May 5th – Windmill Fisheries – When The Flyer Falls Flat!

Windmill Fisheries has dominated my fishing experience once again this week, first with the Thursday Costcutter and then the Bonanza 1000 Qualifier on Sunday. So for me, one match was experimental and the other was just forking mental… in that it wasn’t good for my mental health! Read on to learn more…

Thursday 2^nd May

All the usual suspects turned out for this one and as I approached the draw-bag, I was feeling just a little apprehensive. I had drawn at the top end of the lake in the last 3 matches and I desperately wanted to get down the other end of the lake for a change. Even though I was going to treat this as just another practice match, I wanted to practice in a completely different area from where I had been for the last couple of weeks. Well, the hand of fate nervously dived in and after a little fumble about, I latched onto peg number… 3. FFS! Not again! So, I’ve now drawn peg 3 (my bogie peg), peg 23, peg 24 and now back to peg 3 again just over the last 4 matches. Although peg 3 is not where I wanted to be, I know this peg can throw up a winning weight and so I thought I’d spend some of my time going right over for the carp.

Right over, in this case, means fishing at 16 metres either slapping with pellet or dipping and dapping with meat. I also set up a rig for fishing in my right-hand margin, amongst the sparse reed growth, as I could see plenty of movement going on here. My left-hand margin had no reeds but here, I intended to fish bread over liquidised bread at about 1.5 metres from the bank in 5 feet of water. Finally, a swim at 11 metres was selected for the obligatory, ‘full depth, down the middle’ swim. This is the swim I rely on for silvers when all else fails to produce. So, on the all-in, I baited the hook with a 10mm pellet of meat and lowered it into my right-hand margin where the reeds were moving. Within a few minutes, I was into my first fish, a carp of about 5 pounds.  

I repeated the process and then lost 2 in a row, one of which was a defo foul hooker. So, it was time to rest this margin and go long toward the island with an 8mm pellet. After a couple of slaps, I was into another carp, which went about 8 pounds. Well, this was all going so well until I hooked into a real munter of a carp. It almost bottomed out my number 16 elastic as it shot down to peg 4, which wasn’t drawn. Then it came back and bolted down the right-hand side of the lake into peg 2, which was also an empty peg. Finally, I managed to get it right in front of me and I really struggled to get its head up. Fearing something was going to give, I slackened off the pressure a little and the carp must have sensed or realised this as it made a dash for the right-hand reed bed and left my hook well and truly embedded in a reed stem. FFS! And it was going so well!

I carried on fishing the long line for another hour or so and managed to land 3 more carp and lose 3. Next, I dumped a load of liquidised bread onto the short inside line to my left and cupped out a small ball of groundbait and micros to the 11 metre line. While I waited for this to settle, I tried the right-hand margin swim again and once again I immediately lost another fish. I just don’t know what the fook was going on but I was certainly losing a lot of fish today. Well, I gave up on that and tried lowering a pinch of bread over the liquidised bread feed. Within a few minutes, the float slid away and I had a near 3lb skimmer in the net. About 10 minutes later, I hooked another one, which was also close to 3lbs and then I hooked a carp, which broke my 0.15 hooklength.

After that, I couldn’t get another bite on the bread. A final look right over at 16 metres brought another carp of around 8lbs before I ended up getting all caught up in the reeds and had to pull for a break. A look over the 11-metre line produced one small carp to maggle but nothing else. Well, with the match over, I ended up with 38lb of carp and 5lb 15oz of silvers. The silvers pool was won with over 17lb today by Shay Gillman, which is an impressive weight of silvers for this lake. An 8lb net of silvers fell to John Osborne who took second place. The match was won by Steve Venn with 99lb from peg 11. Well done to all the framers.

Sunday 5^th May

So, as far as I was concerned, my practice sessions were now well and truly over. I did learn a few things but in hindsight, I didn’t learn enough to pull off a big win anytime soon. I have also come to the conclusion that anything can happen at any time on this match lake so you have to “be prepared”… dib, dib, dib… dob, dob, dob! So, here we go again. I’m queuing to get into the draw-bag and I’m thinking, “I bet I get drawn up at this top end of the lake again”. Well, I didn’t! I drew an absolute flyer! I only went and drew peg 11. The peg that produced a 99lb win on Thursday and the very same peg I qualified on… happy days! So, all kinds of things were going through my mind like… have I got enough nets? Have I got enough bait? Will I have enough stamina to last till the end? LOL!

So, when I arrived at my peg the lovely long reed bed on the right-hand side was alive with fish. There were reeds moving constantly as the fish grubbed around and all I had to do was drop a bait in and get the fish out… simples right? So, I set up a slapping rig and a meat rig, a full-depth rig for a 10 metre line and a variable depth rig for my left-hand side margin plus a bomb rod for fishing right over toward the edge of the island. I had fellow Costcutter 500 qualifier, Paul Barnfield, for company on peg 10 and silvers maestro, John Osborne, on peg 12. Young Charlie Isaacs, who had recently made the grade to represent England under 15’s in the World Championships was on peg 14. I was ready to slay them all…

On the all-in, I slapped an 8mm pellet as close to the reeds as I could. About 10 minutes later I hooked into a carp and lost it. A little more slapping brought my first prisoner to the net, a carp about 6lbs. Then, no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t get another on this method, despite the reeds still waving around frantically. Undeterred, I dropped a 10mm pellet of meat right into a gap in the reed bed. Fish were moving all around it but didn’t seem the least bit interested. I changed to pellet and still no response. I tried maggle, worm, corn and even bread but still nothing. I couldn’t understand it. John on peg 12 was also experiencing the same problem in his margins. Neither of us could get a bite! WTF was going on? Meanwhile, Paul on peg 10 is hauling them out like it was going out of fashion. He was fishing at full depth using maggle and worms.

So, I tried fishing maggle at 10 metres over groundbait and micros and nothing… not a single silver fish… not a bite of any description. I tried fishing down my left-hand margin with corn, meat, maggles and pellets but nothing from there either… not the slightest indication. With about 2 hours gone, I noticed a carp come shooting out of the reed bed. It was on its side and it just laid on the surface not moving. I tried to mug it but it wasn’t interested. A few minutes later another 2 carp came flying out of the reed bed and began acting strange… like rolling over and over on the surface. Something weird was going on… spawning maybe? Perhaps the skimmers were spawning and the carp were filling their bellies with eggs. Over the course of the next couple of hours, there was all kinds of commotion going on in the reed bed and whatever was causing it, it had something to do with the carp not being interested in any of my baits. However, a small tench did take a liking to my meat pellet but was little consolation.

Well, faced with a situation like this what can you do? By this time, Paul had bagged over 100lb, John was in the same boat as me and young Charlie only had a few carp caught long. Well, despite several attempts at slapping and fishing from half to full depth on this match-winning margin, I had nothing more except a foul hooker. With an hour to go, I had thrown in the towel and reluctantly accepted that I was on a loser here so began to pack away my pole rigs. Meanwhile, as I was packing away, I had lobbed out a 20-gram bomb rig with 3 red maggles on a size 16 hook, to about a metre off the edge of the island. Less than 10 minutes later the tip was bent double and I finally landed carp number 2. I baited up again, chucked out the rig and 10 minutes later I was in again. That was carp number 3 in the net.

As we approached the final 15 minutes of the match, I latched into another carp only for it to come off after playing it for quite some time. Well, that was it. It was one of the most disappointing days I’ve had on this lake. I’ve ended up with a total of 18lbs. John did find a few carp right at the end for a 30lb bag. Charlie had about the same and Paul won the match easily with a nice couple of nets totalling 163lbs. As far as I’m concerned, I didn’t do anything different from what anyone else would have done on my peg. What a difference a couple of days can make. Well, when you hit rock bottom there’s only one way to go and that’s straight back up… right? We’ll see… I’ll be back there again on Thursday. Then I’ll miss the next 3 Sunday matches on Windmill as I have some welcome club matches lined up. Keep you posted!  

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