I can only describe the actual fishing as strange!

The day was another lovely day weatherwise, warm with a gentle breeze blowing in the right direction. Today’s match was shortened to 4 hours as we had a BBQ afterwards.
7 anglers took part which meant we could place almost everyone on the housebank with only 1 peg, the fancied peg 7, on the wall.
Sue drew my peg and yes, she pulled out number 7. I’ve always wanted this peg and remain convinced it’s the peg which could well produce the first ton up catch of this lake. As you can probably imagine, I was quite happy with my draw.

There’s quite a lot of banter between competitors during a fishing match. All of it good natured. From it, you can pick up how the place is fishing and who’s doing what.

I got to my peg and was very pleased to see that the wind was blowing directly into the corner and there were so many bubbles from feeding fish, the place looked like a jacuzzi. To say I anticipated a day’s good fishing would be an understatement. I had THE peg and the conditions seemed just right.
I had to decide whether to use a rod or a pole. I got it wrong! I chose the pole – better control normally – and I left my rods at the house. I set up with 3.5 kilo line to a good strong hook on a 1 gram float with black hydro. A gutsy enough set-up that would handle most fish. I thought.

At the hooter, I balled in 12 big jaffas of groundbait laced with wheat and corn at the 6 to 7 meter line. I didn’t expect to catch much there for the 1st hour and had decided to fish the top 2 of my pole, away from the groundbait and snatch a few bits for an hour. At the end of that hour I had 1 small Crucian in the net. The 1st hour’s chit chat was that not much was happening anywhere so I wasn’t too dismayed but I was surprised as conditions everywhere seemed just right.
Dropping in on the groundbait produced a small Carp of 12 oz, and 3 more Crucians. Then the fun began.
The Tolostollop decided to reveal their presence. They were there in numbers and I think that was why I wasn’t catching any smaller fish, these things are huge!

What is a Tolostollop I hear you ask. Well 1st things 1st, they’re ugly and are known in the US as Big Head Carp. They grow to an enormous size and are filter feeders. They will suck in particle baits but will normally spit them out. They are normally foul hooked and go off like rockets when they are hooked.

After losing 3 on the trot in quick succession (definitely foul hooked) I got it right and hooked one in the gob. It bounced around a bit on the end of the elastic and then took off. After a 10 minute struggle I got it to the landing net, well nearly anyway. I could see it was large and definitely looked like a double figure fish. Then the hook pulled out!
When I said I’d got it right, I meant the bait presentation. I’d fiddled around with the depth and I knew that the sweetcorn was just touching bottom, that seemed to produce more gob hooked fish. The next few that I lost didn’t go like rockets, they just slowly swam away never to be seen again after simply breaking my line. No matter how much strain I put on these few fish, there was no noticeable change in their speed or direction, just a nice smooth glide to infinity.
I landed number 7 which later proved to be just under 10lb.
I’d realised, after losing 5 of these buggers that I’d made the wrong decision earlier on. I should have set up a rod with big gear on it. I just couldn’t get enough pressure on these fish.
I lost 9 in total. God knows what weight I would have had if I’d landed just half of the fish I lost.

The chit chat along the bank told me that not much had been caught so I thought I still had a chance of framing, but I was disappointed to say the least.

Anyway, results:

1. Rado          -      13lb 6oz (6.07kg)
2. Hristo        -     11lb 9oz (5.24kg)
3. Me               -     10lb 14oz (4.93kg)
4. Paul W        -      7lb 3 oz (3.26kg)
5. Gary          -    3lb 8oz (1.59kg)
6. Simon        -     3lb 1oz (1.39kg)
   John caught a fish and instead of finishing 7th, he received the innaugural award of the Wooden Spoon! Well done John.