A Mighty Marathon!

Well the fishing marathon is finally over, I’m cream-crackered, but caught lots of fish and qualified for a Final! 

Monday and Tuesday was the 34-angler silverfish festival at Meadowlands on the big Lambsdown Lake. After such a busy weekend I started to wish I hadn’t booked on as I really struggled to get everything together in the morning. 

I swapped over Sunday’s river tackle for commercial silvers gear and it was a typically crazy Monday with my wife, daughter and I all leaving the house at the same time. I got halfway down the road, then realised I’d left my wallet behind. I quickly turned back, grabbed my wallet and spotted some ‘eye drops’ on the side, so I popped them in my pocket as well. My eyes were bleary after not getting much sleep, plus straining to see a float in the fog on Saturday hadn’t helped either… 

I arrived in time at the fishery to pay my pools and with it being another misty morning I thought I’d definitely pop some of those ‘eye drops’ in. The first drip went in my left eye and was immediately stinging! I’d only gone and put ear drops in my eye by mistake – urea hydrogen peroxide to be exact! I ran straight to the sink and spent the next 20 minutes trying to flush it out. Thankfully I’d caught it in time and although it was red and blurry I felt I’d still be able to fish. 

I pulled out peg 17 on the deeps, which is always a nice area, even with every peg in on the day. I mixed up some of the new Supercrush Expander Dark and F1 Green groundbait, got my seatbox in position, top kits all lined up on my roost and pole rollers positioned… then looked for my rigs. Argh! I’d left all my rig trays at home! Double argh! I’d also not brought any hooklengths! 

Ed Warren was next peg and kindly offered to lend me some rigs, but without any hooklengths I was at a total loss. It’s an 80-mile round trip home and back, so I contemplated just packing up. A quick phone call to the wife, however, and it dawned on me that I could possibly get to Lanes Tackle and back, just in time for the start. 

Twenty minutes later I was in the tackle shop grabbing five readymade pole rigs and five packets of pre-tied hooks! I was back at the fishery with 20 minutes to spare. Just enough time to pop two pole rigs on and get them shotted half right. 

I’d opted for a 4×16 pre-tied ‘commercial rig’ for a short-pole swim, taking one big shot off as the float sunk straight out of the packet! The second rig was a 1.25g ‘Whip Rig’. It looked totally wrong for whip fishing, but would be OK for my extra deep 13m swim… once I’d added another three or four No8s to get it shotted properly! 

The match itself actually went really well. I caught 30lb of mostly skimmers for 2nd on my bank, behind Dan Webb’s 33lb lake-winning catch. I’ve caught best on maggots and casters over groundbait, mostly at 13m with a late run short. Not bad with two readymade rigs and pre-tied hooks! To be fair, I do loads of coaching with this kind of tackle, so it proves that you don’t always need hours and hours of prep to compete… (but I still will spend hours and hours prepping!)

On to Day 2 and I was on peg 49 on the Pump Bank. This is the furthest end peg, so that sounds good on paper, but it’s a bit shallower than the more fancied pegs to your right. With no depth at all close in I’ve gone for a 12m swim where I’d got 5ft, a 14m swim and a 16m swim where I’d got 6ft on both. This time I’d got my own rigs and hooklengths and no acid in my eyes, so no excuses!  

The shorter swim was surprisingly poor, but I’ve ticked over on the two longer swims all match. I had two big skimmers and a nice big roach early at 16m, but that line was strangely poor the last 90 minutes, probably because of a few carp in the area. My best swim was 14m, which I started off with pellets but soon swapped to worms, which was much better. 

I had festival leader Dan Webb next door and was ahead for four hours, but my last hour has been really poor while Dan’s had a nice run of better quality fish. He’s weighed 29lb 3oz to win the lake again and I’ve had another 2nd with 27lb 12oz. Dan’s ended up winning the festival, Grant Howie was 2nd and I ended up 3rd for a nice pick up. Many thanks to Wayne Sharman for running the event. 

So that left just one more day of the fishing marathon to complete. Today I was back at The Riddings for another AT Silverfish qualifier. Last weekend was the first time I’d ever seen the Riddings/Match Lake and today was the first time I’d set my eyes upon Folly Lake. Surrounded by tall evergreens and with a nice big lilybed in the middle it looked really nice and sheltered. I’d drawn peg 32, which was the first peg on the left that you come to. It meant absolutely nothing to me and I’m not one for sponging loads of info. All I knew was that it was a deep and uneven bottom, small skimmers were the main target and non-counting carp of all shapes, colours and sizes could be problematic. 

My peg actually plumbed up ok. A full 2.5m Match Kit coped with the short pole and adding a Short No3 was all I needed for 13m. After doing so well on natural baits at Meadowlands I went with a similar approach, catching best on maggots and chopped worm over my new favourite blend of Supercrush Expander Dark and a bit of F1 Green. 

I’ve had a really busy day catching mostly small skimmers for a very pleasing 30lb catch. That was enough to win the match and qualify for my fifth AT Silverfish Final on the bounce! The perfect end to a very eventful fishing marathon! 

One last thing to mention is that it’s gone really chilly now, so my Matrix Wind Blocker Plus Jacket has been a godsend the past five days. So nice and comfy thanks to the sherpa lining. Toasty!