Sunday 8^th February – Another River Match Cancelled – A Valuable WL Practice Session & An Unlikely Top Silvers Win

Well, is it ever going to stop raining? I’m wearing my brolly out, having to use it on every match. I feel like it’s becoming a fashion accessory and trying to get my kit dried out before the next event is becoming a full-time occupation. So, I should have been fishing a Kingswood RBL club match on the River Avon at Bradford-on-Avon on Sunday, but after an inspection, our match secretary said no. The river was almost bank high, the pegs had turned into mudslides and more rain was forecast, so it was a no-goer from the get-go. That makes 2 RBL club matches lost this season now, which puts the points and pairs aggregate at a standstill since 23^rd November last year. Our next club match on the river is on 1^st March and the way it’s going with the weather, it’ll be touch and go for that one too.

Anyway, the fishing has to go on… and so Jason Pitman and I decided to get ourselves over to Margaret’s Lake, Whitehouse Farm, for a cheeky bit of practice. We have the last round of the Winter League coming up on Sunday, 15^th and so it seemed appropriate to make the most of the unexpected non-match fishing time we now had. Just because it was a practice session doesn’t mean it was to be any less competitive. Jason and I are always competing for the highly prized quid at every match, friendly or not. Well, Jason will definitely finish in the top 3 next week, whatever happens, as he has been quite consistent throughout this season’s Winter League series. The best I can hope for is probably a 4^th or 5^th… nevermind. There’s always someone worse off… no names mentioned… LOL!

When we arrived at the lake, there was nobody else there. Astonishing, really, when you consider there are nearly 500 members in the Alcove Angling Club. Well, that allowed us to pick any pegs on the lake and so we opted to fish the left-hand bank, selecting pegs with an island chuck. I chose peg 9 and Jason was happy to get on peg 8. Now, I can’t say too much about bait choices because that would give the game away. Suffice to say, we both caught quite well on baits we didn’t expect to catch on. I set up 2 lines at 11 metres, about 5 metres apart. One was for a very positive approach with groundbait and micros, while the other was very negative and fed lightly with a few pinkles and maggles only.

My inside line to my right was a no-goer with too many small branches overhanging the water and in the water. The edge line to my left looked better, but I could see lots of loose branches protruding and other debris, so I didn’t bother setting up a rig for that one either… well, not at first. Jason set up a long line at around 13 metres and a short line at about 6 or 7 metres. However, we both started the session by attacking the island with maggle feeders and we both had the same result on that… nothing! Jason was first to catch a couple of small roach and perch, while I couldn’t buy a bite on either of my lines. About 2 hours in and Jason caught a nice big skimbo, but I was still struggling at that point. Then, a small roach fell to a single pinkle on my negative line, followed by a micro-perch. Jason soon had an F1 and another skimbo and I was still stuck in the starting blocks and so I had to conjure up a cunning plan.

It became obvious that I wasn’t going to get anything of any size on my 2 long lines and so I reluctantly cleared out the debris from my left-hand margin. Then I dropped in a few samples of [?Bait?] and left it for 20 minutes. With just 90 minutes to go before we called it a day, I poled out my bait along the left-hand edge in search of a bite… then bingo! A 2-pound F1 soon obliged and I was out of the blocks. That was soon followed by another, which put me on par with Jason’s two F1s tally. However, he still had a couple of big skimbos in the net and so was still way ahead of me. My next fish turned out to be a lovely goldfish of around 2 pounds plus and then I had another F1 soon after. So I’m feeling a bit ‘chipper’ now as I was catching up with J-Lad. He then had another good skimo, but I matched it with a lovely brown fan-tailed goldfish.

Then, in the last 15 minutes, Jason hooked a carp, but it was foul-hooked in the tail and took an age to land on his light silvers rig. Meanwhile, as Jason was faffing around with that baby carp, I hooked a proper unit. My rig, consisting of a number 16 elastic, 0.17 mainline and hooklength to a size 14 hook, was more than enough to tame the 10-pounder I had latched onto and so it was game over. Jason’s carp turned out to be a feisty little 3-pounder. So, the session finished with a 20-lb plus net for me and a 12-14-pound net for Jason ‘The Legend’ Pitman. More importantly… a well-earned quid for me too… LOL! It’ll be interesting to see how it actually pans out next Sunday when it’s colder. Moving on…

Thursday 5^th February – Costcutter Open, Windmill Fisheries

At least the water levels are still within the banks on the match lake, but for how much longer, one wonders. It was another day of rain and so the brolly was back in action once more. I must say, I am so glad I bought a new sturdy Guru brolly last year. It’s well up to whatever the weather throws at us and it’s so nice to be able to stay dry all day long, even if it is a little restrictive fishing under a brolly. Well, we had 11 anglers turn up for this one and it was so nice to see Gerry Welsh back on the bank again. Gerry and I hung back until the last 2 pegs in the draw bag. I did offer Gerry the chance to draw first, but he wanted the last peg and so I got peg 20 and Gerry was left with peg 1. Not a bad draw by any stretch of the imagination. Peg 1 has thrown up many winners over the past couple of seasons… but I was content with peg 20.

Clubmate, Kev Murch, was on this peg the week before and had 3 carp to win one of this year’s toughest matches. There were only 6 anglers in attendance on that one, with 3 anglers catching and the other 3 were biteless all day. Kev had caught on the wag and mag and so that would be my first approach. With nobody on pegs 21 and 22, I had a nice, clear area I could cast to, even though it would have to be a well-aimed side-cast from under my brolly. I also had a bomb rod set up for flicking over the same area. If the wag didn’t work, then I had my 2 obligatory 11-metre pole lines to fall back on. To my left, at 10 0’clock, I set up a positive rig with a number 16 elastic, a 1-gram Guru Diamond float, 0.15 mainline, 0.15 hooklength to a size 16 hook. On this line, I would fish 4 and 6mm expander pellets over groundbait.

For out in front and to my right, at about 2 o’clock, my rig was a fair bit lighter with a number 8 elastic, a 1-gram Chianti float, 0.15 mainline and a size 18 hook to a 0.11 hooklength. Maggles and pinkles were the bait choice for this one. Now, the margins… Because the margins haven’t produced for so long, I wasn’t going to bother setting up a rig at all for these areas, but thought they might be useful for a couple of silvers if things got really desperate. So, with that in mind, I set up a top-2 with a number 4 elastic, a 0.2 pencil float, 0.12 mainline and size 20 hook to a 0.8 hooklength. Pinkles would be the only option for this rig. My groundbait today was a 50/50 Sonubaits Crushed Expander and Power Scopex with a few 2mm micros added. On my side tray, I had maggles, pinkles, bread, meat and expander pellets.

On the all-in, I fed my 11-metre lines and then chucked out the waggler. I spent 40 minutes on this method, varying the depth and working it within a 3-metre area. I didn’t get any interest whatsoever. So, I chucked out the bomb rig with a single red maggle on a size 18 hook, to the same area. I gave it 30 minutes before giving up. So, next it was onto the 2 pole lines. Well, 2 hours later and with no bites, I was wondering how it was going for everyone else. I knew that Simon on peg 23 hadn’t caught anything and also Andy on peg 18 hadn’t caught anything either. I could see Steve on peg 24, but I wasn’t sure if he had caught, although I hadn’t seen any action up that end. I could hear Gerry on peg 1 saying he hadn’t had a bite and so it was obviously going to be yet another tough day. Then, Andy came over and said that Chris Telling on peg 11 had caught 7 carp on bread, and I assumed he was dobbing. My edge lines didn’t look right for dobbing as there wasn’t enough cover for any carp to be bothered with. On peg 11, though, there is a long, dense reed-lined bank to the right-hand side that goes all the way round to peg 10.

Well, there were to be 4 payouts today, including first overall, which was now surely claimed as far as I was concerned… then a top silvers payout and 2 sections. So I had a section to fish for… but then I thought… why don’t I try for a couple of silvers in case nobody else catches any? It was worth spending 20 minutes at least… right? So I flicked in 3 pinkles to my right-hand margin, picked up my silvers rig and baited the hook with a single pinkle and then carefully lowered in my rig as close to the reeds as possible. I had already been flicking in the odd pinkle over the last two and a half hours, so I thought if there were any fish there I should get a bite straight away… but I didn’t. So, I tried varying the depth (it was over 3 feet deep), but that didn’t make any difference. So, I moved all the stots, bar one, to directly under the float, leaving just a number 11 about 6 inches from the hook. Then I gently laid the rig in so that it would fall gently and naturally toward the reeds. I held the float up for a couple of seconds before slowly letting go.

That little but crucial change of tack did the trick as the float boldly sailed away. My prize? A tiny micro-perch lovingly spared by the cormorants… LOL. It must have been all of a half-ounce, but it was absolutely precious on a day like today. Well, that got my juices flowing… for the next 30 minutes I tried in vain to catch another, but that poor little mite must have been hiding in those reeds all alone… aww! I tried the left-hand edge too with the same cunning tactics, but there were no takers and so it was back onto the main pole lines with just an hour left to go. I first tried the loose feed line with both a single red and then a single flouro pinkle, but after 20 minutes, I totally gave up on that. So, out onto my left-hand 11-metre line with a 4mm expander and bingo! 10 minutes later, a lovely 10-pound carp graced my landing net.

It was nice to catch one big carp at least, but it was all too little too late as I was certain that someone in my section, most likely Kev Murch, would have caught a few, especially from in-form peg 14. Well, I carried on fishing the 4mm expander and with less than 10 minutes to go, I hooked another biggie. I was still playing it when the all-out shout went out and I managed to land it with 10 minutes of extra time to spare. So, 2 carp and 1 silver were my tally for the day. The anglers on either side of me had packed up and gone home and so I now had to wait and see what Kev and Steve had caught. Steve came down with the scales and said he hadn’t caught and neither had Gerry. FFS! I thought Gerry would have had it off on peg 1, but then I remembered John Williams blanking on that peg the week before. Anyway, after a lot of faffing about, with the scales not working and then there was no pen in with the weigh sheet, I finally got my catch weighed.

My 2 carp went 19-03-0 and I had to be given an ounce for my tiny perch as it wouldn’t have registered on the scales. When Steve came back from weighing Kev on peg 14, he told me Kev had done me with his 5 carp for 22-04-0. However, nobody in my section had weighed any silvers and so there was still a glimmer of hope for a little pickup… depending on how things had gone over on the other bank. Well, for sure, one more carp would have given me the section, but I didn’t mind one iota that Kev would be laying claim to that deserved payout. I was glad just to have caught something, as a few hadn’t had a bite all day and that’s the pits. Well, my feeling of despondency soon turned to joy and jubilation as I trudged back to the car park to be met by Dave Haines holding out a fistful of wonga… whoopee! I had the top silvers payout with just 1 ounce!

Well, that was another near-tragic effort on a dire day, but it just goes to show that you should never give up. I’ll never look at a micro-perch the same way ever again… the little beauties!.. LOL! Well, I’ll be back at Windmill Fisheries again on Thursday, 12^th, for the first of the Costcutter 500 qualifiers. Missed out on it last year due to a series of bad draws and a load of piss-poor angling. That won’t happen this year… or will it? Look out for my next blog to see how it went. Then there’s the final round of the Alcove Winter league on Sunday, the 15^th. I’m seriously going to try and win this one… just for the hell of it… LOL! Keep you posted!

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