Weight - 109lb 9oz
Catch - 20 Carp, 6 Skimmers, 3 Roach, 2 Perch, 1 Tench, 1 F1
Weather - Cool & cloudy
Match - Winter League - rd 5 - 3rd out of 28, 2nd in section
For various reasons, we only had 28 anglers today. Thank you to those who stepped in to fill in the spaces, but I'm not happy about the ones that didn't let me know they weren't attending. Next year's league I will be insisting on anglers finding replacements, otherwise they will have to pay their pools regardless. It is simply not fair on those that have turned up.
Anyway back to the fishing. After my section win in the last round I was now in with an outside chance of claiming a top 4 place in the league, but could ill afford a poor draw. I didn't fancy any of the 3 tickets left on Match Lake (p5, p20, p22). When I drew p20 and looked down my section to see Trigger on the form peg 15 and Rod Wootton on p17, I thought my league was over and 3rd in section would be the best I could achieve. However, despite having a bit of a grumble I decided to be positive and attack the swim. The good news was p22 hadn't been drawn, so at least I had some extra water to draw the fish from, which was reinforced when a couple of fish topped between me and Dale on p24.
Rigs for the day were the same as yesterday, literally I had kept the rig on the top kits:-
- SM Pellet 0.2g > .12 > 16 B911 (far shelf)
- SM Chimp 0.3g > .12 > 18 silverfish pellet (soft pellet down the track)
- Ackoo Carbon Carrat 0.2g > .12 > 18 B911 (hair rigged pellet)
- Ackoo Carrat 0.3g > .14 > 16 B911 (meat)
After feeding some micros/4s on top of the far shelf and down the track, I started on corn searching the swim for any carp. A lost foul hooker was all I had after 15mins, so switched to the far shelf catching a couple of carp and a F1 on 6mm expander, before they disappeared.
Moving back down the track, fishing left and right with 4mm expander over pellet I managed a few small skimmers and a small carp, but was hardly setting the world alight. As expected Trigger was catching after a slow start and looked like the section was his for the taking. Rod on the other hand was struggling, as was Dave Wescott on p19 and with 2hrs gone I was probably lying 2nd in section.
The next 2hrs proved to be a bit of struggle, I just couldn't catch over the pellet lines and started pinging pellet over the long right hand swim in the hope of drawing some fish in for later. Since I couldn't catch on the pellet, I decided to cup some caster and meat in front of the p21 pallet, which produced a couple of perch, but more importantly a couple of carp on double caster, which consolidated my 2nd place.
An early look over the 5m meat line only produced a roach. With 2hrs to go I had 6 carp. Switching back to the pellet lines, the left hand swim only produced a couple more small skimmers, whilst the right hand swim was starting to show signs of life. 2 carp on 4mm expander had me reaching for the hair rigged pellet rig with heavier elastic. This really helped as I got bites quicker and was soon catching very well, the only issue was the size of the carp, with nothing bigger than 5-6lb I really wanted some of the 8lb plus fish if I was to overtake trigger, which was further compounded when I saw him land a double figure fish.
I was hoping to catch over the 5m meat line, because a) hopefully the fish would be bigger and b) fishing at 5m instead of 15m would mean catching quicker. 4 more carp and a tench including an 8lber was welcomed, but every time I thought I might be getting close to catching Trigger he would be landing another carp. The last 30mins was spent fishing the pellet line, before returning to the meat line.
By the all out I didn't think I had beaten Trigger, although he was trying very hard to convince me otherwise. In the end I lost out by 8oz from a peg with no recent form, so I was quite pleased with my efforts.
1st 114- 9 - Adrian Clarke - p13
2nd 110- 1 - Craig Edmunds - p15
3rd 109- 9 - Ken Rayner - p20
4th 100- 1 - Mike Duckett - p37
5th 88- 2 - Tony Rixon - p1
6th 67-12 - Sean Townsend - p7
Silvers
1st 30- 6 - Nigel Bartlett - p11
2nd 28- 2 - Chris Fox - p3
3rd 17- 2 - Gary Etheridge - p39
4th 13-12 - Dave Hodgson - p42
5th 12- 8 - Dave Wescott - p19
6th 12- 3 - Tony Rixon - p1
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