Sunday 1^st June – Alcove AC Club Match, Margaret’s Lake, Whitehouse Farm – A Little Touch Of Déjà Vu

There was no match for me midweek as the Match Lake at Windmill Fisheries was booked for a club match. In any case, my back has been playing up lately, so I thought it might be a good idea to take a rest. Well, come Sunday, I was absolutely raring to go… LOL! Still dining out on my previous winnings from last week, it was back to Margaret’s Lake at Whitehouse Farm for another friendly club match. With 16 anglers fishing this time around, we were pretty much on the limit for this lake. Although there are 20 pegs, pegs 1,2 and 3 are very shallow and so we tend to leave these out. Peg 19 is currently awaiting repairs to the platform and so that was out too.

Last week, the strong gusty winds hampered presentation, limiting pole work to around 7 metres. The forecast for this Sunday was for even stronger winds and so it was going to be ‘as you were’ with the same tactics deployed for most of the anglers. I won from peg 6 last week and also won the lake from the same peg in a previous match, so it would be way too much to expect to draw that same peg again. Well, my destiny was in the hands of the lake gods, but wherever I was going to end up, I just hoped I had an island chuck. Well, that’s exactly what I got, as I drew peg 13 with the wind in my face. There are worse pegs on the lake and I have actually won from this peg on a couple of occasions in the past, so not too shabby a draw.

I had Steve Brown on peg 12 to my right and Bruce Taylor on peg 14 to my left. I also had a good, clear view of Norman Ferris, who had drawn peg 6 and I could see at least 4 other anglers over to my right. Well, what to do today? A maggle feeder out toward the island would be my first choice method, at least for the first part of the match. A full-depth pole line out in front at 8 metres was my next choice. I was hoping to snag a few big skimbos from here on worm and maggle. I noticed a few F1s topping here and there and so I set up a shallow rig for them. My final tactic would involve exploring the margins. The margin on the right-hand side really looked the part with an overhanging tree forming a tunnel effect. The left-hand side didn’t look quite so inviting, but maybe worth a look at some point.

For the island chuck, I selected a 25-gram Drennan Black Top maggle feeder, and a size 16 Guru LWG to a 12-inch hook length of 0.17 Guru N-Guage. For my 8-metre pole line, I had a 1-gram Guru Diamond float, 0.15 mainline, size 14 Guru MWG hook to a 0.13 hooklength. It was over 8 feet deep in this swim and I needed a heavy rig to counteract the wind and to support a heavy bait. On my edge rig, and attached to my margin pole, is my old trusty crystal dibber with 0.22 mainline and a size 12 Preston XSH-B to a 0.19 hooklength. Bait choices for the margins is corn, meat, worm and maggles, in that order. In my opinion, the carp in Margaret’s Lake definitely prefer corn over meat, whereas on neighbouring Georges’s Lake, it seems to be the other way around. I also had some Scopex groundbait mixed up, plus about half a kilo of soaked micros.

On the all-in, I let rip with the maggle feeder, managing to land it to within a metre of the island. This is quite a long chuck at around 45 metres and accuracy is very important. However, the wind was having a big say in where the feeder landed each time. My first fish was a micro perch, so not a good sign, but soon after I latched into a chub of just over 2lbs. I then had a small roach, which was followed by another chub of the same stamp as the first one. I then had 2 smaller chub of around 8 ounces each before I gave up completely on the feeder. The wind was blowing my feeder way off course and so bait was being spread much too far and wide. If I had brought my heavy feeder rod with me, I would have put on a 40 or even 50-gram feeder and carried on.

So that left my 8-metre pole line and my 2 edges to focus on. Well, after 20 minutes on the pole, I had to give that up too. Once again, the wind made presentation very difficult and I felt I was never going to get anywhere on this line. I didn’t even bother trying the shallow rig for the same reason. Well, that only left the margins and with 3.5 hours of the match left and only around 5lb of silvers in the net, I needed to get serious about catching a few carp. I had noticed a couple of carp being caught by John Treasure and Tony George over to my right and assumed others were catching a few too. So, I had to ensure I got it right if I was to catch up with the pack. As I mentioned earlier, the edge line to my right is a tunnel of greenery and my margin pole has a green top kit, making it virtually invisible to any fish below. The stage was set.

It averaged 3 feet deep in this margin and there was just enough room for an upward strike before hitting the tree branches. A very short lash was needed to ensure pinpoint accuracy. I cupped in some corn and micros at about 6 metres, 2 metres of which, were well into the tunnel. I imagined this tunnel being like a road with fish coming and going throughout the day and so I started feeding regularly with a small cadpot. I’m pretty sure some fish would stop for a bite to eat before moving on and out into the lake. Well, 20 minutes after my initial feed I hooked into a nice 8-pounder. I didn’t even have to strike as before I knew it the 26 elastic was being pulled out at a rate of knots. Once I had managed to drag it clear of all the undergrowth and overgrowth, it was just a case of holding firm until he gave up.

It was a good 15 minutes before I got the next one, which was around the same size, and which also fell to corn. I then had 2 more within the hour before it went a little quiet. A change to meat brought a few enquiries but nothing positive. However, a double worm offering was snaffled up immediately by a hungry 6-pounder. I had been feeding my left-hand margin with groundbait for over an hour and so a quick look on that with corn brought another welcome fish of around 5 lbs. Back onto the right-hand edge with maggles got me a perch of around a pound and then I lost a very big carp, which also took maggles. This one was a big, big double and headed right out toward the island before the fooking hook pulled. A change back to corn got me a smaller specimen of around 3-4lbs, which was my final fish of the day.

I reckoned I had finished up with about 35lbs in total, although I was telling everyone I only had about 25lbs… (late mind games.) Well, the scales said 6-10 of silvers and 36lb of carp. Amazingly, my 42-10-0 total weight was enough to take the spoils once again. A nice pick up too with a couple more anglers fishing and more wonga in the “Super Pool”, I’ll be dining out in lavish style for another week… LOL! My run of luck will definitely run out soon, I’m sure of that… and on the subject of bad luck, I’ll be fishing at Windmill again next Thursday. Going to come down with an almighty bump… keep you posted!

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