Sunday Sweep - Magiscroft's Top Pond - Jan 29th

At last, a day with no wind! But it was damn cold!

This was to be only my 3rd match on the Top Pond so I wasn't too bothered about drawing any specific area, as I don't really know what area holds the fish at this time of year. I pull P5 which I don't fancy much as it's at the start of the top bend which is the shallow end of the pond, but who knows….I've been drawn with James 'Woody' Woodrow to my left with Neil Champman to my right.

Surprisingly, there was no ice this morning, so the all-in is called bang on time at 10:30. I have decided, based on my last match on this water, to fish on the far shelf and for the first 2 hours it works perfectly, with bites coming fairly regularly, if a bit slowly. And no F1s! All the fish are Common and Mirror carp which means the bites have been pretty positive.

Woody has caught at the same sort of pace, but to his left, Stuart Dalgleish is catching at a fast pace, and looks like he will be hard to beat.

I've become used to the fish switching off at some point, and around 12:30, it happened, not just for me but for everyone I could see, except Stuart.

So for the next couple of biteless hours I try every bait in my box at various points on the far shelf, at the bottom of the shelf and down the track (the middle). But they just seem to have stopped feeding.

To my left Woody has managed to find a spot that seems solid with fish and it catching really quickly - I reckon he took around 18lbs in the last hour - and I started getting indications again on the far shelf and manage to pick up another 4 fish before the all out. I even manage an F1! I say that because all my other carp were Commons or Mirrors, which are not supposed to feed much in the winter.

By my reckoning it's between Woody (P6) and Stuart(P7) and it is, with Stuart taking the win by just over 3lbs with 35lbs flat ahead of Woody's 31lbs - 6oz. Alan Welsh(P8) was third with 18lbs+.

Full results can be found here.

A freezing cold day when the temp never got over 3 degrees but despite the cold, over 110lbs of fish were caught!

Wednesday Jan 25th - Magiscroft Open Sweep

As seems to be the norm in January, the forecast was for another day of blustery wind, although the temperature was to be an unseasonal 10 degrees!

And the forecast was right on both counts, but with the wind blowing from the south west, it looked like the Island pond would be reasonably sheltered.

At the draw I pull P24, which has produced consecutive blanks in the B Division and the Sunday open , which doesn't auger well - but no matter, I plan to try something a bit different today, so let's see what happens.

Today's plan is to feed from the all-in (higher temps) - Bait wise I have my usual Oxo pellets and the Thai fish sauce pellets that worked so well last Wednesday. For feeding I will use Magiscroft's own micro pellets.

I have plumbed up my 2 lines - the far shelf and I found a sort of trench around 12M out, so that's the other one I set up for. After Sunday, I also setup a mid water rig for silver fish - just in case.

My first round of casts take me through both carp rigs without any indication of fish, so I stop the planned feeding. The second round completes with the same result. To my left Alan Hird has had much the same, and is now targeting silvers, with some success, but I decide to stick to plan.

At around 12:15, after 1hr 45mins, I get my first bite and a nice mirror carp of around a pound, which is followed by another of similar size 10 minutes later. I hoped that these would be the start of a run of fish, but it stops there. So as per plan, after another 15 mins I go back to the far side where I manage to get a very positive bite which results in a 6oz 'stockie' carp.

It's now 13:00 and I'm a bit puzzled - normally fish move in shoals, but the lack of bites suggests that they are either not feeding much or the fish I've caught are in small groups. As it is I've had 3 bites/3 fish…

So I go back to the 12M line and get a couple of F1 carp around 1.5lbs in the space of 40 mins. But I'm now starting to get few tiny indications which I think must be small roach, so I adjust the mid-water rig to cover the depth at 12M and pick up 5 small roach in 10 minutes - but the bites are really positive, so I'm now thinking (hoping!) that the tiny indications may well be larger F1s.

I've had a few folk ask me , what's an F1?

F1's can occur in nature but in this instance these fish have been bred as a cross between a common and a crucian carp. This gives a very hard fighting and hardy fish that wont grow much above 5 pounds and is ideal for commercial fisheries.

The F1 is also immune to the Koi Herpes Virus (KHV) which can destroy a carp population in a matter 15-20 days.

Back with the carp rig for the 12M line, I re-plumb and adjust the depth by around half an inch so that the float shows around 2mm with the pellet touching the bottom. This works well when the strengthening wind isn't producing a choppy surface, and/or pulling my pole and rig all over the place.

And it gets me fish! From around 14:15 I get maybe 8 tiny indications and from those manage to land another 5 F1's up to 3lbs , all taken from the area I fed at the start of the match. I'm pretty sure that with calmer conditions, I'd have managed a good few more.

There were only 7 of us today but I managed my 3rd win of the month with 16lbs - 4oz, with Colin Williamson second on 11lbs and Alan Hird third with 4lbs - 8oz of roach.

Full results can be found here.

So today's lesson, fish to the conditions and don't' panic if things don't go to plan easily on.

I spent a fair bit of time getting my pole rollers set up correctly - it makes a big difference as I managed to land every fish I hooked today.

It looks like I'll be working both days this weekend so I may have to wait a full week for my next 'fix' :-(

Sunday Sweep - Magiscroft's Island Pond - Jan 22nd

After yesterday's 'Perfect Storm', I managed to get all my kit and clothing dried out, and with the weather forecast looking reasonable, I arrived at Magiscroft around 9AM, to find the dreaded wind was still blowing pretty hard, though nowhere near yesterdays levels.

The match was to be pegged from 8 round to 23 on the deeper end of the Island Pond, and I drew the one peg I didn't want, P8.

Although the wind was bothersome, you could still just about present at around 14.5M on the far shelf so I set up rigs for there, the bottom of the shelf and a mid water rig for silver fish.

The 'all in' is called at 10:45 and I head for the far shelf, but after 15 mins with no touches, I switch to the bottom of the shelf where another 15 mins go by with nothing happening - and to my right Chris Hughes and Derek Brady aren't fairing any better. So I decide to give it 1 more minute and just as well I did as a carp of around a pound takes my pellet with no warning and at least prevents me blanking.

For the next hour, I persevere with various flavours of pellet at the bottom of the shelf with the occasional change to the far shelf rig, but not even a line bite! So, I decide that as I can only see one angler (Dougie Craig on P5) catching anything, I'll switch to targeting silverfish with maggot as bait. I know there are chubb that frequent this peg, so I hope to find one or two whilst targeting the small roach.

The roach are there and willing to feed and I ended up with 32 of them, but they were a max of 2oz and most were much smaller - but I did manage to snare one of the chubb which, by the time of the 'all out' has helped me weigh in 3lbs - 3oz.

Dougie has walked the match with 11lb+ of common/mirror carp and up until the last 5 mins, I was second, but Robert Dalziel (snr) managed to land a 3lb 6oz F1 5 mins from the end of the match (his only bite all day), so I end up 3rd.

Full results can be found here.

Compared to yesterday, the conditions were a walk in the park - it was just a pity that the fish were elsewhere for everybody - To my left in the shallow water, there were loads of fish moving, so I suspect they were there as the prevailing westerly wind blows towards that end.

After fishing in yesterday's atrocious conditions, today was quite relaxing and I even had time to feed one of the many Robins that frequent the banks of the Island Pond - they know us anglers have free food :-)

B Division Match 6 - Woodside Pond - Jan 21st

I was really looking forward to this Saturday's 'B' Division match, which would see me fishing on the sheltered Woodside pond.

I even managed to draw a supposedly decent peg, No 17 and despite the wind gusting way beyond the forecast 35mph, it looked like we might get a decent days fishing.

The 'all in' was called at 10:45 and I decided to try the far shelf first, as at this point, the wind was just about manageable - but 15 mins, and not a touch. To my right on P14, Scott McAulley was already into a fish, which at least gave me confidence that they were feeding. So I changed to my standard windy rig for the bottom of the shelf and within 5 mins, the float flew away and a small carp of around 12oz is in the net.

Scott by this time has 4 and Heather, to my left (and Scott's mum) has also bagged a small carp. But from then on, nothing - apart from Scott who continued to catch regularly until the wind gets up and carries Scott Laird's 'brolly into the pond where it wedges itself right where Scott M has been catching - The wind also lifts my 'brolly from it's pole, but I manage to catch it and forget about using it from there on in.

Having tried various pellets, I switch to maggot to see if I can tempt any silver fish (roach, chubb etc) but I only get one slight indication in an hour - but then I get lucky! The wind by this time is hitting over 50mph and the driving rain is making things pretty unpleasant and as it once again drags my pole, and the rig 10m to the left, a greedy chubb of 4oz or so grabs my bait as it flies across the surface.

The 'all out' is called early as it's pretty much un-fishable with the wind getting stronger by the minute. There's a fishing cliche that a bad days fishing is better than a good day at work - well not today! - it was no fun at all and if I'd not been fishing a team competition, I think I'd have packed up after 2 hours!

Young Scott has won our section and the whole match with 10lbs - 12oz - despite being in the cafe for over an hour with Scott Laird second in the section with 3lbs and me 3rd with 1lb flat from my 2 fish.

But no matter, I'm sure it'll be fine tomorrow when I'm fishing the Sunday open on the Island Pond…………..:-)

Wednesday Jan 18th - Magiscroft Open Sweep

After my last 2 matches on the Island Pond, I was hoping for a better draw for this week's Wednesday match. The ice from Sunday finally cleared on Tuesday and the overnight temps had reached 8 degrees, so I hoped the fish would be a bit more spread out. However, on arrival at the fishery, there was a strong westerly blowing and the water looked fairly choppy. It's never easy in the winter.......

So, to the draw, which saw me get P22 - which I'd never fished. Kind of in the middle as far a water depth goes, so I was hopeful!

I've been using expander pellets soaked in water with an OXO cube for a few weeks now, so given the temp had been (correctly) forecast to be a fair bit higher, I decided to try something new, by adding Thai Fish Sauce to the water instead of OXO. But I did take some OXO pellets left over from Sunday just in case :-)

Once at my peg, it was fairly obvious that fishing the far shelf was a non-starter due to the strength of the wind, so I opted for the bottom of the shelf, and managed to find an area that was an inch or so deeper that the surrounding bottom. I also plumbed up a rig for the far shelf as the wind was forecast to reduce as the day wore on.

I had my first fish after 10 mins, an F1 of around 1.5lb and this continued for 3 hours or so with a bite every 10-15 mins - I missed a few, and lost 3, one of which would have been a PB tench of over 4lbs, which rolled just as it came to the net and the hook came out :-(

But, I didn't have time to worry about it as at that time, bites were still coming.

Every 3rd fish, I'd try the OXO pellets, but I didn't get a touch on them all day, despite the temp dropping to 5.5.

So, with 2 hours to go I reckoned on having 25lbs in the net. Bites became a lot harder to come by from then on, and I managed to get a rig onto the far shelf when the wind dropped, but nothing doing. Reverting to the bottom of the shelf, I managed another 5 fish to finish the match with 33lbs - 14oz - my second biggest match weight and my 3rd 30lb+ in 3 weeks.

There wasn't much action either side of me but I could hear Derek 'Deek' Brady and Barry Lindsay exchanging banter on the far side of the island and knew that Deek was the guy to beat - he had loads more fish, but they were much smaller and he came second with 29Lbs - Barry (or should I call him Lindsay?) was 3rd with 24lbs+. Full results are here.

I'm not sure why Barry ------>

has been given his weekend name - I'm sure someone will enlighten me.....

It's now 10 weeks since I got my pole, and I've managed 5 wins, 2 seconds and a third as well as my fist blank :-) I'm still learning, with today's lesson being that time spent searching out lake bed 'features' (like the dip I found) is essential to finding the fish.

And just for fun, I then went to Scotkart in Cambuslang for 40 minutes of practice on their new surface, which has much less grip, with 7 other guys from the place i'm contracting at the moment. All in all, a fun day!

Sunday Open - Jan 15th 2012

After having to scrape ice from my car's windscreen on Sunday morning, I expected to find some ice on the Island pond, but not the 1/2' that greeted us :-(

But, with a small boat and some willing helpers, the ice was a least broken up by the time we drew our pegs at 09:45. With the water cooling so rapidly (it had been 6 degrees on Friday) I expected that the fish would once again congregate, but the question was where? A betting man would have picked the deeper end of the Island pond, but I hoped he would be wrong, as I drew Peg 9 - a great summer peg, but not ideal when it's 2 below!

It was evident that although the ice had been broken up, it was already starting to re-freeze, so with some creative use of a combination of pole and landing net, I managed to clear a meter wide strip all the way to the far side, which is around 13m on P9.

By the time the all in was called at 11:15, the ice that remained between me and the adjacent anglers (George Glen to the left and Jonathan Dalziel to the right) was already pretty solid and any thoughts of fishing outside of the narrow strip in front of me were quickly dismissed.

As I shipped out to try the far side, George was already playing a fish, which turned out to be foul hooked and he didn't land it - little did we know that there would be no more action for George……

So, after 30 mins or so on the far bank, with no sign of any fish, I changed to the rig setup for down the middle, where the water is at it's deepest. And within a further 30 mins I had landed a nice F1 of just under 3lbs and a common of just over 1lb. I then hooked and lost a fish in the space of 2 seconds - and for me, that was it - not another touch. I tried different baits, in varying places but it appears that they weren't there. And it felt like it was getting colder - The sun had gone behind the increasing cloud cover, and it wasn't much fun :-(

Bit of a rant now. Peg 8 is well known haunt of a shoal of Chub and Jonathan managed to land 3 nice ones in the space of an hour - even better, to his right, his brother had managed to land 4 nice F1s (and lost 3 more) - so what did they do? They went to the cafe!!!!!! Most of the juniors seem to be unable to fish a full match without going for a walk, or to the cafe……..I *know* that even if I'm sitting 'biteless', I stay put as there are loads of examples of fish suddenly appearing - that's why we are there! - Rant over………

The expected shoaling of fish had happened but it was around pegs 22,23,24 which produced the top 3 weights, with Wullie McAuley landing 28lb to just pip Chris Hughes with 26lb+ and The Old Fox, John P in third with just over 20lbs.

So from 24 anglers, I finished 12th with 4lb 4oz - Not a good day, but still better than working. There were 6 DNW (did not weigh), most of them to my left where it got even shallower, so I can't complain.

I'll be back on Wednesday when it's supposed to be back up to 6 degrees - time to break out the sunscreen :-)

Wed 11th Jan - Island Pond

With the temperature forecast to be a balmy 10 degrees, the Wednesday match looked like it might produce some good fishing.

There were 11 of us entered with Jimmy Hillhouse and Bryan Hewitt making their first appearances for quite a while.

I don't know how he does it, but John P again managed to draw a good peg - Anywhere from 4-9 on the Island Pond are normally reckoned to be potential winners. I drew Peg 30, which produced no fish during last Saturday's B division match, so I didn't expect too much.

I'm sure the thermometer doesn't lie, but it felt more like 3-4 than 10 degrees - Again we had a north easterly wind that strengthened during the match.

The water didn't feel quite so cold as it's been so I decided to start on the far shelf which I could just reach without the 16M section. And within 5 mins I had a 4oz 'stockie' carp in the net. This continued at a slow but steady pace for the first 2 hours with 15 similar sized stockies coming to the net, all on my own flavoured pellet from the far shelf.

And then I made a schoolboy error - To my right on Peg 26, Brian H had had a lovely carp around 3lb and to my left on Peg 2, Jimmy H was also catching some nice fish from the deeper water - so I abandoned a line that was producing fish, and put on a rig made up for the bottom of the shelf. And I had a small tench, a 1.5lb mirror and then a 2.5lb F1 in around 40 minutes - and then nothing - and of course when I went back to the far shelf, they were gone.

What an idiot!! - So I was then fishless 'till with 15 mins to go I hooked another F1 from the bottom of the shelf which I lost at the net, followed swiftly by another small tench. I was getting very weird bites in the interim, but the only one I managed to hit produced a 2oz Roach!

So at the weigh in, I only had 9lb - 8oz. Which gave me 5th behind winner John P with 31lb+, Jimmy H in second with around 28lb+ and Heather L in third with 21lb+ - all caught on my special pellets that she 'borrowed' from me :-) So at least I know if the fish are there, they will take them.

The Wednesday matches give me a chance to try things, which today I did - but I (hopefuly) learned a valuable lesson - If you are catching, even if they are small fish, keep doing what you're doing :-)

B Division Match 5

Today was the 5th round of Magiscroft's B Division (fourth match was cancelled due to snow/Ice). Iv'e asked a couple of folk what the 'B' stands for but nobody seems to know.

What I do know is that it's a team competition with 4 anglers per team - No1s are internationalists, champions and top quality fishers - No 2s are high level club anglers. No 3s are up and coming juniors and folk who have been winning the odd match. And No 4s are folk newer to the sport fishing less than a couple of years.

I'm in amongst the No 3s which seems about right.

So today the No 3s were to be fishing the right hand side of the Island Pond - and I managed to draw the same peg that I landed 35lb+ from in the New Years Day match - Which sounds great, but I know that the fish move around and very rarely does the same peg produce on consecutive winter matches.

The temp was around 6 degrees but there was a strong North Easterly blowing which it feel very cold and also made presentation extremely difficult.

I had to add an extra 2 feet of line to my 'down the shelf' rig as I couldn't hold the pole steady against the wind. For all it was a hard, hard day, but well done to young Scott McCauley who managed 7 carp for just over 16lbs - which won the No 3 section and the overall match. Second in our section with 15lb odds was Alan Welsh which also was second overall. I managed third in the section with 5 fish for 7lb 1oz - 2 of these came in the last 15 mins when the wind dropped enough to allow me to fish the far shelf.

Bites were very hard to come by and I connected with all bar one - I lost the first one and then had a 2lb F1 at the 90 minute mark followed by 2 12oz tench in 15 mins. After that I didn't see another bite 'till I could get to the far bank late in the match, where I picked up another similar sized F1 and a slightly smaller one.

So I ended up 3rd in the No 3's and 4th overall in the match (33 fishing) - a good result given the conditions.

First Match of 2012

For the New Year match, we were to be fishing the Island and the Woodside ponds - With 29 anglers attending, 8 would be on the Woodside and the rest on the Island - Given last week's result on the Woodside, I took my place near the back of the Q to draw, and would have been happy with either water. As it turned out, I once again drew a good peg - 26 on the Island.

We still had fairly gusty and cold conditions so the approach would be the same as last week - pellet or corn fished around an inch over depth on a rig with an extended loop to allow lots of pole movement without dragging the float with it.

Whilst plumbing up on the far shelf, I had a couple of liners, so decided that that was the place to start - but after one bite in the first 30 minutes, that I hooked and lost in the space of 5 seconds, I opted to move to the second line I had plumbed at the bottom of the shelf.

I was getting the odd small movement, so added a No 10 to take the float down to around 2mm visible and had my first F1 of around 2lbs within 10 mins. Bites were very tentative and patchy with corn or pellet. I only fed (6 -10 micros) when I hooked a fish.

2.5 hours into the match I had 7 F1s and a small tench for an estimated 15lb. Then the fish seemed to get a bit more bold and another 3 F1s and a second tench came in quick succession. And then they disappeared……..

So I returned to the far shelf where I picked up another 3 F1s and a bonus mirror of around 4lbs before the all out.

So I reckoned on having around 20lbs, but as soon as I lifted my keepnet, I knew it was at least 30lbs.

And looking back, if I'd done some simple maths, I would have known that - 13 F1s of 2Lbs, 2 tench of around 1.5lb ( both on corn) and a 4lb mirror. So a final weight of 35lb-3oz - Rightly so, Mr Perella gave me a hard time (no malice) for calling 20lb - lesson learned! I'll leave the under calling to Deek:-)

This gave me another win (nobody more shocked than me!) with Darrin Fergusson with 20lbs - 14oz in second, Neil Champman with 20lbs - 6oz in third and reigning Scottish Open & Scottish Seniors champion John Perella in fourth with 18lbs - 7oz.

Full results can be found here.

When I got my pole last month, John P gave me a couple of his homemade pole floats, and now I have learned how to use them, they work really well for shy biting fish like F1s.

Over the match I lost 7-8 fish - One at the net by being too impatient and the rest when getting the pole onto the roller (more care required). But once I'd figured out why I was bumping them, I lost no more.

I've now had my pole for 2 months and every time I use it, I learn something new - this lesson was that the positioning of the pole roller is a key skill, that I have yet to understand let alone master.

So a match PB and my first win on the Island pond - Somehow I've won 4 of my last 6 matches (breaking my match PB twice in succession) - I've certainly been lucky in drawing a decent peg on each occasion, but I know this run will end - but win or lose, my love affair with fishing has been well and truly re-established

Boxing Day Match - Woodside Pond

With Fiona working on Boxing day, I decided to enter the match to be held on Magiscroft's Island pond - however, with the wind blowing hard, and only 8 of us brave enough to give it a go, we transferred to the relative shelter of the Woodside, where I drew peg 21. On my second outing with my pole last month, I had blanked on peg 10 of the Woodside, so I was relieved not to draw that again!

The Woodside pond at peg 21 is only 12-13m wide, so no problems with fishing on the far shelf. The wind was blowing lots of oxygenated water round the end of the central island, so I picked a patch of slack water just off the main 'flow' slightly left of centre from my peg, where as I plumbed up, my float was constantly registering line bites - a great sign. I would be fishing pellet and corn about an inch over depth to help cope with the gusting wind. I also added a long loop to the top of my rigs to allow for movement of the pole in the gusty conditions.

The all in sounded, and my float barely settled with it's 2mm pellet before it shot away and a nice 8oz common carp was in the net. And this continued for most of the first 3 hours - I lost a couple, but generally I was getting a bite within a minute or two. I missed a good few bites but landed around 40 fish of similar size. I expected things to change at some point and they did, but a quick change of top kit to a rig set for fishing in the deeper water at the bottom of the slope produced a fish within a couple of minutes. It wasn't as prolific as the far shelf had been, but I still didn't have time for a coffee! After an hour or so the bites dried up, and it was back to the far shelf - Bites were now much harder to come by, but there were still fish around and I picked up a further 10 or so before the all out sounded.

There were a few Scottish team members fishing so if I'd managed a top 3 I'd have been well chuffed, but my 68 fish weighed in at a new match PB of 30lb - 1oz which also won the match from James Woodrow who had 12lb - 10oz with Dave Minard 3rd with 7lb - 2oz.

Full results can be found here.

A great end to 2011 - 3 firsts and 2 seconds in my last 5 matches! - I have been really lucky with drawing good pegs. But the New Year's day match will be the real test - a full complement of anglers on the Island Pond (where I've never won).

December 2011

Winter fishing is tough - the fish, being cold bloodied, feed way less, and the weather does it's best to make fishing difficult - but what a month!

7th Dec - 1st of 4 with 3lb - 6oz on the Top Pond - Bitterly cold and only 3 bites.

10th Dec - 2nd of 12 with 3lb - 12oz on the Island Pond - Ice breaking - 2 bites, 2 fish

21st Dec - 1st of 6 with 13lb - 12oz on the Top Pond - more Ice Breaking - 2nd win on Top Pond

24th Dec - 2nd of 14 with 7lb - 6oz on the Island Pond - Pairs match - second in that too.

The rest of the December matches have their own posts as they are fresh in the memory.

November 2011

I reckoned that after another 5 or so pole sessions, I would start to see improvements....

2nd Nov - 10th of 12 with 4lb - 6oz on the Island Pond - Tried expander pellet for the first time

9th Nov - 7th of 11 with 8lb - 3oz on the Island Pond - Learned a lot today!

11th Nov - My first blank :-( - Woodside Pond - tried something new, idea abandoned!

12th Nov - 4th of 8 with 1lb - 12oz on the Woodside - B Division Match 2 - Struggled today

16th Nov - 4th of 10 with 1lb - 13oz on the Island Pond - A really cold day

23 Nov - 3rd of 10 with 11lb - 6oz on the Woodside Pond - Expander Pellet now working nicely

26th Nov - 6th of 8 with 11oz on the Island - reverted to rod as too windy - 12 small roach

30th Nov - 2nd of 7 with 13lb - 4oz on the Island Pond - Now getting the hang of the pole

I learned so much about pole presentation and how to deal with shy biting fish - A good month.

October 2011

This month started with the Scottish Open open - plus a big change at the end of the month.

2nd Oct - 55th of 74 with 1lb - 3oz on the Main Loch - Paste again failed for me

5th Oct - 3rd of 3 with 4lb - 2oz on the Woodside - then had 35lb+ in 2 hours on the Island

9th Oct - 19th of 22 with 1lb flat on the Island - Lack of pole really showed up in this one!

12th Oct - 9th of 15 with 7lb - 8oz on the Island - decision made - get me a pole!

I managed to source a MAP Definition from the guy I bought my seatbox from - so time to start learning!

19th Oct - 7th of 11 with 5lb - 3oz on the Island - Lost loads of fish - but can see this will work

29th Oct - 6th of 8 with 1lb - 11oz on the Woodside - B Division Match 1 - First frost!

So I did it - And I now have no excuses - I have a pole and just need to learn how to use it correctly.

September 2011

I decided to keep going with the paste approach - at least on the Island Pond.....

4th Sep - Nowhere! - Scottish Seniors on the Snake at Orchill - 8lb odds on maggot

7th Sep - Last of 10 with 6oz on the Island Pond - one fish - I stuck with paste - Not smart.

14th Sep - 10th of 11 with 4oz on the Woodside Pond - Again stuck at it with paste.

18th Sep - 14th of 18 with 5lb - 7oz on the Island Pond - Paste again - it wasn't working yet

24th Sep - 3rd of 14 with 5lb - 13oz - A waggler only fun match fished with corn and maggot

28th Sep - 13th of 21 with 7lb - 1oz - Better but still not good.

So a pretty poor month results wise, but I enjoyed making my own baits, even though they didn't seem to work very well :-)

August 2011

August saw me making my own fishmeal based paste which I tried with loads of different flavourings - some worked and others didn't - and trying to use it on a waggler setup - not the easiest!

1st August 11th of 18 with 8lb flat on the Island pond - Couldn't keep the paste on the hook!

10th August - 6th of 9 with 10lb - 12oz on the Woodside Pond

14th August - 5th of 12 with 12lb - 10oz on the Island Pond - Paste staying on hook now

17th August - 15th of 18 with 2lb - 9oz on the Island Pond - All small roach on maggot :-(

19 August - 2nd of 3 with 17lb - 2oz on the Main Loch - V wet and cold

And that was it for August - Lots learned and a bad day's fishing is better than a good day at work!

July 2011

This was a busy month as I tried to fish the Main Loch as much as possible:

July 1st - 3rd of 12 with 13lb - 2oz on the Main Loch

July 3rd - 10th of 13 with 5lb - 2oz on the Main Loch - 25 degrees plus today!

July 8th - 2nd of 7 with 20lb -12oz on the Mian Loch - a new match PB

July 11th - 8th of 20 with 15lb - 10oz on the Island Pond - Pole would have helped!

July 18th - 15th of 18 with 7lb - 4oz on the Woodside pond - Yep, need to get a pole

July 22nd - 1st of 9 with 17lb - 10oz on the Main Loch - my first win on the Main Loch

July 25th - 18th of 23 with 5lb - 8oz on the Island Pond - Looks like I need to get a Pole!

So a mixed month, but I wanted to work on techniques rather than getting new kit - the pole would have to wait.

In all matches I used a combination of Jelly Pellets, Maggots and Sweet Corn.

June 2011

Each year, I head off to the the USA/Canada border to the town of Massena where I stay with my friend Nick on the banks of the mighty St Lawrence river.

For some reason, carp are not fished for by most American anglers, who prefer to catch large/small mouthed bass, Walleye (we know them as Zander) and Musky, which is related the the Pike but grows a fair bit bigger. Which is great for us, as the only other carp anglers on the river tend to be Europeans on holiday, and most of the time, you can fish all week without seeing any one else who is carp fishing.

I have never yet caught a carp from the St Lawrence that has been caught before - they are totally wild with 99% of them being fully scaled commons - and they fight really hard!

But like any other fishing venue, the results can be variable - I've done 25 days on the river with 3 blanks, but I've also had a at least 5 days of over 250lb with a PB of 36lb - 4oz and the smallest being just over 8lb - 4 20lb+ fish in a day is not un-common.

So I only managed to fish one match in June.

June 27th - 7th of 12 with 17lb - 1oz on the Island Pond

This was the first match where I could see that fishing with a rod was a disadvantage - I could see the bull rushes on the far bank moving as fish fed amongst them but even with a perfect cast, the float was 2 feet from the far bank - the pole fishermen could get within inches and that's where the fish were.

May

As I'm wring this from memory I've decided to get up to date with a month-by-month summary.

May 11th - 4th of 7 on the Woodside pond with 12lb - 8oz

May 18th - 6th of 8 on the Island pond with 3lb - 8oz - OK for a first match on this pond

May 27th - 4th of 4 0n the Main Loch with 9lb flat - More like a traditional water - much deeper!

36 Years Late - My next Match

So after the worst winter for decades, the thaw finally came and I started thinking about going fishing again.

I started by trying out new baits, like paste and jelly pellets, on the Island pond at Magiscroft, but after a few pleasure sessions, I started to hanker after some competition - I fished a lot of matches as a junior in the '70s and did reasonably well - but things have moved on a fair bit - but what the hell. My last match had been in 1977, somewhere on the F&C canal.

I decided to enter a match to be fished on the Woodside pond on May 4th 2011. There were only 8 of us, and everyone else had a modern carbon fibre pole and proper seat boxes - I had my wicker basket and a classic float rod/reel combination from the '70s.

So, fishing with sweet corn, on the slope of the far shelf, I was pleasantly surprised to catch fish fairly steadily throughout the match and end up winning it with 20lbs - 9oz of carp, tench, chub and a solitary skimmer bream. Roz Cassidy was second with 18lbs - 12oz and Wullie McAuley was 3rd with 11lb - 0oz.

So, the old kit wasn't such a handicap - or was it just 'beginners' luck? - time would tell!

The Stuff in the Loft

You know the 'stuff' I mean - the old vinyl records, various sports equipment, spares for cars that have long since gone, old photos etc - and fishing gear.

It's July 2010 and I've just finished a contract at Canary Wharf - Luckily i've had an offer of another contract, based next to the Bank of England, which means due to the usual security checks, I have a month of kicking my heels back home in Glasgow.

So I decide that I should clear out some of the 'Stuff in the Loft'. As we don't have a loft, this means that all our storage space is full of old stuff.

One of the first things I spot is my wicker fishing basket - last used in the mid 70's before I discovered girls and alcohol - Managed to dump the booze in the mid eighties but girls - another story..........

So, I also find my old rod holdall which contains a Shakespeare match International 13' float rod - I got this for Xmas in '73 or might have been '74 - anyway, once out of it's bag it's still in good condition and after delving into the basket, I find the Abu 505 reel that I used with it.

So a plan is hatched - a quick check of the internet show me that there is now a commercial fishery called Magiscroft only 15 miles away in Cumbernauld - And I have the Forth & Clyde canal within walking distance - the clearing out the old stuff idea goes out the window and I spend the next couple of weeks fishing at Magiscroft, Eliburn Reservoir in Livingston and the local canal.

I had to buy new line/barbless hooks/shot, a landing net and some bait, but I managed to catch some fish and I really enjoyed the relaxation of summer fishing.

But all too soon, it was the end of August, and it was back to London to earn some cash.....

I managed to fish at the Croft, as it's known, a couple of times at the weekends and quickly realised that my way of fishing from the '70s, was a bit outdated - most folk were using a pole instead of a rod/reel and the fish were a lot bigger! My 1.5lb line and size 20 hook wasn't eally up to the job and one session in particular, on the railway pond at the Croft brought this into sharp focus - I'd landed dozens of small roach, and a skimmer bream of just over 2lbs when I hooked into something that just ripped line from my reel as it headed for the nearby lilly pads - I just couldn't stop it on my light tackle and it was gone - I later found out there are some 6lb+ tench in the Railway which probably explains what happened.

Then the horrible winter of 2010/2011 was upon us and suddenly, I'm asked if I would like to work from the Glasgow office - brilliant - a year away from home was more than enough.

I hadn't really thought much about fishing over the winter but as 2011 moved into the spring, things were changing..........