Oaks Lakes - Cedar Lake

The club were at The Oaks Lakes, Thirsk and we were fishing Cedar Lake at the complex.

Daz 'Frontrow' Harrison found a little present for Michelle 'Splash' Webster and we decided to give it to her before the start of the match.

I called for everyone's attention and then presented Splash with her present.....

Splash and her new fish finding equipment

I was on the 2nd leg of the knockout today, fishing against Craig McKenny.  I was carrying a 39lb 12oz (he wouldn't let me have 4oz to make it up to 40lb) advantage, so in theory, I could sit and watch him until he caught 40lb then start fishing.

We had pegs 1 - 25 and there were 20 of us on the match.  I had a feeling that it was going to be hard going today.  I wanted to be on pegs 1-3, 6-12, 17 - 20 and 24, 25.  I put my hand in the draw bag and drew peg  15, right at the end of the arm.  Frontrow was on peg 7.  My main competition for the day, Craig, was on peg 11.  Lurch Moorhead was on peg 19, Pid on peg 20 and everyone else dotted around.  Lurch owed me 50p from the last match and paid me £1.  The additional 50p was an advance on the £2 for today's match. 

I arrived at my peg to find that I had Dave 'Mr Soft' Horsfall on peg 13, 14 empty, 16 empty and new recruit 'Young Alex' on peg 17.

Peg 15 - 14m across to the far bank.

Top 3 Margin swim

 I set up the following rigs today:

Rig 1 - was a little 4 x 12 Colmic float with a little bristle. This was on some .15 Preston Powerline mainline with a small .12dia 4" hooklength to a size 16 Colmic B501 hook for fishing with 3 or 4 maggots on the hook.  This was set to fish about 12" deep on the mudline across.

Rig 2 - was a 4 x 12 Carpa Chimp set to fish about 2ft deep down the edge.  This had on a .14 hooklength and a size 14 Colmic B501 hook for fishing meat and corn down the edge.

Rig 3 - was a .2g Frenzee FD200 float set to fish 12 - 18 deep in case the fish came shallow on pellet.

I also set up a method rod to fish into the empty pegs with pellet on the hook.

With the above rigs in mind for bait I had 3.5pts maggots, 1.5kg Sensas Crazybait Gold groundbait, some 4mm and 6mm hard pellets, some meat and some corn.  I was intending to pot in maggots and groundbait and fish bunches of maggots over the top, whilst feeding some meat and corn down the edge.  The pellets were there in case the fish came up in the water and I wanted/needed to fish shallow.

A mixed bag today!!!

At the 'ALL IN', I filled a big potting cup half and half maggots and groundbait and potted it in over to the far side.  I then cast the method rod over to the far side to my right and fed a bit of corn and meat to both left and right margin swims.

A couple of minutes late, I reeled in and then recast the method over to the far side again.  I waited about 2 minutes, the tip went round a an F1 carp about 2lb was in the net.  I recast again, a couple of times, no more fish were forthcoming.  I was not seeing signs of carp milling about on the mudline where I had potted in the bait earlier.

I baited up the mudline rig with 4 maggots and shipped out to the mudline.  The float settled, then dipped and went sideways and I struck...

Roach number was soon in the net. damn!

I re-baited with a bunch of maggots and went back over to the mudline.  I waited about a minute watching the float as it dipped, went sideways, bobbed then finally it went under.  I struck and the white hydro did it's best to leave the pole.  I played the fish (or more to the point, it played me).  I finally got it back and it was an F1 carp about 3lb.

I went back over to the far side and caught a couple more F1 carp before I got bitted out by roach again.  I re-potted in some maggots and groundbait and caught a couple more carp.  I was by now flicking a few pellets out to 11m in order to try to get a couple of fish shallow.

After a couple of hours or so, I rang Frontrow to find out how he was doing. He was admitting to approx 7lb or so.  I admitted to about 20lb of F1's and silver fish.

I was now starting to struggle to get bites on the mudline although I could still see the odd fish milling about.

I went shallow and ..... NOTHING. NADA. ZIP. ZILCH. ZERO.

I went back over to the mudline and managed to catch a couple more...roach and a perch.

I was now into the last hour of the match and I was really struggling.  I saw a carp about 5lb swimming around, so I dropped 4 maggots in it's path and whoooosh.  The elastic shot out.  After a tense battle...I won.

I decided to try my well fed margins.  I baited up with a piece of meat and dropped it in to my left.  A roach about 3 oz was soon in the net.  I went to my right margin and got a couple of liners.  I decided to put a grain of corn on the method rod and drop that in the right margin.  After a couple of minutes the freespool on my reel whirred away and fish on.

A very welcome common carp about 1lb was soon in the net.  I managed to get another 2 carp before that was it.  TIME.  It was finally over.

I was admitting to about 31/32lb.  I was not sure how I had done.  I went to see Craig to see if he had about 70lb.  HE HAD GONE.  LEFT EARLY.  Well, at least I am through to the next round in the knockout.  I went to go see Lurch Moorhead to see where the 50p was going in addition to another £1.50 and he had also gone.  Today was working out quite well. So far.

Mr Soft wasn't sure what he had.  Everyone was asking what I had and I said about 31lb or so.  They all said 'we know your 31lb, you can double that easy'.

The scales arrived and 39lb was winning (Baz Hunter), then there was a 32lb and 31lb.  I plonked 30lb 12oz on the scales for about mid table.

Full Result

1. Paul Farley (Peg 20) - 45lb
2. Barry Hunter (Peg 10) - 39lb
3. John McAll (Peg 5?) - 37lb
Jt 4.  Dave Webster (peg 3) and Mark Wright (peg 24) - 36lb 10oz.

Oh well, there is always next week.

Tightlines.