At the start of the year, I was accepted as a member of the Magiscroft Angling club, but had missed the first match of the 'summer league' due to work. So despite a fairly dire forecast for Sunday's weather, I booked in to fish the club match on the Island pond.
And for once, the weather man got it spot on - It rained constantly throughout the day and with the wind gusting way over 30MPH, there was no way you could use an umbrella :-(
Despite the foul weather, we had a full complement of anglers - and the consensus was that any of the pegs in the middle of the straight banks would be most sheltered from the wind - P6/7/8/9/10 on the left and P20/21/22/23 on the right.
P28 put me on what a few call 'the worst peg on the pond' - Fully exposed to the wind and 16M to the far bank :-( I tried setting up a rig to fish there but there was no way that was going to work in those winds, so I setup for a swim at 12m, where I could just about control the pole, and in the margin to my right, which would be useful if, as expected, the wind got stronger during the day.
The wind in the first hour was just about manageable and I extracted 3 carp and a nice chub from the 12M swim, but it got to the point where I couldn't hold against the swirling wind, so I switched to the margin, that I had been feeding every 10 minutes or so.
As the wind got stronger, even fishing close in became difficult, but I did manage to get the carp feeding in the margin and ended up with 16 fish for 19lbs-3oz, and a surprise 2nd place in my first club match. Congratulations to John Perella who managed to land 25lbs + from P8 to take the win.
Conditions were the worst I have seen since my return to fishing, and I know of three folk who suffered breakages to poles during the match - the rifle like sound of carbon fibre breaking is not pleasant!
I've now had my pole for 6 months, and as I promised myself, I'm now looking for a more modern, lighter and stiffer version.
The pole stats are surprisingly good - 9 wins, 5 seconds and a couple of 3rds - I'd rather be lucky than good!
For me the biggest difference is that I can consistently fish in exactly the same spot no matter if it's in the margin or 16M away (wind allowing!), but I can also fish with very sensitive floats at distance, meaning more bites detected and connected with. If I wanted to fish the far bank with a rod/reel, the float would have to be much larger, just to be able to cast the distance, and even with tons of practice, I doubt I could fish with the accuracy that a pole allows. So, that's it, I'm converted. That's not to say that there'll be no more rod fishing - when I head over to the US for my annual trip to the St Lawrence in June, rod & reel will be the order of the day - but at home, it'll be a different story.
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