Picked up by Glenn today and the journey down was absolutely great as was the breakfast in Hill Tops cafe. I was looking forward to this match, and arriving at the venue saw that the wind was blowing up the lake the usual way and saw drawing peg 11 again would be nice, in fact a peg with the wind not to bad would be nice. I ended up drawing peg 36 middle of Tile lake, and would face a tricky section as peg 40 is a good corner (Jerry Pocock) and peg 39 has won the short pole matches a couple of times (Jamie Parkhouse), on peg 37 was John Baker and on peg 34 was Jason Radford ( I couldn't see him as the reeds grow taller than him lol).
Setting up today the rigs for the pole were a 4x18 Preston Yellow for on the deck with banded pellet (about 7ft deep) with 0.16 to 16 PR36. A Tyson 3 for shallow / slapping, and a couple of 4x12 Durafloats for meat in the margin and at 5m (I had nothing on these two rigs). I also set up a pellet waggler but the wind was not looking favourable for it to start. To begin the match I wasted some meat, and fed a pot of 6mm pellets at 11.5m (as far as I dare go in the wind). I dropped in on the deep rig to start with and it only took a couple of minutes for the float to bury and a small 2lb carp was netted. Ten minutes later and another smal carp took a liking to the 8mm pellet, but then the bites went iffy, I realised there were some fish up shallow. Going out on the shallow rig I picked up 3 carp between 18" and 30" deep and I was thinking this was going to be a good day! The fish disappeared shallow and I tried deep again still feeding 6mm pellets by catty, just iffy bites again and 1 fouler.
After the hour mark I decided to brave the wind and give the wag a try, having done my best to feed 8mm pellets as far as possible since the start I was pleased when I had two carp on my first two casts. Sadly just like the pole that was that and I wasted another 30 mins thrashing and with the wind turning into my face I came off the wag, still after 90 mins I had 30lb. Back on the pole line deep and Guy Manton came along for a watch, he saw me quickly pull out of a fish, and then have some fun trying to land a 3lb eel! I had some funny indications and even the float going under fast saw me not connect with a fish, and then a 2lb skimmer was netted which was my last fish for 2 hours!
Trying everything I couldn't catch, the lads either side were faring even worse than me, and Bob Gullick on 32 had been for two walks! I tried casting the pellet wag to the island (couldn't feed that far) and I did manage to get one cast in the right place and had a carp, landed short numerous times and caught the reeds. I stuck on a heavier 5 swan wag and set up a new hook length on it too, chucked it out and straight into the island and I lost the lot, I put the rod down and decided enough was enough.
The pole line came to life, well their with fish in the swim but I couldn't hook any in the mouth deep and shallow was no good, I was pretty jarred off. The wind started to ease and I decided to feed a few 8mm pellets rather than 6mm and try and catch shallow, in the last 30 mins I caught 4 more carp and lost a couple more. Think I royally cocked this peg up today, I let the wind get to me and I think if I had fed a few 8mm pellets all day trying to catch shallow I would have had a lot more than my 50lb 14oz. Jason had 36lb for last in his section, and John Baker had 20lb for last in my section.
Well that's a day to forget, funny as after 90 mins I thought I was on for a very good day but everything went tits up and I must have lost 12 carp, not all foulers either, although I wasn't alone in that with many others losing lots, even more.
Winner on the day was Martin Reyatt on unfancied peg 20 who had a torrid first 4 1/2 hours and had 2 walks, then he had 109lb on meat in the last 90 mins! Two pegs away on 18 Ziggy the Polish lad caught another 70lb of skimmers to paralyse the silvers. I was told not to mention that Glenn was on peg 19.
Full results on Tony's blog, I'm off to bed as I had to pain the skirting boards when I came home tonight, that was only just less entertaining than my day's fishing today lol!
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