It's Better To Be Lucky Than Good!
Match Fishing’s Joe Carass has had more than a slice of luck this week!
This week saw the fourth round of the Tunnel Barn Winter League, and yet again it was a weekend of indifferent results! But more of that later.
I had a few days off last week, and because I haven’t been for a few weeks I decided on a couple of midweekers at TBF. Well, I cannot complain about my drawing arm lately as Wednesday saw me on Extension 21 which has been on fire lately and the Friday saw me on Canal 3, again a great peg.
However the fish hadn’t exactly read the script as the Wednesday was a real struggle and my 21lb was good enough for precisely nowhere! The Friday was even harder and after five hours of freezing cold action (well actually non-action) my 11lb was enough for second. This week has seen the lakes freeze, thaw and then freeze again which in my experience doesn’t do any venue any good and I think it was this that killed the sport.
On the way home I was buoyed by the fact that the air temperature was seemingly on the rise and when I got home I thought that the WL on Saturday would be a great match compared to the midweek matches.
Imagine my surprise then when I arrived at the venue to see al the lakes frozen solid! Luckily I was armed with the icebreaker so wasn’t too worried but knew that it was going to be hard.
It was my turn to draw for the team; first out of the bag was Jon Arthur’s Club 11, a good draw at any time of the year. Second was Paul Bick’s House 6, an even better draw! However the next two is where the wheels fell off somewhat. My Extension 1 wasn’t where I wanted to be at all, Paul had struggled for bites off the peg in the last round but nevertheless I remained confident. Last but by no means least was Steve Ringers New 39 draw, which is absolutely horrendous. This peg cost us a rake of points in last years league after I drew it twice and Jon once. Steve was rightly despondent, the only consolation been that venue master Stu Palser had caught a few off it the week before.
On arriving at my peg I was pleased to see the friendly face of Pete Caton on the next peg. Pete is a great angler and top bloke to boot so was sure to have plenty of banter throughout the match. He was on arguably the better peg 38 while non other than Des Shipp was on the in-form Peg 36. I would definitely have my work cut out to beat them.
The ice seemed a bit too thick to try and break with my pole (not recommended!) so I chucked out the heavyweight ice breaker a couple of times. Interestingly I was the only one to do so. I broke out three channels that went right across to the far bank, which would at least give me a bit of water to work at. Primarily though I fancied the far left swim towards the fish in the 30’s.
I kicked the match off the same as everyone else with a bit of bread on the hook. I also fed 10 maggots down the middle. I was the first to get a bite and after five minutes I was off the mark with a decent F1 (so much for the breaker spooking them). That was the only bite on bread though and I was soon onto the track swim. My float settled and I had a glance up at Pete’s float and watched it go under with his first fish, I looked back and my float was under and my second F1 of the day came to the net.
I had just one more down the track before all I could catch were small roach so it was time for a change. I moved into 4ft of water and caught another straight away. It was a false dawn though and the next hour was spent catching very little. I made a bit of a mistake by trying too many lines instead of keeping the faith but when I sussed it out I was happy to sit on two lines, both in three feet of water.
With 90 minutes to go it was close between Pete and me. He was maybe two fish in front, Des had caught an F1 every chuck on the stockie epicentre so I had to keep the blinkers on. Bites were very hard to come by and usually came just as it looked that all was lost.
The pattern continued right up until the final ten minutes where I caught three more F1s in quick succession but I knew that Pete was well in front of me now. With just one minute to go though I got a funny indication which I struck at, a big ghostie then jumped out of the water before bow waving up and down the far bank, I quickly said to Pete “we are gonna need a bigger boat”!
The carp was going to make a huge difference to the end result so I took my time with what was clearly a foul hooked fish. The old ticker was certainly beating fast and when the fish got to my top kit I was starting to wonder how I would land it with my small pan net. A glance of the fish in the clear water and I saw the hook rooted firmly in the tail, this would certainly make things difficult when I remembered I had set up a bigger net on a longer handle just for clearing the ice.
Ten minutes after the all-out and I was becoming anxious that I just needed the fish in the net now and that eventually my light tackle would give way. I decided on an underwater scoop and when I lifted my net the 6lb ghostie was nestled in the pan – followed by cries of “you spawny git” or words of that effect.
Pete was the first of us to weigh and his 23lb was a good weight on a tough day. My foul-hooked ghostie boosted net went 25-12-0! I was a little embarrassed to say I had beaten him! This got me good points for the team and was far from the disaster that the peg could have been.
The other anglers results filtered through, Jon had done mega and came fourth in his section with Paul 5th also. The nightmare for Steve could not be avoided and his 15lb was not enough to beat many. Sadly another shocking peg cost us as we slumped to fifth in the league standings!
The match was won on Club pool yet again with Paul Caswell catching a great 115lb. team wise things got a little shuck up with Barston also struggling after a terrible set of pegs. This opened the door for reigning champs Banbury Gunsmiths to claw back a few more points after yet another good performance.
So it had been a mixed week for us but with six rounds to go there is a lot of points to be won and lost yet!
Follow Joe on twitter - @carassjoe
Or email your thoughts to [email protected]
This week saw the fourth round of the Tunnel Barn Winter League, and yet again it was a weekend of indifferent results! But more of that later.
I had a few days off last week, and because I haven’t been for a few weeks I decided on a couple of midweekers at TBF. Well, I cannot complain about my drawing arm lately as Wednesday saw me on Extension 21 which has been on fire lately and the Friday saw me on Canal 3, again a great peg.
However the fish hadn’t exactly read the script as the Wednesday was a real struggle and my 21lb was good enough for precisely nowhere! The Friday was even harder and after five hours of freezing cold action (well actually non-action) my 11lb was enough for second. This week has seen the lakes freeze, thaw and then freeze again which in my experience doesn’t do any venue any good and I think it was this that killed the sport.
On the way home I was buoyed by the fact that the air temperature was seemingly on the rise and when I got home I thought that the WL on Saturday would be a great match compared to the midweek matches.
Imagine my surprise then when I arrived at the venue to see al the lakes frozen solid! Luckily I was armed with the icebreaker so wasn’t too worried but knew that it was going to be hard.
It was my turn to draw for the team; first out of the bag was Jon Arthur’s Club 11, a good draw at any time of the year. Second was Paul Bick’s House 6, an even better draw! However the next two is where the wheels fell off somewhat. My Extension 1 wasn’t where I wanted to be at all, Paul had struggled for bites off the peg in the last round but nevertheless I remained confident. Last but by no means least was Steve Ringers New 39 draw, which is absolutely horrendous. This peg cost us a rake of points in last years league after I drew it twice and Jon once. Steve was rightly despondent, the only consolation been that venue master Stu Palser had caught a few off it the week before.
On arriving at my peg I was pleased to see the friendly face of Pete Caton on the next peg. Pete is a great angler and top bloke to boot so was sure to have plenty of banter throughout the match. He was on arguably the better peg 38 while non other than Des Shipp was on the in-form Peg 36. I would definitely have my work cut out to beat them.
The ice seemed a bit too thick to try and break with my pole (not recommended!) so I chucked out the heavyweight ice breaker a couple of times. Interestingly I was the only one to do so. I broke out three channels that went right across to the far bank, which would at least give me a bit of water to work at. Primarily though I fancied the far left swim towards the fish in the 30’s.
I kicked the match off the same as everyone else with a bit of bread on the hook. I also fed 10 maggots down the middle. I was the first to get a bite and after five minutes I was off the mark with a decent F1 (so much for the breaker spooking them). That was the only bite on bread though and I was soon onto the track swim. My float settled and I had a glance up at Pete’s float and watched it go under with his first fish, I looked back and my float was under and my second F1 of the day came to the net.
I had just one more down the track before all I could catch were small roach so it was time for a change. I moved into 4ft of water and caught another straight away. It was a false dawn though and the next hour was spent catching very little. I made a bit of a mistake by trying too many lines instead of keeping the faith but when I sussed it out I was happy to sit on two lines, both in three feet of water.
With 90 minutes to go it was close between Pete and me. He was maybe two fish in front, Des had caught an F1 every chuck on the stockie epicentre so I had to keep the blinkers on. Bites were very hard to come by and usually came just as it looked that all was lost.
The pattern continued right up until the final ten minutes where I caught three more F1s in quick succession but I knew that Pete was well in front of me now. With just one minute to go though I got a funny indication which I struck at, a big ghostie then jumped out of the water before bow waving up and down the far bank, I quickly said to Pete “we are gonna need a bigger boat”!
The carp was going to make a huge difference to the end result so I took my time with what was clearly a foul hooked fish. The old ticker was certainly beating fast and when the fish got to my top kit I was starting to wonder how I would land it with my small pan net. A glance of the fish in the clear water and I saw the hook rooted firmly in the tail, this would certainly make things difficult when I remembered I had set up a bigger net on a longer handle just for clearing the ice.
Ten minutes after the all-out and I was becoming anxious that I just needed the fish in the net now and that eventually my light tackle would give way. I decided on an underwater scoop and when I lifted my net the 6lb ghostie was nestled in the pan – followed by cries of “you spawny git” or words of that effect.
Pete was the first of us to weigh and his 23lb was a good weight on a tough day. My foul-hooked ghostie boosted net went 25-12-0! I was a little embarrassed to say I had beaten him! This got me good points for the team and was far from the disaster that the peg could have been.
The other anglers results filtered through, Jon had done mega and came fourth in his section with Paul 5th also. The nightmare for Steve could not be avoided and his 15lb was not enough to beat many. Sadly another shocking peg cost us as we slumped to fifth in the league standings!
The match was won on Club pool yet again with Paul Caswell catching a great 115lb. team wise things got a little shuck up with Barston also struggling after a terrible set of pegs. This opened the door for reigning champs Banbury Gunsmiths to claw back a few more points after yet another good performance.
So it had been a mixed week for us but with six rounds to go there is a lot of points to be won and lost yet!
Follow Joe on twitter - @carassjoe
Or email your thoughts to [email protected]
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