We’d fished it the previous year. Most had caught aok, in particular Cotti using his beloved Bill’s bait, 
before the boat traffic ‘made things a little more difficult’.Well we were a couple of weeks earlier this time and things looked good with both Cotti and The Hunter having decent practise catches knocking around the 8lb mark the week before.
However the
has a habit of kicking in and with 3 success frosts before the match, 
things were going to be a tad ‘harder’. 
In fact The Hunter had another practise two days before, and I started to fear the worse when he rang me, reporting ‘I’m struggling for bites today, only had a dozen gudgeon’ 
24 hours before the off and we were potentially on for a record breaking attendance, but true to form, a steady stream of casualties handed in late sick notes, whilst as forecasted elsewhere a few more didn’t show………..
With a dicky knee and iffy back
I elected to hop into the ‘short walk’ gang for the day - pegs 1 - 15 out of the 25 pegs put in by Cheslynboy and Goughy on their ‘home’ cut - ta for pegging it guys. 
Onto the draw and I put in my thumb…………..
…….and pulled out a plum.
Well I think it was a decent draw by Cheslynboys ‘You jammy so and so’ comments…………but he then took delight in telling me that the fish weren’t where you would expect them to be on that peg, 
and wouldn’t elaborate further when I quizzed him, With the draw completed and the golden peg sorted - peg 17 with Dead peg on it - off I trotted, well limped to my peg.
Well I’d only gone and drawn a Joffie peg
…………….a real big, big Joffie peg 
as I was just past the M6 motorway bridge.Looking behind me, shipping back was gunna be a bit of a nightmare because of the motorway wall.
Apart from the noise of the motorway, it didn’t look too bad a peg ‘in front’ of me - a tree to my left across, a bit of a ‘cow drink’/bare bank in front, but that big concrete monstrosity to my right.Cheslynboy trundled up and I finally cajoled out of him what he meant about the peg. Only problem was I hadn’t 16 mtrs of pole with me, nor could I have wielded it if I had, as he suggested you had to fish that long to my right under the bridge where the fished would be shoaled up………
Ta for the info Cheslynboy,
but 'sod that for a lark' I thought to myself as I was gunna do ‘my own thing’ and as ‘short’ as I could get away to save trashing the old back muscles even more………3 rigs set up for track/across plus a (new) two mtr whip that I’d bought off Storming Norman a couple of weeks before.....…….
The off - as well as dropping a small ball of gb on my feet, a punch line was fed plus two other gb and squatt lines.
A look on my feet……….but nowt after a few minutes. I’d got visions of Cotti, The Hunter and MrV all emptying it on their punch lines,
so I put the whip aside and had a first peak ‘across’It sailed away first put in………..the dreaded dry un was off
as I swung in an ounce roach. Next look the same, and the next. After 4 fish in as many put ins it started towing hard, indicating open locks and boat approaching. The depth on my peg was on the inside and that was the line I expected traffic to take, but the first boat didn’t as it went over that shallower punch line, churning up the mud in the process.
With boat gone and with the mud still billowing on that line, I lowered the punch in again, expecting plan A to be all over……….
but it wasn’t……… after a minute or so away it went again. After 18 fish and that first hour, the line was going away from me and the fish were getting smaller and smaller…………so I refed and had a look on my feet and promptly snared a few bonus pongoes and two two oz perch.
Grandmaster France and Harry to my left had also snared a few fish, I’d better keep an eye on them……
Back to the punch - fish still on the line, but very small. A look on the caster to see if stamp roach were milling about sitting over the lickie resulted in a couple of bites and fish, but they were pongoes and it was a bit of ‘a wait for ‘em’. Pinkie and squatt only produced those see through roach again
Time for a new look on one of the gb and squatt lines and I found there were bigger pongoes over it………so I decided to sop and rotate those two areas………. all the time thinking that somebody would be having a few ‘stampers’
.
But apparently it wasn’t so as a few bank walkers started to stir, reporting that most were experiencing the mighty wrath of the
.Well I’m sure Dead Peg, MrV and Sprucey don’t want to read much more of this, so it’s time to stop the waffle, and just statistically report that fish no 50 made its appearance after three hours and number 100 hundred hit the keep net with 10 minutes to go as I finished with 101 for an expected 4lb which I thought may not be enough as I’d heard that Goughy and The Assassin had started having some ‘dumpy’ perch.
Anyway the tale of the scales read………….
PEG
1 ABUMAN 0.3.4
2 GOUGHY 0.13.12
3 GLYN DNW
4
5 TERRYTURNIP DNW - but tipped a few bits away
6 ROBERTO D DNW
7 BIG BAZ 0.6.0
8 THE ASSASSIN 1.1.6
9 TK 4.15.10
10 HARRY THE HITMAN 0.3.0
11 GRANDMASTERFRANCE 0.3.3
12 SPRUCEY DNW
13 YAMO DNW
14 ZORRO DNW
15 BULLAH DNW
16 COTTI DNW
17 DEADPEG DNW
18 KOD DNW
19 CHESLYNBOY DNW - but had a gudgeon by all accounts
20
21 MILLIE DNW
22 BLUES4EVA DNW
23 THE HUNTER 0.0.8
24 HEINZER DNW
25 MR V DNW
The
had certainly been evident today as a record number of dry uns were recorded for a Cashmores match Terry Turnip tipped back what would have been some mega points in both the individual and team leagues whilst Grandmaster France decided to tip back a no3 section at the end of the match as he packed away
- and chose to ignore my suggestion that he stripped off and recover it……Now over to Sprucey for a few pictures………….
