Weight - 36lb 13oz
Catch - 8 Carp, 4 Roach, 2 Perch
Weather - Cold start. Bright, sunny & cold northerly
Match - Open - 5th out of 10
Sue asked whether its difficult writing a blog when things aren't going well? The answer is yes! Its always easier to write when you are doing well and having such a poor run does affect your confidence, but if nothing else I am a trier! This time last year I was in the middle of my best run, how things change.
Following a week of mild temperatures, last night turned cold with the wind switching to a northerly direction, but at least it was dry. 10 booked in, which was a good turn out for a Saturday open of late. I found myself on peg 15, which I was happy about, since 35lb gave off the peg Sunday, which included 22lb of silvers, although I was concerned that the cold snap would put off the fish feeding, but at least I was out of the worst of the wind.
For company I had Matt Tomes on p13 and Jim Jenner on p17. On the all in, I potted in some micros at 13m to my right, micros & 4s to my left at 14m and some caster to my left under the nearside tree. Having fished this peg a couple of times recently I knew there was a decent depth under the tree, which I hoped would produce a few decent silvers and carp.
I started by the sunken tree to my right with double corn and no feed. After 30mins I had a good start with 3 carp, unfortunately I lost the next 3, losing 2 on a sunken branch.
The remainder of the match was a bit of struggle. I had hoped to catch some decent perch under the tree to my left, but only had a couple of small fish, plus a 4lb carp.
My micros swim produced 2 carp soon after trying the swim but I couldn't get another fish, which was a surprise, because I had hoped to at least catch a few skimmers, but they never showed.
Over the left hand swim I kept catapulting 4s to hopefully pull a few carp from the end of the island. I did have 1 carp late on, but I think because Matt also targeted the area we cancelled each other out. The bush to my right did produce another carp and another lost one.
More out of desperation than any conviction, I set up a rig to fish the top of the far shelf, initially with pellet, but after no bites I switched to caster which produced a chub which threw the hook under my keepnet.
As the match progressed Matt started to catch down the left hand edge and Rod Wootton was catching on p11 by fishing towards p10, whilst Mark Walsh on P6 was catching by fishing towards p7. Apparently the fish were boshing all day between the 2 of them.
In an effort to make something happen I dumped 2 cups of caster/dead maggot under the left hand tree and by the p16 pallet, but to no avail.
Another disappointing result, but the cold snap turned off the skimmers and the carp appear to be tightly shoaled.
1st 96- 8 - Rod Wootton - p11
2nd 80- 4 - Mark Walsh - p6
3rd 59- 4 - Matt Tomes - p13
4th 38- 8 - Tom Mangnall - p21
5th 36-13 - Ken Rayner - p15
6th 25-14 - Nick Collier - p4
Silvers
1st 25-14 - Nick Collier - p4
2nd 11- 8 - Tom Mangnall - p21
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