Sunday 2nd June – Windmill Fisheries – Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back Into The Water!

I’ve had a bit of a break from fishing at Windmill Fisheries, what with club matches and other stuff to deal with, so I was looking forward to getting back there on Sunday. One lives and hopes that one might draw well, catch well and qualify for the Bonanza 1000 final… and one is still living and hoping. Well, after that match, all I can say is… WTF is going on at Windmill? Here’s how the match panned out…

Windmill Fisheries can be unpredictable at the best of times but now that the fish have spawned and the temperature is on the rise, we pretty much expected some mega weights today. At the draw, I plucked out peg 1 and I was more than happy with that. The wind was blowing up the lake toward pegs 23, 24, 25 and 1 so I felt I was going to be in the right area at the right time. I’ve drawn this peg several times and I’ve always done okay catching both carp and skimmers so there was no reason to expect anything different today.

When I got to my peg, I scanned around and I could see the odd fish cruising about on and just below the surface. In front of the reeds on peg 25, where the wind was blowing into, I could see about 10 or 12 carp just under the surface. I couldn’t see any carp along the right-hand side reed bed on my peg, which was a little disconcerting. However, a slapping rig would come into play right from the start here because that’s how we catch them… usually. A mugging rig was also set up for those cruisers and a top kit plus 2 was set up for fishing short and shallow on caster.

I also planned to fish paste today, in 2 different ways. My cunning plan was to fish the usual sloppy paste down my left-hand edge over hemp and my other half of the plan was to fish small firm balls of paste at half depth over sloppy groundbait at 8 metres. My final rig was for fishing full depth at 13 metres on my ‘throw-away’ line. I planned to feed a bit of everything here to see if I could tempt any carp or skimbos… or anything else. On peg 25, I had Gerry Welsh for company, who is no slouch when it comes to catching carp on this lake. On peg 24 was Nick Sanders, who is also a seasoned veteran, having already qualified for the final.

So, with a close eye on both of these guys, we were off. I started with an 8mm hard pellet on my slapping rig and began exploring the perimeter of the right-hand reed bed. Gerry was doing exactly the same on his left-hand reed bed and Nick followed suit to his right-hand side reed bed. Within a few minutes, Gerry was in. Both I and Nick hadn’t had any signs at all. About 10 minutes later Gerry was in again and then 10 minutes later he had another. So, Gerry became the ‘pacemaker’ (groan!) but Nick and I never had a look-in down our edges.

Well, I was counting on catching down my right-hand edge so I was a bit peeved after an hour with nothing to show for my efforts. So, I cupped out a ball of groundbait laced with casters, maggles, corn, meat and soft pellets to the 13-metre line. While I waited for this to settle, I began slapping out in open water at 13 metres. There was a nice ripple on the surface and with a few carp cruising around I half expected to take a couple on this method. After a few minutes, I did manage to connect with one but we parted company almost immediately.

So, I gave up slapping altogether as it just wasn’t working for me anywhere. Next, I dropped in a single grain of red corn over the feed on my 13-metre line and waited… and waited… and waited. A change to soft pellet produced the same result, as did casters and maggles. Now, with almost 2 hours gone, I was getting a bit worried. Meanwhile, Gerry was catching with impunity! But… like me, Nick was struggling. It seemed like all the fish had shoaled up on peg 25 as Gerry was catching both down the edge and short, out in front. All we could do was watch and weep!

When I noticed the reeds on the edge of the island moving about, I thought it might be worth dropping a bomb and pellet over there. So, I gave it 30 minutes and had just one liner. Phew! This was getting to be really hard work today! When a couple of cruisers came by, I dropped a pellet right in front of their noses only for them to immediately turn away. Another quick look down the right-hand edge produced nothing but I wasted another 30 minutes there. It was now time to try something different so I was now counting on my paste attack.

I began throwing out casters to my 8-metre line, which is where I intended to fish paste, up in the water. Meanwhile, I had a little dabble on my left-hand margin, where I had already put in some hemp and sloppy Thatcher’s Original. I dropped in my baited hook and within a few seconds the float shot under but there was no fish on. On the next drop-in, I hooked a carp and lost it within a few seconds. So, I dumped in some more hemp and slop and left it while I took a look on the 8-metre line. What I did here was roll up a small, firm portion of paste for the hook and then loosely fill the cadpot with sloppy groundbait.

I then dropped in the groundbait and slowly lowered the baited hook over the top. To stop the paste from getting into contact with the water and becoming too wet, I had a loop of pole elastic fixed to the pole, on which I rested the mainline. When I was in position, I simply turned the pole and the rig dropped into the water over the cloud of feed. On the first drop-in I hooked and landed my first carp. On the second drop-in, I hooked and lost a carp. I then began experimenting by fishing up in the water and hard on the deck.

When fishing at full depth I hooked into a big skimmer but it came off and I put this down to my 16-18 elastic. Being the dumbass that I am I just carried on doing the same thing until I hooked and lost another big skimbo! WTF! I couldn’t afford to lose ANY fish so it was time for a reality check. I changed the top kit for one that had a 10-12 elastic. I reckoned that would be good enough for both carp and skimbos. All the time I was throwing in loose casters to try and encourage the fish to come up and stay up in the water.

Apart from having another look down my left-hand edge with soft paste, and catching nothing, the rest of my match was taken up with fishing up in the water at 8 metres. As soon as I went back on this line I had another carp, which was quickly followed by another. However, It was all too little too late as Gerry had completely out-gunned everyone at this end of the lake. At this stage of a match, especially when it’s clear I’m out of the running, I usually try to salvage something, and so my attention turned to silvers. I had no silvers at all in the net but I had lost two so I knew there were one or two about. It was just a case of finding out at what level they were feeding.

By slowly and carefully lowering in a full-depth rig with a pea-sized lump of paste on the hook, I connected with one at about 6 feet deep. So, I set the rig at this depth and carried on. The next fish I hooked was a carp but it was a foul hooker and I lost it after an epic battle of wills. I think he ended up down at peg 3 with my elastic fully bottomed out. Time was quickly running out now and I needed more skimbos but there just didn’t seem to be enough of them in the swim. However, I persevered…

By making some fine adjustments to the rig, I managed to snare another 2 before the all out and I reckoned I had about four and half pounds. I didn’t think this was going to be anywhere near enough to win the silvers prize but I thought it might be enough for second place, which comes with a little pot of beer tokens.

Well, I was on the scales again today. So, starting with peg 11, Steve Salter had just under 3lb of silvers. Amazingly, peg 10 was a DNW. Peg 9 produced a total of 66lb 8oz, which included 4lb of silvers. Peg 8 had 5lb 2oz of silvers. Peg 7 played host to Angling Supremo, Tim Ford, who chased silvers all day to finish up on top with 8lb 3oz. Andy Gard was next on peg 6 with 4lb 12oz of silvers and peg 5 put 5lb 4oz of silvers on the scales. Peg 2 was a DNW and I weighed 3 carp for 15lb odds plus 5lb 5oz of silvers.

So far I was in second place in the silvers pool but I hadn’t counted on John Osborne on peg 16 who pipped me to the spoils by 3 ounces. That’s the way it goes… undisputed Man of the Match was Gerry Welsh who finished up with a match-winning and Bonanza qualifying weight of 76lb 11oz. Well done mate. All in all, it was a strange match with the majority of pegs not producing anything like the kind of weights you might expect. Anyway… A big thank you to all those who had been rooting for me… I appreciate your support and I’ll keep trying my best to qualify for this one.

Well, I’ll be back on the Windmill Costcutter again on Thursday for more ‘practice’ and frivolous frolics… but the Sunday Bonanza qualifiers will have to wait a couple of weeks as I’m back on Margaret’s Lake, Whitehouse Farm next and then I’m on the river Avon with the Kingswood RBL AC on the following Sunday… keep you posted!  

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