Nick Speed's Blog - Deer, Timmy Tiptoes and Victory

Pubblicato I BLOGS DEI PESCATOR at Dec 09, 2011

I thought it was about time to catch up to speed with my fishing expeditions over the rather eventful past fortnight or so.

To start with on Saturday 12^th November, I gave up a day’s match fishing to spend the day coaching a very talented young angler who has a great potential in the very near future.

On this day we both saw something that I’m quite sure we’ll both never witness again.

I decided to take Alex on the willow’s lake, which luckily had a few spare pegs available despite having a club match on also.

This is the perfect lake to demonstrate how to understand how these finicky F1’s feed, especially at this time of the year when the water clarity increases and all species become even harder to catch.

We sat on peg 40, which I might add is one of my most favourite pegs on the whole complex, as you can guess this pegs a Flier.

Situated on a point this is the perfect area to demonstrate how to make the most of quite a large expanse of water on a typical peninsula.

About half way through the session the sound of pheasant hunting was echoing through the sky from the nearby woods , then moments later I could hear commotion from all the anglers on the Laurels lake directly behind us, talking about a roaming deer!.

Carrying on fishing we were then suddenly greeted by a Deer swimming within 4 feet from the float! Apparently it had ran along the oasis lake embankment, then ran down and dived into laurels lake before swimming through several Anglers swims, then jumping out of Laurels and straight into willows lake where the Deer decided to swim into the bay where we were fishing, then swimming in several circles before it decided which bank to climb out from, Amazing!.

 I just wish I could have been quick enough to get a shot of it on camera!

Sunday 13^th November.

Stainforth and Keadby Canal, Thorne.

Teams of Four, AL Baily Memorial, 80 pegs.

If there’s one venue I always enjoy paying the occasional visit to it has to be the “Stainy”, especially at this time of the year this canal is just awesome, as it’s just full of fish.

Our team was made up with, Mr Blobby( Adam Wakelin), Jason Leboske, Jon Taylor, and Myself.

As you can imagine it didn’t take long for us to come with a Team name, yep you’ve guessed it “  Timmy Tiptoes”, it just made perfect sense, strange name for a strange team, and more to the point regarded as strangers to the venue, or so they think.

At the draw, we were all reasonably happy with all our pegs, and to be honest I don’t think any of us were bothered where we were going to draw on the match length, as it was just a case of knuckling down and extracting as much weight as possible to ensure good points from all of us that would hopefully secure a good team result!

With this being the first visit on the canal this season for all four of us, and especially Jon Taylor who might I add had never seen the venue before, it was definitely going to be interesting to see how our approach fared in this competitive field of knowledgeable anglers on what I would call the most consistent natural water way at present!

This team event was decided upon points scored within each 20 peg section, so in theory it was all about scoring enough points to gain a place in the top 5 in each of our sections. If only actions could speak louder than words!

I was handed peg 148, this put me bang in the centre of the first section between Moors Bridge and Wyekwell Bridge.

The last time I was in this particular section was about 8 years ago in an Angling Times Winter league match.

 Since then especially at this time of the year this area holds far more roach than it ever use to , so my approach as was also the team plan, was to target the silver’s on the blood worm to just put as many fish in the net over the five hour period to accumulate a respectable weight.

As I walked up towards my peg I could see that I was heading for a tough section as next to end peg was the one and only Alan Scotthorne, understandably he was rather happy with his daw as this was the favoured end of the section.

It also didn’t take him long for him to describe how good my draw was, but unfortunately I can’t repeat what he said.

If there’s one rule I’ve always carried with me through fishing is always think positive, and that was the only weapon I was carrying to my peg after big AL had tried to hammer it out of me.

By the time I reached my peg I had counted 6 anglers that were going to be hard to beat, and I only walked past 10 anglers!

 Further to my right I also had the likes of Sean Ashby, and Lee Kerry(End Peg Draw Bag).

With such a tough field to compete against meant that any bad decisions or mistakes in my match, was severely going to affect my overall placing in the section.

Catching short was the main plan as at the moment the “stainy” is holding a large head of roach so there’s no need to go too far out to catch a net of silvers.

Setting up the exact same rigs as I used last year on the wyekwell  section, I soon found out that the depth  in this peg was exactly the same.

For my short line at the crease of the near shelf where I was going to feed all my joker , I set up two worm rigs, both were ultimate 1 floats in sizes 4 x 18, and 4 x 20, 0.12 Aspire Silk Shock Main Line, 0.06 Aspire Silk Shock Hook Length, size 20 fine wire worm hook.

I also set up a light rig for sneaking a few perch out from under my keepnet.

This of course made the setting up process a whole lot easier, which then meant I could spend a bit more time on my bait and ground bait prep.

 I also had intentions of feeding a worm and caster line at 14 metres for the skimmers that might be willing to feed, but to be honest this was going to be a risky line to concentrate on if there were so many roach to be caught a lot nearer in.

With the water being quite coloured and high in temp for this time of the year my plan was to feed my joker in mainly ground bait with a small amount of soil, and leam added, just to add a bit more density to mix.

My Ground bait mix consisted of equal quantities Dynamite Baits Freenzied Hemp Seed Black, Dynamite Silver X Roach. This active mix works brilliant when you want to achieve prolonged activity in your swim.

Having already prepared the ground bait a few hours earlier to allow time for the whole mix to settle, all I needed to do on the bankside was to liven the mix back up with several riddles to push air back into the mix after it’s been compacted into a Shimano Ground Bait Bag.

Regarding hook bait choice, all I needed on my side tray was blood worm / joker, and a few casters.

Five minutes before the whistle I added most of my joker to the ground bait mix and then formed 10 balls out of the mix, leaving aside enough raw joker to top my swim up throughout the match, and also allowing enough for feeding a small amount of neat joker next to my keepnet.

At the start I immediately dropped a small nugget of joker next to my keepnet, and then proceeded to feed all the balls on my short line.

I then fed a large pot of chopped worm/caster at 14 metres, which to be honest on looking back was a complete waste of precious time.

I started under my keepnet expecting catch a run of perch immediately on a small bloodworm, but surprisingly I received no response what so ever.

This was where lack of experience on venue was costly, as I should have picked my roach rig up to see if they had responded to the feed straight away, but I didn’t.

 Instead I picked up my caster rig to see if there were any bonus fish on the 14 metre line, WRONG.

Within five minutes of sitting on this line I noticed roach were already being caught around me, so I immediately shipped back whilst talking to myself along the lines of being a rather stupid person.

I picked my roach rig up and as soon as I lowered my rig in I caught a decent stamp roach that I had to net!

Just fishing a single worm on the hook I caught roach steadily throughout the first two hours of the match, gradually though my swim began to settle down so I topped it back up with a ball of joker just mixed with leam/soil.

This created an instant response and to be honest I felt I should have topped it up a bit earlier.

Throughout the rest of the match I caught roach steadily on this line, but at the same time I knew a few mistakes in my feeding pattern had cost me a few spells where I was waiting for my swim to kick back to life, this is definitely the difference between winning a match on this canal and coming nowhere!

At the final whistle I walked down  to watch the whole section get weighed in, upon reaching Alan, the scales were just tipping 19lb of roach caught by the master, and of course that was most probably going to be a podium topping weight also, Awesome.

After Alan,  nearly every angler was weighing in at least 8lb of silver’s with the odd big Skimmer making the occasional appearance, then John Dunhill placed 12lb 12oz on the scales, followed by little Frankie next peg on 152, showing his class with an impressive 16lb.

When the scales reached me I knew I needed a high 12lb to get good points, and also not forgetting that there were still another 10 more anglers to weigh in after me.

Luckily a bit of fortune was on my side as my weight read 12lb 13oz, Phew!. This put me 4^rd in the section up to press.

Just two pegs up Sean Ashby pushed me down by weighing in 13lb, and after looking at the final board Lee Kerry also weighed in a cracking 18lb for claiming second in the section and the Match also.

This put me into 6^th overall in the section, which to be honest I wasn’t beaten up by, as although I made a few mistakes I felt I fished a disciplined match.

Back at the pub it didn’t take long for us all to realise that actually we had a chance of winning the team event!

Adam Wakelin had fished a blinder and walked away with a clean section win, Jason Leboske had secured 5^th in his section, and Jon Taylor had claimed a very respectable 6^th in his section for his first visit!

Unfortunatly Team Timmy Tiptoes had to claim Second overall, as Sean Ashby’s Team beat us by just 1 point!, we were gutted to say the least, as we were all then back tracking on how we should have all had a few more ounces . That’s fishing!

Never the less it was a cracking match that we all enjoyed and I can’t wait to get back on the canal again in the pair’s event after Christmas , partnering Jon Taylor, Watch this Space!!

Lindholme Winter League

On the lindholme winter league side we’ve now had three match’s, two of which I’ve won outright and the last match I was pegged on the Locco Lake where I managed to bag 100lb of carp on the method feeder, casting up to the island in the centre of the lake.

This was only enough for second in the match and also my section, as also on the Locco , Mark booth weighed in a cracking 137lb from Peg 42.

Paul Christie is winning it with 3 section wins, and I’m lying in second spot with two wins and a second.

Keep an eye out for my next update.