Viaduct Fishomania – Practice Days.

Thursday 22nd June 2006.

Oooops!!

Today was our (the missus and I) 15th Wedding Anniversary and I was going to Viaduct for a few days. A quick visit to the florist (well she was still in bed asleep) and a few cards later and all was sorted. To be fair, I have not missed nor been away for any of our previous anniversaries.

Having applied for 4 tickets for the Fishomania qualifiers (The Oaks, Woodlands, Lindholme and Viaduct), I managed to be lucky enough to get 2 tickets, one each for Lindholme and Viaduct. Marco had also been lucky enough to get a ticket as did Daylite Rothery and Lee Furness. Marco and I agreed to go down on Thursday morning, to get a few hours in during the afternoon/early evening and Daylite and Lee were going to join us on Friday.

Marco arrived at my house for 10 (ish), final preparations were carried out (that meant putting the flowers in water and leaving them in a prominent position so that the missus would notice them when she got up) and the long journey into the back of beyond was under way. Some 3 hrs 20 minutes later we arrived.

I had taken nigh on all of my fishing gear and was hoping to be able to use it all to formulate some sort of plan of attack. Upon arrival a few minutes were spent talking to both Ian and Steve just to re-introduce ourselves and to get an idea of what was needed, both gear and bait wise.

Wake up call!!!

At The Oaks, we generally fish with micro pellets as feed and 4mm or 6mm ‘conkers’ expander pellets as hookbait. At Viaduct the order of the day was 6mm and 8mm hard pellets (as standard) and either 8mm or bigger on the hook. After our chat with Misters Parsons and Long, we decided to have a go in pegs 79 (Marco) and 80 (Me), which where both located on Cary Lake.

I went initially for a pole approach to the reeds that ran for a good 20m down the side of the spit and Marco went for a splashin’ wag and pellet approach. Due to the appearance of the swim, I thought better of setting up my 995 pole and opted to set up my Power Maxim instead (erring on the side of caution). I have had my PM for about 8 years or more now, and it is the only pole that I wouldn’t really consider getting rid of, it is probably the strongest pole that I know (as I will explain later). I set up (on the bank) a .30g float direct to a size 12 Colmic B501 hook tied to .21 Preston Powerline. I had a No 25 elastic (set soft on a tensioner) through the top 2. I also set up a poly-ball rig for up in the water at 14m. I forgot how bloody heavy the PM is at this sort of lengths.

I started to catapult some 6mm pellets at both 13m down the side and 14m into open water. I was planning on getting the fish up in the water at 14m and to feed them on the deck down the side.

I baited up with a 8mm hard pellet on a bait band. I dropped in down the side, the float buried about 2ft of No. 25 elastic came out, then retracted (almost immediately) and a tench of about 3lb was soon beaten up.

I did the same again, the skimmer (about 1.5lb) didn’t even pull the elastic out. 2 drop in’s and about 4.5lb caught. I baited up again, dropped back in, waited a couple of minutes. I got the tell-tale walking of the float (as the fish swims past), the float shot under, about 6yds of elastic shot out (this one was big), then the hook pulled. I came back with a scale bigger than my glasses.

I dropped in again, hooked into a fish, played for all of 5 seconds as it tried to get to the other side of the lake (which was about 50 yards away). The hook came out (at a right rate of knots). I checked my rig, the hook had straightened. Told you that I didn’t want to use my 995.

Marco, meanwhile, was now starting to get the odd fish up in the water fishing with the waggler at about 25yds. Both Marco and I had borrowed a couple of waggler rods. I had borrowed a Garbolino medium waggler rod from Pimmy and Marco had borrowed a Tricast Senator (you must be old if you remember one of these) from John Allerton. You’d have thought that if you had borrowed a rod of a running line legend, that the rod would have been in good nick. Well, Marco was slightly embarrassed to take the rod out of the tube. I had a look, the butt ring was held on with a couple of whippings of red insulation tape and the next ring up was held on with yellow insulation tape. I commented that if he hits a big fish, the rings will ping off, one by one.

I’ll tell you what tho’, the rod was holding it’s own against the fishes. Although Marco had lost a few he still managed to get half a dozen out, and they ran to nearly double figures.



After spending the next hour or 2 persevering with the pole both down the side and up in the water, I decided to set up the waggler rod (it may also have had something to do with getting battered by Marco).

I set up ‘the rod’ with 6lb Maxima straight through to a size 12 Colmic B501 hook. The float was a pellet float of .3g in weight that required a further 3AAA to shot it. First cast and I started to get indications up in the water. I hooked into a fish and promptly lost it. I reeled in, re-cast and the same thing happened. Over the next couple of hours or so, I lost more fish than I got out (I ended up with 4).


Marco ended up with about 8 or 9 carp for a good 60lb weight. One of the main problems being encountered was that due to the weight of the float, the size of shot put on the line and the size of fish being hooked/caught, there was a lot of strain on the line and on a couple of occasions, Marco had to re-tackle due to the line snapping where he had nipped his shot on his main line. It was now gone 8:00 and we decided to call it a day. A few beers in the Somerton Hotel beckoned. At least we had had a go and got a feel for the place.

Friday 23rd June 2006.

A quick breakfast ensued, then a quick call into the onsite tackle shop at Viaduct to have a word with Ian and Steve, found Marco on Spring Lake Pegs 6 (Marco) and 8 (Myself). Marco was again going to fish up in the water (using the pole this time) and I was in Mr Crabtree’s peg.

Marco’s peg was pretty non-descript, he was possibly at the end of a central island which was some 30m + away, but decided on 14m of pole and go for it. My peg on the other hand was entirely different. There was a large lily pad between peg 7 and 8, which was also a corner with the wind blowing into it. There was some 3m between the lily pad and my bank and it was approximately 9m to the lily pads. Stout gear was the order of the day!!!

I set up 2 rigs, one for 14m into open water fishing at full depth (about 4ft deep) and the other was for between the bank and the lily pad at 9m (just under 4ft deep, a couple of inches difference). I decided to fish catmeat on both lines to see if it was still as prolific as the last time that we came to Viaduct. The rig for open water was a .4g Drennan Carp 2 set up on .21 Preston Powerline tied direct to a size 12 Kamasan Animal hook. I also had the same set up for the margin swim (enabling me to swap lines if I should lose a rig). One rig was on a 25 solid latex elastic (the margin rig) and the other was on a 18 – 20 hollow elastic.

I baited up with catmeat, dropped in down the side, waited about 2 minutes and hooked one. The fish swam straight through the lily pad and didn’t even know it was hooked, I lost this one. Best tighten the elastic, I put 10 wraps on the large Vespe winders.

I repeated the process, hooked another one, this shot into the lily pads and shed the hook into the lily pads. I pulled for a break and came back with half a lily pad. Nothing was going to break me. I dropped in again, hooked a carp, pulled for all I was worth and managed to get it in the landing net, it wasn’t far off 9lb. That was it for the margin swim. Every other drop in there after resulted in either a skimmer or a roach, it didn’t matter what bait I had on the hook, they still ate it.

I decided to have a look at 14m into open water. I had been feeding a few pellets on this line and dropped in with catmeat over the top. The float buried and a carp of about 7lb was soon in the landing net, they can’t do a lot with a 18 – 20 elastic putting their brakes on.

I repeated the process and ended up catching a skimmer, then a couple of roach – all on catmeat.

Whilst I was emptying the lake of skimmers and roach, 4 country Oik’s were stood behind Marco watching him, struggling to land a fish. The blue Preston 15h elastic was no match for the fish and Marco was having a hard time of it. After he landed the fish, the lads told him to go to the cabin and get some Dacron and some Vespe E2 elastic. Some £20 later Marco was back at his peg. The Oik’s were all taking it in turns doing various bits of re-elasticating Marco’s pole. One cut the elastic, the other tied the Dacron on, another tied the Dacron to the bung and another thread it through the pole. Didn’t one of them know how to do the job lot? After making a couple of Dacron connectors for Marco’s new re-elasticated pole tips, the Oik’s also went through how he should be playing fish with his new elastic set up – Keep it low. Whilst the Oik’s were still in attendance, Marco promptly shipped out, caught a fish and netted a big carp. He was made up, so were the Oik’s. I must admit though, that Marco’s ring-piece was twitching a bit with the fish that he had hooked and once or twice, he could hear the bung trying to get out of the bush at the other end of his pole.



After taking the Mickey some more, we asked the Oik’s if they would like to join us at the hotel for a beer later on, they all declined, I wonder why. I personally, don’t think that they had the beer legs to keep up with us Northerners, as Daylite and Lee Furness had now made their arrival and were fishing with the splashing wag on peg 100 on Cary Lake.

I decided to have a go at fishing up in the water at 14m (I ended up with muscles in my eyeballs after fishing with the PM for 3 days), which proved to be relatively successful, considering that I was jammed in a corner and could only catch the odd passing fish that came my way when Marco stopped feeding. I still managed to end up with about a dozen carp and a few skimmers. Marco had had a good day and had about 120lb+ up in the water.

Tony’s Fish and Chip’s were beckoning us away, shortly after a few beers were the order of the day. Marco and I decided that we would show both Lee and Daylite how to play Texas Hold’em Poker. After a couple of goes, both Daylite and Lee felt confident to start betting, with a maximum of 50p per betting round (meaning a possible winning pot of some £6 per game). Daylite was promptly dealt a pair of Kings, which he folded thinking that it was no good, and a king was flopped as part of the 5 card flop. He soon made amends, with a 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 of hearts ‘straight flush’. Ho hum, he has all the luck. Lee kept on betting even against the advice of Marco. We were finally turfed out of the pub at about 1:30 in’t morning.

Roll on the actual Match!!!!! 

I went to None Go Bye and fished the bottom lake last Friday 16th June 2006. I caught this fish on pellet on my top two kit down the side. I was feeding micro pellets and fished with single conker over the top.


I ended up with approx 7 or 8 fish of a similar size between 8:30 and 9:30 ish. 

Sunday 18th June 2006 – The Oaks, Sessay.

Only one blog this week as I went for a walk along an old stamping ground of mine yesterday. I went for a walk along the banks of the River Wharfe, Boston Spa. I had a look off the bridge and could see a pike that was nearing double figures just basking on the central sandbank.

There was a group of 15 (ish) year old youngsters (sounds funny saying that at my age) fishing on the member’s side of the river. They were chucking in maggots by the handful, the chub were going mad. There was only one lad that seemed to be catching. He was fishing with bits of meat on a stick and fishing well over depth. Whilst watching him he caught 2 barbel about 2 – 3lb each and a chub about 4lb. There were a few chub around the day ticket side of the bridge and there was a good shoal of chub moving between the bridge and the weir.

I wish that I had taken my rod with me now. I took my kids with me with a net and bucket and went to the weir and caught bullheads, minnows and stone loach. It was nice to be besides the water and not fishing just having a stress-free day. I think that we all ought to try it sometime.

My assault on the Kamasan table starts today!!!

I suppose that us match anglers in Yorkshire are spoilt for choice for Kamasan matches as having a quick glance at the results from this weekend, there were approximately 6 or 7 Kamasan qualifying matches including The Oaks, Woodlands, Rivers Nidd and Ouse to name but a few. I often read on www.total-fishing.com that there is a lack of qualifying matches down south. I don’t know why as they have the venues, the anglers and the weather to cater for the numbers.

At the draw there was 55 of us anglers ready and waiting to do their best. In view of the jackpot money being capped at £400 it was time to introduce another jackpot peg, giving 3 pegs this week. The lucky pegs this week were pegs 30, 35 and 64. Granddad had drawn peg 35 and which had a chance of winning, when you also consider his form on the venue. Peg 64 had a chance, which was drawn by Joe ‘Carcass’. Carcass had won the match 2 weeks previous with over 70lb from peg 36, so was in good form.

The Quid’s

The obligatory £2 was set up with Purverted, £1 with Nightie and £1 with Chappy. I also had a consolation prize in the form of Return of The Mack. Paul ‘Macca’ McMahon was back. My piggy bank was back. When I first started having a quid with Macca, it was a quid, but after losing to him for about 3 weeks, I was after some pennies back, so asked him if he wanted to raise it to £2. Since the £2 has been struck, I think that he had beaten me a couple of times, but not for the last 7 or 8 matches, so much so that I asked him if he could set up a direct debit, but he wouldn’t agree to the direct debit guarantee. I wonder if he ever felt hustled. He obviously didn’t see me ‘accidentally’ dropping my fish back in the lake. I was in to the tune of £6 and Orc wasn’t even here this week. Vinnie (Diesel) Martin was Macca’s travelling companion and failed to turn up for last week’s match. He owed us £6. We agreed to ‘fish for it’.

The Draw

After drawing my peg the obligatory £1 side bet was struck with none other than Topshop who had drawn next peg. I was on Peg 54, which although was a good peg, had no recent form. Pegs 55 and 56 were the pegs with form. Topshop had drawn peg 55. Mick Dykes Sykes was on peg 56 and Jubby was next to me the other way on peg 52. Purverted had drawn 65, (Tim Moran had 117lb of peg 66 on Saturday’s match). Macca was on peg 21 (ooops), Diesel was within eyesight on peg 57 and Nightie was on peg 71.

Marco Drury had drawn peg 11, with pegs 10 (not in the draw) and pegs 12 (the only peg not drawn) empty. Marco has been on fire of late with winning weights of 149lb, 127lb (yesterday) and numerous other 100lb weights. Marco was going to be the man to beat. A weight in excess of 100lb on Cedar Lake is a considerable feat as the average stamp of fish is between 1lb to 2lb and with the method that is catching these weights (caster and worm shallow), the weights are also including silver fish.

Other than Topshop and Marco’s draw’s there weren’t any other notable draws and the winning weight could literally come from anywhere.

Here Goes!!!!

Upon arriving at my peg, there were numerous fish swirling in my peg. A shallow approach was the order of the day. I had 1pt of caster, 1 tin of Frenzied Hemp, 3 pints of maggots and a few pellets all for feeding up in the water. I set up 2 shallow rigs, one on white hydro and the other on grey hydro. They both consisted of DC6 floats, one in .05g and the other in .2g. Both rigs were set up on Maver Genesis .14 diameter line direct to size 16 Colmic B501 hooks. I also set up a .2g Colmic float for across to the island on top of the shelf. This was set up on .13 dia. Preston Powerline direct to a size 16 Colmic B501 hook. My final rig (at the setting up stage) was a .2g Colmic float on .13 diameter Preston Powerline direct to a size 16 Colmic B501 hook. I prefer to fish direct on my carp rigs as it creates less weak spots with knots, there are no snags in the venue (no need to create a weak link by having a bottom) and you can get away with fishing direct for carp, especially at this time of year with the coloured water.

At the all in, I started to catapult both casters and hemp out to 7/8 metres with the odd pouch of maggots. I had double maggot on the hook (red and/or white combination). After about 10 minutes, I finally caught my first fish, which dropped off (thankfully) a roach of about 1oz. It wasn’t worth the effort to ship back with these fish, so a quick shake and the fish was off (barbless hooks), I then dropped in with the same bait (hopefully saving time). The wind was steadily starting to pick up and was blowing from right to left. The float was pushing through slowly. I persevered with the shallow method taking 3 ide (between 12oz and 1.5lb), a couple of roach (that wouldn’t fall off) and 3 carp between 1lb and 2lb. Why is that every time you start to think about changing lines/methods, you catch a fish and think that they have finally turned up.


After 2 hours, I would estimate that I had less than 10lb. Drastic action was required. I cupped some bait across to the mud line (maggots, caster and hemp) and left it until I could see signs that there were fish in the swim. I decided that it was time to have a look down the inside. I had been feeding it steadily all the while. I baited up, dropped in, nothing. I proceeded on this line for the next 10 – 15 minutes and caught one little perch for my troubles.

I could wait no more. I had seen a tail appear across to the mud line. The time was right to empty it. I dropped in with 3 red maggots on the hook. The float dipped, nothing. I dropped in again, an ide about 2lb was soon in the net. I dropped in again, nothing. The float drifted sideways (from a fish being in the vicinity), I waited and waited. The float shot under, I struck with a little gusto and a roach about 2oz, flew out of the water and shed the hook.

Plan Z-26,000,000

I decided that I had to do something. Topshop was catching steadily but he was catching his fish more or less to the very edge of his peg going towards peg 56. Jubby was getting a few from across and also what appeared to be down the farside slope. Everybody else around me seemed to be a little quiet. I decided to get a deep rig out, big pot it and suck it and see.

I quickly attached a 4 x 14 series E float rig to grey hydro and plumbed up down the middle. The line was .14 Maver Genesis direct to a size 16 Colmic B501 hook. I cupped in a pot full of caster, hemp and maggots with the idea of not feeding over the top and trying to force the fish down. I left the deep swim for the next 5 minutes or so and went over to the mud line. I managed to snare one more ide about 1lb. I had approximately 14 – 15lb of fish in the net and I was 3 hours into the match.

That was it, I had to go down the middle. First drop in, I caught an F1 carp of about 10oz. I dropped in again and caught a steady succession of barbel. Every 5 or 6 fish, I re-potted to try to keep the fish there and on the bottom. I managed to put together a steady respectable net of fish and was starting to catch up all those around me.

Ooopsss, Time

I was so busy engrossed in my fishing (now that I had got into a steady rhythm), that I completely forgot about what time it was. Topshop shouted to me ‘what time are we finishing Mick?’. A quick glance of the watch showed that it was a couple of minutes past 4:15. That was it TIME!!!! Doesn’t time fly when you are enjoying yourself. I estimated that I had about 35 – 40lb as I hadn’t really caught much in the first 3 hours.

How had I done and how many quids had I lost?

By the time that the scales had arrived John Illingworth had weighed in 81lb and there was a 57lb. Jubby weighed in 1oz shy of 68lb. I put 49lb 11oz on the scales, so was a little pleased that I had more than I thought. Topshop put 76-10 on the scales (down a quid to start), Dykesy weighed 28lb and Diesel had 32lb, so I hadn’t done too bad, and I was £5 quid in pocket (up £6 courtesy of Diesel and down a quid to the superstar), now for all of my other quid’s.

Purverted weighed 37-05 (another £2), Chappy 31-12 (£1), Nightie 35-13 (£1) and Macca 31-08 (£2). Bloody hell, I don’t even get paid this much at work.

Final Result

Andy Dargue – 122lb 8oz. Paste down the middle. Peg 9.

John Illingworth – 81lb – 8oz. Meat down the middle. Peg 47.

Dave Topham – 76lb 10oz. Peg 55.

Adam Richards – 72lb 8oz. Peg 3.

Gary Jubb – 67lb 15oz. Peg 52.

John Allerton – 67lb 6oz. Peg 77.

Jonny Kenning won my section with 54lb. If I had gone down the middle about 30 minutes earlier, I would have won my section.

The Lizard

As I was driving round, prior to sorting out the final result rumour was going round that Pete ‘Lizard’ Baron had caught 137lb and was winning the match. As I passed him, I stopped for a chat and he was telling me that he caught here, there and everywhere and that he couldn’t get his bait in quick enough. I was asking the usual questions, what would a good angler have had? Did you have hook on? Etc, etc. John Illy was stood with Lizard and was straining to stop laughing. The Lizard hadn’t caught 137lb (I thought that it was hard to believe) and had actually caught 40lb. He only got them all to kid me on because I call him LIZARD!!! I gave him the moniker as he is like a lizard, he warms up with the sun!!!.

Next week is Fisho day at Viaduct Fisheries on Saturday, then back to Sessay on Sunday to sort the rabble out.

Tight lines and may all your dreams be match-winning ones!!

Sunday 11th June 2006 – Cedar Lake, The Oaks, Sessay.

I thought that attendances might have been low due to anglers no longer practising for any large matches. I must admit, we have had a good run at high profile big matches this year and I am glad that The Oaks Lakes are finally getting the recognition that the place deserves. We have held a 130 peg Fishomania qualifier and yesterday held the Maver Pairs qualifier.

When the new café and bait shop are built (yes, built, with bricks and mortar) hopefully the venue can go from strength to strength. If there is one main issue that I would like to point out and that is that on both of these two matches, it has been near impossible to predict who will win the matches and also which lake (as two lakes have been used for both matches) would win on the day.

On another venue that I have been frequenting, if you do not draw one of 2 lakes, of which there are sometimes 5 lakes in, you are not, usually, going to compete. I am not saying that the other lakes cannot compete, but at present all the talk and most of the weights have been coming from one lake predominantly with the other regular lake taking first place if the other lake fails to produce (do you get what I mean?).

Anyway’s I digress.

65 of us hardy soles arrived to fish on the day and with the weather that we have been enjoying of late, there were a lot of tan lines (red skin/white skin) about and some of the attire that people were wearing left a lot to be desired. Take for instance, Jubby, he was wearing a pair of light blue (turquoise) cycling shorts (or at least that is what I think that they were), and on most people said cycling shorts are stretched tight as they include Lycra in the material. Well, the ones that Jubby was wearing were either stretched or 10 sizes too big. He stood there and looked like a scraggy chicken with his legs sticking out of a soggy turquoise paper bag.

The jackpot pegs for today’s event were 45 and 49. One of the pegs had a chance of going, although on recent form maybe not, as venue regular and all-round expert, Pimmy had drawn peg 49. Peg 49 had won and framed in a couple of matches about 1 month ago, so the peg could not be discounted. The other jackpot peg was safe!!!!

I agreed the obligatory quid with Chappy, £2 with Purverted and I then had to look around for other kiddies to take a quid off, as both Orc and Panic were not in attendance. I think Panic has fallen out with me and Orc was skint after raiding the kiddies piggy bank to give me a quid 2 weeks ago. Just as I was looking a bit lost and forlorn at not having anyone else to have a quid with, guess who just walked in the door, non other than Andy ‘Haircut’ Bridge. That was another quid struck up. Nightie promptly showed his face when he found out that I was looking for action and another quid was on the go. At this rate, it is going to be the ‘Mick Herrington Optional’, everybody puts a quid in the jar, and I pay out to all those that beat me and keep the rest – it is going to be an expensive day if when I come last.

I might change ‘Haircut’s moniker to ‘Blue Rinse’ as his haircut hasn’t changed, but he likes anything blue. He arrives in his Garbolino blues and puts on more blue if required. I don’t live near Haircut and I have not been to his gaff (Vicky probably wouldn’t let me in’t door) so I am not sure if he even sleeps in the stuff. I will have to put the question to both Pimmy and Chappy.

At the draw, I put my hand in the bag (first as always) and drew peg 36. Cedar 36 had won the match the previous week with over 70lb, but had not done anything during the week and ‘Racing’ was on peg 35 yesterday and had 30lb (ish).

Purverted drew peg 40, Chappy was on peg 79, I was already looking at being a quid down as peg 79 has had the two best weights for the lake, one weight of 154lb and another of 149lb. Haircut drew peg 74, which Jubby had come 4th off yesterday, so I was probably going to be even stevens (£1 each to Chappy and Haircut and £2 up from Purverted) at the end of the day.

John Allerton, Big Mark, Grandad and Marco had all drawn a decent area between pegs 23 and 28. John ‘Young Man’ Illingworth had drawn peg 56, the same peg that Xman was on yesterday. I could see Young Man listening to every word the Xman was saying, then walked away with a plan of action. He was going to do the opposite of what Xman had told him.

I arrived at my peg to find that I had Adam Jarvis ‘Cocker’ next to me on peg 35, he is one quiet lad. I thought that ‘The quiet One’ was quiet, but Cocker hasn’t even got a tongue. I quickly looked around for someone else to have a natter with. What a shame, no one on peg 37. Ah, I found a victim, Topshop was on peg 33, peg 34 was empty, boy did he give me some stick when he saw me arriving at my peg.

Here goes

I set up 4 rigs

The first rig was set up to fish up in the water set about 12” deep. I have just purchased some of the Garbolino DC6 series of floats and they seem to be sock on. I set one up for the shallow rig. I have bought them in .05 - .4g in weight and I set up a .05g float, shotted with 2 x 11 Preston Stotz and 1 x 13 shot. This rig was on .12 Maver Genesis line with a size 18 Colmic 501 hook. Having spoken to Marco the day before, I was informed that I would need a long lash between pole float and pole tip. I put about 2ft of distance between the two.

I then set up a rig for on top of the shelf, again this was one of the DC6 floats, but a .2g float was selected. This was set about 18” deep and was just touching bottom. I set this float up on .14 Maver Genesis line to a size 16 Colmic 501 hook.

Rig 3 was a Drennan Carp 2 set up to fish down the side at 7m towards empty peg 37. I plumbed up until I found about 2ft deep. This was set up on .14 Maver Genesis to a size 16 Colmic 501.

My 4th rig was another shallow rig, but slightly heavier. It was a .2g DC6, set about 2ft deep. Again, it was set up on .12 Maver Genesis line to a size 18 Colmic 501 hook.

The two shallow rigs were set up on hydro elastics, the lighter .05g on white hydro through no.2 section only and the .2g on grey hydro. If I felt that I was bagging, I could put on the heavier rig if needed.

As and afterthought, I also set up (rightly or wrongly) a small 2 x No.4 canal waggler. This was set to fish shallow, but was set up to fish to hand on a top 3 kit. The idea of the little waggler was that if the fish are close, but would not come under the pole tip and if the wind picked up, I could flick this rig out, sink the line and still catch the fish close in. That was my thoughts anyways.

Food for thought!!

I was proper armed today, I had 1 tin of frenzied hemp, 3 pts casters, 1 tin corn, ½ pt maggots (for the hook) and some pellets (3mm for loose feeding and 4mm and 6mm for the hook). As you can see from the bait menu, and out and out up in the water attack was called for.

We’re Off

At the start of the match, I baited up with 2 red maggots on the hook and started chucking hemp and casters at the fish at about 5m. They were already up in the water and it didn’t take long to get my first fish. A carp of about 1lb was in the net. Over the next 20 minutes or so, I caught a further 4 more carp. I was also having a lot of problems, namely foul-hooked fish. I was getting a bite/indication, I would strike, play the fish to the net then it would come off. I tried caster on the hook and I couldn’t get a proper bite, I was getting shelled casters all the time. I tried pellet and caught a couple on pellet. I was having to go further out, then come back in, then back out again, you do the hokey cokey and you shake it all about. The fish just did not seem to want to settle.

I went back to the maggot and caster/hemp approach and continued to fish in this vain for the next 1 hour or so. I was by now 2 hours into the match and was not feeling happy at all. I had approximately 12 – 15lb of fish in the net. I felt as though I was not getting the best from the peg. I was getting bites and fish on maggot and pellet hook baits, but they seemed to be a little bit sporadic. Not sure if the caster/hemp was drawing the fish into the peg, but they didn’t actually want to eat the stuff.

A decision was to be made.

At 1:00 I rang Tom in the cabin and asked if one of the lads could bring me some maggots round. I was going to fish and feed maggot.

45 (yes, forty five) minutes later, my maggots finally arrived, I could get down to business. I shortened the line between pole float and tip and started to ‘fish properly’. I was spraying maggots every few seconds or so and also tapping the water on the odd occasion. The fish were queuing up.

Over the next hour or so, I estimate that I put about 35lb in the net. I was on a roll!!

I was having to follow the fish in and out as they kept on moving off the bait. I was also still losing fish, mostly at the landing net and a few of the fish had the hook just outside of the their mouths. On more than one occasion, I also came back with a couple of scales.

Although I had started bagging, I was still losing fish. I tried to cut back on the feed, tap the water more, feed more maggots but less often, feed less maggots but more often. I just did not seem to be able to get the fish to settle down properly.

I had swapped between the two shallow rigs and tried the mini waggler rig throughout the match and caught fish on them all. The only rigs that I did not use were the rig for down the side and the rig for on top of the shelf.

With about 1 hour to go, I got involved in a conversation with Topshop and another quid was struck (the last time we had a quid it was 1 hour into the match, this time it was one hour of the match left). The wind was steadily starting to pick up and blow from right to left

I ended up with a small wind knot some 4” from the hook and either laziness or the fact that usually, they don’t make a difference, I decided to do nothing. Bad mistake. Shortly after finding the wind knot, I hooked into a carp of about 3lb and played it all the way to the net, twice. It decided to make one last bid for freedom and won!! I
Re-tied on a hook and went back out and promptly lost the next 3 fish also, again, at the net. The 4 fish that I had just lost would have added about 8 – 10lb to my net.

Over the last 45 minutes of the match the wind increased considerably and the fish just would not have the pole wafting around over their heads. I estimate that I caught about 5 or 6lb in the last 45 minutes.

That was it, time. I had fed some 3 pts of maggots, 2 pints of hemp and caster and 1 pt of pellets. I was hoping to have about 60lb. Darryl Taylor had weighed in 66lb from peg 17, Gandhi had 61lb from peg 31, Graham Skirrey weighed 40lb between Topshop and Gandhi. The scales finally arrived at Topshop and he put 63lb on the scales from 2 weighs. It was going to be close.

No Tongue on the next peg DNW’d and tipped back about 10 fish. My first net with the least fish in, went 23-12. I honestly thought that I had more than that. I put my 2nd net on and weighed in 30-12. Did I have a hole in my net? Where is my 60lb?

I’d had one of those days where you have got the method right, but nothing else will come together. If I’d have fished maggot sooner, I would have caught more. If I’d changed my hook when I found the wind knot, I wouldn’t have been snapped. If I had short-lined earlier, would I have foul-hooked less fish?

I have ended up coming away with more questions than I started. Last Sunday I only caught 26lb and won my section and felt better than I did today.

Where had I come – 5th. Ho Hum, or words to that effect. I just have a feeling that today if things had gone right and I had done things different from the start, I would have had a different result. Purverted had won his/my section by 4th (yep, fourth) default as Gandhi, Topshop and I had got in the main money.

To top it all off, when sorting out all of the prize money after the draw, I had, somehow, managed to mix up 2 envelopes. I had put the section money (£30) in the 5th place envelope and the 5th place money in the section envelope (Section 5 I think for £50).

Talk about dishonesty. Some people would have realised that the section prize is usually £30 and may have asked if it was right. Well, whoever (I think that I know who) has the £50, I hope they choke on their kebab and beer!!!

The quids came rolling in from Chappy (24-00), Purverted (47-00) and Blue Rinse Haircut ((21-12) who has yet to pay me). The worst part was that I was also going to have to give a quid to Topshop.

I now have a plan of action for next weeks match. Watch this space.

Official Result

1. John Illingworth (Team Dons) 68-01. Peg 56.
2. Darryl Taylor (Garbolino Elton) 66-11.
3. Dave Topham (Sensas Wibsey) 63-11.
4. Chris Hall (Oaks) 61-08.
5. Mick Herrington (Bob-co/Oaks) 54-08.
6. Mick Sykes (West Park) 54-03.

Saturday 10th June 2006 – Maver Pairs, The Oaks, Sessay.

No fishing today as I was drafted in at the last minute to run the Maver Pairs qualifier at The Oaks, Sessay.

I got there in plenty of time, as nothing had been prepared. By the time that the draw came around, there were 48 pairs that had paid onto the match.

In addition to the payment for the ticket and the pools on the day, I decided to run 2 further optional pools. A £1 optional winner take all and an optional £2 pairs winner take all. When Daylite Rothery arrived another optional pool was devised….

A £5 optional pool. Was I going to have fun trying to sort this lot out.

To try to make the match as fair as possible, I decided to peg 1 of the pairs on Maple Lake and his partner on Cedar Lake.

I got everybody under way, then had to shoot back to Leeds to get my bait from the tackle shop, then get back to The Oaks to sort the winners out, etc, etc.

Gary Jubb and Derek Jackson (both Diawa Goldthorpe) had drawn good pegs, Jubby was on Cedar 74 and Jacko was on Maple 66. Grandad Poole had drawn peg 62 on Maple. Son of Nightie was on Maple 10, with the wind blowing down the straight into 10 and blowing from left to right into the corner, he should do well from there. Dave Topshop had drawn Maple 8, Andy Stonner was on Maple 18 and Nightie was on Maple 56.

Xman had drawn a good peg on Cedar, 56. (John Illingworth won the match from the same peg the day after the Maver Pairs match, shows what a good angler can do from a good peg).

I decided prior to the draw that I was going to do 10 peg sections.

After arriving back at the venue following my flying visit to Leeds, I had a walk around the lakes. Son of Nightie was admitting to 40lb and was catching the odd fish up in the water at about 5m. SoN also told me that Topshop was catching. I carried on walking around the lake and spoke with Chris Watson (Maple 23), he was struggling. I walked round to Nightie and spoke with him for a short while. He had just started catching on small cubes of catmeat across to the island, but the wind was making presentation difficult.

I carried on round the lake and had a word with Jacko on peg 66. I am not sure what he had in his chopped worm as his hands where jet black. I thought that he had used coal dust and water to wash his hands, seriously!!! He was feeding small pots of chopped worm down the side and was admitting to about 40lb. Micky ‘Deirdre’ Barlow was also catching from Peg 1 on Maple.

I then went round Cedar Lake and had a word with Jubby, he was catching fish on top of the shelf, feeding small amounts of chopped worm and fishing with worm on the hook. He was admitting to 60 carp for about 50lb. I carried on round and sat behind Xman for a short while (not a lot happening here then), he was feeding a few pellets and caster topped off with green (swimstim) groundbait, and fishing with pellet on the hook. Didn’t see any Marinated Burbot Strip though.

‘Racing’ on peg 35 was just starting to catch the odd fish down the side towards peg 36. Marco was getting odd fish from Cedar 32. Chris Gorrell on Cedar 6 was catching by fishing in front of the footplate on peg 7.

One thing that I did realise was that everybody that I sat behind had a fish whilst I was in their presence.

Time to get the rigs out of the water. I wasn’t sure who was going to win it as I hadn’t spoke with everybody, I didn’t know who’s partner was whose and most people seemed to be getting a few.

At the start of the match, I decided on 10 peg sections and the qualifiers would go through by virtue of lowest points, 1 point for a win, 10 points for last in section and 11 points for a DNW.

The overall result was as follows:

Individual:

Andy Geldart (Middy) 75-03. Cedar Lake peg 18. Feeding and fishing caster at 9m shallow. Andy told me after the match that he had got through 7 pints of casters.

Mark Calvert (Garbolino Elton) 72-04. Cedar Lake peg 62. Caster and worm across to the island.

Bert Poole (Oaks/Westpark) 71-12. Maple Lake peg 62.

Gary Jubb (Diawa Goldthorpe) 69-15. Cedar Lake peg 74.

Dave Topham (Sensas Wibsey) 64-10. Maple Lake peg 8.

Sam Morgan (Ackworth) 58-06. Cedar Lake peg 34.

After checking and double checking all the results and positions the winning pair and 2 further qualifiers were as follows:

Qualifying Pairs:

Gary Jubb & Derek Jackson (both Diawa Goldthorpe) 3 points - 126-11.

Ian Exley (Team Dons) & Kirk Grainger (Clay Lane) 3 Points - 102-13.

Lee Kerry (Maver Barnsley) & Andy Geldart (Middy) 3 points - 101-07.

After finally sorting out all of the pools (including all of the optionals), Lee Kerry and Andy Geldart shared out over £350 for today.

This is the pretty one known as The Orc.


He did well to catch this net of fish (about 35lb of weight, if I recall), but alas, he still owed me a quid afterwards. The Orc was on Cedar Lake peg 28 or 29 (can't remember which) 

I took my 3 (nearly 4) year old son fishing. He is called Thomas and this is his first fish. He fished at 14m and we were at None Go Bye. This is the average stamp of fish from the top lake.


He caught on pellet over pellet and also caught a smaller one as well. It was absolutely siling down, but he still enjoyed it. 

Sunday 4th June 2006 – Spring Valley Invitation Match, Wakefield.

Trying to get on was the hard part! Having had a chance encounter with 2005 Fishomania champion, Marc Jones, at Bob-co in Leeds on Bank Holiday Monday, he was telling me about his new lakes and that the first match was being held on Sunday 4th June. Marc was saying that the few that have fished it had bagged up. After pleading with Marc to get a ticket, he told me to ring him on Wednesday to see if he could get us on.

I rang Wed, both Purverted and I had got on. Phil Chapman had fished the lake, as had Castleford Munchkin, Marc had also had a go, as you do.

I spoke with Philly at Woodlands on Saturday and got a bit of information on what he did and what he caught on – everything. After getting a lift with Panic to Woodlands the day before, he also told me that he also had a ticket, so the cast list was something like:

Legend Barrett (Fisho 2006 qualifier)
Marc Jones
Panic Poole
Castleford Munchkin
Meatcutter Bailey
Mick Grant
Tony Hoppo Hopkins
Rob Hitchens
Mick Lodge
Purverted Purvis
Magnum Clarke
Steve (Higgins) Simmons

To name but a few.

After arranging to meet up with Philly for a breakfast (good job we followed as we’d never find it), which I might add was good, cheap and a lot, we arrived at the venue. Philly told us that Marc had been rotating the fish feed. One time he would feed the fish sweetcorn, then the next time that he fed them, he fed them pellets. That’s the bait bill sorted.

The Lakes

The lakes are similar to Woodland Lakes, Thirsk, in that they are rectangular in shape, with about 2ft deep at the side, with 5ft at 7m and 6ft at 11m. The lakes are some 20m to the middle and you are pegged on opposite banks. Some work still needs to be carried out yet, platforms need to be put in place etc, etc. The 2 lakes are called Fox (22 pegs) and Badger (20 pegs). The lakes are stuffed with fish between 1.5lb and 4lb. Marc had also put another 650lb of stock into the lake on Thursday.

I arranged the usual £2 with Purverted, £1 with Panic (who although he DNW’d yesterday at Woodlands, failed to pay me) and I had arranged a quid with Chappy at Woodlands the previous day. That’s not bad is it, I am on a virgin lake that has hardly been fished and I manage to get a quid going with someone who is at a totally different venue.

My Drawing Arm

At the draw, all the talk was of the winning weight(s) and the possible winning pegs, wind direction being the main point. Marc was hoping that someone would do the double ton.

At the draw, I managed to draw Fox 1, a corner peg (about 3m to the corner), with the wind blowing into it, scum on the water, a nice ripple. The only downside was that the draw took place about 5 yards away from the peg, anybody that wanted to have a look at the lake prior to the draw, stood in my peg or stood on top of the small bank that run along the bottom end of the lake, and when everybody went to their pegs, most (if not all) of them trundled past my peg with their trolleys, etc, etc (excuses already, or are they?). Everyone still told me as they walked past, that I would need at least 3 keepnet’s (I’d only taken 2) and that if I don’t get over 150lb, I might as well sell my gear.

Purverted had drawn Fox 18, with Meatcutter on 17, Higgins was on 19, and Castleford Munchkin drew 11, at the end of my section. I had Tony Hopkins opposite on 21 and one of the Rymer's (not Bob) directly opposite on peg 22. I must apologise, I can’t remember the name of the lad that was next to me on peg 2, although I did ask his name.

Rigs

I set up 4 rigs to try to cater for all eventualities, as follows:

A .2g Garbolino DC6 on .14 Maver Genesis direct to a size 16 Colmic 501 hook. I plumbed up along the bank, at 7m and 14m, and found about 2ft of depth (by pulling the rig up the slope).

A .3g Series E set up on .16 Maver Genesis direct to a size 16 Colmic 501 hook. This was for fishing the top 2 to hand where I had about 3ft of depth.

A .3g Carp Belter (?) that I had found the day before at Woodlands. This was set up on .4 Maver Genesis direct to a size 16 Colmic 501 hook. I plumbed up at 14m and found 6ft of depth.

This rig was a 4x14 Drennan Carp 2 rig; set up on .16 Maver Genesis tied direct to a size 14 Colmic 501 hook. I plumbed up at 7m and found 4ft of depth. I was hoping that this line was going to be my main catching line.

The A La Carte menu for the day consisted of 2 small tins corn, 4pts micro pellets, various hook pellets (including the conkers) and a bit of meat left from the previous day and that’s about it.

Time to bag up!!

At the all in I cupped (a small Garbolino cup) in some micro pellets at 7m, a smaller helping at 14m and two small pots in down the side to both swims.

I baited up with a conker on the hook and a ‘Toss Pot’ full of micro pellets. I shipped out in anticipation, as you do on a virgin water, and waited. I waited a little bit longer, then waited some more. I’d only cupped in some bait and blown it all ready.

With the design and the layout of the lake, I was able to keep an eye on about 15 or 16 of the competitors and get an idea of who was doing what and catching where. Nobody else seemed to be breaking any records. The majority of people were fishing at 6 – 8m, with the odd person fishing at 13m.

After about 15 minutes, I got a dink, the bait was gone. I re-baited, dropped in again hoping that the fish had finally found the bait. Got an indication, the float buried, I struck, foul-hooked. Basket!!!

I then waited another 15 minutes without a bite. I dropped in down the side at 7m, shock horror; I caught a fish, a carp of about 2lb. I dropped in again thinking that they may be in the shallower water. Nothing. I went out to 14m down the side and managed to snare 2 more fish.

We were now 2 hours into the match and I had 3 carp to show for it. The lad next to me had about 5 fish (most of them shallow at 14 – 16m). Hoppo had about 6 fish, Rymer had 3 fish. Purverted rang me to say that he was catching on corn over pellet, feeding next to nothing. He was admitting to 13 fish. Meatcutter at the side of Purverted had about 10 fish. It was hard.

I had a go shallow, feeding 6 or 7 pellets every so often, I foul-hooked one and that was that. The lad who was 2 pegs away from me (on peg 3) was fishing with a 13m pole, a 5ft lash between pole tip and float and was swinging his rig out, not feeding anything and catching the odd fish shallow.

I cut back on all feed on all lines, and just waited and waited for the fish to come.

Bag up city

Between 2:30 and 3:05, I got a steady stream of fish between 1.5lb and 3lb from the same hole down the side at 14m, feeding a small fruitshoot of bait after every fish (it’s like scratching in winter). I managed to snare 10 fish for an estimated weight of 20lb, to add to the 3 fish that I already had.

Purverted was still catching a few, Legend was starting to motor, Higgins was getting a few and Meatcutter had slowed.

That was it, no more bites. The lad next to me was catching the odd fish shallow, albeit, slowly and I thought that it was going to be close between us.

Marc came round with the scales; he was admitting to 150lb and losing another 60lb. I was the first to weigh. I put 26lb exactly on the scales. Peg 2 weighed 25-12, I should have had a quid with him, peg 3 had 16lb, then there was a couple of v. low 20’s, including Keith Kotchie who had 21lb. The Castleford Munchkin was the last to weigh on my bank and he was admitting to 15 fish (I’d had 13 fish for 26lb), did he have more weight?

Did he heck, he weighed in 25lb dead. I’d won my section. It was bloody hard. The scales then disappeared on to Badger Lake.

By the time that the scales had got back onto my lake, Marc Jones had weighed in 123lb odd, duty rumour was going round that Marc had used 2 kilo of worms and 4 pints of caster in the process. Philly weighed in just shy of 70lb (the practice made a difference) and 55lb was lying in 3rd place, all from Badger Lake. Legend weighed in 53lb for 4th overall. Purverted had 35lb (and my £2 and also half of my section win), Meatcutter had 31lb, Higgins had 41lb and Hoppo opposite me had 29lb. Panic weighed in 35lb next to Marc on Badger Lake, I was down another quid.

And to cap it all, I couldn’t beat Chappy who was on a different venue. He weighed in 37lb (ish), so that is another quid down, although I haven’t paid him yet!!

My thoughts!

I don’t know why the lake(s) didn’t fish. I can recall the same thing happened on Cedar Lake at The Oaks Lakes, Sessay when they first opened it.

Would I go back?

Yeah, of course, with the stamp of the fish and the amount of fish that are stocked, I would predict that 100lb weights would be common place once the fish get used to the disturbance on the bank and the various baits going in.

A match was held on Wednesday 7th June and by all accounts, 70 - 80lb was common place, not sure what or who won.

Saturday 3rd June 2006 – Woodland Lakes, Thirsk.

I rang up and booked my peg on Friday afternoon and was told that there were 69 names down and if they got more than 71 on, they would have to put in both Curlew and Wagtail along with the usual Partridge and Skylark. A quick call to Panic and transport was arranged. Purverted was booked on, so that was £2 in the pocket before I’d even started. I was also going to get my £2 of Shane, following my beating Purverted last week, I was quid’s in.

I arrived at Woodland’s after a brekkie at Moggie’s. Panic was telling me that he went on the Wednesday match, ordered an egg sarnie and a tea and was charge
£3-80; he refused to pay and starved all day – tight git.

On paying on, I reminded the young scroat behind the counter that he owed me £2, a quid dip in the till soon sorted that, making my pocket heavier in the process. Purverted had called Friday evening to blob off, he was sorting his truck for Monday’s deliveries.

At the draw, you get butterflies and a tingle as you put your hand in the bucket. If you draw the Slow Norris way, you also end up with pins and needles, whilst you tie your self in knots, cutting off the blood supply in the process. I pulled out Skylark 27, which was according to the local’s so, so.

I got to my peg to find that I had John McGarrell on peg 26, peg 28 was empty and Bill Brierley was on peg 29. Ian Bowman was on peg 24, Coyney was on peg 23, Pimmy on 21 and Mark Longhurst on peg 20, was I in good company or what?

I had already struck up a quid with Chappy at the draw, and he had drawn somewhere on Curlew and Panic had drawn peg 10 on Wagtail. I also got the nod to have a quid with McG.

I set up the following:

Rig at 6m was a 4 x 14 Drennan Carp 2 set up on Maver Genesis .16 line direct to a size 16 Colmic B501 barbless hook.

The 14m rig was a .3g Series E float set up on .16 Maver Genesis line, tied direct to a size 14 Colmic B501 hook.

Shallow rig was set up with the intention of fishing on the 14m line, up in the water after I had been flicking a few bits of meat out all the time. This was set 1ft deep.

Rig 4 was a 4 x 12 Drennan Carp 2 set up on .15 Preston Powerline, direct to a size 14 Colmic 501 hook. I plumbed up down the side about 2ft off the boards and found a flat spot about 2ft deep. This rig could also be used as an up in the water rig, to fish a little deeper if required.

I didn’t have time to set up a bomb rod.


McG had also set up rigs to fish the same lines and in addition he also had a bomb rod and a shallow waggler rod set up incorporating the new 5 – 8g pellet waggler’s. McG had on the smaller of the sizes.

The Menu

I had 1 small tin of corn, 3 tins of meat (200g) chopped into 4mm and 6mm pieces, 1 tin of hemp, 4 & 6mm expanders for the hook (1/2 pt) and 3mm expanders for feed (1 pt).

Off Putting

How un-sportsman like is this. With about 10 minutes to the start of the match, McG decided to strip down to his grollies. He sat down, and I am sure that I observed his ball bag hanging out of the side of his grollies, what a sight. I didn’t even know that you could buy thongs in XXXL. At one point, I mis-took McG for Peter Stringfellow (there would have been an uncanny resemblance if his hair was longer).

Underway

I missed the start of the match as I was still pissing myself at the sight of Stringfellow on the next peg.

After I had finally composed myself, I cupped in some hemp and meat at 14m, 6m and down the side. It was a bright sunny day, with hardly any wind and you could see the carp moving about just under the surface at about 15 – 20m +.

I went out to 6m, dropped in with meat, and waited and waited. After some 20 minutes, the float buried, and a tench of 1lb was soon in the net. It doesn’t take long to get them out on blue Preston 15h elastic. I dropped in again and caught a skimmer about 4oz, which came off as I was shipping back.

After a further 20 minutes, I went out to 14m with the full depth rig, expecting to get liners as I had been constantly feeding 3 – 6 pieces of meat at 14m. I dropped in with meat on the hook, waited all of 30 seconds, the float buried and a carp was soon on, then off again, foul hooked!!!

Third of the way in!

We were approximately 1 ½ hours into the match, McG had 6 carp, 1 tench and a skimmer. He had caught 1 carp at 6m, 2 at 14m, 1 on the shallow pole rig and 2 on the shallow waggler rig. I had 6 tench and 2 skimmers. One of the skimmers had come on the 1ft rig out at 14m. How can you fish a lake that is full of carp and 2 hours + into the match not have a carp? It’s a funny old game, innit.

After about 3 hours, I still hadn’t caught a carp and a change in tactics and feeding patterns were called for.

I stopped feeding the meat with the catapult, and started to cup in 3mm pellets and fish pieces of meat over the top. I did this on all lines, as I felt that (in my peg) the carp just did not want too much bait.

After about 10 minutes of this on the 6m line, I finally got my first carp, and for the next 30 minutes, I got 2 carp at 6m, 1 carp shallow (without feeding anything), and 2 carp at 14m at depth. McG had added no more in this period, so I was still 1 carp behind, but I did have more tench than him.

The Home Straight

With about 45 minutes of the match remaining my lines seemed to be devoid of fish. I decided to concentrate more on the swim down the side as I had seen some clouding of the water and a couple of swirls.

I baited up with pellet, put some pellets in the Toss Pot, dropped in down the side and waited. After about 3 minutes, the float dipped then shot under. I stuck!!! Nothing. I re-baited and did the same again. The float shot under and a tench that thought that it was a trout leaped out of the water, shedding the hook in the process.

I repeated the process and waited about 5 minutes. The float shot under and a carp about 4lb was soon in the landing net.

There was now about 15 minutes of the match remaining, McG had also gone down the side and soon had a fish on, and out. It was a carp about 6lb.

About Bloody Time

That was it. The match was over. No more. Stop now, everyone.

I had observed Billy throughout the match, he had caught on paste at 6m for the first hour or so, catching odd fish, then he went out on his deep rig at 13m and caught a few, then went out on his shallow rig, feeding very sporadically and caught a few more. He had fished a tidy match. But get this!!

He was on peg 29, I was on peg 27. That meant that I was some 15m away, he was also fishing at 16m, or near enough (for all you geometrist’s out there, how far is that as an obtuse triangle). I could see his bait from where I was, and it looked quite big. So at the end of the match, I went over to him to see what he had done, and he tried to tell me that he had caught on 6mm meat. From where I was, it looked (for all the world) that he had on a BIG pellet, probably bigger than the conkers that I use.

McG got up off his box, and he was a little red (Chappy has a camera video of McG watching the weigh in with his belly and tackle hanging out of his thong. It will be available by blue tooth on Saturday for anyone that wants it) to say the least. You know how sometimes, some of these porno stars have bikini marks, well McG had a thong mark, but where as these porno stars are tanned, McG was RED.

The corner pegs up from Bill had weighed in no more than 21lb. Bill weighed 60lb. I put all of my fish into 1 net (I knew that I hadn’t caught a lot, as usual) and dropped 26lb -8oz on the scales. McG put his fish on the scales and weighed in 32lb dead. The last gasp fish had saved him and cost me a quid. Chappy, was stood behind me as I weighed in and promptly held out his hand for his usual quid. He weighed in 37lb (ish). Panic was a DNW from Wagtail 10, but said that he had tipped back about 25lb. I never got my quid off him.

Pimmy won the match with 108lb, 33 carp. He caught half and half at full depth and shallow. Ian Bowman weighed in over 70lb, Coyney had just short of 70lb and Mark Longhurst had just over 70lb. There were 4 of them in a row that weighed in just over 315lb.

Hopefully, one of these days the draw will be kind, but in order for it to be kind, you have to keep going. It is the law of averages.

Who say's that I don't catch fish. I caught this net of fish at The Oaks Lakes, Sessay on Cedar Lake in August 2005 whilst doing a magazine feature with Darren Cox.



All of Darren's came on caster up in the water at 7-8m. I caught all of my fish on pellet at 11m up in the water. Just waiting for the weather to warm up, then I can try it again. 

Sunday 28th May 2006 – The Oaks Lakes, Sessay

I asked Chappy if he’d got his drink that I had paid for, he said ‘No’. He didn’t feel like asking in case I was taking the Michael!! I told him to ask, it was behind the bar.

Panic wasn’t in attendance today, so I had a leisurely drive up to The Oaks all by myself. When I spoke to Panic yesterday, I asked him what was happening today, he said that he wasn’t going because he was taking his missus out. I said that it wasn’t that, he isn’t going because he doesn’t want me to get his new van dirty. Purverted cried off due to the weather, it was a bit windy (to say the least). So I was going to be down £3 before we had even started. I still had a quid with Chappy ( I am on a roll), the one that I won yesterday, Orc Wardell and Gargoyle Melton.

There were 71 of us that had paid on by the draw time. The 2 obligatory jackpot pegs were drawn, pegs 14 and 22. I put my hand in the bag and drew the same peg as last week, peg 5. Last week I had 29lb could I catch anymore than that? I think that I am having to do a Greg ‘Slow’ Norris ritual at the draw queue as it is always kind to him.

As everyone came through the draw queue, one of the lads apologised, he was in the queue, but had not paid on, pre-draw. I took his money, good job that I had put one extra peg in the bag. ‘Adonis’ Mitchell put his hand in the bag and drew jackpot peg 14, ‘Harry Potter’ Minikin followed Adonis and pulled out the other jackpot peg 22. There was a very good chance that the jackpot could go, Adonis had been doing well on the venue and Harry had won the match 3 weeks ago with 109lb. Tom had best get the money ready.

The Match

I was doing to do something slightly different as the carp seem to be going a little squiffy with the pellet approach. I decided to base all of my attacks on a hemp-based approach.

I was planning on fishing maggot over hemp, across and down the side, and corn over hemp in the deep water. I set up the following rigs.

The deep rig; was a .75 gm Drennan Roach float on .12 Fox Match line to a size 16 Colmic 501 hook.

The shallow rig; was a 4x12 Colmic float, this was on .11 Preston Powerline with a size 20 Colmic 501 hook. I plumbed up on top of the far side shelf and I also plumbed up down the side with this rig.

I had Topshop for company on peg 4 (Racing had 42lb off the peg last week), peg 6 was empty and I had Daylite Rothery on peg 7. Rothery was in good form at present following his 2nd place on the Heronbrook Fishomania match yesterday. Marco Drury was on peg 8, and Orc Wardell was on peg 2.

My bait for the day consisted of 1 tin of ‘Frenzied Hemp’, 1pt maggots, 1 small tin of corn and a few hooker pellets.


We’re Off

At the all in, I put about 30 grains of hemp over to the far side, a ‘tosspot’ full of hemp and about 5 grains of corn down the middle and a few pieces of hemp and maggot down the inside.

I baited up the shallow rig with 2 maggots, put a few grains of hemp and about 5 maggots in the cup, went over, tipped the bait in and waited. After about 5 minutes, I got my first bite, a perch of about 2 oz. I repeated the process and an ide of 8oz was soon in the keepnet. I did the same again; a carp of 1lb was soon in the net. I repeated the above and managed to put another 5 carp in the net before everything went quite. I dropped in down the middle with corn on the hook, I waited all of 30 seconds, the float buried and a carp of 12oz was soon in the net.

I managed to snare another 4 carp before I couldn’t buy another bite. I went back over to the far side and repeated the steps that I did early.

After 20 minutes, I decided that a change of plan was required, thinking that they didn’t want the hemp. I hastily knocked up some ‘Swimstim’ groundbait and fished maggot over groundbait. I caught a quick succession of carp to 2lb and was starting to feel as though I had got something sorted.

Daylite asked me if we were going to have the usual quid that he as with everyone on the next peg, I agreed. Topshop started crying, I asked why, he said that I was having a quid with Daylite and not with him. Feeling sorry for him, I agreed to have a quid with him also.

On the subject of Topshop, I noted the following activity from him during the match. He had a film canister attached to his pole acting as his pole cup. This was painted white/grey-white or whatever, his reason being that his tip kits are also painted the same colour and will cast less of a shadow over the fish’s heads. This is Ok when the water is clear, but when it is cloudy, what is the advantage. He would repeatedly (after catching a fish) go across to the far side, tip his ‘cup’ over and spill the contents over his float. Only, when he tipped in, there was no ripple as the bait hit the surface. How can you feed and not create a ripple (of any sort) when your bait supposedly hits the water. I asked him if he had super-glued his bait into his cup, I continued to laugh every time that he ‘fed’ his peg.

It seemed to be a case of catching a few fish, then nothing; it is as though your peg has died. I was also having an absolute nightmare. I have never lost so many fish they were either foul hooked or just nicked. It was a case of the float dips, you wait, the float buries, elastic shoots out (either before or after you have struck) and the elastic bottoms out, it does it again, when you change the angle of your pole tip and apply pressure to net the fish, the hook pulls out. Talk about getting pole rage. I tried a couple of things that Chappy had mentioned to me previously, I changed to a smaller hook, a different pattern and both. But to no avail. (After speaking to Topshop after the match, I suppose that I felt a little better as he explained that sometimes, there is nothing that you can do and you will lose a lot of fish).

Into The Last Hour

With about 1 hour to go, I started sulking as I was loosing so many fish, Topshop couldn’t do anything but laugh when I lost a fish, and to cap it all, both Daylite and Topshop had been catching the odd fish on caster. I had tried to get some caster this morning and rang the 2 tackle shops near me, neither answered (maybe they knew it was me).

I got my head together a little and started to feed less hemp, but switched to fishing pellet over the top instead. I managed to get a few carp (out) down the side. With about 30 minutes to go, I was getting stuffed by Topshop and Daylite. Marco was catching a few on peg 8 and was being loud and abusive with it, shouting abuse at me at every opportunity.

I then went back over to the far side, in a spot that I had not put a single bit of bait. I cupped in about 10 grains of hemp, and 2 pellets. I had pellet on the hook. I dropped in, and in the remaining 30 minutes, I had 4 carp out (one of those was within time, when I shouted time Daylite, Topshop and I all had a fish on) and lost 2. Had I done it wrong? I suppose that the straight answer is yes.

I think that I may have fed a little bit too much bait by the end of the match.

I went and stood behind Topshop as he played his fish and noticed just how much bait that he had fed. I now have a little plan of action for next time.

Racing on Peg 1 weighed in 28-08. Orc had 17-12 (he owed me a quid). Toddy threatened to pay me £2 at the start of the match to shut up, I did and he never paid. He blanked, DNW’d, didn’t weigh, caught not a lot, had less than most people around him. Topshop weighed in 48-12, I had 30-13, Daylite weighed 38-00 and Marco was 4th overall with 56-08. I would estimate that I had lost approximately 15 - 20lb of fish off the hook. I had lost fish across, down the middle (mostly where you get an indication, you strike, nothing then it goes solid - foulhooked) and even down the side. Had I got too many fish in the peg?, were the fish 'gill-feeding' and were blowing all around the peg?

I owed a quid to Daylite and Topshop. Had I done the impossible and got Chappy’s quid 2 days running? You having a laugh? Chappy weighed in 54-10 for 6th overall. Gargoyle nearly run me over as he sped off without paying my quid and Orc paid up, begrudgingly.

Full Result

John Bradshaw (Mosella Garbolino) 91-02. Peg 64. Carp on meat.
Chris Hall (The Oaks) 63-06. Peg 56. Chopped worm.
Scott Lister (Shimano Quaker) 57-00. Peg 46.
Gareth Drury (The Oaks/HAS) 56-08. Peg 8. Chopped Worm
Pete Rambow (Junior) Cleveland Angling Centre 54-15. Peg 9. Chopped Worm
John Chapman (Garbolino Elton) 54-10. Peg 69.

Saturday 27th May 2006 – Woodlands Lake, Thirsk

This weekends fishing activities started early, as I had booked Friday off work to take advantage of the raffle prize that I had won on the Breast Cancer Care Charity Match that was held at Woodland Lakes, Thirsk in early April.

The prize was a 2-day fishing holiday with overnight accommodation at the Vale of York hotel, breakfast on 2 days, afternoon food and fishing for 4 people. In view of going halves with Purverted, we decided to take our good lady wives, they could go shopping whilst we were fishing, but all the best laid plans don’t always go as planned. The intended days fishing never actually transpired and we ended up arriving at our accommodation by approx 7:00 pm. We agreed to go into Thirsk for something to eat, then get back to the hotel for a few beers.

I am fussy when it comes to food, but a nice meal was had by all at the Chinese restaurant in Thirsk, then we got back to the hotel and Jack Daniels came out to meet us, well me actually. After an hour or so listening to the girls go on about how much they were going to spend and their battle plans for tomorrow, I decided to have a couple of games of pool with Purverted. We actually had 4 games, all for the usual quid, I lost all 4 for a total of £5. Shane from Elton Tackle said that I was as bad at pool as I was at fishing and a £2 side bet was struck that I would beat Purverted on the match tomorrow. Shane agreed, fool!!!

I had also paid the landlord £2.30 for a pint for Chappy when he got there on Saturday night.

Match Day

We awoke in plenty of time to get down to Woodlands and have a breakfast on the house, paid our pools (we did not have to pay the peg fee for the match as we were on a freebie) and joined the throbbing mass in the draw queue. There were a good few up there as the Superleague final was taking place at the same time. The Superleague match was the silver fish match today and the carp/anything goes match was taking place tomorrow.

I had agreed a quid with Nightie, Chappy, Panic and the obligatory £2 with Purverted. Due to my recent form of drawing at Woodlands, if I was on any lake apart from Partridge or Skylark, I was cheating as the only lakes being used for the open match were Partridge and Skylark. I put my hand in the bucket and pulled out Wagtail 10.

I checked my ticket and found that I was actually on Skylark 8, I was so used to being on A N Other Lake, I was actually gob smacked.

I was in excellent company today, I had venue regular Mark ‘Coyney’ Coyne on to my right on Peg 9, Gary Hamill? (Daiwa Dorking) on peg 7 (he had spent all week on the venue practising for the Superleague), former Kamasan champ Dean ‘Deano’ Smith on peg 6, and my quid, oops I meant Chappy, within earshot on peg 11. Both Young Adam and Gaz Malham were behind me on Partridge Lake.

Plans of attack

I set up 3 rigs for today;

Rig 1. a 0.3gm Series E float for the 6m line. This was set up on .16 Maver Genesis Line straight through to a size 14 Colmic 501 hook.

Rig 2. a 0.5gm Drennan Roach for the 14m line. This was set up as above.

Rig 3. a 4 x 12 Preston ‘Durafloat’. This rig was plumbed up down the side where I found 18” of water. I was also planning on using this rig for up in the water fishing at 13m. I set this rig up on .15 Preston Powerline straight through to a size 14 Colmic 501 hook.

My bait table consisted of 2.5 pts meat, 1 large tin of hemp, (meat and hemp were my main methods of attack today), ½ pt 6mm hooker pellets and 1pt of micro pellets for feeding, should I need to go on them.

All In

At the kick off, I cupped in some meat and hemp on all three lines and I started to flick a couple of bits of meat out to 14m.

I baited up the 6m rig with meat, and settled down to wait for the float to shoot under. Coyney had had 4 carp and 1 skimmer and Gary had 2 carp and lost one and I had a total of nothing, zilch, nada, not even an indication. As everyone is in a line it is possible to keep an eye on what others are doing around you. After about 45/60 minutes, most people seemed to have gone a little bit further out. Coyney and Gary followed suit, this left the 6m line to me. My float dipped, and a carp of 3lb was soon in the rubber coated landing net. I baited up with meat again, and dropped in, another carp of about 4lb was in the net, this is easy or so I thought. I managed to claw back Coyney with a total of 5 carp, this also put me in front of Gary on the next peg. Coyney had managed to foul-hook a couple of carp on the 13m line and was now trying to get the carp competing up in the water (it is an unwise move to leave Coyney to this line all by himself for too long).

I was now about 1.5 hours into the match and I decided that it was time to have a look on the 14m line. I shipped out with the full depth rig on, a piece of meat on the hook and a few pieces of hemp and meat in the ‘tosspot’. I dropped in, the float dipped, I left it, it buried, nothing!!. I repeated the process, the float buried and a carp was attached, but not for long, I started to ship back and it came off.

I decided that the time was right to go out on the shallow rig, I had been feeding between 2 – 5 pieces of meat periodically over the 14m line, and the foul hooked fish was an indication that they were up in the water and I was going to bag up. That was the plan/idea anyways!!!

After a fruitless 15 minutes, I went out on the bomb, casting just past the pole line. I managed to snare 4 fish on this line. I looked up towards Chappy, who whispered or at least attempted to, 'cos' I couldn’t hear him, asked me asking me how many. I said 7 carp and a barbel. Chappy was struggling (my quid was looking good unless he was telling porkies). I was now in front of both Coyney (who’d had 6 carp) and Gary ( I would estimate that he’d had 5 or 6 carp), things were looking good.

Deano was rotating all of his lines (deep, shallow, 6m and bomb) trying to snare fish off each line and I could see that he was putting the odd fish together.

The Final Hour

With about 1 hour of the match remaining, I decided to come back in on the 6m line, but I changed it from a meat line to a pellet line. I cupped in some micro pellets and 3 or 4 ‘conkers’. Baited up with a single conker, the float shot under and a carp of 4lb was soon in the net. I observed Deano playing a fish, he was on his top 4 kit and the carp was in the middle of the lake (after speaking to him at the end of the match, he was using the hollow core 12 – 20 elastic). The fish was about 5lb.

I managed to get 1 more carp of this line before both Coyney and Gary cupped some bait in either side of me. I baited up and waited a little bit longer (enough time for Coyney to get 3 carp) before I managed to get another fish. Coyney’s main 6m line was angled towards me, so I cupped some bait towards him, but still within my peg. Coyney’s peg seemed to get a little quieter for the next 10 minutes anyway.

With about 2 minutes of the match remaining, a fish topped halfway between Coyney’s and my float. You know how you sit there and you think, go on, go under. Well, it did go under, only it wasn’t my float that went under it was Coyney’s. He soon had a carp of about 6lb in the keepnet. In the last hour I’d had 3 fish and Coyney had had 5.

Well, that was it, now for all the questions, had I beaten Coyney? He was admitting to 13 carp, I had 14 (it was going to be close), Would Purverted owe me £2? Would I be handing half of it over to Chappy? Would Shane pay up?

Here goes;

Chappy had walked past me and handed me my quid as he passed, he was that confident that I had beaten him. I could see that Purverted had tipped back (he later told me that he had 4 carp, a couple of skimmers, a tench and 2 barbel for about 15lb). The scales soon arrived and Chappy had weighed in 31lb, Coyney had weighed in 49lb (had I beaten him, I wasn’t sure). I weighed in 37lb. I’d had more carp and less weight, ho hum. Gary on the next peg had weighed 41lb and Deano had 54lb for 6th overall.

Chappy had paid his quid, I paid panic his quid, he weighed in over 50lb, Nightie weighed in 46lb, I went looking for him to pay his quid and he wasn’t around. Both Shane and Purverted declined to pay, I will get it back next time. I was still even at the end of the match as people that owed me some readies, didn’t pay or did a disappearing act.

Whilst we were eating breakfast, my missus was dribbling over the baking that Eva was doing, there were some very tasty looking cakes, raspberry cake and strawberry cake to note. When I ordered my afternoon snack, I also asked if I could have a piece of raspberry cake to take home for the good lady wife. I got a chip butty and a piece of cake and a chip butty for Purverted, all of this was gratis, free, cost nothing.

When I got home, I polished the quid that I got from Chappy and put it in on of those ring pouches that you can get from the jewellers.

Darryll (T.O.G.I.T.V.) Taylor won the match with over 80lb from Partridge (17, I think), over 60lb was second and a string of 50lb weights followed. It had fished a little hard and no one had really got a good run of fish together. Hey there is always the next time. Purverted has booked himself on for next Saturday, what about me? He didn’t book me on, I think that he is sick of losing his £2’s.

Sunday 21st May 2006.

Rubber Landing Net.

After reading people’s views on total-fishing.com, I decided to invest in one of the new rubber coated landing net’s. There are currently 2 versions available, Diawa and Boss, although Maver are also expected to bring something similar out. It is said that they reduce hook ups, snagged fish and they also dry quicker, leading to less smells (mine will stay dry permanently, except for when it rains). Well, I still managed to snag about 4 or 5 fish, and I got my hook caught in the net twice, so the question is, how many more fish would I have snagged in the net and how many more times would I have hooked into my landing net?

But, I would also like to add that it scoops through the water with ease. I have bought 2 sizes, one for Woodlands (should accommodate fish to doubles from the boards) and one for Sessay (fish to 8/9lb), had a 5lb’er today that fitted in just right.

The only net that I haven’t had a problem with is a blue net that I have which has very fine mesh, but the drag when trying to scoop is immense, it could be comparable to trying to push butter through lard!!

Here Goes!

65 of us mad Englishmen attended this weeks payday.

The weather – Rainy with some more rain. In view of all of the rain, the water temperature (so I was informed) was 15o C.

Two jackpot pegs were drawn, pegs 8 and 60. They both had a chance of going this week with the right angler on them, and the right angler there was. Garry Jubb (Jubby) drew peg 8, which probably had the best chance of winning the jackpot peg and Derek Jackson (Jacko) drew the other peg.

I drew peg 5 and had Ray (Racing) Singh on peg 4 (with pegs 3 and 2 empty – 2 was empty because I had put the peg in for Jack Fergusson who failed to show) and I had Ian (The Quiet One) Hunter on peg 6. I could also, from my peg see if Jubby was catching and whether or not the Jackpot peg was safe.

There were fish topping all over the peg, at 4m, 9m, across to the far side. My mind was made up. Mistake Number 1 - I was going to fish up in the water .

I set up 4 rigs as follows:

Rig 1 – a 4 x 10 series ‘d’ float on .14 Maver Genesis straight through to a size 18 Colmic 501 hook. I plumbed up at 3m and found 3ft of water.

Rig 2 – 4 x 14 Drennan Roach float on .14 Maver Genesis straight through to a size 16 Colmic 501 hook. I plumbed up at the base of the far slope and found 5ft of water.

Rig 3 – 4 x 12 Colmic float on .12 Maver Genesis line straight through to a size 18 Colmic 501 hook. I plumbed up at the top of the far shelf, just where the shelf falls away down the slope.

Rig 4 – 4 x 10 Drennan Carp 2 on .12 Maver Genesis line straight through to a size 18 Colmic 501 hook. I plumbed up at the base of the mud line.

The Bait.

On offer today I had, 6mm expanders, 4mm expanders, 3mm expanders (for loosefeeding) and micro pellets. I also had some caster left from yesterday, which I never used (problem being that I didn’t have enough of them to try to fish caster shallow so used the 3mm expanders instead (rightly or wrongly)).

We’re Off

At the all in, I potted some micro pellets over to the mud line and down the middle. I also put some bait in down the near side.

I went across to the shelf and put in a fruit shoot of micro pellets and waited in anticipation of the float going under. After a fruitless 15 minutes, I saw the mud line clouding up. I got the mud line rig out, baited up, went across to the island, the float dipped and a 12oz carp was soon in the rubber landing net. Did the same again, the float shot under and the white hydro (through the no. 2 only) soon bottomed out. After a scary 3 or 4 minute tussle (which I thought that I was going to loose) a mirror carp of about 5lb was in the bottom of the net. On closer inspection the carp had been hooked in the pelvic fin. I must admit, with where the fish had been hooked and the hook that I was using, there was no way that the fish was going to come off.

I spent the next 15 minutes across to the far mud line, the wind had started to pick up and the presentation was less than perfect, I was constantly having to hold back on the float, and the float bristle was constantly riding out of the water (what do you do?). All the while I had been flicking about 10 3mm pellets down the middle, I decided that now was the right time to have a look. I got the deep rig out, baited up with a conker and dropped in, the float buried, missed it. Tried again, same happened again (and it was not the conker pulling the float). I got the shallow rig out, nothing.

I went back on to the deeper rig, shallowed up and went up the slope a little. The float shot under and a carp of 1lb was soon in the net. I put a string of fish together and before I knew it the line had gone dead.

About 1 ¼ hrs in to the match, The Quiet One had about 7 fish (skimmers, carp and tench all on chopped worm), for about 6lb, Racing also had about 6lb and I would estimate that I had about 14lb (according to my clicker).

Over the next 3 hours or so, I was rotating lines trying to find where the fish had gone, with my most productive line being down the middle. I had a couple of fish on the deep rig fished at 4m. I never had a fish at 3m or even down the side. I caught a couple of fish on top of the shelf and a couple more fish across to the mud line, but no matter what I did, I just couldn’t hold them.
The wind eased off in the last 30 minutes, so it was time to go back over to the far side and try again. I potted in a few micro’s over where I had attempted to fish earlier on, dropped in and waited. The float buried and a carp of about 1lb was soon in the net. I repeated this procedure and managed to catch 3 more fish before the all out. My clicker indicated that I had 26lb (and usually I am wrong by under estimating).

Jubby had been catching steadily all match from both down the deeps and across, and in most cases, his fish seemed to be 1lb+. He had tried down the side a couple of times but to no avail.

How many quid’s had I lost/won?
Had Jubby won the match and the jackpot peg?
Is it ever going to stop raining?

The Quid’s.

Purverted rang me to ask what I had weighed, I said 29lb dead (wasn’t too far out this time), he said that he had about 30 – 35lb, but the scales had not yet reached him. Sugar, I was going to be down £2 to him. When he came into the café, he said that he had 28lb dead. What happened to his other 7lb???? But I do know what happened to his £2, it went in my pocket!!

In view of my failure to pay Orc last week, I paid Orc his quid as he paid on the match this morning. Orc was only keeping my quid warm that I had given him before the start of the draw. He was a DNW, although he tried to get me to believe that he had ounced me (try again next time).

£3 quid up, 1 to go. Chappy came into the café with his hand out. He had weighed in 38lb odd.

Jubby hadn't won the match, Jonny Kenning weighed in 73lb and Big Mark had 70lb, well done chaps.

The match in general fished poorly in terms of everyone was expecting to bag up, but you have to bear in mind, it has rained nearly all week.

There were 26 weights over 40lb and a further 20 weights between 25 and 40lb, and with the average fish being about 1lb, there is still a few bites to be had. Middy had 22 fish for 44lb, and I would estimate that I had about 20 fish for my 29lb. Most of the fish that you catch down the middle have a tendency to be on the small side.

Full result.

Jonny Kenning (Diawa Goldthorpe) 73-06. Peg 56. Caught a mixed net of fish, fishing with pellet and worm.
Mark Calvert (Garbolino Elton) 70-11. Peg 78. Chopped worm.
Garry Jubb (Diawa Goldthorpe) 66-12. Jackpot peg 8.
Gareth Drury (Oaks/HAS) 58-01. Peg 79.
Alwin Ingham (Bob-Co/Oaks) 55-15. Peg 30.
Andy Hamilton (Diawa Cleveland) 52-14. Peg 13.

Ooops, nearly forgot - No it didn't stop raining.

Saturday 20th May 2006 – Woodlands Lakes, Thirsk.

Drought, What Drought???

Before I go on and bore all of you with how not to catch fish, I must say that the weather has been incredibly CRAP this weekend.

Today the rain started after approximately 20 minutes into the match and stopped about 1 hour from the end (at least everything had a chance to dry with the ever increasing wind!!) and on Sunday, it started to rain approximately 1 hour into the match and didn’t stop until I had got back home and put the now heavy gear away. Have you realised how heavy your gets/feels with all the rain??

There has been enough rain this weekend to fill Eccup Reservoir, ten fold (well maybe not that much, but the rain has been incessant.

I arranged to meet Panic at ‘M’ for a brekkie. I offered to give Panic a lift, but he declined, say that if he drew the old lakes and it was crap, he could go home. Purverted cried off the match yesterday saying that he was working, he could have taken the day off, but felt that people at work may have been a bit peeved.

There were 118 people paid on to the match by the time they started the draw. I sent a text to Chappy to see if he was having a quid, to which he replied ‘Oh Yes’. I replied ‘Ba@@ar@, thought so’. Ever thought that would be mistake No. 1. A quid was also set up with Panic and Nightie.

My Broken Drawing Arm

My next mistake came at the draw, I put my hand in the bucket and upon Alan Gregory’s advice pulled out a ticket that he pointed to (I had to try a different drawing system) and I ended up on the only lake that I really, really didn’t want. Wagtail 4!!!

Panic’s Peg!!

As I was walking (and sobbing) out of the draw queue, Panic asked me what peg I had drawn. I replied that I was on Cesspit 4. He laughed, just a little. As I got level with him, I smeared my peg ticket all over him, wishing him the best of luck in the draw. I was at my peg observing all before me, when who should appear – Panic. I enquired (whilst with-holding a huge laugh) what peg was he on? Wagtail 6.

He who laughs last, laughs loudest!!!

Chappy had drawn Dragonfly 9 (which he really, really didn’t want) and I am not sure of where my other quid was heading.

After the draw I was in the car park unloading the gear when I saw one of the Garbolino Elton lads getting his fishing suit on. He had washed the suit and nearly all (I kid you not) of the seams had come away. He had that many bit’s of tape, I thought that he was into bondage in a big way.

All The Gear, No Idea

I set up the obligatory bomb rod with a ¼ ounce Arsley bomb, (Chappy, not a coffin lead) with a .16 Maver Genesis hook length of some 2ft (18” minimum hook length rule applies) finished off with a size 14 Colmic 501 hook. I had a little brown bait band attached to act as the hair rig.

I spoke to various people about my peg, Phil Sellars said to feed heavy down the side and keep having a look. Chappy said to fish at 6m (top kit plus 3) and keep persevering. Gordon said to fish at 13m. I asked Pimmy for his idea’s and Chappy retorted ‘tell him f::k all, I have a quid with him’. Cheers Mate!!!

My initial idea was to feed caster up in the water and fish meat over the top, with the wind that had appeared, this was a no go. So, I set up the following.

Rig 1 – 6m.

I set up a .3gm ‘Series E’ float and found that it was quite shallow, I had a little over 3ft of depth, tied direct to .16 Maver Genesis line with a size 18 Colmic 501 hook attached. I planned to feed pellet and fish both meat and ‘conker’ over the top.

Rig 2 – The Boards.

I had a 4 x 12 Colmic float set up for about 1ft out from the boards at about 6m going to my right (there was a clump of reed mace hanging over the bank and touching/laying on the water). This was set up on the same line as Rig 1 and had a size 14 Colmic 501 attached. I found that I had about 2ft of depth down the boards (I was also aiming to fish this rig up in the water over my caster loose feed).

Rig 3 – 13m.

For this line, I set up a .5gm Drennan Roach rig, again using the same line as above with a size 16 Colmic 501 at the business end. I found that I had about 4.5 foot of water at 13m.

My bait for the day consisted of:

2 tins meat – cubed (6mm)
2 pints casters
1pt feed pellets
½ pt hook pellets

Let’s Go

I potted in a handful of caster down the side, pellets at 6m and meat and pellet at 13m. Whilst waiting for these lines to settle, I had a cast out on the bomb rod with meat on the hair rig.

I waited for the rod to go round, and waited some more. Nothing. I reeled in and changed the meat over to a conker. Chucked out again, nothing. There were carp swirling in the middle of the lake. I had been feeding caster and meat all the while whilst out on the bomb rod. I reeled in and swapped over to the deep pole rig.

I was hoping to fish the full depth rig whilst feeding both caster and meat over the top and if I started to miss bites, I could come up in the water.

After another fruitless 20 minutes (I was now 40 minutes into the match), I had nothing to show.

I decided to have a look on the 6m line. I went out with pellet on the hook, dropped in, the float dipped, then buried with a positive indication. I struck and the grey hydro brought a skimmer of about 3oz out of the water, which promptly fell off.

I came back, re-baited and actually caught, and landed a 4oz skimmer. I potted some more pellets and went back out on the tip with pellet on again.

The rod had just settled when it was dragged (literally) off the rod rest. I reeled down to the fish and soon had a carp of about 12oz in the net. I did the same again and soon had a carp of 5lb in the net, things were looking up.

By this stage, Panic had 3 fish and lost 3, all on the 6m line. Pimmy, who was on the opposite Panic on the other bank had about 6 fish, the lad 2 down from Pimmy had a couple and the lad to my right had a skimmer.

I chucked out on the bomb rod again, hooked into a fish (which didn’t feel that big), started to reel in, when the line went slack. I had been broken, not on the hook length as you would expect, but halfway between the hook length and the rod tip.

I went back out on the pole at 6m whilst I re-set up my bomb rig. Do you get the feeling that I was having one of those days??

Over the next 3 hours I managed to snare 5 more carp and a couple of skimmers all either on the bomb or from the 6m line. I never had a bite on the 13m line, couldn’t present the bait properly and the pole was blowing all over. Panic on the next peg was also struggling to hold the pole and that was at 10m. The lads to Panic’s left were catching, they were fishing the pole at any distance they wanted, it was flat calm.

The Boards, The Boards!!

With about 60 minutes of the match remaining, I decided to have a look down to the boards. I had prepped the line all day, feeding bits of meat, conkers and casters ( I would estimate that I had fed about ¾ pint of casters down the side). I loaded up with a conker, dropped in and waited. After about 10 minutes, I got a dink, then the float buried. We’re in, or so I thought. I had pricked the fish. That was my only indication from this line. I went and sat behind Panic with 30 minutes to go.

At the all out, I tipped back 7 carp and 6 skimmers for an estimated 25lb or so. I was also down £3 even before my quid’s had weighed in. I had packed up and gone before the scales had got round to me. I rang Panic to find out how he had got on, he weighed 42lb. I asked if he had won his section, but no, the Preston Thatcher’s lad next to him weighed in over 50lb and the lad further into the corner had also had 40lb ish. Chappy had won his section with over 40lb (I’ll give you the quid tomorrow, honest) and Pimmy had won his section with over 40lb.

I was at the wrong end of the lake again.

Expander Pellets

From information published on www.total-fishing.com, one of the anglers fishing the match was disqualified. Apparently (allegedly) he arrived at his peg with the said requirement of 1pt of feed pellets (expanders) and after the match, it was found that he had in excess of the 1pt feed limit. The anglers excuse was that with all of the rain, the pellets had doubled in size giving him at least 2pts of feed pellet.

The scales man refused to weigh the angler in. He had to tip back an estimated 70lb +, which would have put him 4th or 5th in the match.

Matchcarp’s Advice

Matchcarp had cancelled off the Woodlands match due to the old lakes being in, and booked on Sessay’s open match. Maybe I should have done the same.

Phil Sellars won the match from Partridge 10 with over 100lb. 2nd came from Dragonfly 19 with over 100lb (just 2lb behind Phil).

Sunday 14th May 2006 - The Oaks Lakes, Sessay.

What a weekend, weather wise. It has been glorious sunshine nearly all week, then come Saturday, it rains all day (just about), then on Sunday it rains some more, with cloud and wind for good effect.

Let me ask you a question, how many of you where a hoodie when you are fishing. I do, and on this day, I made my first mistake (well second if you consider getting out of bed). My good lady wife invested in a couple of hoodies for me. One of said hoodies didn’t go down to well with the anglers on the match as it was a ‘Champion’ brand hoodie. Unfortunately for me, the hoodie was emblazoned with ‘Champion’ on the front of the hoodie. The first comment was along the lines of being a tea leaf, then followed that I must have bought it, and other unprintable comments, etc, etc,. One of these days, mark my words!!!!

With all of the rain and the conditions on the day, the lake water temperature had dropped some 5 or 6 degrees. The air temperature, according to old man Frank, was 11 degrees. There was a strong southerly breeze blowing for most of the day.

At the draw, I accosted Orc for his £1 that he owed me from last week, another £1 was struck along with a quid with Chappy and Purverted. Panic decided not to attend, his missus was poorly and poison was now going with clubbies.

68 ‘anglers’ turned up to fish the open match at The Oaks, Sessay. Two jackpot pegs were drawn, pegs 32 and 22. As people were coming through the draw, they were all talking about the two crackerjacks that had drawn the jackpot pegs. Alwin ‘maggot man’ Ingham had drawn peg 22 and Mark ‘Minty’ Whittaker had drawn the other jackpot peg. Maggot Man had over 60lb from peg 23 on the Saturday match, and if you give Minty half a peg, he has a good chance of doing some serious damage. Minty had previously held the lake record with 129lb until Big Mark’s weight last week of 154lb.

I put my hand in the bag and pulled out peg 25, not unhappy with the draw. On the match yesterday there were two 70lb+ weights from the area with a couple of other 60lb back ups.

Purverted drew peg 27, a corner peg with the southerly wind blowing into it. Chappy was on peg 19, still within shouting distance and my other quid, ooops sorry, Orc was on peg 73. Of late most of the pegs in the 70’s had been producing fish. My quid’s were looking a bit ropey.

I had Jack Fergusson for company on peg 24, and John ‘Big Pot’ Kelly on peg 26.

Jack was telling me that he had celebrated his birthday on Friday. I asked him how old he was. He replied that he had just turned 58. I apologised, then said that I thought that he had retired.

Plan(s) of attack

I set up 4 rigs:

Rig 1. was a 4 x 14 Drennan Roach float on .12 Maver Genesis line straight through to a size 18 Colmic 501 hook. This was set at 5ft deep to fish at the bottom of the far slope.

My next three rigs consisted of Colmic floats and were planned to fish across to the mud line (1ft deep), on top of the far side shelf (2ft deep) and to fish down the inside (again 2ft deep, with a bit more line between pole float and pole tip to allow me to fish further along down the inside and still be able to fish the top 2, the added bonus was that I could also add more depth and go into deeper water down the inside. All the rigs were set up on .12 Maver Genesis line straight through to size 18 Colmic 501 hooks.

In view of the weather change and the drastic drop in water temperature I got some maggots to accompany my micro pellets, 4mm and 6mm hook pellets. I also had a tin or corn to hand – just in case.

All In

At the all in Big Pot made is first big, big mistake which affected his whole match. I watched as he big potted 3 lots of worm over to the mud line slope. He put 1 pot straight in front, and 1 pot both left and right. He also potted bait down the middle.

I decided to err on the side of caution and went across with a fruitshoot of pellets with a couple of maggots in the cup and double maggot on the hook. I tipped the pellets in and dropped the rig over the top and started flicking about 4 or 5 maggots over the top of the rig.

I proceeded in this vain for the next 20 minutes, working left to right, and back along the far shelf when the float dipped, and I connected with a carp of about 1lb. Dropped straight back in and caught another. I then started to get silly little dips and the culprit(s) were little gudgeon.

Some of the maggots that I had loose fed with the cattie had landed on the mud line and every now and then a carp would appear and cloud the water. After seeing such and indication, I put a conker on the mud line rig, shipped out to the far side and waited, and waited and waited.

I could wait no more.

I came back and had a look down the inside. After a bite less 20 minutes, I sacked this line (for the time being).

By nearly 3 hours into the match, my clicker estimated that I had 7lb of fish – things were looking very hard.

Whilst I was planning on my next line of attack, Big Pot had gone in down the middle and was missing bite after bite after bite (or liner after liner after liner).

I decided to have a go on the deep rig. I put a pellet on the hook and a few micro pellets in the pole cup. I dropped in and caught a carp of about 2lb within seconds. I repeated the process and caught a barbel about 12oz and a smaller sample followed. Whilst tipping in micro pellets, I was getting liners so started to catapult pellets and maggots over the top of the float and was getting linered all the time. I put on the shallow rig and continued feeding over the top. Nothing.

I put on the deepest of the shallow rigs and proceeded in the same manner, nothing.

I put the deep rig back out, but had shallowed it up by about 1ft, dropped in, the float didn’t settle and a carp of about 1lb was soon in the net. This was the only fish that I managed to catch just off the bottom. I had all the while been observing Big Pot and he wasn’t fairing much better. He was fishing a little bit shallower than me, but also a bit further over, so was probably fishing about 4ft deep on the bottom but further up the slope.

With about 20 minutes of the match left, I decided to start again on the shelf. I went over with a conker on the hook and dropped in over the top of a few micro pellets. The float settled, then dipped and a carp of about 5lb was trying to do the 100 metres faster than Justin Gatlin.

Of all the lines and rigs that I had planned to catch fish, the score was approximately as follows:

Far shelf – 3 fish - 8lb.
Inside shelf – 4 fish – 4lb
Mud line – 0 – zero, zilch.
Down the middle – 15 fish – 14lb.

Jack on peg 24 hadn’t caught any fish down the inside, but had a late burst of fish both across and down the middle. He says that he got broke, but I don’t think so, I think that his rig had come off his stonfo connector as the sliding locking sleeves have a tendency to come loose. The fish took his whole rig including the loop that you attach to the stonfo.

Big Pot had about 5 fish across and 1 of those was an ide and approximately 14 or 15 fish down the middle.

The match in general had fished quite hard considering how the lake had been fishing. Although I did have a little bit of pleasure in that I had beaten 2 pegs to my left and one peg to my right. Jack had 16lb and Big Pot DNW’d although I think that he may have had about 18 – 20lb. I was, all the same, interested to see if Big Pot’s method would work so I had kept an eye on his lines and methods throughout the match. His result shows that Big Potting didn't work (at least on this ocassion anyway).

And it got worse!!!

Chappy was very worried after the scales had got to him and he weighed in 36lb 8oz, but he had nothing to worry about, I only managed to put 26lb 14oz on the scales, Purverted weighed in 42lb 4oz and Orc had managed to snare 28lb 10oz. So to cap of a bad weekend I was down £4. Oh well, there is a first time for everything.

How much are golf sticks????

I hope that Panic goes next week and that Poison comes back soon, I need the quid’s to give to Chappy and Purverted at this rate.

Back in the cabin, I gave Purverted his £2, but gave a pound to Xman, as I thought that Purverted hadn’t given Xman his quid.

Xman should have kept his gob shut, and he would have had a quid off me – for nothing, as Purverted had already given X his quid.

Full Result

Ian Exley (Middy Team Dons) 71-00. Peg 55
Andy Middleton (The Oaks) 62-11. Peg 54
Derek Jackson (Diawa Goldthorpe) 62-11.
Dave Topham (Sensas Wibsey) 57-12.
Robbie Minikin (Harrogate Angling Supplies) 56-02.
John Clarke (Bob-Co) 54-02