Weight - 64lb 0oz
Catch - 28 Carp
Weather - Hot, sunny and increasingly windy.
Match - Summer Series rd 3 (12 fished) - 2nd in section, 3rd overall
The 3rd round of the Summer Series and I really
needed a result to put me back in the hunt.
I drew p11, not a peg I would normally rush to, however the
wind has been blowing up this end and p13 has been a good area recently. My
section ran from p2 to p13 and could keep an eye on everyone with the exception
of p2
Due to the water levels, I brought a platform, however due
to the sharp drop off it slipped down during the match although fortunately not
sufficient enough to warrant an adjustment.
Plumbing up the far bank and to be honest it was awful. I
found a small flatish spot but it generally dropped off from a couple inches to
5ft within a couple of metres, so not ideal.
On the all-in I caught a carp straight away on paste fishing
across, however the right to left wind had already increased making presentation
difficult. A switch to fishing worm over the same line just wasn’t right as I was
trying to fish over a small spot and the wind was buffering the rig around. I
tried fishing the method to the far bank, but never had a bite, neither had
Allan Oram (p9) to my right and the signs were a little ominous.
This meant I had to try my short paste line earlier than
expected where I had fed micros and 4s. The first drop in over this line and it
was obvious the wind had generated quite a tow and a slightly stiffer paste was
required to stay on the hook.
It took a couple of attempts to get my first fish and by
feeding a ball of micros started catching. After 2hrs I was up to 7 fish, Allan
had 6 and Ronaldo on p7 also had 7.
Over the next couple of hours, I mostly stayed on the short paste
line, occasionally trying the method for only 2 fish, but importantly I was gradually
increasing my lead over Allan and Ronaldo.
With 2hrs remaining (6hr match), the wind had increased
further which coincided with my short line fading, prompting a new short swim
being fed to my left. I had also fed my left margin, which resulted in 1 carp –
surprisingly this was my only fish from this swim.
With an hour remaining I stopped catching. I felt I may have
overfed my short line, although the strong undertow may have been putting off
the fish as Allan and Steve Partington (p13) were also struggling.
In the meantime, the wind had eased off a little allowing Ronaldo
to start catching on the pole over his far line, over taking me.
My short line came back to life with 30mins remaining, but
it was too late to pull back the deficit on Ronaldo who had a great last hour catching 25/30lb to win the section.
In hindsight, I was disappointed not to win the section after leading for so long,
however p11 isn’t great so I was pleased to finish 3rd overall. The
result has pulled me up from 6th to 5th in the series.
1.
88-13 – Arthur Hicks – p20
2.
76- 6 –
Ronaldo – p6
3.
64- 0 –
Ken Rayner – p11
4.
58- 7 – Steve
Brown – p22