It's the end of an era, Marsh AC were attending their final match at Coleman's Cottage. It has had its highs and lows for yours truly but over the years I have grown to like it. Gerry and Jayne have been fully supportive of our club's endeavours. Hosting Kev's 50th a few years back, John has his annual fish in with his extended family and generally good times have been had by all. But it all must come to an end, turning the lakes into a members only complex and freeing up valuable time for the owners.
I travelled the 90 miles to Witham without Mick, who was still recuperating. Kris and Troy were still away and I was looking forward to fishing Stepfield Lake. We had fished it before and I have done alright without setting any records. I found that it was either shallow across or down the edges.
No headaches on the motorways, allowed me to make good time and pulling into the car park I was not the first to arrive. Gino, Chris, Josh and Terry were already awaiting full English Breakfasts being busily prepared in the adjacent kitchen. With my order placed and a mug of tea in hand, we were soon reminiscing of times gone by.
A quick chat with Gerry said which lake we were on and how it had been fishing. The locals catching well in excess of 200lbs. This would not happen unless the right angler was on the right peg. Draw time saw peg 22 stick to me mitt. Very close to where I was last year. Walking back to the car and unloading the tackle I was surprised to see everyone driving past to a different Stepfield. A few words were passed and the confusion of the "Stepfields" was resolved with a lot of returning cars.
My peg looked no different to any of the other pegs on the lake,with the exception of 8 and 10 either side of the bush in the corner. A noted flyer. I would need to fish well and stay focused on what I was doing. I set up a couple of rigs for 11m due to the wind, 5m and 4m coupled with a shallow slapping rig. I also wanted to fish the margins but with only around 8 inches of depth I was sceptical. However, a carp coming in and searching for food prior to the kick off made my mind up to set up either side on top threes.
My plan was to fish 8mm pellets everywhere in the peg but hardly feed anything. My thought process was the fish were already in the margins looking for food and I did not want too many fish in the peg, instead just fishing and catching one at a time, feed then switch sides and repeat.
I had Terry,on end peg and Tony either side of me, with dangermen Josh and Tony a couple further down. At the all in, I cupped in on the longer lines and seeing a fish in the right margin, threw three 6mm pellets in and waited. A minute later the float dipped and fish number one was on and a 3lb common was soon gracing the fishery supplied nets. Three more pellets and out again, same thing happens, things were looking good. Terry was into his first fish. After three fish, I had fed around 15 pellets and could see fish milling around looking for food. A switch to the left hand side, this time feeding 8mm pellets to see if there was any difference to catch rate or size of fish.Still feeding 3 pellets at a time, After an hour I reckoned on having around 30lb and was going fish for fish with Terry from what I could see. Every time I was facing him he was catching steadily. Tony however was struggling to put a run together, he had lots of fish in his peg and was foul hooking fish regularly. I could see further down the straight and Tony was putting fish in the net but I could not see Josh.
With regular feeding and keeping it tight I was able to keep drawing odd fish into the swim and have a back up margin line should one go quiet. After three hours I reached for an additional net, thinking I was close to the net limits. At this point my landing net thread came away from the plastic shroud of the frame of the net. No amount of pushing it back it worked. I looked for some electrical tape but nothing. So I just took my time netting fish, using the net similarly to a trout angler would with his tennis racket net. It was funny to see.
It was only after the match Terry says I have some electrical tape!!!!!!
Still I was catching, fish between 1 and 3lb with the odd five pounder thrown in and felt a steady ton was on the cards despite all my frustrations.
At the all out I had fished a tidy match, considering. I was happy and felt the only thing I would have done differently is catch bigger fish, but we have no say over that. Packing up and walking back it was interesting to see all the Pinocchio's trying to get their stories together. Best one was a certain person claiming 45lb and doubling it.
A lot of the stories revolved around having too many fish in their pegs and they could not catch them, on interrogation it pans out they had all fed pots of bait at the start and this drew in lots of fish, churning up the shallow water and foul hookers as a result. My softly softly approach worked out fine.
Overall
1st Keith Ashby 138-08
2nd Josh Donovan 94-00
3rd Tony Roberts 87-00
4th Terry Goff 77-00
5th Gino Exell 76-08
6th Jim Boase 69-08
Well done to all the framers and section winners and looking forward to Puddledock Road Lake in a couple of weeks.
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