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- May 19, 2002
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Sunday was match day six of the season and a visit to a fishery we havent been to for a few years The Oaks at Sessay. This match had actually been booked by Guisborough Angling Club and theyd invited us along to make the numbers up. Id been told we would be on Poplars Lake, however arriving at the site about 8am I couldnt see the Guisborough name anywhere on the notice board at the entrance to the fishery. I parked up and walked back to have another look and spotted Bill Stoker's (the guy whod booked the match in the first place) name against Maple 30-55.
Once everybody had found the right spot a quick head count revealed there were 14 of us present 10 Stokesley members and 4 Guisborough (a couple of whom are members of both) I left the draw to our hosts, who had a walk-off draw I think I was about number 13, a quick scoot about the remaining pegs and I plumped for peg 36.
I had Mike to my immediate left
and to my right a blank peg and then Trevor just at the start of the tight bend around pegs 38-41. It was a lovely warm morning and if not for the incessant rain would have been a very pleasant day. Maple is your typical snake lake 13-15m wide, shallow far-bank margin and about four feet down the middle. I found my peg to be just a shade over 13m wide (no extensions required[
]) and just plumbed up three spots the far bank mud line, the nearside margin and just shy of the middle plus a shallow rig for down the middle if necessary. Id already decided to base my day on fishing meat or corn with hemp I refuse to pay 2.80 for a tiny bag of fishery pellets identical to the ones I have in a 15 litre bucket at home that cost about a quid for the same quantity.[!]
At the start I dumped a big pot of meat & hemp across to the far bank and smaller amounts down the middle and in the margin. Starting on the longer line there were immediate signs that there were some fish about swirls betraying the presence of fish in the shallow water.
It wasnt long before my double-corn hookbait attracted some attention and I found I was attached to a nice common of probably a couple of pounds. After foul hooking and spooking a couple of fish I fed the far-line again and had a look over the margin. That produced a couple of tentative bites and a crayfish that fell off as I swung it in. Mike to my left had three crayfish in his first three put-ins on the longer line and was forced to change his far bank mud-line to avoid them. I had three carp in the net after about an hour for a total of probably five pounds or so before bites dried up. Switches to my other lines produced little except tiny silvers and micro-perch. Refed all three and went for a short wander nobody seemed to be pulling up any trees, generally just odd carp here and there, although Dave had half-a-dozen from end peg 55.
Tink had a couple fishing the method feeder across to the far side, I told him to go steady though - he was hospitalised following a heart attack 10 days ago and after watching how the anglers heart-rate increased on Fishomania the day before when they hooked a fish I was a little worried he might get too excited[]
The rain had stopped by now and when the sun peeked through it got very warm.
Returning to my peg I changed tactics a little since you could always see when carp were in the vicinity of the far-bank, it seemed a little pointless fishing for them when they werent present. With this in mind I started a new line just fishing 2+2, kick-starting the swim with a couple of nuggets of groundbait, maggot and corn. General idea being to catch anything that swims from this line and every time I spotted fish over the far side try and extract as many as possible before they spooked, refeed and repeat.
Fishing double maggot on the hook just resulted in perch but a switch to corn saw me pick up a few chunky roach, ide and rudd around the 4oz mark. Things went a bit quiet and I was about to feed again when the float slid away and I found myself attached to a lively F1 of a pound and a half or so.[]
Mike alongside me had been struggling (presumably due to the nest of crayfish on his mud-line) so switched to fishing the method feeder on the pole and swinging it into literally 6-9" of water tight to the far-bank - bite indication being six feet of elastic flying outta the pole[] It worked though and he started picking up a variety of carp - including a grassie which I'm not sure was supposed to be in Maple - it seems like the crayfish it had grown legs and walked over from Willows Lake[]
I continued alternating between the far bank and the 2+2 line and probably caught twice as much in the last two hours as I had in the previous four - including a real lump of 6lb+ 10 minutes from the end[]
I missed the start of the weigh-in but Jimmy had 35lb 6oz from peg 31 and Frankie 5lb dead from peg 32.
Mike was next on peg 35 and weighed 20lb 7oz
The lump I got at the end made all the difference as I weighed 25lb 12oz
Trevor was next and he'd stuck it out for lumps on the feeder - he'd caught some but also wrecked his landing net in the process[:0] 14lb 10oz was his total
Round to peg 43 and Wayne, one of the Guisboro' lads who was "just making the numbers up" dropped 22lb 10oz onto the scales
Bob only had 2lb 7oz from peg 44 and Chris 5lb 1oz from peg 45. Tink did somewhat better and fortunately did not keel over due to all the excitement weighing in 21lb 4oz
Allan (a member of both clubs) was next up and weighed 7lb 12oz from peg 47 - a couple of better fish contributing most of his weight.
Kev on peg 48 had more fish but not so many quality ones and weighed 7lb 3oz
Round to Bill (who's also a member of both clubs) and he'd had a good day catching some real lumps from peg 50 totalling 28lb 3oz
Chris, one of the Guisboro' lads weighed 8lb 14oz from peg 54
Finally Dave on peg 55 - incidentally one of the few pegs on the lake where you're not fishing to the island - instead there's a massive margin swim and the aerator to aim at - although when it's turned on the tow is immense. Dave topped the field with a level 41lb
Since both Dave & Jimmy were guesting though it meant that Bill, who'd organised the match, won his first ever Stokesley match[:T]
No huge weights but at least everybody weighed in, even though the fish didn't really seem to be having a go. Next match we're back on our club pond at Mount Grace Priory on 27th July, followed by the first visit of the season to Ingleby Road Pond on 10th August.
Simon
Once everybody had found the right spot a quick head count revealed there were 14 of us present 10 Stokesley members and 4 Guisborough (a couple of whom are members of both) I left the draw to our hosts, who had a walk-off draw I think I was about number 13, a quick scoot about the remaining pegs and I plumped for peg 36.
I had Mike to my immediate left
and to my right a blank peg and then Trevor just at the start of the tight bend around pegs 38-41. It was a lovely warm morning and if not for the incessant rain would have been a very pleasant day. Maple is your typical snake lake 13-15m wide, shallow far-bank margin and about four feet down the middle. I found my peg to be just a shade over 13m wide (no extensions required[
]) and just plumbed up three spots the far bank mud line, the nearside margin and just shy of the middle plus a shallow rig for down the middle if necessary. Id already decided to base my day on fishing meat or corn with hemp I refuse to pay 2.80 for a tiny bag of fishery pellets identical to the ones I have in a 15 litre bucket at home that cost about a quid for the same quantity.[!]At the start I dumped a big pot of meat & hemp across to the far bank and smaller amounts down the middle and in the margin. Starting on the longer line there were immediate signs that there were some fish about swirls betraying the presence of fish in the shallow water.
It wasnt long before my double-corn hookbait attracted some attention and I found I was attached to a nice common of probably a couple of pounds. After foul hooking and spooking a couple of fish I fed the far-line again and had a look over the margin. That produced a couple of tentative bites and a crayfish that fell off as I swung it in. Mike to my left had three crayfish in his first three put-ins on the longer line and was forced to change his far bank mud-line to avoid them. I had three carp in the net after about an hour for a total of probably five pounds or so before bites dried up. Switches to my other lines produced little except tiny silvers and micro-perch. Refed all three and went for a short wander nobody seemed to be pulling up any trees, generally just odd carp here and there, although Dave had half-a-dozen from end peg 55.
Tink had a couple fishing the method feeder across to the far side, I told him to go steady though - he was hospitalised following a heart attack 10 days ago and after watching how the anglers heart-rate increased on Fishomania the day before when they hooked a fish I was a little worried he might get too excited[
]
The rain had stopped by now and when the sun peeked through it got very warm.
Returning to my peg I changed tactics a little since you could always see when carp were in the vicinity of the far-bank, it seemed a little pointless fishing for them when they werent present. With this in mind I started a new line just fishing 2+2, kick-starting the swim with a couple of nuggets of groundbait, maggot and corn. General idea being to catch anything that swims from this line and every time I spotted fish over the far side try and extract as many as possible before they spooked, refeed and repeat.
Fishing double maggot on the hook just resulted in perch but a switch to corn saw me pick up a few chunky roach, ide and rudd around the 4oz mark. Things went a bit quiet and I was about to feed again when the float slid away and I found myself attached to a lively F1 of a pound and a half or so.[
]
Mike alongside me had been struggling (presumably due to the nest of crayfish on his mud-line) so switched to fishing the method feeder on the pole and swinging it into literally 6-9" of water tight to the far-bank - bite indication being six feet of elastic flying outta the pole[
] It worked though and he started picking up a variety of carp - including a grassie which I'm not sure was supposed to be in Maple - it seems like the crayfish it had grown legs and walked over from Willows Lake[]I continued alternating between the far bank and the 2+2 line and probably caught twice as much in the last two hours as I had in the previous four - including a real lump of 6lb+ 10 minutes from the end[
]I missed the start of the weigh-in but Jimmy had 35lb 6oz from peg 31 and Frankie 5lb dead from peg 32.
Mike was next on peg 35 and weighed 20lb 7oz
The lump I got at the end made all the difference as I weighed 25lb 12oz
Trevor was next and he'd stuck it out for lumps on the feeder - he'd caught some but also wrecked his landing net in the process[:0] 14lb 10oz was his total
Round to peg 43 and Wayne, one of the Guisboro' lads who was "just making the numbers up" dropped 22lb 10oz onto the scales
Bob only had 2lb 7oz from peg 44 and Chris 5lb 1oz from peg 45. Tink did somewhat better and fortunately did not keel over due to all the excitement weighing in 21lb 4oz
Allan (a member of both clubs) was next up and weighed 7lb 12oz from peg 47 - a couple of better fish contributing most of his weight.
Kev on peg 48 had more fish but not so many quality ones and weighed 7lb 3oz
Round to Bill (who's also a member of both clubs) and he'd had a good day catching some real lumps from peg 50 totalling 28lb 3oz
Chris, one of the Guisboro' lads weighed 8lb 14oz from peg 54
Finally Dave on peg 55 - incidentally one of the few pegs on the lake where you're not fishing to the island - instead there's a massive margin swim and the aerator to aim at - although when it's turned on the tow is immense. Dave topped the field with a level 41lb
Since both Dave & Jimmy were guesting though it meant that Bill, who'd organised the match, won his first ever Stokesley match[:T]
No huge weights but at least everybody weighed in, even though the fish didn't really seem to be having a go. Next match we're back on our club pond at Mount Grace Priory on 27th July, followed by the first visit of the season to Ingleby Road Pond on 10th August.
Simon
