Match Fishing Magazine

That’s precisely what happened on Saturday, I was all set to go and fish the open at Woodlands Lakes Nr Thirsk when I received a text message from Lee Kerry asking if we’d had any snow.

My initial reaction was ‘shut up, it hasn’t snowed!’ but one peak out of the window confirmed that there was nearly two-inches of snow! The decision was then made to stay in bed!  A wise choice as the match fished terrible anyway.

It was an excuse for a much-needed lie-in followed by several cups of tea and lots of rig tying and having a general tackle sort out. Really the snow was a blessing in disguise as I have been so busy travelling about of late that my gear has been somewhat neglected.

Sunday was business as normal and the penultimate round of the Thorne pairs beckoned. Lee and myself were well in the running so a good draw was needed to hopefully peg a few pounds back on the league leaders. A good draw was precisely what we didn’t get! Well Lee’s Peg 191 is ok, but my Peg 245 at West street was a shocker.

West street is a strange section as it is in a kind of boat yard, but it has a street directly behind you so when you ship back you are shipping over a road! It is also the peggiest section of the canal with peg 242 having won the section on every match so far. Nevertheless I had a job to do and if I could somehow catch 10lb then it would be job done.

I settled on a simple four-line attack, three bloodworm lines and a bread line. I did set a waggler rod up but didn’t really want to pick it up. Because I expected pike to be an issue I decided on three bloodworm lines so that I could nick odd fish from each line and keep rotating. The bread line was to be fished well down my peg at 14.5metres and would receive one ball at the start.

My peg took about 20 minutes to get going but after that I had a bite on pretty much every cast – not what I was expecting! My only concern was that Ed Warren was catching some big fish on the caster so I might be pushed all the way.

Luckily my peg kept producing bites right till the end of the match and I was really pleased with how my match had gone. I weighed 12-5-0, that was enough to win the west street section, which was all I could have asked for really. Lee also won his section with 10-14-0. Unfortunately as consistent as we are, several other anglers keep drawing on the skimmers and are making the most of them! Lee Harrison has now won the last two pairs matches from two draws in the 160’s, this time round he won with an awesome 28lb of skimmers and bream.

Lee and his pairs partner Sean Wright are now 30lb clear of the second placed pairing of Pete Kitwood and Paul Kerr. With Lee and me tying with Sam Wildsmith and Simon fields for third place.

Joe Carass