Well, for the first time in a couple of weeks the weather held out nice on a Sunday, it's mid September and I'm actually celebrating that fact, that can't be good, but that's the great British summer hey!
Today I drew peg 23 on lake 1 at Westside, a peg I've drawn a couple of times before (well, twice) I've had a second and a third off the peg, both times only narrowly missing out on first. I was quite happy with my draw as pre-match when asked I did say I wanted to be in the 20's. The peg is one off the two that were in the match where you can't reach the island with the pole, sitting as it is just on the corner of the island, with the far bank probably 25m away. To my left was a small weedy bay which looked very fishy but the previous times I've drawn it has produced only a quick run of fish before it fades out.
It was quite a warm sunny morning and on previous matches 40lb+ has been needed to frame so that was the sort of weight I was expecting to be needed to win. To fish the island I set up my Drennean 10ft puddle chucker, coupled with a small Daiwa front drag reel and 8lb pro gold main line. On this I was going to fish a method feeder using a small Kobra method feeder loaded with 3mm green swim-stimm pellets and alternating hair rigged pellets (6 and 8mm s-pellets) or corn on a .20 Garboline hooklength t0 a 16 Kamasan animal. For a margin swim I used approx 14m of my Garbolino Superlegion to fish to my left hand bank, behind the lillies and a big weed bed which I knew was in the swim. (I'd lost 4-5 carp in the weed about 6 weeks ago when I last drew that peg). The pole gear consisted of a .3gr DC6 float on .18 Garboline to a 13B711 hook and using a 16 latex elastic in around 3ft of water. I also set up a shorter version of the same rig to use fishing shallow over the same line and to push further up the shelf if I wanted to try that. Bait for the pole was meat (feeding 6mm with 8-10mm cubes for the hook) and corn, feeding both with hemp.
At the start the margin swim got approx 20 pieces of corn and meat plus a small hand full of hemp, totalling half a small cup of bait in total, topping up with the same every half hour. The method was then loaded up and the first cast dropped woefully short of the island, despite me being clipped up, as did the second! a bit out of practice methinks! eventually I got into the swing of things, though still not getting quite a close to the island as I wanted, I expected bites to come pretty quickly, even from small 'pasty' carp. Well, an hour and a quarter in all I had to show was 2 liners and some silly small fish nudges to show. A quick try on the pole, earlier than I wanted, produced just a single liner that encouraged me to give it a few more minutes than I intended. Back on the method and I was starting to get a little worried, though I'd only seen one small carp caught a few pegs down (straight in front of me as I looked)
A hour and 40min in and a sharp pull and a stonking drop back had me grabbing the rod and resulted in me having a puzzled look as nothing was on the end! A few fish were cruising now so it was not like nothing was in front of me, yet I couldn't catch. I expected a slow start due to the cooler autumnal nights but it was worse than I thought. At quarter to midday, just as I was reaching for my radio to listen to the footie chat on Talksport (I was getting bored!) the tip wrenched round and I actually had a fish, whoooey! A very slow and sluggish fight, almost bream like but very heavy resulted in me lifting the rod as I went to net the dead weight and a big orange 'carrot' folding into the net. Now, I've been a regular at Westside for about 18 months but it was the first time I've caught Rusty, a bright orange koi that goes just over 9lb in weight normally, not a bad start, even near 2hr in when everyone else was catching little.
Half an hour later and it was looking a false dawn, with just one liner and one lost fish, although I'm sure I'd just cast over the back of it, as it was an instant bite but it never felt right for the few seconds it was on. Then, just as I was looking at a spitfire overhead chasing a messerschmit 109 (perhaps dodgy spelling!, but Duxford airfield is nearby so a fairly common sight) my tip rod was nearly dragged into the lake, and after a short spirited fight a small 2lb common found its way into the net, Next cast resulted in a rake of liners and the following cast gave a 3lb common and things had just started to get interesting. Two casts with no interest later and it's time to try the pole. Two silly liners later on meat prompted me to try corn and the two drops in saw two carp for about 5lb find their way into the net, then biteless spell prompted a return to the tip.
A half hour biteless spell back on the tip saw me abandon that and get a quick 2lb'er on the pole then nothing again so decided to try upping the feed on the pole (a whole cup of meat, hemp and corn every 30min instead of half). I'd still seen little else caught so was quite happy with things, but more so when a return to the method, trying corn instead of pellet gave 2 quick 3lb'ers followed by a fish of about 7-8lb which I lost at the net trying to keep it's head up over the weed in the edge, Damn! This gave rise to another biteless hour on the tip and pole, though I was at worst keeping pace with the best of the 4 others I could see. With the pole line dead (I'd tried shallow and further up the shelf with no response) I decided to persevere with the tip where I was still getting an odd liner, a decision which paid off as in an hour my fish tally found it's way up to 14 carp, mostly to corn but all on the method. A quick try on the pole in the dying moments saw two missed bites but I already knew I was way ahead of anyone I could see.
By the time the scales got to me 18lb 12oz was top weight, my two weighs gave me 58lb 1oz and with nobody else admitting to more than 6 carp it was obvious that I'd won. Second and third place ended very close, with two of the pegs further down weighing in 21lb 12oz and 21lb 8oz but with a few people not bothering to weigh in it had been hard for a lot of people. Not a bad start to my blog, something which the seemed to curse my fishing last time I did!
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