I was talking to a fellow Angler (I was going to say an old
guy) a couple of weeks ago whilst waiting for the draw. He said he rarely wins
any pools money and looks on the day as an “Expensive Day Ticket”. This got me
thinking and I concluded that it’s much, much more than that. Pleasure fishing
tends to be catching nothing and go home early, catch loads and go home early.
What you get in a match irrespective of the number of competitors is the
camaraderie in the café before the draw and good company during the match, keeping
you there until the end just in case. Plus you always have the possibility of
landing on a few fish to compensate for your value for money day ticket.
Uneventful drive followed by a breakie and a chat about
what’s going on in the angling world – e.g. Stafford Moor draining Pines Lake
Draw time and we let Stewart Graham draw first as he has
spent so many matches on flyer peg 29! He broke his run picking peg 10. In I
went and came back with peg 6. Wrong end I was thinking. Arriving at the peg I
was disappointed to find that there was little to no bank side vegetation for
margin cover. Plumbing around I found the margin shallow and flat until it fell
off to full depth – not good for the way I feed and present. I set up the two
rigs a 4x14 Jolly which was heavier than I would have liked, but the peg was an
inbetweener with the 4x12 being a tad bit light. This rig was to be fished down
wind just down the inside shelf at top-set plus half. The other rig was the
usual 4x10 Yoof for both baron margins. Bait tray I had caster, maggot, semi
hard 4’s, meat and soaked pellet – a lot for me.
All ready for the all in - see video below for the Duck call
all in.
I fed the LH margin with soaked pellet and the RH with
caster and the Jolly line with soaked pellet with a smidgen on 6mm diced meat.
I started well catching five decent F1’s before the swim completely died; it
wasn’t even a question of the F1’s moving up in the water. As expected the
margins were difficult especially the RH as it was up-wind and blowing through
too much. The caster margin produced nothing. Decision made I switch the Jolly
to top-set plus two and switching to live maggot feed and ditto on the hook.
This brought some bites even though it was from Skimmers and Ronnie’s. This kept
me busy and interested. Unfortunately this only produced a couple of F1’s. Alan
Oram and Stewart Graham were catching well short on maggot, so conclusion was
that there wasn’t the numbers of F1’s in my swim. Having thrown in the towel
for coin I decided to experiment. So set up 13 metres and had a go with pellet
and meat, I did catch a few F1’s over but it wasn’t long before the Silvers
were nibbling the meat. Perhaps I should have started over there – who knows.
I finished the match with 32lb 8oz for nowhere, nonetheless
an enjoyable day.
The match was won by Stuart Graham (pictured right with his
catch) with 69lb 2oz from peg 10. Stewart caught most of his F1’s at 4 metres
using maggot hook bait over loose fed maggot.
Full Result:
- Stuart Graham 69-02-0 peg 10
- Martin Hook 48-04-0 peg 24
- Alan Oram 47-14-0 peg 8
Weigh Sheet:
1 comment:
Another good read
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