Holiday Day 3 - Lodge Lake Teams

The day started with a breakfast in M&M cafe, decent, but a bit more expensive it seemed to all of us.

After much debating the night before, we decided to have a team match similar to last year. However, with 10 of us fishing we had to have a straight two teams of 5 that would be decided on overall weight. Team would be based on peg drawn, so every other peg was your team member and so completely random. I drew peg 53, in the near left hand corner, drawn this peg many times. Teams came out like this...

Peg    Angler 

Team A

53  Tim Ford

59 Gary Bowden

64 Gordon Cannings

68 Haydn Withers

70 Glenn Bailey

Team B

55 Tony Wittcomb

61 Mark Tanner

66 Geoff Francis

69 Martin Reyat

73 Martyn Woodington

Had there been a bookie present I am sure the money would have been piled onto team A ;-)

The match being float only meant pole only for most, but I wanted to set up a pellet wag again for fishing down the bank to the brambles, trouble was I left my floats and reels in the van not expecting to need them, but Tony on 55 leant me a reel and float. My tactics today were, fish paste straight in front at 11m, pellet wag as mentioned, and then two margins; one just to my right by the reeds where it was very shallow a foot at best, and one 10m down the left where I have caught well in the past.

We started at 11 today and I began on the paste all the while feeding some 6mm pellets towards the brambles. My start on paste was slow for carp, with just a couple of small 3lb fish, but I was getting a few 1lb skimmers. Glenn was bagging straight away on the paste!

After an hour I had another small carp and the skimmers were now not playing ball, Woody on 73 was not catching much either, and he said Tony only had 3 carp. I could see carp coming up for the pellets by the brambles and decided I had given them long enough to gain confidence. Once again this method was not that great, and the carp avoided my bait, only when I got very close to the brambles did I hook a carp, but it was only on for about 5 seconds before it came off. On inspection the main line had broke which I put down to the brambles doing it. I considered my options, and thought I would just get frustrated fishing the wag, and if I stopped feeding there the carp might come away and look for grub, no more pellet wag.

The second hour was a steady affair, less bites and indications, but when a bite came it was generally a 2lb to 4lb carp on the paste. I noticed Martin R catch a couple of fish in his margin early as was Geoff Francis, and as last year the margins kicked off quick I was keen to feed mine and not miss out. I had decided on 2 approaches, I fed gbait into the right margin and I put micros in the left. Within 10 minutes the LH margin had swirls and tails, when it died down I fed it again, the carp returned again. On my third feed down there I couldn't take no more and gave it a go, putting either double worm on dead maggots on a size 12 XSH I had 4 small carp straight away but then nothing. Residents caught I assumed, I would have to wait till later, also Martin R only had 3 in his margin.

Woody was struggling opposite me on 73, and he was able to tell me that Tony was catching nothing either, so I plodded on with the paste getting the odd small carp, when the carp showed in the margins again in the last 90 minutes I concentrated on those. I took 3 from the RH margin (these were 5 to 7lb) and took some more small carp from down to the left. I was suprised that I did not catch any munters and previously on this peg I have always caught lumps late. That said, I had a nice steady day catching small carp and had thoroughly enjoyed it. It seemed my team mates had too, with Glenn catching well early, and Gary and Gordon  catching well late. 

Steve Long weighed me first and I my stockies went 96lb and my skimmers 9lb, for 105lb.

On my right Tony had some late lumps and weighed 98lb, on my left Woody had 57lb, at least I had done my bit for the team. As it turned out my team did rather well and we ended with 95lb more than Team B. Team B were rather hampered by Mark Tanner on peg 61 who was chip shop sausage with just 17lb, Woody couldn't work out if Mark was fishing the margin all day, on his mobile, or asleep, oops lol! As for me well I was glad to have enjoyed my day and finally win some money!

Due to our later finish we all decided to have a takeaway and drain some of our cans, though I think this was a ruse by those who wanted to make up more of those bloody tea bags!