Weight - 134lb 12oz
Catch - 23 Carp, 18 Bream, 2 Chub
Weather - Hot & sunny, light winds
Match - England Ladies Fund Raiser - 5th out of 47, 4th out of 10 section
Today was a fund raiser for the England Ladies team, organised by Julie Abbott via the MFS website so they can compete in the World Championships. Whilst they get some kit, the cost of travelling etc has to come out of their own pockets so any money raised is very useful, including part of the £10k the men's team won at the Home International at Cudmore.
With 47 anglers fishing between pools 1, 5, 6 & 7 drawing a peg with some space would be important, plus everyone wanted pool 7 which has been fishing very well. However todays conditions were very different from my last visit, with a really hot day and little wind on the cards, fishing was likely to be tricky.
I found myself on pool 1 in the 20s again, peg 25 to be exact. I cant keep away from that end of the lake having now drawn it 4 times in 6 matches. Initially, I wasnt overly happy with my peg, since this end of the lake hasnt been the best, with the better weights coming from the bend and the middle of the lake.
For company I had Steve May on p26 and Colin (Billy No Fish from the MFS site) on p23. Included in my 10 peg section was Steve's son Andy May on p19 and Ian Toplis (scone) on p20 which is the best margin peg on the lake, so a really tough section.
I set up rigs to fish pellet, corn and paste down the left margin and at 5m, but was hoping I wouldnt need to spend too much time here, relying on catching shallow at 13m, feeding caster. I had brought 12pts (someone help Mike Nicholls off the floor!) which had been frozen.
On the all in the wind dropped and the ripple disappeared, so decided to start at 5m on paste whilst I built up the 13m line. After 20mins I had 1 bite, whilst Steve already had 6 small carp on the feeder cast to the far bank.
With a few carp now showing I set ablout catching shallow. As well as a pole rig I also set up a puddle chucker waggler to chase the carp around the swim. After nearly 3hrs Mark called to say he had at least 100lb already from peg 13(which he had moaned like hell about it being the worst peg on the lake!) and wanted to know how my end of the lake was doing. At the time I had 6 carp, plus about 12lb of silvers.
As the match progressed, there was more carp being drawn to the feed, but they didnt seem to be feeding properly. I had to keep switching between the waggler and the pole. When it was flat calm the waggler seemed best, plus I had most of my silvers on the waggler, whilst the pole was used when there was a ripple or when the carp came in close enough to mug. Steve was doing much the same thing, there was plenty of carp around, but they were just drifting between the 2 of us.
I did have a look down my margin, but only had a couple of knocks from silvers, so soon binned that. I also tried the 5m line where I had been feeding 6s and had a couple of decent skimmers and a carp.
At the all out I knew it would be close between Steve and myself, because we were matching each other carp for carp, although I had 18lb of silvers, but Steve had those early carp on the feeder. As it turned out it was very close, as Steve hooked his first fish down the margin on the whistle and landed an 8lber 10mins later, beating me by 4lb.
Pool 1 was definately the place to be with the top 5 weights coming from the lake. In hindsight the first 20mins of the match cost me 3rd in the match. I should have gone shallow straight away, because Steve finished 3rd, whilst Ian on p20 had 12 carp for 120lb in the last hour down his margin to finish with 136lb.
Mark won with his best ever match weight. He even had the cheek to say he was getting bored catching. Whilst I had to continually chase the fish around the swim, Mark just dropped his bait in and waited for the elastic to be pulled out.
I was just pleased to put an end to my worse run of 6 matches without a pick up, as I collected the section by default.
The day raised £850 thanks to a raffle and Roy not charging a pegging fee.
1st 280- 8 - Mark Poppleton - p13 (pool 1)
2nd 246- 4 - Andy May - p19 (pool 1)
3rd 138- 8 - Steve May - p26 (pool 1)
4th 136- 8 - Ian Toplis - p20 (pool 1)
5th 134-12 - Ken Rayner - p25 (pool 1)
6th 129- 4 - Shaun Little - p95 (pool 6)
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