Every now and then I like to fish a match for something other than carp, so when one of the wednesday opens on Bury Hill Main Lake came round, me and Don both booked on.
Match day arrived and after a hearty breakfast I went for a quick walk whilst KC sorted out the draw. Arriving back at the cabin there were 4 pegs left, including the end peg nearest the Cabin (Peg 26) which duly stuck to my hot litle hand when I stuck it in the draw bag !
Peg 26 (as you can see) has a bit of a feature to it's left - a bloody great boathouse, which incorporates the cafe, tackle shop, toilets and offices, and of course the boats - and a number of carp live under it. However, they are quite big and with the structure standing out on legs in the lake a fair few carp are hooked and lost if you fish near it. I have known anglers lose 4 or 5 nil to the carp before now but you always think you can do better don't you ! What I couldn't believe was that I came to have a days bream fishing and I was going to have to spend time trying to hook carp that would no doubt do their best to avoid capture.
I decided to fish two lines, one for bream at 11 metres in front, with 0.12 line, white hydro and expander pellet on the hook and the other line about a metre short of the corner of the boathouse with paste on a size 10 Drennan carp feeder hook to 0.22 and red hydro in my H10 edge pole.
On the whistle I fed both lines with a cup of micro pellets and a few 4mm's and went out on the bream line. Although things started slowly, after an hour I had 2 proper bream of about 3lb and two smaller skimmers of about 2lb each. It was now time to say my prayers and have a look on the carp line ! On went a large piece of paste and I then spent 15 minutes staring at a float that refused to go under. Back on the bream line I had one more fish before deciding to have another look by the boathouse. This time the float settled, sat there for about 30 seconds and then disappeared from view. THE Plan was to lift into the fish, gently lead the fish away from the boathouse (and all it's legs) before playing the fish out in front of me and eventually netting it - sounds simple doesn't it ? Well, unfortunately the fish hadn't read the script and was already heading under the building towards the office and shop at the other end ! At this point, all I could do was give it "The Big Heave Ho" and as I pulled the pole round to my right, almost facing Freddy Brown at the next peg, the fish continued to swim to my left and I really thought my pole, which was now forming an alarming shape was going to break. I knew my rig was strong enough to land the fish if I could just get it away from the snags and after what seemed like an age, the fish started to come away from the cabin and into the open water. After another 5 minutes of pulling, I soon had a rather large angry carp in the net, well almost as it wouldn't quite fit ! I managed to scoop the top half of the fish in the net at the second attempt and by grabbing both sides of the landing net managed to lift it clear of the water. Thankfully Geoff Vallance's mate had just come round to see him and I was greatful for his help in weighing it as all carp have to be weighed immediately. I placed the fish on the scales and watched the needle swing round, past 10lb, 15lb and 20lb..........before finally settling on 23-12-0 - now that is what I call a bonus fish !
Not wanting to hook another carp straightaway (mainly cos I was knackered), I went out on the bream line and had another two fish on that before the peg died completely and I couldn't get another bite on either of the lines. By now there were a few anglers wandering about so it was clear that the lake was not fishing well and 50lb would be a very good weight. As I couldn't now get a bream bite, I decided to spend the last hour and a half of the match looking for another carp but decided to be a bit braver and fish right next to the cabin instead of a metre away. Unfortunately I think the match finished too early for me as a 3.30pm finish still leaves you short of the time that carp usually start to feed a bit on most commercial fisheries and I never had another bite or even a sign of a carp.
Being the end peg, I was also on the scales and it wasn't until we started to weigh in from the far end of the section that I realised just how hard it had fished as none of the first 5 weights even beat my one carp ! Andy Ryan or end Peg Andy as he is also known put 36lb on the scales and thought he was going to have my £1, then Colin Wood weighed 20 bream for 44lb.
As we neared the end of the section bream ace Geoff Vallence weighed 32lb, Freddy Brown next to me had 34lb and then it was my turn to weigh. I'd just heard that Steve Gardener had won the other section with 43lb and knew I hadn't beaten him or Colin Wood but just needed over 13lb to nick Andy Ryan's pound ! As I lifted my net from the water with 4 bream and two skimmers in it, it did feel as though I'd done enough to beat Andy and sure enough the needle settled on 16-4-0 giving me a total of 40-0-0 with my little carp, enough for third place with Andy 4th.
Whilst it was nice to pick up a few quid to pay for the day (and have a new personal best Carp), I was still a bit disappointed not to have won as I wasted loads of time fishing for another carp and only needed another two bream to have won the match. Still, I couldn't complain as I know how lucky I was to get the carp in as after I hooked it, it spent a long time under the boathouse and could so easily have gone round one of the legs and snapped me up.
Result - Weights might not be 100% correct as I haven't got the weigh sheet !
Colin Wood...........44-0-0
Steve Gardener....43-0-0
Dave Pearson........40-0-0
Andy Ryan.............36-8-0
Freddy Brown.......34-4-0
Geoff Vallence.......32-0-0
Terry Harrison 26-2-0
With no club match this sunday and nothing much else on around here, I have switched my days fishing and will be on the Willinghurst Open on Saturday. Willinghurst has been in a funny mood for the past few weeks, so it will be interesting to see if it has picked up by the weekend.
