Sunday 10^th August – Alcove Club Match, The Clamp, Nr Westerleigh – A Chilled-Out Day Plus A Little Bit Of Cheer

Well, I’ve had a fooking nightmare week, first being told I have to triple my blood pressure medication, which is a little worrying, but worse than that… my car broke down on the way to a Windmill Costcutter Qualifying match. So, I’m driving along and all of a sudden the clutch pedal feels very soft and spongy, like there’s no resistance. It then sank to the floor and wouldn’t come back up and so I had to pull over. After a quick look, I was pretty sure either the master cylinder or slave cylinder had packed in, leaked, seized, whatever. I called my breakdown company and within an hour, I was back home unloading my car. BTW, my breakdown company is Start Rescue and is much cheaper than all the others, but 100% more reliable. I highly recommend them. Anyway, the car is in the garage now and a big hefty bill is coming very soon. 🙁

So, after all that, my nearest and dearest lent me her car and persuaded me to fish the Alcove Club match held at The Clamp last Sunday…LOL. I didn’t need much persuading, especially as I haven’t fished the Clamp this year and it’s such a lovely little lake, full of surprises. You just never know what you’re going to catch each time the float goes under. It could be a carp, an F1, a crucian, a tench, a skimbo, a roach, a perch, a rudd, a hybrid, or even a gudgeon. There are 15 pegs on the lake, but this match was limited to 10 anglers due to the low water levels and 2 keepnets were required so that any F1s could be kept separate from the rest of the fish. No carp were allowed on this one either, which makes for a fairer match. So, onto the draw…

I held back and let all the “fools rush in”, so when it was my turn to dip into the bag of dreams and nightmares, there were only 2 pegs left. I pulled out peg 5, which I was more than happy with. Peg 12 is probably my favourite peg on this lake as I have had many big weights from that one in the past, albeit mostly during pleasure fishing sessions. Kev Murch was lucky enough to draw that one. Anyway, I had the island just over to my left, which always looks inviting, but in the past, I have struggled to catch anything from this feature, so I decided to only go over for a look as a very last resort. My main line of attack was at 11 metres and about 2 metres to the right of the island. My target for this line was skimbos. My rig for this line consisted of a no. 4 elastic, 0.15 mainline, a 4×12 (0.02-gram) pencil float for paste fishing and a size 16 Kaizen hook to a 0.10 (2lb-6oz BS) hooklength.

About 4 metres over to my right, I set up another line, which would be my “throw-away line”. Same elastic, same mainline, a size 18 hook, but a 4×12 Chianti float. I would try all kinds of baits on this line, but only if it got tough during the day. For my right-hand margin, at about 1 metre from the bank, I set up a whip to fish just off bottom at 20 inches deep. The rig I used for this swim included a 4×14 Chianti, to aid accuracy in casting, and a size 18 hook to a 0.10 hooklength. This line was for fishing maggles and tares. Finally, my edge line to my left was reserved for catching chub or F1s on meat or corn. I had a size 8 elastic in the top kit, 0.15 mainline and a size 16 hook to a 0.11 hooklength. I fished tiny 4mm cubes of meat with this rig at about 4-6 inches from the bank in 16 inches of water.  

So, on the all-in, I went straight onto my paste line with a small pea-size lump of paste on the hook and a cadpot full of Scopex groundbait. I didn’t use a cupping kit for feeding. I just kept the feed to an absolute minimum. On the third put-in, I had my first bite, which resulted in an 8oz skimbo. Then about 5 minutes later, I had another one, which must have been just over a pound. During the first 30-40 minutes, I caught a 4-6 ounce skimbo about every 5 minutes and then I had a lovely little crucian, but after that it went a bit quiet. So, after topping up the swim with more groundbait, I picked up the whip, started throwing out a few maggles along my right-hand edge and then began “whipping” out a few roach and perch. This was quite hectic and lasted about an hour before that line died off. Another look at the paste line brought another skimbo but little else.

So, it was time to try my left-hand margin with meat. I baited the hook and put 6 small cubes of meat in the cadpot. Then I carefully manoeuvred the pole tip so that it was just a few inches from the bank. A couple of lifts and drops later and bingo! A chub of around 8 ounces. I carried on with this and had 6 more similar-sized chub over the next hour, but then that line died too. I was now running out of options, but still had my throw-away line to look over. I hadn’t put any feed on this line, so I started by potting in a few tares. After 15 minutes, I gave up on the tares and tried maggles over groundbait. That brought a couple of small roach before a nice 12-ounce skimbo turned up. Then I pulled out of 2 decent skimbos on the trot. However, just like all the other swims, eventually that one died too, so it was back on the whip.

I had a couple more tiny perch from my right-hand edge, but I could sense the fish had all moved away. I did try tares on this line late, but there were no takers on that today. I should have brought some hemp, but I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare on Saturday. Nevermind… I hadn’t seen very much get caught from the other pegs, so I was sure I was doing okay. In the last 2 hours, everyone was struggling for bites, so it was a case of scratching around with a whip all over the place to try and snatch an odd small roach here and there. I did have 2 or 3 doing this, but that was it. The first hour was definitely the most productive, but bites became fewer as time went on until they became virtually non-existent in the last hour. Apart from that, it was a very pleasant day’s fishing.

Well, I wasn’t sure what weight I had and all I would admit to was 3lbs. I knew Jason had more than that and from what I had heard, Jon Amato had caught from peg 10 in the bottom corner. Word was, he had caught one of the bigger F1s, which go around 3 lbs. Well, come the weigh-in, the scales said 7-1-0, which was quite respectable. The final results revealed a tie for first place between Jon Amato and me, with Jason in third place with 5-1-0. Everyone else had around 2-3lbs, which shows how hard it was generally. Well, sadly, I’ll miss the last of the Costcutter Qualifiers next Thursday as my car won’t be ready and the missus will be using her car that day. So, my next match is the Kingswood Legion’s Away Day match, which isn’t very far away at all, as it’ll be on the Top Lake at Windmill Fisheries. For various reasons, it’s anyone’s guess how this one will turn out… keep you posted!

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