Joff said that it was going to be an out and out pellet/pole and skimmer match on the North side of the lake so with this in mind and having strained my medial collateral ligament midweek ( i told Joff on Wednesday about my agony at walking too far) i was looking forward to parking behind my peg and setting up one rig at 13m to catch a few skimmers.
Problem number one arose when i met Nigel Harrhy in the club house and he mentioned that Joff had phoned him at the last minute to ask if he could swap banks despite the longer walks, Nigel had tried to tell Joff that it was much shorter walks on the North bank but Joff was adamant that he wanted to fish with the longer walks.
The draw was late due to Joff making excuses that he had no sleep meaning that i had even less time to get to my peg but i was slightly relieved when i drew peg 17 and only had to limp about 400 yards to my peg, after asking around i found my peg was one of the best pegs on the lake if you threw 100 yards to the fountain
Reluctantly Joff offered me the use of his 10 food winklepicker feeder rod and reel which meant with a bit of effort i could get out to within 70 yards of the fountain
At the all in i cupped a pot full of pellets at 13m and left it to settle for a while to give the feeder a chance, with no bites forthcoming on the feeder after 20 minutes i decided to try the pole line and started to catch decent skimmers and roach on pellet and red maggot and on the hour mark all seemed to be going well.
My catching must have got to Joff on the grapevine and a phone call from him suggested that it was fishing well and i needed to get back on the feeder to catch up with carp. in the next 40 minutes i had a carp about 2lb on double red maggot on the tip rod ( i could have had 6lb of skimmers on the pole)
whilst sitting there catching sod all it suddenly dawned on me that it might just be a spot of cheating sportmanship on Joffs part so went back on the pole, straight away i was into skimmers and continued to catch spasmodically until the all out.
With Paul weighing in 43lb i knew the double decker was gone and i was surprised to weigh in 39lb and get so close, wth Joff weighing in 41lb of skimmers the Mars bar was gone
I was quite happy to get so close to them after the stunts they pulled.
Joff, Paul....its a Mars bar for god sake...not the end of the World!
