Catch - 13 Carp, 2 Skimmers, 1 Perch, 1 Rudd
Weather - Mostly sunny and light breeze
Match - Float Only - rd 2 - 14th out of 40, 3rd in section
Following yesterdays match I was looking forward to doing battle again with renewed confidence, although p21 meant my drawing arm was still off.
However, when the knockout was announced it appeared by luck may be changing, drawing Leon Hubbard who unfortunately couldn't make todays round of the float only series, which meant just 1 fish put me through to the next round. Yay!
Back to peg 21 and I was disappointed with the draw because pegs 20,22 and 24 were last in yesterdays match, but on arrival there were a few fish sunning themselves, although these are cute fish, because come the all in at 11am they all but disappeared. 
My section included 18 (Tony Rixon), 19 (Clint Wotlyla), 22 (Dave Haines) and 24 (Martin Lenaghan). To be honest I thought if I got 3rd in section today I would have done OK.
I managed to hook 2 carp on the mugger rig, landing a near 10lber and losing the other, before the carp disappeared and I was conscience of wasting too much time chasing shadows.
After yesterdays match catapulting pellet to the island didn't work. All it did was bring the fish in, but they didn't get theirs head down, which resulted in loads of liners. Instead decided to fish paste on the far shelf, toss potting a few 6s in with the paste. This worked landing 6 after 90mins, only losing 1, but it was becoming increasing difficult to get a proper bite. I tried the pellet rig, but only got liners.I wasn't concerned, because I had my skimmer line to fall back on. Errr... It didn't quite work out like that. Unlike yesterday when I had a caught skimmers/F1s straight away over pellet. Today though produced a skimmer straight away, but I couldn't get a proper bite other than nibbles from smaller fish.
I had set up swims left and right, but simply couldn't get a bite, which was a little worrying. The left hand swim was converted to meat, but never produced anything.
Since I couldn't get a bite down the track any where in the peg, even at 14m where I started a new pellet swim, meant I had to rely more heavily on the far island swim. The only way I could get a positive bite was by cupping in some pellet, leave it for 10mins whilst I tried somewhere else in the swim.
Tony was starting to catch well and I was hoping if he framed I might pick up the section by default, however both Clint and Martin were also catching now, although Martin was adamant his fish were on the small side. Clints definitely weren't and any chance of a pick up was looking more remote particularly since my catch rate had dropped off.
With 90mins to go it was time to pot in the unused hemp & caster on my bait tray down the left hand margin, fishing double meat. This produced 2 carp, a rudd and a perch, so hardly prolific.
By the all out I knew Tony and Clint had beaten me. I also thought Martin would pip me, but as it turned out he did have some very small carp and I claimed 3rd in section, by 5lb. Back at the results it transpired I picked up the section thanks to a double default!
Hopefully normal service will now be resumed. Its amazing what a little confidence can do, although I really to start drawing some decent pegs.
1st 125- 9 - Steve Tucker - p1
2nd 123-15 - Tony Rixon - p18
3rd 105- 9 - Clint Wotlyla - p19
4th 105- 8 - Dave Evans - p13
5th 105- 0 - Sean Townsend - p70
6th 102-15 - Craig Edmunds - p51
Silvers
1st 22-12 - Gordon Cannings - p31
2nd 16- 2 - Tim Ford - p27
3rd 14-15 - Clint Wotlyla - p19
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