| Charity League Moorlands Farm
Second Leg 9th June 2001.
I was hoping to fish the match at Moorlands on the Friday in the vain attempt to try and sort out a method but unfortunately I had to go to a wedding which prevented any such plans. Nevertheless, the wedding was really good and the food was exceptional. I have a bit of a reputation when it comes to pigging-out at buffets but I am not sure if other people have the same problem. Perhaps there are others in the same predicament?
You are walking along the tables of food with two plates piled high with snacks and then you see something that you really like, which you hadn't allowed for. (Eyes Bigger Than the Belly Syndrome) In my case I had about thirty pickled onions on one plate when I saw pate. Brussels pate, which nobody seemed to be eating so I thought I would help myself to a large portion of it. The only problem being that, the weight of the lump I cut off, caused all the pickled onions to roll off the plate and on to the dance floor. People were sliding on them for hours!
We eventually left early because I had to be up for the match the following morning so it was best not drink too much. The journey was relatively uneventful with nothing extraordinary to report and when I arrived at Moorlands I ordered a breakfast as the last league match our team ended up with no food as we had to organise it all.
Then the fun started!
The policy in any league match at Moorlands is to pay double pools for the first match as teams who are not doing too well usually end up dropping out for the last one. This way the money is paid and there is no problem with reduced payouts at the end. At the first league match there were teams who didn't have that money with them so they were told that if they didn't have it for the second round then they would not be allowed to fish. This does seem a little harsh but they are the rules. We had one team pull out and others trying desperately to raise the money before the draw. I heard one team were having a car boot sale and another had a 'Penny for the Guy' stall out the front. There is no truth in the rumour that Clive Munslow was the guy either. What do you expect people to say when you cut your own hair! He has got a cheek calling me Tina Turner. At least I pay someone to cut my hair, the tight fisted git.
The match started at 10:15am, as John Talbot wanted to organise an evening match and didn't want it to run too late. Our team appeared to have drawn well with Grant Allbut on peg 12 on the Moors, Wayne Mellings on peg 10 on the Bank pool, myself on peg 58 on the Meadow. The only bad draw was Gary Plant on a rubbish peg at the far end of Meadow pool. I got to my peg and was tackling up when one of the Welsh blokes turned up late saying "how do you draw them?" When I asked where he was he replied "next to you" peg 59 with the wind blowing into that corner. I know where I would rather be.
I think that the Welsh boys were late due to the fact that they were in mourning as many of them had waved goodbye to their 'childhood sweethearts' with the advent of Foot and Mouth hitting the valleys so badly.
Those poor sheep, if they are not getting raped by the locals, they are being slaughtered in their thousands.
The match started and straight away, Paul Filmore, the guy on 59 had a carp on the waggler, followed by another and then foul-hooked one, which he got out. Three nil to him, I still hadn't had a bite and then I managed to hook one winding in which came off. Throughout the match all I could hear was the sound of someone 'striking' like a madman. There must have been some fish there in front of him as he was getting liners all day but it sounded like the sound effects from the 'Mask of Zorro' at one point. I think that fish swimming near to the surface in close caused most of the 'bites'
It was obvious that the waggler wasn't right on the day so I went out on the pole, shallow and caught one about 3lb. It went quite for a while and then I caught one on a single caster which must have gone 10lb plus, which was nice! It was pretty much like that for the rest of the match, with a few fish and then nothing. The last few hours I don't think either of us had any carp. Jamie Masson was on peg 55 and seemed to be catching all day long on the pole. He really has got the place sorted as Steve Pearce only weighed 28lb next to him. Steve is a very good angler but Jamie weighed 96lb and won the match, which demonstrates his ability. Steve Pearce won the section by default and I was second with 25lb 13oz. Paul weighed 18lb next to me and 11lb the other side. Grant did well in his section, Wayne was fourth on his lake but Gary struggled from that peg which was to be expected really. I think we finished sixth overall as a team so we are still up there.
The next league match will be on the 16th June so I am off for some practise there in the week. I think that the chopped worm will feature more prominently in the next round.
Moorlands Farm 13th June
Wednesday open.
After struggling for bites in the last round of the Talkangling league from peg 58 and watching Jamie Masson 'sack up' a few pegs away, I decided to get some practice in by fishing the Wednesday open. The traffic on the road there was a nightmare and I think that there are too many people in work these days. Bring back full unemployment I say! Think of us who have to travel to fish matches midweek.
I eventually got there and had to dip my nets while driving past at high speed. Only kidding, John Talbot enforces the rules about dipping nets and it must have paid off because there are no diseased fish to be found at the fishery and there is very strict keepnet code in force there too. It means that if you decide to bounce your fish from the bottom ring of the keepnet to the top ring, then you are very likely to end up in the pool and/ or banned from the fishery. It's a shame more fisheries do not enforce a keepnet code. I managed to get some food before the draw and then pulled out peg 12. If you draw either 58 or 12 in a winter match then there is a good chance you are going to win some coin. When I got to the peg it looked 'solid', as there were fish everywhere. I was going to try and catch some fish up in the water on chopped worm with the use of a small pole pot and this looked like it might work on the day. I started off shallow and caught a carp about 4lb quickly but then got plagued by roach and rudd so that went out the window. I feed a few pellets and fished over them at 8 metres on the deck, but only managed to foul-hook one so I gave up with that idea. I was only fishing to sort out a method for this Saturday's Talkangling league match so in desperation I set the waggler up. I could see that there were a lot of fish on the surface and thought that the pole may spook them so I had a chuck on the waggler. I find that when carp feed in the summer, they usually end up taking floating baits or feeding very shallow. The method I have always used is to fish a waggler but to have a small amount of floating putty just above the hook. This means that in actual fact you are fishing about two or three inches deep in many cases, which is dead right. I have been given something to try which is better than the putty as it does not spin up the hooklength and on the day it was brilliant!
I fished a single caster on a size 20 B611 to .13 diameter and the first one I hooked went about 11 or 12 lb. Next cast I had another of 8lb and then two of 5lb all in the space of fifteen minutes. I got them all in under 20 seconds too so I thought I was going to empty it. However, the wind picked up so I had to resort to fishing down the edge where I had potted some caster earlier and there were now signs that the carp had found it. I could see tails coming up in the peg! I went in and caught a few carp between 5lb and 7lb but then I foul-hooked one which spooked the rest of them. It was easy to get them there but I think that there were too many fish in the peg as I was getting liners, and missed bites usually means too many fish. I cupped in less bait but I had too much room, as I think with more pegs in, I could have caught steady by just picking off fish as they turned up rather than trying not to foul- hook them!
Paul Foster opposite me on peg 54 seemed to be catching really well all day down the edge and just out in front of him, but I knew I could not catch him when the waggler swim died a death. He weighed 111lb and easily won the match. Bob Jones was second with 73lb from peg 40 with 35 carp and I finished third with 69lb and some more Ultimate league points. It is really nice to catch some fish at the moment and I wish I could keep them interested on the waggler line long enough. I am thinking about trying to use a feeder float to get round the problem, which might work if fished sensibly.
Stay tuned to find out before anyone goes rushing off to buy one, it may end up in the bin! The feeder float method seems to work better when you sit in a deckchair with your legs crossed and arms folded, eating a sandwich. So perhaps I might try it on Saturday with some floating maggots!
Charity League Third Leg
Moorlands Farm 16th June.
Another early start for me, having to leave the house at 6:15 am is not good as it takes me a hour to get to Moorlands but as we are organising this event there are things to sort out. Gary and Grant went out on the town the night before so I wasn't sure what time they would arrive, if at all. I have been out with Gary in the past and fishing is the last thing you want to be doing the following morning. I was surprised to see them arrive just after I did but there again, Clive Nixon was driving and apparently Grant had an early night. I couldn't make it this time because I couldn't get a babysitter but I think that there is another night out arranged before long. It will be to celebrate the fact that nobody can now catch us in the league, as we are that far in front thanks to Gary. Well not really, it will be one of those "Oh well that's the end of that, there is no way we can win it now" nights out, again thanks to Gary (Sorry mate, Grant made me write it)
I would like to thank Dianne for all the work she puts in for these matches because she really does a good job and I thought I had better mention her in case she makes us do it all. There is no way I want to be following the scales after the match. They are practically trouble free events.
We had one team who failed to show on the day and we had no idea why, but thinking about it, it may have been because they have all qualified for the Kamasan final on the same day. Nevertheless, John Talbot was very understanding and said that he didn't mind them not turning up because that is the type of guy he is. (Yeah right, as if?) We managed to get another team in because otherwise it 'buggers' up the payouts.
I think they are going to have to pay the money or not fish there again. Oh well that is another team we have beaten. I think we can win the league by the process of elimination so there is no need for Gary to worry about coming last in his section - again! (Wot do ya mean 'again'?. . . .Ed)
The draw started on time this week as the Welsh Wizards have now altered their watches to Greenwich Mean Time and when we looked at the draw, Grant said we wanted peg 19 today. We left that to him to sort out and we ended up with peg 17, which meant Grant was on peg 10 on the Meadow, Clive was on peg 20 on Bank, I was on peg 2 on middle and Gary was near to where he was the last round. This looked good for us as the only bad area was Gary's peg but he should now know how to fish it as he completely bolloxed it up the last time he was there. (language Malcolm. . . .Ed)
I got to my peg and it was good to see I had some room, but I decided to use the chopped worm approach as I thought it might be a little cold to catch on the pellet. I had a chat to Andy Robinson and he told me that the 'worm' had been catching a few last week. I started fishing down the shelf at 3 metres but I fished in front of the next pallet, as I didn't want to spook the fish when netting others. This worked well as I was catching hybrids, roach and skimmers for the first hour.
I had fed two lines down the edge but I was only getting odd roach to my right so I after about 90 minutes I went down to the right and hooked a carp about 5lb. As I was only catching silver fish on the other lines I decided to stick with this for a while. The wind picked up and started blowing towards the corner I was fishing so things were looking better but the only problem was that someone had fed floating casters and I now had carp feeding off the surface in the peg. I potted in some casters to try and get the them to fed on the bottom but it was a waste of time. All I succeeded in doing was getting too many carp in the peg so before I foul-hooked one I took the rig out and left it settle. I used a small Preston Pole pot instead to reduce the amount of bait going in and this worked well. I started catching a few carp on the worm as I was feeding for one carp at a time. The Shakespeare lad on peg 7 was catching more and bigger carp than me down the edge so I just got my head down and stopped looking at him. I think we do ourselves no favours by watching someone else catching. The problem with the floating casters was getting worse and I had foul-hooked three carp which actually swam into a rig fished at half depth down the edge. I got them out but it was too time consuming. The majority of the carp I had were between 3 and 5 lb but Stuart Pulsar on peg 7 was getting bigger fish.
At the weigh-in I weighed 81lb but he had 107lb and I knew that Gavin Daley on peg 3 on Bank had weighed 85lb down the edge! I managed third so I was well pleased with that on the day. Grant had finished second in his section with 40lb, which was really good, when you see what was caught around him, double figures, but only just. He really is a good angler even if he is a little lucky at times, like scooping a carp in the landing net, only to find that he had scooped two others in the process. I heard the rumour that he had landed 17lb of fish with this little stunt but when I spoke to him later it turned out the additional carp were only a pound apiece.
Clive didn't finish too high in his section but that was because his travelling partner had told him how he would have fished it. As for Gary, he was using the Teflon coated hooks again (non-stick) and improved on last week's performance by finishing last in the section, he was last but two the previous week. (last but 5 if you don't mind. . .Ed) You had enough yet mate? How we laughed as we watched people collecting their team winnings and how much money we would have won had the team done better. We are going to have to transfer Gary to Shakespeare for a few matches to cut their lead!
It could very easily have been myself or Grant who was last in the section. It wouldn't have been the first time and when things start to go wrong, they usually escalate to a blistering finale. Pole elastic is something I have always had trouble with because you seem to lose an awful lot of fish before you get it right with the tension and the grading for different size fish. Gary has recently had his rod holdall stolen so is using borrowed tackle to fish this league and we all know what a pain in the arse that is but things can only get better. When you reach the bottom you can only go one way, unless he starts digging, then we really will be down in the points! It was nice to see Bob Marklew AKA Lucky Bob at Moorlands after the match because the last time I saw him was at the Docklow All winners' Final in March. Unluckily for Bob, (I thought it was lucky Bob. . .Ed) the invitations were extended to those who had won something so he had to look for another match somewhere else. Of all the dates he could have chosen to fish at Docklow, he picked the one he couldn't fish. Typical! |
