After the night from hell I was not only tired but also aching from the physical exertions of the day before, but no pain no gain and I need a lot of a gain. After a lovely breakfast cooked by Mark Tanner we were off again to the lodge for the draw, it seemed to take me twice as long to push my Preston Shuttle there today. Carey was in today, I didn't really want to draw there as I had heard it was fishing hard, not surprising with red hot sunshine, I think those larger carp prefer to feed as it cools down. Luckily for me I pulled peg 116 on Campbell, and I was opposite Mike Nicholls on 125. Woody was close behind me on peg 81, Glenn on flyer 85, and Mark Tanner drew his 3rd consecutive corner with peg 90.
For company today I had venue expert Scott Russell on 115 (who only set up 2 lead rods trying the Roy Worth tactics), and Kev Dicks was on 118. I should also mention Ian Parsons was on 119 and I haven't seen him fishing for ages, he can still draw flyers though! After electing to fish for silvers yesterday today I thought I would fish for carp. With this being a cost cutter I was not going to lose any sleep about not beating the locals, and so rather than try and fish shallow on a long pole I opted for 13m fishing the same paste / pellet rigs as yesterday, which would give me a physical work out but unlikely to bother the main money. My durafloat margin rig also did for the right hand margin.
I cupped in a half pot of 6mm pellets at 13m and then threw 8mm pellets into my margin all day. Within seconds the 13m line was fizzing and I went in with the past rig, a good move as I had 2 carp in the chucks. Here we go then, as I had 3 more fish in the next 3 casts, but these were tench, and then I had a couple of skimmers. In a reversal of yesterday I now changed tack and fished for silvers as the carp had backed off, and on the pellet rig I had a steady run but like yesterday they also slowed after 2 hours. Scott had carp tearing up the bottom in front of him but he only had a few carp and was cursing not having set up to fish shallow. I could see odd carp coming out but again it was not prolific, halfway through and I was forced to go to the toilet, and I found out Steve Long on 110 and a lad on 130 were doing the best, Carey was fishing very hard (except for the pleasure anglers on the diagonal bank who were bagging!).
I stuck to fishing the pellet rig and feeding very little pellet, I had used a toss pot to try to keep some silvers interested and the carp not interested! I would get an odd skimmer out of the blue, just to keep me ticking over. Trying paste again I had a bite and then BANG!!!! My 10m section snapped, ooops. The pole is 6 years old and I know I have dropped / knocked it a few times so I wasn't blaming the pole. End of fishing 13m and so I tried the margin I had a carp first chuck, then one saw me off under the tree. I did though have a tench and a skimmer down here to help my silvers weight, but then another lost rig made me have a rethink. I decided to fish a new long line at 9m and I refed here with 6mm pellet and this was soon fizzing. I had some late carp here including one that was about 13lb which I mugged on my deep rig, but crucially another tench and a skimmer, the pellet rig worked as well if not better than the paste rig for me today.
The scales came down from 119 where Ian had 34lb of tench, he told me he had a torrid time losing lots of carp and tench down the edge, and I didn't think I had that much silvers myself. Kev Dicks total weight was 130lb and he came 4th with that. My silvers went 33lb and my carp 82lb for a total of 115lb. Scott next door ended up with 140lb (3rd) he caught on the lead but also on a waggler which he attached to one of his lead rods (lol) and he mugged quite a few on this, he did mug one on the lead which was a first for me!
Back at the results I had sneaked 2nd in the silvers and another pick up, another great days fishing in good company. Of course we went out to watch England that night and that put a dampner on things, but a few beers solved that soon enough! On Friday we were all so knackered we could not find the will to fish, so we walked the lakes and had a good chat to Steve Long and Colin Dyer in the shop. I headed off to my sponsor Thatchers Tackle in Wells to sort out a new Preston pole and hope to pick it up next week.
Have to think about when and what to fish next, I'll have to see whats about next weekend.
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