Anyways a relatively mild day, dry too, was forecast so at least we will be comfortable, sadly we had received some cool rain in the previous 24hrs or so and we all knew it'd be tricky on all 3 lakes, 40lb would be there or thereabouts on the 2 canal style lakes and maybe 60lb could win the Main lake.
After a natter, loading the barrow and paying our dues it was down to Team Captains to venture to the drawbags....Tom came back with our homes for the day. Titch was on a nondescript peg on Westpool, I cant remember, maybe peg 13. I was on peg 8 on Hawthorn, an okay peg but only if 7 or 9 are not in, sadly, as seems to be the case on this series, I was hemmed in by those pegs and realistically I wasn't too likely to win my section, but you never know. I had to catch some fish and see.... Oh Tom, well he drew the low numbered section on the Main Lake, pegs 1 to 11 or something, with the top 3 pegs being 1, 7 and 3 in that order....he had peg 3...so had a good chance of a section 2nd, but 3rd in section would be the minimum from there.
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| Peg 8, Shiplate Hawthorn. |
The second rig was a heavy, hit and hold rig, for tight in to the snags to my left, I never picked that up all day.
The 3rd was a rig for 11.5m in front at the bottom of a shelf, well more like cliff face drop off, where I would be using a mixture of Bait-Tech Xpands in 2, 4 and 6mm over a mix of micros and 4mm feed pellets. This rig also suited being fished to my left and right short at the bottom of the shelf with meat, also for against the aerator which is on the right hand edge of my peg again using meat. All of these areas went fishless.
Lastly I had a shallower rig which would do for both dobbing bread all over the peg and if I had to then I could use the rig tight over in the shallow water.
So my bait was micros and 4mm feed pellets, Xpands, maggot, 6mm meat, a couple bread slices and some pinkies.
For company I had Jason Bird on peg 9, he kept saying that peg 8 isn't great with 9 in....and 9 isn't as good with 8 in, but then he had an empty peg to his right.
On my left was venue expert, regular winner at the venue and all round nice guy, Steve Howell, again he had an empty peg, to his left. He was not in my section so at least that was less of a burden for me, haha.
The match began and I didn't feed anything, just dobbed bread in a few likely spots for 10 minutes, this was biteless so I fed a small helping of meat by the aerator and a few maggots on each short line.
Both silvers lines were lightly fed.
I went out to the 11.5m line and just fed this all day via a tosspot. I had a 4mm soft pellet on the hook and I knew I would have to be patient. 10 or 15 minutes later and I hit a bite, an 8oz skimmer was duly netted. 15 minutes later, at 11 o'clock, I had another bite which saw me connected with a carp, but once down to the topkit, the rig came off the connector, oh balls.....!! Ah well carry on I thought to myself.
It took around 90 minutes to get another bite, another skimmer of similar size joined it's buddy in my net. Elsewhere it was proving tough, Jason had 1 carp and a roach, Steve just a few roach.
I was having an enjoyable day despite the lack of action and I felt I was fishing a tidy match and was hoping the carp would deal me a good hand.
My second carp was hooked at 2pm, this came after I had another skimmer of maybe 6oz and a 2oz roach. Again these fish came off the 11.5m line. But I was still doing okay from what I could gather.
A few fish had started moving across in the shallower water and Jason had hooked, foul hooked, a few carp across from various spots in his swim.
I shipped over with 2 maggots and a tosspot of the same and had indications right away, pretty sure they were mostly baby roach, but I did see a couple carpy signs and I managed a couple small chub over the next half hour. Then a 3lb carp was duly hooked and landed.
By now I could see Steve on peg 7 catching a few carp down his left edge, he had suffered foul hooked fish when he was fishing across, so I think he binned that line and came in close. He had fish to low double figures. But he wasn't in my section but a good point of reference.
I couldn't get a bite down my edges, but there were fish in the really shallow water to my left, behind the snags in maybe 12 inches of depth, I could see their tails. Sadly they didn't want to venture away from there.
So with half an hour to go I was on 3 carp and maybe 3lb of silvers. Jason was on 5 or 6 carp and a couple of them were a decent size, he was getting fish from his right hand side. I also heard someone further along had been doing ok, so I just hoped for 4 fish in the last 30 minutes to give myself a chance of 1st or 2nd in section....it never transpired that way, though a skimmer and a carp from the 11.5m line added maybe 4lb to my total.
The all out was called, I packed up and went to help with the weigh-in.
We worked back from peg 15 and weights were low-ish as expected, but there was a 40lb 1oz weight from peg 11 and Jason put 39lb on the board, at this point I knew I had more than the 18lb that was 3rd in section and it proved that way with 4lb 8oz of silvers and my carp boosted me to 20-odd pounds and section 3rd. So decent points.
I also had won the lake silvers, which put which some pennies in the team pot. I felt I fished tidy.
Back at the car park it turned out that Tom was 3rd in section with 20lb (2 carp and silvers) and Titch may have been last or 2nd last in section with 6lb-ish. So not a great day for us and 3rd is now a very remote possibility with 1 round to go, I will be on the Main Lake.
Dave Romain won on the day with around 50lb, waggler fish pellet was his winning method from less-than-fancied peg 12 on the Main Lake.
Overall on the day BCFC won ahead of PSV and The Good, Bad and Ugly.
In the team standings it is The Farmers are 8 points clear, so for anyone to win we really need them not to turn up in 3 weeks time..... 2nd, 3rd and 4th spots are close enough to each other to have those placings not yet decided.
Not sure where I am fishing next weekend, not sure if I will, but the 1st round of the Avalon Teams of Three starts on the 27th.
Until then, take care.
Lee
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