this weekend saw the IVAN MARKS FESTIVAL on the glebe a venue that is always at the top of my favourite listit's got everything and is well maintained by the lads on day one Saturday i couldn't fish something to do with the weather and everyone wanting beer,salad barbecue and ice creams still you can't knock it it might rain for the rest of the summer
still i made a few phone calls to see how it was fishing
it was terrible most of the fish were spawning in the reeds and the rest just swimming around 
the odd pegs had got a few feeding fish but most resorted to mugging fish as they past through the swim 
i never heard about mugging fish before so Saturday night i got all the gear and no idea of what i was going to do or fish i slipped my balaclava in just in case i was going to mug a few as wellwoke up nice and early sunday as the shop alarm had gone off at 4.14am
another problem that comes with this weather still i was up sat down had a bit of breakfast and started getting yet more gear ready
on arrive i had chosen some cool clothes to wear
first mistake and was quickly named the best dressed angler on the bank it had started the BANTER and i was 15 love down as soon as i stepped out of the vani love these matches as you get to see all your old mate young and old have a few coffee's and a chat taking the yellow stream out of the serious anglers that are itching to get fishing
anyway the draw takes place 120 anglers over 8 llakes puts my hand in and pulls out 76
i have no idea where it was or what lake so off i went to get a bit of info :( then roy told me i had drawn endpeg 
lake 5 sounds good then he said that the day before the match had been won on that lake but the other end and my reeds were full of spawning fish still what a difference a day makes
what a nice looking peg and not a fish crashing around all the fish seamed to be down the other end but were crashing like mad and it was flat calmwe had a little breeze and hopefully it would get up during the day
then my phone rang sean huggins has just turned up and has drawn next to you
with out doubt he is one of the best commercial anglers around and is having a good run at th moment 
still the banter would be goodii set up 2 feeder rods and 4 margin rigs i thought if i was going to have any chance to beat Sean I'd got to fish positive even though i'd drawn a better peg sean was quiet happy with his draw
clipped up fiirst cast foul hooked carp one nile to the carp
sean 3 carp in the first 15 minutes six in half hour my second fish broke my landing net handle as it flipped at just the wrong time
so that was a quickdash around to one of the lads for a spare at this point i'm thinking why-o-why do i put myself through this sort of fishing 
after a litre of water i thought NO it's not going to happen this way today ,the one thing i was getting drawn into was chasing sean ::) ::)as if i was going to pin point my feeder like he was SO AGAIN I HAD TO MADE A DECISSION which would be second nature to the commercial boys
i'd feed the margins and thought thats it thats what i'm going to do
well i couldn't buy a bite for the longest time and then out the blue it was a fish a chuke it seamed you'd get three and it went quite for ten minutes and then another three and good fish so i had started to come back BUT again the decissions that are second nature to the experts were going around my head at 80mph what if,should i,mybe if anyway going into the last hour which i needed a good one i got broke and lost two bloody great sean was catching shallow as wellwell when the scales arrived sean said i'd beaten him and was saying he'd beat me
i weighed 115lb should of could of a million things went wrong but came away having learnt stacks of sean
sean weighed
117lb just going to show just how good the bloke ishe caught shallow,feeder,pellet waggler and margins
john hall won the day with 28 carp for 284lb
:ofishing 16 m shallow 
a part of my 115lb and a few more grey hairs
