Chilton Trinity delayed Xmas Match

I'll tell you now that you will find more to read about fish being caught on Tony's and Mike's blogs since they were at the same place and both caught more than me!

I could have fished the canal today, it was the last ATWL round, but decided to fish CT as it would be my first visit. (As it turned out the canal fished pants and so I would have probably blanked! Thatchers won the league comfortably, well done lads!) So it was that I came to be picked up at 6:30 by Mike Nicholls for the journey to Hill Tops. We bumped into Les Williams in the cafe, he had not been very well he advised, after having a nasty bang on the head when his car bonnet fell on him, ouch!

I had some idea of the pegs to draw after reading about Wednesday's match and from talking to a few of the regulars. Unfortunately I drew peg 31, and Rich Coles said this area was rubbish Weds, in fact Nick Davidson (Keynsham Angling) had struggled on it. Never mind, got to make the most of it! I set up two rigs for the deep water out at 14.5 and 16 mtrs a 0.75gm Desque float, and 1gm pencil float. These had 0.1 and 18 Drennan silver fish hooks. A 4x14 Chianti would do for the carp margin line (on 0.12 to a 18 pellet hook) at 7 mtrs to my left. I fed some micros and dead maggots out to 16mtr, gbait to an angle at 14mtr and settled in to see what happened. It was very cold as the wind was Right in my face, and it made presentation tricky at times. After the first hour I had taken two skimmers and a couple of roach, but it just went rock hard for an hour before a carp took a liking to my double dead maggot hook bait. I played it carefully for 10 mins, it was a heavy plodding fish and I just took it really easy. The bulk shot surfaced once or twice and a large boil was created on the surface proving this was a good un, but how big I shall never know because it found a snag about 6 mtrs out....f£%%ing thing!!!!

The rest of the match was spent catching the odd roach, and it was obvious no carp were present in my peg, although to my left Martin Legahan (I think that is how his name was called out at the results lol) had taken carp 16 mtrs down the peg to the corner which was a long way away. To my right Jason Radford had 2 roach and went for walk, the next angler packed up early and so did Rich Coles, it was shite in my area! The margin never produced a bite and I was very happy when the all out came as I was feeling the chill Northerly wind.

I weighed 3lb 8oz, but as Fabio said, I had well over 4lb as the scales were not to good, still it was the same for everyone so no moaning from me. Tony walked the match from peg 24 (see his blog) you don't get roach trouble when you have the carp in your peg lol! Dean Malin won the silvers with 7lb, and 2nd in the silvers was next to him, am I sounding bitter about my peg yet! Martin Legahan sneaked into the frame beating Mike Nicholls by 1oz!

During the match we were looked after by the lake owners who provided us free (as a treat) cup of tea, soup and a roll, sausage rolls and a mince pie! That made up for the lack of bites. I will go back, but when it's a bit warmer I think.

Well ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this will be my last post for a while as I go into hospital on the 27th for an operation to remove my tumour. Hopefully it will go well and they find no surprises (though the list of risks from the surgery is as long as your arm!), the op is supposed to take about 5 hours and I will be in hospital for 7 to 10 days. Once they've opened me up they will have a good idea of what will happen next, so I'm keeping everything crossed. I'll be looking forward to getting back out fishing, but it will be at least 6 to 8 weeks away, I suppose it might be a bit warmer by then, which would be nice! Tight lines.