Sunday 6^th April – In The Windmills Of My Mind… There Lies A Glimmer Of Hope

Before I get into the “highlight” of my week, I fished another Costcutter 500 qualifier last Thursday. There was a pretty good turnout of 17 lost souls for this one. I, for one, was hoping for some kind of divine intervention that might enable me to at least get a bite from any of the venue’s cunning carp population. Before the draw, I was hearing phrases like, “well the sun is out, they’ll be on the top” and “it’s warming up so the carp will be up for it today”, and even, “we might need 3 nets today”. Give me strength! This is Windmill FFS… anything can happen and it’s very often not what you might expect.

An icy-cold North-easterly was still blowing a fooking hoolie up the lake so as bright as it was, it was still going to be another cold one. So, into the draw bag of hopes and dreams I go and out pops… peg 10. Whoopee! I haven’t been down the bottom end of the lake for yonks and peg 10 has a lovely reed-lined bank on the left-hand side stuffed full of carp. I was made up or at least it felt that way. For company on my right, I had John Osbourne, who was likely to fish for silvers all day. To my left and in full view on peg 11 was Mike Nicholls and over on peg 12, still shadowing me, was Kev Bush. I couldn’t see anyone else, but I could hear disgruntled voices coming from pegs 14 and 16.

So, having had a good look around my peg, I fancied fishing worm straight out in front at 9 metres. I also set up a line for fishing at 11 metres slightly to my right. The only edge line worth trying was to my left, next to the reeds. For good measure, I also set up a bomb and maggot/pellet for fishing right over toward the island. I noticed a few small silverfish topping here and there, but it had to be an all-out carp attack today if I was to have any chance of qualifying for the final. On the bait menu today was worm, maggles, pellets, meat and corn. I heard they were catching on bread last week, but I think we have just got to move on from that now… surely!

Just before the all-in, I put on my Polaroid glasses and scanned the reedy area to my left. Wow! It was like something out of “What the Butler Saw”. If you’re old enough, you’ll understand about that sort of thing…LOL. About 2 metres to my right was a carp of around 6lbs and about 2 metres away from him was a whole row of carp just hanging there below the surface. In effect, and before my eyes was 60- 70 lbs of carp just sitting there, waiting for me to take them… easy pickings, right? So, I grabbed another top kit and put on a shallow rig, then baited the hook with a grain of corn. Then, on the all-in, I lowered the bait right onto the nearest carp’s nose. With that, he turned away and then shot down the left-hand margin, taking all the other carp with him. Now you see me… now you don’t!

Maybe I should have put on a banded 8mm pellet or a piece of bread, or a pellet of meat… or a worm. FFS! I don’t think it would have made any difference what I offered them. They just didn’t want it, full stop. After that episode, I tried slapping a pellet down this edge, but to no avail. However, Mike quickly latched onto a small tench down his right-hand edge and so I persevered. He then had a couple of carp in quick succession, followed by another a bit later, but it was then game over for him as he didn’t get another bite during the rest of the match. Peaked too soon, Mike! I could see the reeds giving it the “Hey you! We’re over here”, but no matter what bait I presented them with and at what depth, they just laughed in my face!

So, it was time to try something else. I had already dropped in a big potful of chopped worm on the 9-metre line, so I had a quick look. 30 minutes later and no bites on that. So a quick look on my 11-metre line with maggles and again 30 minutes later nothing. A few chucks to the island with bomb and maggle, then bomb and pellet and still nothing. I didn’t even get a liner there! A few slaps out in open water produced nothing too so I was now running out of options. Well, you know how it goes, you just keep ringing the changes and trying all the lines until something happens. Well, it just didn’t happen. So it was down the left-hand reedy margin right up to the end when all of a sudden, completely out of the blue and unexpected like (said with Geordie accent), came a positive bite on corn.

Fook me! A fish at last! It turned out to be a tench weighing in at 2-7-0. Now, I have won top silvers prizes here many times with a heck of a lot less than that, but not today. I was completely blown away by Pete Greenslade and his whopping 5-13-0 bag of silvers and so well done to him. Much deserved!  Well done also to Steve Mundy for his second win on the lake with what could only be described as another “pitiful” top weight of just 39-2-0. So, it’s another visit to the therapist for me then, before going through all the motions again on Sunday.

Sunday 6^th April

Yep! Back again for a double helping of boredom and misery this week, but with a totally different attitude and mindset. It’s silvers day! Yeah, no need to go carping today when there’s a silvers pool to be won. I had already made up my mind that I would fish up in the water for roach and rudd on single maggle and also check the deck for big skimbos throughout the match. I would still have 3 carp lines baited, but I wasn’t prepared to waste another 6 hours of my precious life hoping and praying I might catch a few of them. There were only 13 in attendance for this one, so payouts would go to the top 3 plus the top silvers. I didn’t really care where I would be drawn, as long as there were silver fish topping, I would be more than happy.

So, I drew peg 6, which is almost opposite the big gap between the 2 islands and when I arrived at my peg, silvers were topping all over… happy days! I set up a light pole rig consisting of a number 4 elastic, a 4×10 (0.15 gram) Chianti (F1 maggot) float, 0.10 (2lb-6oz) mainline and a size 20 hook to a 0.07mm (1lb-2oz) hooklength. I also had a “beefed up” version of a silvers rig set up with a number 6 elastic, 4×14 float, 0.12 mainline and a size 18 hook to a 0.10 hooklength. My other lines were for carp and included one at 10 metres with worm, one down my right-hand edge with meat over micros and one down my left-hand edge with corn over micros.

On the all-in, I cupped out a large pot of choppie to the 10-metre line, but nothing in the margins at this point. On my 9-metre silvers line I used a cadpot to drop in a small ball of ‘So Natural Black Bream’ groundbait laced with dead reds and a few live maggles. I caught a roach on the very first put in and then continued catching roach and rudd throughout the match. I would sometimes get 2 or 3 in a row and then nothing for 10 minutes and then 2 or 3 again. I lost boatloads off the hook, but there’s nothing you can do about that unless you use a microbarb hook, which is not permitted. (BTW, I did find a size 14 barbed hook and hooklength hanging on a bush behind me with a banded pellet attached before the match)… naughty!

Well, I fished my fooking socks off today, catching steadily for 4 hours, but I was very disappointed not to grab a big bonus skimbo, which I knew I would definitely need to ensure a silvers win. I tried for them every 30 minutes or so, at full depth, and I’m sure if there had been one there, I would have known about it. In fact, I didn’t catch any skimbos of any size all day. I also tried my inside edge carp lines for 5-10 minute spells, but as expected, there were no signs of any of those blighters either. I’m glad I didn’t waste too much time going for carp today. At least I was catching something, however small they were.

The last hour of my match however, was totally trashed as a fooking herd of grazing carp moved in and bullied all my silvers away. I lost 6 hooklengths and hooked into at least 8 carp in the process. They all took a fancy to my baited single maggle hookbait on the drop. Wow… I didn’t know a number 4 elastic could stretch so far! FFS! Well, I ended up with just 3-2-0 of small roach and rudd, which equates to about 50 fish! I then thought all my efforts had been in vain when Paul Barnfield told me he had one skimmer bigger than my total weight, but as luck would have it, Paul collected the 3^rd prize (well done mate), which meant I won the top silvers pool by default. Whoop! Whoop!

It transpires that Paul is seeing the same therapist as me, as he has been suffering from a similar form of mental affliction. It centres on a condition of emotional stress and anxiety caused by a lack of action when match fishing. It’s also known as The Windmill Match Lake Syndrome and I’ve noticed a few other anglers displaying very familiar symptoms too.

Okay, so well done to Liam Reynolds for his terrific win from peg 20 with just over a ton and to Jason Pitman, my Kingswood RBL clubmate, who christened his brand new pole with a very tasty 72-8-0 net of carp for second place. Well, I’ll be back again next Thursday for more of the same and then I’ll be off to Bridgwater on Sunday 13^th for a very welcome change and an RBL club match on the Bridgwater & Taunton canal. Come on you tench! Keep you posted!

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