chris Moorhead on peg 8 had started to get a couple of bites down the middle, Andy Limbert was really struggling, Pid had caught 6 or so carp and both Daz and Stuart Castaway Wilson were struggling.

I persevered with the maggot line on top 2 + 2 and the across rig for another hour or so and even had a couple of chucks on the method across to the island to no avail.  I was now about 3 hours into the match and still only had caught 3 carp.

Whilst having a chuck on the method, I saw a fish jump at peg 5.  I decided to have a look down there.

I baited up my inside rig with a 6mm Bait-Tech expander pellet and lowered the rig over a tosspot of groundbait.  I waited about 5 mins and the float buried, a carp about 3lb was soon in the net.  I went back down the edge again and waited about 15 minutes before I got another indication.  Over the next hour or so, I managed to get another 3 carp down the edge.  Going into the last hour, I had managed to snare 7 carp and considering those around me, I wasn't fairing too bad.

Macca and Castaway packed up early and left, not before I got a photo of Macca with the fruits of his labours....

Big Macca with a couple of carp.  The top one is about 5lb and the bottom one was about 9lb, given the size of his hands.  I do not know why he packed up!!.  See the clicker around his neck?  He broke it counting all two of these LOL.

Going into the last hour, I could see some activity across to the island and I had all-but stopped catching down to the next peg, so I decided to go back to basics across and fish pellets over groundbait.  In the last hour across, I managed to catch another 5 carp for a total of 12 carp by the end of the match.

The scales were on their way around and Pid had started the ball rolling by putting 23lb 1oz on the scales.  Andy Limpet had caught a roach, skimmer and perch for a total of 1lb 5oz.  I was net and after chucking my empty silvers net on the bank to dry, I lifted my carp net out and was quite surprised.  The scales went round and finally settled on 23lb 13oz.  Chris put 9lb on the scales.  Daz had managed to snare 2 carp for a total of 7lb odd.  Woofer raised the bar to 32lb.  Colin the worm had 27lb, Gary Jowett had 25lb, then all of the high numbers had caught between 10 - 20lb until you got to Frank Crook.  Frank managed to snare a few carp and put 39lb on the scales.

Full Result:

1. Frank Brook - Peg 30 - 39lb 2oz
2. Paul Clough - Peg 15 - 32lb
3. Colin Weaver - Peg 19 - 27lb
4. Gary Jowett - Peg 21 - 25lb
5. Mike Herrington - Peg 6 - 23lb 13oz (Section win)

Then it was Pid on peg 2 with 23lb.  All of the four corner/end pegs had come in the top 6.

Thank you for reading, tightlines.....


PS - To quote Lurch Moorhead....'I would rather eat my pole than go back to Kippax' or words to that effect - I wonder what a banana pole tastes like :-)

God, I live dangerously. LOL.