I can’t believe it’s been about 11 months since I last managed to find the time to do a blog so here’s a bit of a catch up on a few highlights so far, from what has to be my most successful year ever...
WINTER
Unfortunately it wasn’t a kind winter for me and for the second year in succession I finished just out of the main frame overall in the Lindholme Winter League. Unfortunately a combination a bit of bad luck and a bad run at the drawbag really did me in. Well done to Craig Elkin who won the league, narrowly beating Dale Sheppard and Paul Yates for the title on the very last match. It was actually quite a difficult winter at Lindholme and especially on Bonsai Lake a lot of the weights were made up of proper carp rather than the usually reliable F1s. That meant methods such as the bomb and bread came into play, not something I particularly enjoy and something I was a little slow to cotton onto. I also had a few trips up to the Oaks at Sessay on Cedar Lake, which was hard work but very rewarding fishing, switching lines all the time with expanders and fishing for 20 – 40lb.
FISH O’ MANIA QUALIFIERS
Unfortunately I only got on four qualifiers this year, The Oaks, Barford Lakes, Woodlands Lakes and Lindholme. When I drew on Ash at the Oaks with four or five spare pegs to one side due to one of the many no-shows I thought I had a serious chance but the cold rain the night before really shut down these lakes and a pitiful 25kg was only good enough to top Ash Lake. The top two came from Alders. I also recorded section wins at Lindholme and Woodlands but that was the Fish O’ campaign over for another year. Well done to my old mate Andy Geldart who went on to win a very tough final, getting his tactics absolutely spot on at Cudmore! One thing which really struck home with me this year is how the same faces seem to qualify for the final so often, with Perry Stone, Andy Power and last year’s champ Jamie Hughes all getting through again. Jamie in particular has been in the final for the past three years I believe. Why? Not only are they all very aggressive anglers who know how to win, they give themselves as many chances as possible by travelling all over the place in search of one. This made me re-think my own approach to such events. While I believe the odd qualified undoubtedly turns up on speck and gets through on pure luck, a lot of the finalists are seasoned, dedicated anglers who put the time, effort and miles in!
THE BIG BASH 2014
The Big Bash is one of the UK’s biggest charity matches (for Breast Cancer Care) and one I’ve tried to support in the past where I could. This was to be the last one organised by Kevin Allen and the turnout at Lindholme Lakes for this was a whopping 184 anglers. In this match in the past I’ve been stuck on Loco, Laurels or Beeches and not had a chance but this time I finally drew Bonsai and a decent peg in 75, but just about every peg on the lake was in. You were never going to need a huge weight. It was a hot, calm day around spawning time and the fish weren’t really feeding properly, the only way I could catch was to fish the full 16m into the reeds just 6ins deep, feeding and fishing 6mm meat cubes. By blasting bait at any reeds in these pegs it’s possible to get the fish ‘slurping’ off them. I caught mainly proper carp up to 6lb, mainly in the first two hours and last half hour. I was one of the last to weigh and 96lb was winning the entire match. Thankfully I just managed to eclipse that with 103lb 11oz and finally the Big Bash trophy was mine, something I have wanted to get hold of for quite a while! It was a great day and as I collected my trophy I thanked Kevin and his team for their hard work in raising a total of over £70,000 for this charity.
LINDHOLME SPRING FESTIVAL
I gave White Acres a miss this spring and instead opted to do the May festival at Lindholme for the first time, as I usually just do the July one. It didn’t turn out to be a bad decision!
On day one I was fortunate enough to draw my favourite peg 78 on Bonsai. I fished shallow for most of the day then came down the edge to the next pallet in the last 40 minutes and caught seven fish which will have gone around 45 - 50lb, for a total weight of 192lb 8oz and a match win, a great start. Oasis peg 28 was the next day’s destination – I made some very bad decisions during the day, especially in the last few hours when I hardly caught anything, but luckily a weight of 85lb 4oz was enough to get away with a section win. Willows 38 saw a third section win with 143lb 1oz on pellet shallow, then I drew Loco peg 43 on Thursday. Unfortunately I couldn’t catch much on a feeder to the sticks in the middle but a few runs of big F1s long and shallow saw 68lb 1oz recorded on a hard day and a fourth straight section win. As nobody else could get a perfect 4 points the festival was mine with a day remaining, happy days!
LINDHOLME SUMMER FESTIVAL
At the end of July it was time for the Lindholme Summer Festival and with temperatures averaging about 25 degrees this was a cracking week, and the fishing turned out to be unbelievable.
On Monday I wasn’t too sure about Bonsai 28 on the road bank as the wind was blowing out of it down the other end. However I started on a bomb for a few quick fish, then found my shallow line at 14.5m solid. I weighed in a new personal best match weight of 223lb 1oz, which gave me section win and second overall as Andy Bennett managed a huge 254lb. Then it was Laurels peg 41 and after half an hour I was struggling on my usual pellet shallow tactics and a change was required. Out came some sloppy groundbait and a kinder pot and this transformed the peg, resulting in 212lb 8oz and another section win and overall second.
On Wednesday it was the turn of Loco, Beeches and Strip and I drew 18 Loco in the middle of the lake with the wind slightly off my back and across me. It looked perfect. Second cast on the Method to the sticks I had a 7lb mirror, then I noticed a swirl on my shallow pole line. I put my rod down and shipped out my pole, and I was soon playing the first of around 200lb of big f1s or smaller carp. In the last 40 minutes I knew I was ahead of the rest of the lake so I chanced my arm down the edge and this produced six proper fish, the biggest around 15lb. My final weight was another personal best of 275lb 7oz, a third section win but incredibly not a match win! John Allerton had crashed out 278lb from Strip and both our catches set new lake records.
Going into Thursday and Andy Bennett and I were both tied on three wins as we moved onto Oasis Lake. I really fancied my draw, peg 33 but I was drawn next to John Allerton and I new we’d have a bit of a battle. I started across and took a couple of early carp and f1s, before changing to a shallow line and never looked back. 184lb 7oz of mainly f1s was enough for the match win, John unfortunately having a very rare off day with about 50lb. Andy Bennett was second in the match and we were still tied going into Bonsai on the final day, although I had a big weight advantage over him.
I drew peg 76, another reedy island peg and an area of the lake I know well. For the first few hours sport was patchy with just an odd fish or two shallow but in the last few hours I really motored and I completely lost track of what I’d caught. I weighed in 237lb 3oz and was gobsmacked. However Dave Shires on the end peg 84 in my section had also caught but he fell one fish short with 234lb! This meant Andy Bennett would need a ridiculous weight to beat me, but he had just that, having extracted 321lb from peg 24. This was a new lake and venue record, but in the end I had done him by about 28lb over the week, nothing really. I had a 1,132lb and he had 1,103lb or something, both of us averaging 224-226lb a day! It took me three days to recover…
MAVER MATCH THIS CAMPAIGN
With only a couple of Fish’ O tickets I planned to hit Match This hard in 2014. First up was a qualifier at Decoy Lakes near my work place in Peterborough where I drew out of it on the Willows Lake and managed a £180 lake win with just 86lb caught shallow on pellets. Fortunately my travelling partner for the day Lee Kerry won the match with 134lb from Beastie Lake so it was a very happy van on the way back. Next up was the Lindholme qualifier and I wasn’t happy with Beeches 6. I had a bit of a nightmare, broke my old carp pole on a fish and had just 58lb, 2lb short of a section win. I then went back for the second qualifier at Decoy and peg 2 on Six Islands only gave me 97lb.
I then had a very strange event of fortune/fate. I was supposed to be going to my company’s annual awards do in London when two cheap Maver tickets for Partridge Lakes and Heronbrook came up on Facebook so I snapped them up instantly. The Partridge qualifier had clashed with the Bauer Awards at the end of May and it isn’t a venue I’ve ever got on with on any of my previous four visits when I’ve been pegged on the Covey canals, in fact I’ve hardly caught anything there. This time however I drew peg 10 on Marsh, one of the smaller lakes at the back. An old mate of mine Shaun Cooke had won the Fish O’ Mania qualifier off peg 9 on Marsh so I knew I had a chance. He caught on pellets tight across and weighed 110lb but I knew you’d need more than that today.
I decided to start on pellets across and caught a couple of fish but when I changed to my caster shallow line after 20 minutes I never looked back and I had an ide, F1 or small pasty carp every cast for the remainder of the match and didn’t change anything else. A couple of things are important with this kind of fishing, mainly fishing with a very short line to the pole tip and also the necessity for at least 4-5 pints of casters. I weighed in 148lb 6oz which was enough to win the match by 8lb from Andy Bennett and Micky Rogerson, who both had around 140lb from the Ribbon pool. After four years of trying I was into my first Match This final, something I had wanted so badly since the competition started!
