No Steve Burgess to 'organise' the day, that was left to Alan Healey, more or less, to arrange the pools and pegging. With the draw meant to be at 9am, we waited for Lionel Legge to arrive, he duly didn't so we stayed at 11 anglers.
Plenty of banter ensued, a lot aimed at Adam Caswell, or as Darren North pointed out, A well mad sac (anagram of Ad's name, lol). The odd of him fishing the whole 330 minutes was slim, he rarely does!
Anyways with the weather looking set fair, the 6% chance of snow was given the turned up nose treatment by Simon Belcham who insisted it wont happen, I fancied either a peg with the wind either directly behind or directly into me, so that'd be one of the 4 end pegs then! Other than that, peg 24 by the landslip would be ok. In the most part, the pegs along each straight would be hard work with the strong cross wind.
I picked my peg out about 2/3rds of the way along and plucked peg 13, which is a couple pegs from the far end. For company I had Ryan Radford and Alan Healey on my right on the end bank. I had Brian Shanks on peg 11 to my left. Across from me was Darren North on around peg 19.
I carried my kit to the peg and set about sorting my kit out, everything had to be put down sensibly with some weight to it as the wind would surely blow it away, as Alan found out a couple hours into the match when his net bag 'jumped' into the lake and needed rescuing.
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| View of peg 13, Harescome Match Lake. |
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| View along Harescombe Match Lake from peg 13 |
The 1st rig would be for down to my left margin by some grass, this rig would do for tight over should the wind drop, it didn't so the rig was just used down the edge. It was a NG Jordan pattern in 0.2g. 0.14>0.10>B911 f1 size 18.
The second rig was the same but had a banded hook, but remained unused.
The 3rd and 4th rigs were again the same but one banded hook (unused) and one not. These were 4x12 Maver pole floats on the same lines/hooks as above. This rig would be used for 2+2 line and again at 11m which was realistically the further I could managed sensibly in the wind.
Baits were simply wetted micros and maggots, I did have some expanders and pinkies, but these remained fishless and stayed in the tubs barring the odd look.
The all in was officially called at 10:01, which was a couple minutes after Steve Burgess had texted 'all-in', so I guess his tackle was ready and we were dealt the hand of knowing what he was about to do......or was he?
I began down the edge without feeding and never had an indication, Ryan however, managed a small carp 1st drop towards the end of the island. I stayed in close for 10 minutes before venturing out to 11m, then into 2+2 then into the edge again. I rotated this for 90 minutes and never had a bite, I did feed a small toss pot of micros and maggots every so often, but it was slow.
Actually this end of the lake was slow, Brian had managed a few little roach, Alan a nice 3lb+ carp and Darren (opposite) had a few f1's and silvers. The other end of the lake seemed busier though and from what I could see, Mark Radford, Chris Szakacs, Lee Waller and Si Belcham all seemed to be regularly netting fish, but this can be a bit misleading as anything other than plip roach must be netted.
At just after 11:30 I had a couple of bites, one of which gave me a plip roach, a 4oz skimmer followed before another plip roach. These all came from the 11m line on maggot.
All the while I had been drip feeding micros and maggots down the left hand edge.
My 1st f1 came just after 12pm and was a nice 1.5lb fish from the edge, it was a solitary one though and no more fish followed immediately after.
All I could see up my end was Darren and Brian picking up a few silvers and f1's, Alan and Ryan were really struggling. The other end looked, from my viewpoint, a bit more fishy with landing nets being used more often than us lot. Oh, Adam was doing a fair bit of non-fishing from either Ryan's or Alan's pegs.
As the day went on I started to pick up a few skimmers, some fell off as they were lightly hooked. I also managed a couple gudgeon, a few roach and a chublet. But more importantly the 11m line gave me 3 or 4 small f1's under 1lb and also a 2lber.
Oh we also managed the 6% chance of snow, much to mine and Simon's amusement.
A look down the edge at 2pm gave me my best fish of the day a 2.5lb f1 was duly netted, a 1.5lber came a few minutes later.
The last 90 minutes saw Darren North and Brian Shanks pick up a few fish, Alan packed up at 3-ish and tipped his couple of fish back, Ryan soon followed but kept his 6 or 7 fish for weighing. Adam already had his kit by Lee Waller's van ready to go and Derek, who was on peg 21 had began to pack up.
I continued to pick up the odd f1 and skimmer, I did bump a couple, but most anglers did as they seemed finicky for most of us.
At the all-out I had 11 f1's over 1lb and probably 5lb of fish under 1lb, so perhaps 18 to 20lb-ish. I reckoned that both Darren and Brian had more, but the top 4 (payout spots) would come from the other end.
I packed my kit away and waited for the weigh in to start. Lee Waller and Simon (then Alan) began with Darren's net as Adam and Derek dnw'd. Darren's nets went around 22lb, less than my guess of 27lb. Alan dnw'd and then Ryan dropped his fish on the scales, he weighed just under 10lb.
Next up for me, my fish gave me a suprising 26lb 14oz to put me into a temporary leading position.
Shanksy weighed in 19lb 5oz, so he had mostly smaller f1's compared to me.
At this point I was still convinced that the top 4 would still be the remaining 4 anglers to weigh, so next up saw a very good catch of 35lb+ for the amiable Si Belcham, Lee Waller's 24lb net was a lot less than what I thought it would be (landing every fish = pain in arse guessing what others are catching).
Chris Szakacs, most peeps favourite to win, was on peg 30, he managed to net a few, including a decent nr 5lb f1. His total of 39lb 8oz took the lead with only Mark Radford to weigh from landslip, hot peg, flyer, peg 29. His net came up short with 30lb 14oz putting him 3rd on the day.
Results:
1st - Chris Szakacs - 39lb 8oz
2nd - Simon Belcham - 35lb 14oz
3rd - Mark Radford - 30lb 14oz
4th - Lee Williams - 26lb 14oz
So although the wind was a pain in the butt and only 2 of the predicted 4 pegs framing, most of us had a few bites (not all though!!) and it made a nice change to catch actual f1's as a specific target species rather than the odd one in mostly carp or skimmers nets. They certainly pull well for their size which is good. But down here in Somerset we rarely see the species as a main player in catches.
You can read the PSV blog here... to see how the winner caught his fish and the full results.
Next week sees me and the rest of the PSV guys on Sedges, specifically Tile lake. Hopefully we'll have less windy and more settled conditions.
Take Care.
Lee
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