There were a couple of questions on the tip of my tongue...
1. I wonder if Lurch Moorhead will turn up with my £1.00 from last week
2. A sweepstake was underway regarding how long Lurch stays before he decides to pack up and go home.
My first question was answered within 2 minutes of Lurch getting out of the car. He said 'Here Mick, here is your quid' and promptly threw it in Rainbow Lake. Frontrow Harrison asked him for his quid from last week also to find that another quid was on it's way to Rainbow Lake. Lurch must have thought that he was at the fountains of Tivoli and making a wish.
He had 2 wishes now and I bet they went something like, I wish that I could stay for the full match today and 'I wish, I really really wish, I really really really wish that I could win today'.
Before the start of the match, Michelle went to the onsite portaloo (Dumptruck Aveyard must have dropped it off) and Frontrow and Lurch almost did a 'Jackass' and all but pushed it over.
I was up against John 'Macca' McCall in the 2nd leg of our club knockout. This was for a place in the last four. Upon Macca's arrival, he came over to me for a word. He grabbed hold of me in a strangle hold and once I had passed out he jumped up and down on my fingers.
The Draw
It was time for the draw. I put my hand in the bag and drew peg 23. As I had not seen the lake before, I was a bit indifferent. My nemesis (Macca) for the day was on peg 29. Frontrow was on peg 15 (16 being the empty corner peg), Donkey Waterhouse was on peg 13. I had Paul Wilson to my left on peg 21, Lurch was within
Peg 23
Osprey Lake is basically a rectangle lake with a central island between 14 - 17m away.
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| 17m across! |
I had some sedge cover down the edge. I went over to the island and was about half a metre short of touching the far side with 16m of pole.
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| Left hand margin swim - 2.5ft deep |
I set up my Shimano Speedmaster CX at 9ft with a little groundbait feeder on with a 12" hooklength to fish with either worm or corn on the hook.
I then set up 3 pole rigs as follows:
Two 4x12 Carpa Chimp floats, both on .16 mainline with .13 Preston Powerline hooklength. One was plumbed up down the edge in 12" of water to my right, the other was to fish as far over as I could get where I had about 18" of depth. The margin rig was attached to Green Preston 13h elastic and the across rig was attached to Daiwa white hydro elastic.
My third rig was a 4 x 14 Carpa Chimp set to fish in 2.5ft of water down the edge to my left.
Bait
Following a conversation with Andy Stonner, I bought 3 pints of casters, one large tin of corn, 1/2 kilo of worm and I had some Sonubaits F1 groundbait, which I mixed in with the caster, chopped worm and corn mix.
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| Casters, corn, pellets and worm |
I was getting the odd 'plink' on the rod tip. After a couple of minutes or so, I reeled in and re-cast back out. I repeated this process for the next 20 - 30 minutes or so. After 30 minutes, I was fishless. I was getting liners and the 'plink' on the tip. I decided to go down the edge to my left.
I baited up with half a dendrabaena worm and dropped in down the edge. After a couple of minutes, the float slid away and a tench about 6oz was soon in the net. I dropped in again and managed to snare a tench about 1lb. Another little tench followed. I put another pot of bait in and then swapped rigs and went to my right hand swim with worm on the hook.
I saw a boil near the float. The float dipped, went sideways, then went under slowly. I struck and almost immediately the fish was in the middle of the lake and the margin swim was full of cloudy water, boils and vortexes from the movements of the fish.
After a brief battle, I put a carp about 4lb in the net. I continued to swap lines between both margin swims. The wind was easing all the while.
I looked to my left and thought I saw a mirage - Lurch Moorhead was still at his peg.
After about 2 hours of the match, I heard a couple of boy racers tearing up and down the main road. It sounded as though they were wheel spinning and doing donuts. I shouted across to Lurch 'Hey Lurch, you still here? I thought that you had just driven out of the car park with your wheel spinning'. His retort is unprintable.
I decided it was time to go across to the farside swim. I could see both Macca and Dave Horsfall catching across and Wrighty to my right was getting one or two fish.
I baited up with worm and put a small bit of worm/caster mix in a little Tosspot and went over to the farside. The float settled, then shot under and 10ft of white hydro was scooting off to my left. A carp about 1lb was soon in the net. Over the next hour or so I continued to catch the odd carp across whilst continually feeding both left and right swims.
About three quarters of the way through the match, I reminded Lurch that he still owed me a quid. He replied 'Here is your quid and then threw another quid in the lake in his peg'. He could have bought his own wishing fountain. More money than sense springs to mind. His 3rd wish must have been along the lines of 'Please, please let me beat Mick Herrington'.
For the last hour or so of the match, I decided to concentrate my efforts fishing my margin swims.
I caught 1 carp and a skimmer from my left hand swim. Whilst fishing there, I could see the odd boil in my shallow swim to my right. I swapped rigs and sides and dropped in the rig baited with half a worm. Nothing. Could not get a bite. I tried corn, I tried pellet and I tried casters and various combinations. I still could not get a bite.
In desperation, I knocked up a small blob of paste. I could see that the fish were coming into eat the groundbait, so I decided to fish with a blob of paste over the top.
On my first drop in, the float had barely settled when another carp about 4lb was soon in the net. Over the remainder of the match, I managed to catch another 5 carp for about 25lb or so.
That was it, match over. TIME!!.
I reminded Lurch that he still owed me a quid. He checked his pockets and did not have anymore loose change to throw in the lake. LOL.
The scales had arrived and Donkey Waterhouse was leading with 83lb (gulp, looks like I was going to be owing him a quid), Dixy was 2nd with 42lb 8oz. I watched Lurch weigh in (for once) 34lb odd. The scales arrived at me and I put 42lb 10oz on the scales with about 4 more left to weigh, including Macca. Wrighty had 30 odd pounds as did Dave Horsfall. I watched as Macca lifted his first net out and then his 2nd for a combined weight of 36lb odd. Stuart Wilson had 2 weighs and put 56lb on the scales and pushed me into 3rd place.
Full Result
1. Stuart Waterhouse (peg 13), 83lb odd
2. Stuart Wilson (Peg 30), 56lb odd
3. Mick Herrington (Peg 23), 42lb 10oz
4. Ray Dix (Peg 6), 42lb 8oz
Thank you for reading and tightlines until my next instalment.
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