Author: Simon Mound

Sunday 22nd November

No Pictures today as the weather was too bad sorry.

My day started off waking up at 6.45. I went downstairs to make Gem and me a brew. 7am and Gem still had not come down, she had decided to have a lie in.

We set off at 7.20 for the 1 and a half hour drive. We hadn’t even got out of Penkridge and gem fast asleep again snoring like a trooper. Driving down the wind on the M40 was horrendous, blowing Gem little green pea all over the place.

We get to the lake about 8.45 just in time for the draw that was supposed to be at 9am. I give Gem a prod and shee looks round for her cuppa tea not realising we were at the lake.
We got out the car to meet my Team mates for the league Clive and Steve. It was dark, windy and spitting with rain…. Great [smiley=fit.gif] The draw was delayed till 9.30 so we had plenty of time for a chat on tactics before hand.
Steve opened up his glasses case to reveal 3 bits of paper and ordered me to choose one, this was for what section we would be fishing today. I opened my paper the see the Letter B. Clive would be in C section and Steve would be in A section.

On to the draw. A section drew first and Steve pulled out peg 34, not bad. Me next and I pull out peg 30, not good so a few people said. Clive then pulls out peg 18 for C section.
I haven’t fished peg 30 before but have done well of peg 29 so I roughly new how deep the peg would be but looking at the waves and fishing my first winter match at Rolfs was making me think a bit more than I like too.

With everything on my peg Gem bids me farewell as she is driving down to Reading to she her Nan today.
I set up at 10/11 meter line a 5-6ft shallow rig (you never know) and a margin swim to the bush on my right.
I had 4 and 6mm soft expanders, corn and maggot, Nice and simple like me.

For the ‘All In’ John Bennett had instructed me to light quite a large rocket that was positioned behind me to signal the start of the league and the match. He wanted to start with a big bang so he said. At 9.30 I lit the bugger and watched it fly in to the air but there was no bang, it just crackled a tiny bit.

I sat on my box and watched everyone cupping in bait, this is something I was not doing today. I had a small Fox tosspot on my topkit. I filled it up with wet down 4mm pellets and popped a 6mm GOT baits expander on the hook and shipped out to 10m. I had a bite and missed it and then a few mins later another bite which I stook in to. The elastic when solid and then the adrenaline started pumping.
I shipped back slowly and within 2 minutes a nice 6-7lb common was flopping on the top of the water like a skimmer.
I must say fish of this size normally pull your arms off but not in the winter, I thinking it like been in the fresh air to warm up a bit as the water was very cold and clear.

With a carp safely in the net and the fear of the dreaded DNW out the way I relaxed and carried on. I was having plenty of bites but missing them, I think they may have been liners. Next fish was a nice skimmer of about 2-3lb and I was thinking “This is all right” but the fish got smaller and took longer to hook.
I switched to 3 red maggots and went back out and pretty much right away hooked in to a 8oz Perch. I kept switching between maggot and expander but only caught on the maggot for the rest of the match. I was catching smaller skimmers, roach and more perch.

With the bites dried up I popped another section on and went out to 11.5m with 3 red maggots, dropped in another pot of 4mm pellets and waited for the float to settle. I missed two bite and then hooked in to another carp. After a short fight I had another carp about the same size.
For the rest of the match I stuck on that line and managed to catch some more silvers.

At the end of the match I get a phone call from Gem, she explained to me how she was lost and might be late picking me up.
But bless her she managed to get back in time.

After a very speedy weigh in as it started raining again came the results. Clive and Steve had finished 3rd in their section and I had managed 2nd in my section. That left Team Assassins 2nd overall.

Despite the shit weather I had a good day and was pleased with how I had fished. The team picked up money on the day too so it cant be bad can it.

Looking forward to the next one.

Results….