Weight - 75lb 8oz (15lb 10oz - silvers)
Catch - 12 Carp, 9 F1s, 3 Skimmers, 3 Roach, 2 Perch
Weather - Cloudy, cool north easterly breeze
Match - 4th out of 9 (2nd - silvers)
Following a week of relatively mild weather, Friday turned colder, which is just typical and hoped the fish would still be willing to feed with spring on the way.
I drew p19 which is a decent draw, but when Rod Wootton ended up on p13 and Andy Hembrow on p15, the 2 form pegs, I thought silvers would offer my best chance of a pick up and p19 has shown some recent silvers form.
After feeding some micros & 4s at various areas of the swim, I searched the island with 6mm expander (SM pellet 0.2g > .12 > 16 B911), without success, so soon switched to fishing down the track (SM chimp 0.3g > .12 > 18 silverfish pellet) with 4mm expander.
In the meantime, Rod & Andy had caught very well and it was already looking like we were all fishing for 3rd or the silvers. After an hour I had caught a couple of F1s and a carp, but wasn't really going anywhere.
As the 2nd hour progressed I got the feeling the fish were up in the water, despite the cool conditions. I had been catapulting 4s to the island, so searched the island again with either 4 or 6mm expander and soon caught a number of F1s and a couple carp before the fish backed off.
The middle part of the match was fairly uneventful. Mike Duckett on p17 had started catching carp, whilst Brian Hadley on p21 had a couple of fish, but was struggling.
I had hoped for a few decent skimmers to add to my F1s, but couldn't catch anything bigger than 8oz. The carp were now making an appearance, which I didn't really want. During the last 2 hours, I only had 1 F1 and a few small silvers in amongst the carp. Had I focused on the carp I would have probably got closer to 100lb, but it wasn't going to win me any coin, because Rod and Andy would claim 1st and 2nd, although Mike had a late of fish to keep it interesting.
I thought I had about 12lb of silvers, so when Ray White on p11 weighed 15-7 I honestly didn't believe I had that much and congratulated him on winning, only for me to weigh 15-10 beating Ray by 3oz. Of course I received plenty of stick, along the lines of robbing a pensioner! Oops, sorry Ray.
1st 141-14 - Andy Hembrow - p15
2nd 140-14 - Rod Wootton - p13
3rd 122-14 - Mike Duckett - p15
4th 75- 8 - Ken Rayner - p19
5th 64-12 - Martin Lenaghan - p1
Silvers
1st 18-14 - Andy Hembrow - p15
2nd 15-10 - Ken Rayner - p19
3rd 15- 7 - Ray White - p11
No comments:
Post a Comment