12hr Match at Tingrith

12 hour Fun Match & BBQ Tingrith Fishery

I had a very busy day on Saturday 20th June this year taking part in the first 12 hour match held on Browning Tingrith's Fringe Lake.

Normal fishery rules applied with weigh-ins every 4 hours.

Although I had broken both tib and fib at the ankle back in January which gave me little chance to practice on my new pole, I decided that what the heck, the pole would be my chosen means of attack. I drew Peg 9 which was bordered on each side by reeds. Due to my inexperience fishing the pole I was very concerned and didn't fancy my chances in keeping the carp out of the reeds if I was lucky to hook one so I decided I would fish very shallow at 14mtrs.

I had read somewhere the trick of tying a pellet to a hair and varnishing it so that rather than constantly changing bait, the varnished pellet would allow the same rig to catch many fish and keep the baited line in the water longer.

My second line of attack was to fish further over to my right past the reeds to the vacant swim and drop bait just under the unused platform. As the whistle blew for the all in, I emptied a pole cup of 6mm GOT Bait pellets and another cup made up of half and half small cubed luncheon meat and sweetcorn.

I then went out at 14mtrs with a shallow rig of 18 inches deep using a Preston Durafloat 10 shot below with a couple of size 10 Stotz to a 6lb Drennan mainline attached loop to loop to a 5lb Drennan hooklink tied to a size 16 Kamasan B911 hair rigged with 6mm varnished GOT Baits 6mm pellet.

Using a catapult I fired out around 10 - 12 GOT Baits 6mm pellets every 15 seconds and after 20 minutes the float started to show signs fish nosing a the bait, a few seconds later, and the float buried to the first crucian of the day. As I fought and played each fish to the net I continued to fire out pellets to keep the fish feeding and preoccupied in the swim. I also continued regularly to feed the swim to my right by the vacant platform.

At the first weigh in I was the last swim to go to the scales and weighed in 90lbs.

Interestingly the second weights weren’t affected a great deal by the emptying of the nets after the first 4 hours. The last 4 hours saw a change in the carp coming on in the evening session to the margin. The work of the regular baiting to the vacant swim platform paid dividends seeing carp to 8lb making their way to the net.

My winning weight was 181lb 12oz approx, 80lb of which were crucians and silver fish with the rest carp, all caught on a pole using pellet at 14 mts and GOT Baits Atomic Paste wrapped round luncheon meat in the margin

Runner up was Ricky Stone of Finchley, North London, with 130lb 5oz of roach, rudd & crucians up in the water. A close third was to Pip Bolam, also of Bedford with 103.12 oz in peg 8 and the 4th place went to Vic Jackson with 103lb exactly!The 12 gruelling hours were followed by a very welcome BBQ and refreshments.

A Bad Break and a Jammy Jack

Back in January on a bright Sunday morning following a severe frost I decided it was a little too dangerous to go fishing on the slippery riverbanks and so I opted to go for a healthy walk instead.

No more than a quarter of an hour after setting off on a walk at a local beauty spot Sundon Hills I had climbed over a stile and walked down a small hill and slipped towards the bottom and my right leg collapsed underneath me with a sickening crack.

After a few moments I decided to crawl back up the embankment towards the stile and tried to see if I could manage to get in a position to climb back over it. The pain unfortunately ruled out that option out before I could try to pull myself up.

Later at the hospital after being rescued by paramedics it transpired I had snapped the tibia and fibia right across at the ankle and was destined to spend 3 months in plaster and away from fishing.

However, where there's a will, there's a way and due to the help of my husband and with the use of a wheelchair I managed to get back out to the lakes whilst my leg was still in plaster.

Patience was at last rewarded and although the pike caught was pretty small it must be said and was caught when reeling in after a last cast, it was just great to be back outside once more.

Stuck pole section - with a difference!

I don’t normally fish with a pole as a rule but decided to give it a go as I like the simplicity and precision of the discipline.

I set up, plumbed up, and caught a few small carp and managed to get myself a bit of a rhythm going regards feeding, shipping out etc. and I was very pleased at how things were progressing and felt that I was really getting the hang of this pole fishing lark.

Remembering what I had been taught by the fishery bailiff (to put my index finger into the second section of the pole to ensure there was no grit in the top 2 before inserting the third section and thus avoiding a sandpaper effect ruining the snug fit of the sections.) Fine no problem until I decided to smear the pellets I was using with Marmite ad I had caught a few carp before using this tactic.

I smeared the pellet and and let the baited line sit in the margin where a good part of my bait had ended up after a mad fit of sneezing earlier and was just about the insert my index finger inside the pole to clean the inside of grit, but realised it might not be a good idea as it was still covered in Marmite, and that this might cause the sections to stick. (I have enough problems getting the lid off when my lads over-tighten and the screw thread on the jar at home when it becomes stuck to the jar better than super glue!.)

In my mind I praised myself for my quick thinking and at once inserted my middle finger instead. Then I was going to catch one more fish and then take a much needed loo break. Just then disaster struck or perhaps more appropriately stuck!

I couldn’t get my bloody finger out! my knuckle was stuck firm in the ruddy pole section and do as I could it just would'nt budge!!!!

I was on my own, I'd got this bleedin' long length of carbon stuck fast on my finger, I needed the loo, my mobile phone was yards away and I couldn't move to get it without showing the world my plight, (one bloke I think realised what was going on but to save my blushes I kept pretending to be looking for something in my tackle box until he looked away and frantically again I'd resume my pulling and yanking!) I finally managed to grab hold of my phone but my hand wet with sweat and slime from the last capture could not hold it properly and the phone slipped from my grasp splashing loudly as it plopped into the lake. Kylie’s dulcet ringtone of ‘I should be so lucky’ would alas never be heard again. The ducks on the lake seemed to find the whole episode highly amusing and appeared to be laughing loudly at my expense.

I was getting seriously worried by this point as I had no contingency plan now as I had no means of cutting off the offending pole if the worse came to the worse, as if I trod on the pole to release my trapped digit, I'd end up breaking my finger not to mention the bank, and I certainly couldn't drive with a 10' long bloody finger nail!!! and then, just then when I thought things couldn’t get much worse, my float dipped abruptly under the water and the biggest carp of the day decided to fall for my Marmite pellet!

For a good few minutes (I know it doesn't sound that long to you but promise me it felt like a ruddy eternity) the pole refused to budge from my finger despite the angry lunges of the hard fighting fish attached as fast as I was to the other end of the pole!!. Why on earth hadn’t I just kept to fishing with rod and line or was back at home at the ironing board?!?

Luckily, at the point when I was just about to blow the whistle for help, I noticed the extra bag of hemp I had brought with me which was still frozen solid waiting at my feet and an old physics lesson popped into my head and I so I placed this on my hand to try to reduce the heat and thus the swelling on my finger. After what seemed to be long enough to have had time to read War and Peace at least 3 times over, my hand had cooled sufficiently for my finger to come free from the section.

Amazingly and fortunately for me the carp had decided to try to hide its embarrasment also and sulked in the tree roots along the margin from my swim instead of heading for the sanctuary of the centre or other side of the lake and so this allowed me to time to play the fish properly and eventually landed a beautifully carp.

Pike Fishing

Decided not to get up too early so it was a bit of a surprise when we got to a nearby lake at around 9.30am on perfect piking conditions on a Sunday morning that our favorite swims were still available.

The conditions were overcast with a light ripple on the water and the day was set fair with a high of 12 degrees expected.

A few days previously I had an idea of mincing up some of the deadbaits and freezing them into small balls mixed with oils and brown crumb to use as a groundbait for the pike.

I threw out a couple of 'pike bombs' into the margin and far bank and before long we had the rods out. Rigs were simple one was using a deadbait roach on a deadbait pencil float and a normal 2 semi-barbed treble rig the other was again a deadbait pencil cast further out near the far bank but on this rod I was fishing a lamprey 'kebab rig' using 1 large hook and 5 chunks of very bloody lamprey on long hair.

We had fished for a few hours when the far margin float bobbed slightly and moved sideways by no more than a few inches. I watched the float carefully and once again the float bobbed before making a more determined sideways motion. I picked up the rod, wound down slowly and then hit it. All hell then broke loose and after a healthy fight I managed to land a rather fiesty 15lb pike.

The bites continued and in the end I had 6 pike between 8lb - 15lb in weight

Tingrith 24hr Match 9am Sat 12th July to Sun 13th July 2008

Chris and I decided to enter the 24hr match being held on the Orchid specimen lake at the Tingrith coarse fishery.

Neither of us had any illusions of coming anywhere in the money stakes but as the regulars taking part are a great bunch we knew the fun would be in taking part.

As much as we had our rods all but ready to cast in to our respective swims at the time of the starting whistle we were not as well rehersed at getting our swims as organised and ready as we had hoped. We therefore were the last two anglers to cast in at our respective swims.

After a hearty breakfast at the onsite cafe and a certain amount of running back and forth to the car for missed bait and tackle, we eventually cast into our swims about 45 mintes later than our fellow competitors.

Chris had drawn the peg next to Lee which was oppersite the island and I had drawn peg 14 the far beach swim.

Chris was using pineapple and the source boilies close to the island but unusually the fish were not taking at all. The only bites from that part of the lake were being taken by a guy fishing the pole who was using a large amount of chopped worm. He was beginning to empty the lake at a rather alarming rate.

At my end of the lake I had managed to get the carp on the feed by using the method with paste on the hook.

As the match went on my tactics luckly began to bring the fish to the net.

The guy with the pole continued to catch, but others round the lake seemed to be struggling.

Included with the price of entry was an evening meal and breakfast on the Sunday morning both of which was hungrily and gratefully received by all competitors shortly after the whistles blew.

Luckily, I continued to catch fish through the night through the misty dawn and right up till half an hour to the finishing whistle.

I had caught 7 Carp between 7 - 14lb, 3 small Catfish, and 2 Tench giving me a score of 105lb, but how had the others fared? and where would I come?

Alas no, the chopped worm pole fished by the guy on the other side of the lake won the match with a weight of 128lb. On a pressured specimen water that really was really good fishing and he was a worthy winner of the trophy and the prize money for first place.

Amazingly and very luckily, I managed to come in second place.

Chris unfortunately caught only 1 fish but many anglers fared worse and blanked. However, his luck was to change at the next match.