Sunday 7^th September – Club Match, Match Lake, Windmill Fisheries – A Session of Self-Inflicted Sadism?

When I was asked if I wanted to fish a club match on the Match Lake at Windmill Fisheries, I was very interested, in a perverse kind of way. I haven’t fished there for quite a number of weeks now and I relished the chance of drawing a good peg, catching a lot of fish and walking away with a fistful of moolah. Swindon-based Lawns AC had booked the venue and there were a couple of places going, plus I knew a couple of the guys who would also be fishing, so I said, “Count me in.” Was it a good idea or not? Well, here’s how it all panned out…

I arrived at the venue at 9.15am for the 10 o’clock draw. Fishing was to be from 11.30 till 4.30. I was already thinking, I have to do in 5 hours what usually takes 6, but maybe that would be a good thing, as it meant I would have to be on my toes. With less time to relax and ease myself into the session, I would need to get my tactics right and spend less time faffing about trying this and trying that. However, exactly how I would approach my session would very much depend on where I would be drawn. Ideally, I wanted either peg, 14, 16 or 12. I would even settle for 9, 10 or 11, but instead I got peg 4. FFS! Not a good start and probably one of my least favourite pegs on the whole lake. The main problem I find with this particular peg is its limitations, especially if there is someone drawn on peg 3.

Directly opposite peg 3 is a reed bed, which tantalisingly edges toward peg 4, but by all accounts, it all becomes the domain of the angler on peg 3. So that leaves a bare bank for peg 4, which means fishing across is not really worth the effort, as there is no real holding area. So, I would need to focus on open water plus my 2 edge lines. Well, I set up a worm rig to fish over to my left at 11 metres. This consisted of a 1-gram Chianti-style float, 0.17 Guru N-Guage mainline and a size 14 Kaizen hook to 0.15 N-Guage hooklength. I also set up a rig for fishing paste at 9 metres to my right in 6.5 feet of water. For this presentation, I used a 1-gram Guru Diamond float. I’ve been using this style of float for paste fishing just lately and in my opinion, it’s perfect. It’s really stable in the wind, which is always a feature at Windmill and it holds its position well.

For my inside lines, I set up a dibber. It was 3 feet deep to my right, just under an overhanging tree branch, and just a little under 3 feet to my left against an inside reed bed. So, it was one rig does all for these swims. I planned to fish worm and caster to my left and meat and maggles to my right. My groundbait choice for everywhere was my favourite Super Crush Power Scopex, with a sprinkling of micro pellets. I love this groundbait as I find it works well for both carp and bream/skimbos, plus you can use it with just about any hookbait. I’m pretty sure when it comes to groundbait choice, you just need to stick with one you have confidence in and for me, it’s Scopex for still waters and Sensas 3000 for rivers. Finally, I had a method feeder rod set up, which I would use for the first 30 minutes while my baited swims settled. So now I’m all set up and then… Kerbam!!! An almighty storm of biblical proportions set upon us.

The lightning was quite spectacular as it streaked across the sky, but when there was a thunderclap right over the top of our heads, I was sure someone was going to get fried. Heavy rain, carbon, thunder and lightning, we were all easy targets, but thankfully, nature was just having a bit of fun… this time. Well, the rain really did lash down for a good 50 minutes and the lake water was already heavily coloured from previous rains. So, I’m thinking with less visibility, a smelly bait should work well and therefore my money was on paste and meat doing the business. Well, 30 minutes on the method produced nothing more than a few liners, so out went the pole over my worm line.

I had fed a large cup of chopped worm and caster on this line, which attracted a shoal of… perch. I did get one small skimbo, but apart from that, it was a perch at every put-in. Needless to say, I had to come off this line, although I did top up again in the hope the carp would move in and the perch would fook off. So next, it was onto the paste line. Meanwhile, the guy on peg 3 had already got 3 carp in his net by this time and I was still waiting for my first. He was fishing right over tight to the reeds with a single maggle… WTF! Well, I began to get a few indications on my paste line, so I stuck at it and finally, my first carp was netted at around 1.30. I had another look over my worm line, but the perch were still there and so I ditched this line completely in favour of the paste line.

Within 20 minutes, I had my second carp, but I was light years away from catching my neighbour, who had about 7 or 8 carp by this time. I had to wait a long time between bites, but I wasn’t going to take any chances in doing anything else at this point because the bubbling told me there were more carp to be had from this swim. I plugged away for the next hour and managed to land 2 more, but I was very mindful of the fact that others were doing much better than me. My 4 carp were no more than 4lbs apiece and I needed to find some big munters to make up the weight. So, I began priming my edge lines. In went Scopex, chopped worm and casters to my left and Scopex, meat and maggles to my right. With 90 minutes left on the clock, I went over my worm line only to be greeted with more perch. FFS! They were everywhere! Then I had a look over my meat line to the right, and a definite carp bite followed, which I promptly missed.

I put in some more meat and went over it again. This time, I connected with a lovely, big fat mirror of about 8lbs. It was just what I needed. On my next put in. I hooked and lost another big ‘un. It was a defo foul-hooker as a large scale came back on the hook. Next, I had a surprise skimbo, which went about 2lbs. He must have sneaked in while the carp had temporarily vacated the premises. It was a good 10-15 minutes before I got another bite and this time it was from another nice fish. It was a 9lb common that point-blank refused to give up. Phew! What a tussle. I was sure I was going to lose it, but thankfully, everything stayed firm and the fish finally surrendered. With 30 minutes to go, I had another good fish of around 8-9lbs and then I had a stream of foul hookers as more fish piled into the swim. I must have lost 4 or 5 in a row before the all-out.

I could have done with another hour, as the margin was just coming alive. The 5 hours passed surprisingly quickly and I reckoned I only had about 35 lbs in total. I knew that would be eclipsed by the 70-80lbs the guy on peg 2 had, but I was quite philosophical about the whole affair… it is after all, my bogey peg, and so I couldn’t have expected much more than a day’s fishing. I was going to chuck back, but organiser, Tony Cook, said I should weigh for the section, so I did. I weighed 43lbs and the section was won with 47lbs, so it was a bit close and I finished 6^th overall, so not a whitewash by any means. All I can say is… I’ll be back!

Well, next Sunday, I’ll be back on the river at Barton Farm, Bradford-on-Avon. This is one of my favourite river venues and I’m looking forward to it… even if the river is in flood and bank-high! Keep you posted!

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