The Year of Hell............

Last year was my first full season back into fishing after a break of 15 years and having caught up with modern baits and methods I felt ready for some action. As it turned out I had a pretty good season fishing around 24 matches and picking up in 16 of them including one or two wins and plenty of 2nds. My biggest envelope came from finishing joint 1st in a 2 day festival but was knocked down to 3rd on weight. I had fished a good cross section of opens, league matches and forum matches and felt that I had done ok. As I don’t fish much in winter I was really looking forward to spring and the start of Nick Gilbert’s Spring League consisting of 6 matches at Hartleylands and Monk lakes, kindly sponsored by Got Baits and with some decent anglers fishing it. Most of my success during this season came from fishing shallow, either on the waggler or the pole although I did need to fish the method a bit and of course the pole on the deck where it would prove more fruitful than fishing shallow. I also fished maggot on the waggler and pole on occasion and I do like a bit of maggot fishing.
The first match of the season was the start of the Spring League and was fished across Bramley and Peartree lakes at Hartleylands. I finished 2nd behind Nick but won my section which gave me maximum points and a good start to my campaign. I then went on to take 4 points from the 2nd match which was a bit disappointing but the draw was pretty bad so I couldn’t complain too much. From here on though, the pegs I was handed were very poor, summer hadn’t arrived yet and the field was strong so perhaps with poor pegs to fish I should have been more thoughtful about the methods I chose. As an example, the method feeder is a banker at Hartleylands all year but particularly in the cooler months. I suppose my results fishing shallow last year influenced my decisions as I wanted to do even better with it this year. Never mind, if there is one thing I need more than anything else it is knowledge of how these venues fish over a number of seasons and in different conditions and you only acquire this knowledge by knuckling down and doing your time!
After the league finished (I think I only finished half way up the table) we had the usual forum match across Bramley and Peartree lakes at Hartleylands which most of the league anglers fish along with a few mates from other forums. If you are an aggressive positive feeder then the last thing you want in a match is another aggressive positive feeder pegged next to you. Normally I end up with Nick Gilbert somewhere close by but fortunately he drew Bramley and I drew Peartree. This gave me a good chance of a lake win as most anglers would probably fish the pole or method and I felt the weather was now right to win by fishing shallow.
As a part of my learning cycle on these venues, I really wanted to know how quickly I could get a shallow pole line going so I decided to use this match as an experiment. I already know you can catch right away on the waggler but fishing shallow close in was still something I hadn’t played with much on this venue as I usually focus on the islands. I also decided to give the margins a fair chance but only if my main approach died on me.
As it turned out it took exactly 8 minutes to get my first fish shallow at about 7 or 8m so this would be valuable information for the future. Although summer had arrived and conditions looked good, the place still fished under par but 101lb won me the lake and I felt that my season had now started given my failure in the league.
I then fished one of the regular Pad’s Army opens at Monk lakes and as usual drew a mediocre peg that nobody would have fancied over the end peg flyers. I went straight into shallow pole mode after balling it in and was winning the match with 138lb right up to the last 2 blokes to weigh in and I was then knocked down to 3rd. Not bad, most anglers would take that on any 60 peg open but I don’t mind admitting to driving home a little disappointed.
From this point on though, everything went totally pear shaped. I started to draw really naff pegs again and it seemed that every venue I fished would switch off on the day I was there. Not just for me but for everyone. Even the 100+ peg Nick Puncher Memorial match at Hartlylands was weird. I drew the Res which I was dead chuffed about but the lake just didn’t fish. It turned out that the previous day there was a match on the Res with a couple of 200+ weights coming out and this just seemed to kill it whereas on Nick’s lake there were over 10 ton plus weights.
This was the way my summer continued........relentlessly.........every single match I fished I drove there praying that the venue would fish properly. It got to a point where I wondered if I should assume that the next venue would fish bad and go there to fish negatively but optimism always got the better of me.
I think I fished around 15 matches on the trot without ANY of them fishing properly. Winning weights would be lower than expected and most of the field would struggle for anything close to expected weights. What made it even more frustrating was the fact that these venues seemed to fish ok the week before or the week after. It was as if a constant change of air pressure was following me around wherever I went.
We then got into the Fish to Win qualifiers run by John Bell. This is a brilliant injection of decent sized matches with a final where the winner would take home £3000 at Lake John near Waltham Abbey. You needed to finish 1st or 2nd in any of the qualifiers to get there so the chances were not bad given that I entered 4 of them, 2 at Monks, 1 at Hartleylands and 1 at Wylands.
Needless to say my run of bad draws and poor conditions saw me pack up early at the first match, weigh in bobbins in 2 of them and manage only a 6th at Hartleylands from what was my best draw for a very long time. Unfortunately the wind was in my face and I had to fish the conker bomb and margins all day to put about 88lb on the scales.
Somehow I managed to qualify for the section winners match at Monks but the cost and the time of year would just make it too much of a gamble so I chose not to fish it.
With summer over and autumn well under way I only have one more match at Sam’s Lakes in Headcorn to fish which I am really looking forward to as it is a ‘silvers only’ match and I have had enough of carp for this year. After this I will be visiting my local rivers a bit as the nettles die down and then I have a couple of Xmas matches to fish. Maybe I will be persuaded to get out more this winter.
My thoughts at the moment though are focused on planning ahead for next year. I intend to trash all of my rigs in favour of new floats that Nick Gilbert is making for me and making up more rigs to cover more eventualities. A lot of my rigs need trashing anyway because they have been used once or twice and I want to start next season with a box full of pristine rigs and plenty of varied hook lengths. Nick is also working on one or two new patterns including a new dibber that should be even better than the last one so keep an eye out for his new range.
Lastly, I want to finish off by saying thanks to a few people. Firstly to Trevor at Got baits for sponsoring the Spring League, to Morgan who manages Monk Lakes for taking the time to chat at matches and discussing the new rules with me, to John Bell for putting the time and effort into bringing us an exciting competition and of course to everyone I fish with that makes the day more fun than just catching a few fish. I would also like to mention the Match Fishing Scene forum that is about to celebrate it’s first birthday. The moderators and administrators have done a great job creating what I think is the biggest source of information and communication in the world of match angling. If you haven’t already joined then it will be the best fiver you ever spend!
Let’s hope I have something else to write about before spring arrives and here’s hoping that the fishing next year get’s back to what it was in 2008!