March 31^st – Windmill Bonanza 1000 Qualifier – Striking Gold With Silvers

This was the first of the new Windmill Bonanza 1000 qualifiers, where all the winners go through to a final match on September 29^th, chasing the £1000 first prize. With that said, you’re only going to win a qualifier with carp and that’s exactly what was on everyone’s mind today. In my view, the only thing standing in the way of a win is the draw and the way this match lake has been fishing lately, the winning weight could come from any peg. There were 18 anglers turning out for this one including some regular, quality anglers who would not be making any mistakes should they draw one of the noted pegs. So, into the drawbag we go…

I was kind of hoping for a peg down the bottom end of the lake, preferably 10, 11, 12 or 14 but instead, I drew peg 1… again. This is one of those ‘iffy’ pegs, which can sometimes throw up a good weight but at other times you can really struggle. The island is about 18 metres from the platform so that rules out the pole. The right-hand margin is lined with reeds but snagging up on them is inevitable if you get too close. The left-hand margin is where I have caught well in the past but it won’t produce if there is someone on peg 2, which there was. Tom Baker was on peg 2 and I had Windmill veteran, Gerry Welsh on peg 25, so I was up against it right from the off.

After having had a good look around, my plan was to start off with bomb and pellet to the island. I set up 2 rigs for fishing down the right-hand margin, one for on the deck and one shallow. I also set up a rig to fish the full 8 feet deep at 7 metres out in front. This would be my ‘get out of jail’ swim should I not catch in the margin or up against the island. Bait choices today were maggles (just in case), meat, corn and hard pellets both, 6mm and 8mm. My leger rig was set up with a 15-gram bomb, a 15-inch tail of 0.18 Guru N-Gauge line and a size 16 Guru LWG, hair-rigged hook. My choice of rod was my trusty Tyson 12 feeder coupled with my Shimano Sedona 4500.

On the all-in, I chucked out the bomb toward the island, just off the edge of the reed bed. For the next hour, I pinged out single 8mm pellets over the top but all I had was a couple of liners. Meanwhile, Tom on peg 2 had landed 4 fish, which he had caught from the edge of the reed bed at 16 metres and Gerry also had 4 fish from his left-hand margin. So, it was beginning to look like the Tom and Gerry show! However, with 5 more hours to go, there was plenty of time to catch up… if I could just start catching something. Well, it was time to take a look down to my right-hand edge with pellet. I started fishing at 15 inches deep, slapping the surface, just as Tom and Gerry were doing but it wasn’t working for me. I could see the reeds moving where Gerry was fishing but there were no signs at my end. I gave that 30 minutes before cupping in a few micros and going over the top with meat… then corn… and then pellet. It was 4 feet deep in the margin and I had to be careful laying in the rig otherwise I would get caught on the reed stumps.

Well, as expected I got caught on the reeds a few times and had to pull for a break. With nothing showing on the deck, I tried up in water again only to get caught up in more reed stems. It was all going terribly wrong and so I put the pole down and had one last look on the bomb and pellet line. Still Nothing! So, now we’re two and a half hours into the match and I haven’t had a single fish. Tom and Gerry are catching with impunity, especially Tom who must have had 10 or 12 fish by now. All the time the east wind was blowing right into my face and it was bloody freezing cold. So, I did what I always do when I am facing a dilemma… I made a cup of tea and had a little think.

Should I go or should I stay? I could hear a few disgruntled anglers on the other side of the lake complaining about not getting bites so I wasn’t the only one. Well, I decided to stick it out but I now had a completely changed mindset. I was never going to catch the 2 baggers on either side of me so my only chance to salvage something from the match was to go for silvers. I hadn’t fed anything on the 7-metre line yet so I quickly mixed up some Thatcher’s Green groundbait, added a few F1 micros and maggles and cupped out a helping. I picked out a top 2 from my holdall with a lighter, number 6-8 elastic and changed the hook on my rig from a size 16 with a 0.15 hooklength to a size 20 with a 0.8 bottom. I baited the hook with a single red maggle and lowered it in.

FFS!… The float had only just settled when it shot under and I was into a… fooking carp! Yeah, so you spend almost 3 hours trying to catch one and then one turns up right away on your silvers line…’kin ell! Well, we parted company after a few minutes with the hook length giving out. So, I cupped out some more feed and carried on. It took about 15 minutes before I finally netted my first fish… a roach of about 2 ounces. About 10 minutes later I caught a decent skimmer, which must have been close to 2lbs, now that was more like it. I was feeding at every put-in through a small cadpot but even that was too tempting for the carp and I was soon into another one. After a long tussle, I finally managed to land this one, which went about 4 lbs and was absolutely no use to me whatsoever. All I could do was carry on.

When the bites stopped I moved out a further metre and carried on catching, leaving the carp behind but they soon sussed out what was happening and before long I landed another 2 carp before losing another 2 in quick succession. I had a couple more, smaller skimmers and roach and then latched into what I thought at first was a carp but it turned out to be a big slab about 4lb plus. Then after playing it for a few minutes, it came off but not before I got a glimpse of its bronze flank. I so needed that fish… or so I thought. Anyway, I had another 2 biggish skimmers in the last 30 minutes, which kind of made up for the loss. I even had a 4-ounce rudd right on the whistle. Well, with the match over, I felt I had given my all on the silvers line today.

There was no doubt in my mind that Tom Baker had won the match hands down and Gerry was going to be right up there in the frame too. I wasn’t wrong… Tom weighed in an impressive 198lb 15oz for the top spot and a place in the final. Gerry however, finished third with 97lb 3oz. I hadn’t allowed for Sean Townsend to grab his usual piece of the limelight. Sean put 129lb 15oz on the scales from peg 12, staking his claim for second place. And Me? I love it when a plan comes together… no matter how long it takes me to get my ass into gear. I finished up with 3 carp for 13lbs but more importantly, I had 9lb 8oz of silvers to safely steal the silvers pool… thank you very much!

I’m planning on milking this silver lining stuff on every Thursday Costcutter 500 match from now on because everyone else will be chasing carp… and as I have already qualified, I don’t have to… see my logic? Keep you posted!

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