“A TOUGH DAY ON CYANIDE STRAIGHT”

AFTER the rush back to match fishing, I had a quieter week with only one match and a bit of coaching. That was no bad thing given the shocking weather we’ve had lately!

My coaching day was at the Old Hough Fishery and normally I like to use these days to see how the fish are reacting. The trouble was that in the cold, nothing happened, and I came away with no real idea as to how my match would go a few days later.

The match was a big one, the sold-out Match This qualifier at Partridge Lakes. It was kind of all over at the draw as I got peg 143 on Covey Canal 6, known for good reason as ‘Cyanide Straight’! In summer it can be very good for carp, but not in mid-April. With little chance of winning, I went for a day’s fishing and the chance of winning the section, adopting a ‘we’ll see’ attitude. I also wanted to use the match to sharpen up a little on snake lakes.

After three hours I’d caught four fish across on pellets and it was rock hard. Oddly, I then had an arrival of F1s on maggots fishing at 4m, which frustrated me as I’d fed here all day and kept having a look early on but had caught nothing. In the last 90 minutes I had about 50lb.

The fish seemed to have arrived from nowhere. That’s what makes F1s so frustrating. Even though you know they’re in the peg, they don’t feed until they want to. Weighing in 69-15-0 won me the section but was miles off winner Chris Weeder Jnr.

JAMIE HUGHES GIVES YOU THE INSIDE LINE

“With little chance of winning, I went for a day’s fishing”