Come on Vlado, explain yourself!

8 of us fished today so, in honour of that I drew peg 8. Dam wall and time to try for the lumps. They’d been rolling around all morning.
We split the match into 2 sections of 4 dividing the participants equally between the wall and the house bank.
Prizes were made to each section winner and whoever was 3rd overall but if you’d won your section, you couldn’t also win the 3rd overall prize.

The draw determined my approach. I knew the Tollostolop would be around the wall in numbers and they were my target.
Rado declared that he hated us all at this point because I wouldn’t allow him an extra day to set his gear up. I gave him an extra 15 minutes as a consolation. The cheeky bugger was ready and talking to Allan 20 minutes before the hooter so he had loads of time.
I set up the waggler on my heavy float rod on a 10lb main line with a good, strong size 12 hook in 2 metres (7 feet – ish) of water.

At the hooter, I threw in 6 balls of groundbait plus quite a bit of hemp and wheat. From then on it was a small ball, about the size of a duck egg, every 2 or 3 minutes whilst loose feeding wheat, hemp and small amounts of corn.

The 1st hour or so was dire with no activity at all in my peg. I sort of expected that but I was getting concerned. Nothing was showing but fish were rolling around further out. I had to remind myself to keep the faith.

Then, it began!

After about 1.5 hours of nothing apart from Gary’s dulcet tones for company, I hit my 1st lump. I lost it.
Then I hit another, I landed it. At this point I thought the fish was enormous and was worried that my scales wouldn’t cope. I was wrong.
I then proceded to lose about 10 more big fish. I was getting a little frustrated to say the least. At least 3 of these fish had been hooked in the mouth. You can tell the difference between a foul hooked fish and a fish hooked in the mouth, by the speed at which they take off when you strike. Foul hookers go like rockets whilst mouth hooked fish wander around confused for a while before taking off at a much slower rate. These were big fish. No matter how much pressure I applied I had little or no effect on their direction. Just hang on and hope for the best.
I’m not including those bites where I just bumped the fish in my lost fish count. If I did that the numbers would double.
My swim was like a Jacuzzi, fizzing like mad.
I landed my 2nd fish at about the 3.5 to 4 hour point. It was a similar size to the 1st one and boy was I relieved. I’d lost that many it was criminal.
I continued to hook and lose fish.

By the end I’d hooked and lost 15 or more with two of them taking me round the tower.
I need to rethink my tackle for the wall.

Here’s something for you to think about.
I was one end of a section of 4 and Rado was at the other end with two anglers between the two of us. Rado and I used quite a lot of groundbait which attracted the Tollostolop. They were there, all along the wall.
I think, in fact I’m positive, that the presence of these big fish deter the smaller fish and I think that’s why John and Allan had such a hard time trying to get smaller fish. They’d been scared out by the big stuff.
The thing is, someone is always going to use groundbait on the dam wall. Everyone around them will be affected.

The weigh in was interesting for me.
Rado had tried to stay with the small stuff and had lost some big fish during the match. Even his consistent approach resulted in very few small fish.
Vlado and Mark, on the house bank, hadn’t been troubled by the Tollostolop and their good weights of Crucians and Grass Carp proved it.

Results:

Section A

1. Vlado     -     19lbs 2oz  (8.67Kg)
2. Mark      -     13lbs  (5.9Kg)
3. Simon    -     4lbs 1oz  (1.84Kg)
4. Gary       -     3lbs 4oz  (1.47Kg)

Section B

1. Paul      -     17lbs 11oz (8.02Kg)
2. Rado    -     4lbs 7oz  (2.01Kg)

The other guys caught fish but didn’t weigh in and as a result, they were disqualified form winning the coveted Wooden spoon. Gary can lay claim to being the current holder.

Next Match, Sunday 24th October.

Slaps.