01/02/25 - Sedges - Brick Lake

Weight - 34lb 8oz

Catch - 4 Carp, 1 Skimmer

Weather - Grey & cloudy

Match - Bomb & Feeder League - rd 5 (24 fished) - 2nd in section, 8 overall

This was the re-arranged final round, however we only had 24 fishing instead of 40. This meant 16 on Brick and 8 on one side (31-40) on Tile.

Coming into this round I was lying 6^th, courtesy of a lower weight and felt I needed to draw a corner to give me the best chance of winning my section and bolstering my overall weight to claim a top 5 place.

I was near the end of the draw queue with pegs 10 & 40 still in the bag but pulled p11. With Karl Turner on p10 and Chris Ware on p12, I had my work cut out to get any points. As such, I took a positive approach to the match and didn’t bother targeting the skimmers.

On the all-in I started on the pellet cone, fished towards the rope, trying corn, pellet and meat, however after an hour I was still bite less. In the meantime, Karl already had 40lb fishing against the end bank and I knew 2^nd in section was the best I could hope for, so I really needed a big weight to give myself a chance of improving my overall weight.

I had been pinging corn at 16m, and a switch resulted in 3 carp and a skimmer over the next 90 mins, which meant I was lying comfortably 2^nd in section.

Unfortunately, my 16m line just died. I also fed meat at 5m, which was very much a throw away line, which I gave 10min, but never had a bite.

This just left the far line, where I had been pinging 8mm pellet in an effort to pull some fish away from Karl, but as yet I only had a couple of liners. Chris in the meantime was slowly catching me up, netting a big carp and a few skimmers.

With an hour remaining, 8 pouches of pellet were fired onto the far line. 30mins later I caught a 10lber which was my last fish to secure 2^nd in section as Karl won the match.

As the weigh sheets came in, I knew I hadn’t done enough, but it wasn’t until I finalised the results, I realised how close it was, as there were 7 of us all on 9pts for 3^rd spot, however my lower weight aggregate meant I finished 9^th.

At the start of the series, I had targeted a top 10, so happy with 9^th, yet disappointed at the same time. I was the only one with the exception of Jamie Cook (fishery owner) not to have drawn a corner and based on the pegs I’ve drawn did as much as I could.

Well done to Paul Tidball for winning the series and I’m looking forward to next year’s series.

1.    87-12 – Karl Turner P11

2.    55-  8 – Paul Homewood – p35

3.    52-  7 – Dave Romain – p31

4.    49-11 – Steve Jackson – p10

5.    43-  5 – John Moody – p40 

Final league table below.