21/12/24 - Sedges - Tile Lake

Weight - 20lb 12oz

Catch - 3 Carp, 2 Skimmers

Weather - Mostly cloudy, strong westerly

Match - Uzit Bomb & Feeder League - rd 4 (33 fished) - 2nd in section, 15th overall

As the 4^th round of the league was postponed 2 weeks ago due to Storm Darragh, today was effectively the 4^th round (and the final round is now 1^st February).

I was lying 7^th in the league, but there are 5 of us on 5pts and I have the lowest cumulative weight, so today I really wanted to draw a corner and to put a decent weight in the net.

I was a little disappointed with p33, which to be fair is a decent section peg, but I was always going to be fishing for 2^nd as venue regular, Paul Homewood turned up on p31.

It rained heavily yesterday which meant today was going to be tough and I started the match cautiously, trying the lead & bread towards the island, then corn without success. In the meantime, Paul had caught a couple of carp and the writing was already on the wall.

After 30mins, I decided to try the pellet cone (80:20 mix of bubblegum micros and 2mm P-Nut pellet) and double corn and 10mins later I netted my first carp, which was a relief.

I had my 2^nd carp an hour later, again on the pellet cone and corn, but it was fair to say that it was hard going, and other than Paul no one else had caught a carp in my section.

As a backup I had fed groundbait and maggot at 16m in case I needed some skimmers, but I only fished this swim for 15min without success and I didn’t waste too much time trying, as I had already caught a carp, I wanted to concentrate on catching another one or two.

I tried pinging corn halfway to the island, but it was spreading too much in the strong head wind, so I switched to 6mm pellet. Unfortunately, I only caught 1 skimmer over this line. I also tried fishing the method tight to the island and unsurprisingly never had a bite.

With 30mins remaining I eventually caught my 3^rd and final carp, again on double corn and the cone. I did have another bite 5mins before the end on double corn, but it was only a skimmer.

As expected, Paul won the section with 47lb and I was pleased to finish 2^nd in section, which pushed me into 6^th in the league. Fingers crossed for a corner peg and a boat load of fish in the final round.

1.    82-13 – Pete Sivell – p39 (Tile)

2.    78-  3 – Jamie Cook – p9 (Brick)

3.    74-  4 – Dave Wykes – p40 (T)

4.    49-11 – Phil Phelps – p11 (B)

5.    47-  2 – Paul Homewood – p31 (T)

6.    46-10 – Chris Higgs – p27 (T)