Shiplate Teams of Three, Round Two. 25-09-16

Well the 2nd round was fished last Sunday and our Bait-Tech SW team were hoping for a nice draw from Captain Tom's hand. I would be on Hawthorn, Titch on the Main Lake and Mr Downing would be on Westpool.
There was a good bit of banter flying around, some directed at me and my new 'skirt', which was a lovely +BaitTech waist towel in it's bright pink and black colouring, also have a new cap and a tee-shirt to match.....lovely. Thanks to Bait-Tech for them.

We sorted our bait, loaded our trolley, chatted about pegs and tactics before the draw was done.
It turned out our pegs were nothing to write home about but I was a touch jealous when I say that the team of Matt Taynton (end peg 15 on Hawthorn), Lionel Legge (peg 1 on the Main Lake where Tom won the last round) and Alan Healey (peg 4 with some space on Westpool).
Tom handed me peg 9 on Hawthorns, not the worst peg but towards the middle with some boards

across, which usually, not always, holds a few fish. I had Steve Burgess on my left. Whom I agreed not to have a quid with over Facebook the day or so earlier.
Titch was fishing from peg 13 on the main lake, a couple pegs away from the area which was fancied but always a good area for skimmers and odd carp.
Tom was on peg 8 on Westpool, again a couple pegs from the in-form and fancied area, but should catch a few.

Shiplate Hawthorn p9

I set up a few rigs, a tight in close edge rig for my right edge using meat over maggots, this rig would do for tight across over groundbait.
Another rig for down into the deep water in the edge again on the right (couldn't fish left), feeding hemp.
A shallow pellet rig, a light maggot rig which could be spread or shallowed up for down the middle.
A rig for 2+1 in front (hemp and meat/maggot) and lastly a silvers rig, as the last round, Ron Stark would be the man to beat on the silvers front and around 16lb or so would be a good weight of them.
Bait is pictured below.

Bait for the day.......

I would love to say it went all swimmingly, but it seem the lake had generally switched off. I started on maggots down the track and hoped for some silvers to put in the net but it was really slow going. Actually it took a couple hours for my 1st carp (though lost 2 foulers previous) as other than a couple roach on the maggot rig. The guys either side of me were not really fairing any better.
So I will drag this through to the 4hrs in stage, where I was up to a poxy 3 carp, all came on the meat at 2+1, but were all nice enough sizes and my clicker showed 16lb. I was last in section for sure, well I was convinced I would be.

Moving into the last hour and I felt I had fished well enough, tried a few things, altering the usual hooklength diameter, hook size, float sizes and shotting, bait choices and even tried fishing new areas. The fish were not playing ball......
But I was still hopeful of a late surge, I am a pretty positive angler most of the time, and as I have prove before, I tend to catch a few late on and larger fish. So at 3:20 I had another carp, maybe 10lb, and then half an hour later another from the same 2+1 line, this was a more modest fish.
A couple decent skimmers were netted, a couple jumped off the hook, but at least I was getting indications, not the late surge I hoped for.
Meanwhile Steve Burgess was getting plenty of action next door, he said mostly small carp of 1-2lb size, which more or less turned out to be the truth.

So as we were into the last hour my clicker was on 31lb, could I double that? I tried the Polony meat down the deeper edge, but there was a snag, turned out to be some line attached to something, so i reached a few inched further, this worked, well it gave me a carp of 1lb right away, then luckily another one was soon netted, a 4lb fish.
My last carp came on the 2+1 meat line and was around the 3lb mark and my clicker ended the match on 36lb mark. I was suffering with liners and foul hookers on and off during the day, like the fish were present but being little blighters and not eating the feast that was fed.

Anyways, I was sure to be last in my section. I packed my stuff away and loaded the car even before the weigh-in had started.
Chatting to the guys on the lake when I returned to the weigh-in, it seemed that the lake had not fished properly. Actually a couple guys said they had 30lb-ish, sadly they were in the other section as those in my half all said 40 to 50lb......gggrrr!!
Alas, we began to see what all had caught and it was a pretty fair match, some had not even had a fish after 3 hours. But we saw a few 40's and a 50lb net, plus a 701lb weight from my section.
I had amassed 44lb and ounces, which after Steve's 50lb guess actually weighed a few ounces less, saw me finish 2nd last in the section but only just behind those just above me.

The lake as a whole saw a 20lb net, 2x 30lb nets and two 70lb+ nets, the rest of us were stuck in the 40-50lb range. Ron did win the silvers on the lake for the 2nd round, a shade under 18lb if I remember correctly using mostly worms.

Once back at the car park, it turned out that Titch had 108lb and included the top silvers net of 20lb or so, so 2nd in section for him behind overall match winner Dave White with 150lb from peg 14b I believe.
Tom had come 2nd in section fishing with 4mm Bait-Tech Xpands and had around a dozen small carp for a 41lb weight.
Team-wise we had done average as the top 3 teams all had their anglers in the top 2 in the relevant sections.

Team Winners on the day, Dave Romain, Dave White (match winner) and Mark Wynne

I miss the next round when Paul Tidball is covering for me, I am down at White Acres, so I miss the 1st attempt on the Main Lake round of my series, I like that lake. But I am there on Sunday in a PSV match, so a nice draw and some fish will be appreciated......

Until next time, have fun.
Lee