Catch - 4 Carp, 7 Skimmers
Weather - Cloudy start, sunny later, but windy
Match - Coops/Guru Series - Final Round - 2nd in section, 8th out of 14
This series hasn't gone that well for me, due to a couple of iffy draws and some poor decisions, although I think its fair to say the venue has been quite patchy and not fished as well as it could. This was probably the reason why we had 6 no shows, which upset a few people and is a match organisers nightmare for a whole host of reasons.
Anyway, I drew p35, which I felt would be at the wrong end of the section since the wind was blowing into p31 where it was expected Jamie Parkhouse would win the section, if not the match.
Following the mini heat wave, it was noticeably cooler today, but still fancied it to catch shallow on the pole. Starting on the meat feeder (as I caught a few better fish on it in the last round) the wind was blowing the feeder away from the island and I need to punch the feeder to get it close enough. This wasn't working, so switched a hybrid feeder which was a easier and I was able to put it down the side of the island. Unfortunately, it didn't produce, in fact the venue owner and league leader, Jamie Cook was to my left on p36 and he only had 2 carp after an hour fishing the feeder.
After an hour a switch to the short meat line produced a couple of skimmers and then an 11lb carp, before it dried up. The next 3hrs proved to be a real struggle, the only fish I had was on the shallow pellet line at 14.5m, but the wind had also picked up making any sort of presentation difficult. One severe gust of wind caught the pole dragging it to my right. I wasn't quick enough and the pole tip caught the water, whilst the gust continued to push me and my no3 section (no4 section on other poles) snapped! Gutted! Nothing to do with the pole, the same gust of wind also nearly blew my top kits out of the pole roost. Thanks to Mark for lending me a spare section I was able to continue, but my head was gone for a short while as I was seriously pissed off.
Once I got myself together, I tried catching down my margin but with no bites over the regularly fed meat, decided to cup in 2 pots of micros/4s originally mixed up for the feeder, down the edge. Fortunately that had the desired effect and caught 2 carp.
As expected Jamie Parkhouse won my section and came 2nd overall and surprisingly I finished 2nd in section, as everyone struggled in the wind. The more sheltered side of the lake was the place to be.
Well done to Jamie Cook, Martin Heard and Bob Gullick who framed in the league and all received Guru goodies. Also thanks to James Cooper for running the series.
1st 129- 2 - Mike West (Somerset Carpenters) - p29
2nd 116-12 - Jamie Parkhouse - p31
3rd 104- 8 - Martin Heard (Mosella) - p40
4th 101- 9 - Jake Alden - p30
5th 82- 4 - Paul Tidball - p28
6th 72-12 - Mark Poppleton (Colmic/Marukyu) - p25
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