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Well the day didnt start too well as we didnt draw the envelope with what I consider 2 of the better pegs in it including peg 6 which has won the match for the last 2 years. I did manage to get up the deeper favoured end of the lake but peg 5 is not one of my favourites and in my section I was up against Gary the winner 2 years ago in a good peg 7, Martin one of Norwichs best anglers in peg 6 and Colin round the corner in another good peg 11.
Gary and I did our best to put Martin off by reminding him that he was in the winning peg from previous years and that he would be expected to get over a ton from it.
I had met up with Chris V again at breakfast and a quick chat with him and a couple of his open match buddies gave me some much needed info about the peg. Thanks Chris
. They told me that it was a slightly deeper tight in virtually where you put the left hand keepnet and to make sure I put both nets to the right side so I could fish on a top two down there. Not being one to pass up top class info I did as I was told and plumbing up showed them to be right.
I set up a 0.3 g MW power diamond to fish the deepest part of the peg around 3ft at 9 metres and a 4x12 Malman thicko for the margin rig. At the all in I fed a pot of 4mm pellet and hemp out and a handfull each in the edge by the clump of sedges in the relatively deep margin( just under 2ft)
Things didnt start well as I struggled to get a bite out on pellet while Martin got a couple of small carp straight away and he also had lots of carp showing in the shallow water off the point of the island. A change to maggot got me a few small roach and a 1lb crucian. After an hour and little to show and noone else setting the place alight a look down the edge brought a positive bite and resulted in a 4lb carp in the net quickly followed by another one and then a quiet spell.
I wasnt bothered by this as the fish often come on in the last 2 hours to give the bulk of the weight and I was content to put a bit in the net to prepare for the onslaught later on. Martin meanwhile was chopping and changing fro feeder to waggler to long pole and nicking a couple of smaller fish on each but I knew he needed 3 or 4 of his carp to match one of mine.
Well the day turned into a bit of a scratching day, catch a fish or 2 and then have to wait before getting another one and it seemed to be the same for everyone.
Still they WILL come on in the last 2 hours wont they?
No they didnt I carried on the same as before only getting 5 carp in the last 2 hours with them getting a bit smaller. A 2lb barbel helped before my last fish with 5 mins to go took off towards the island ending with a 2lb tench on steroids. I estimated I had 14 carp for 38lb and about 7lb of silvers. The guy on peg 2 said he had over the ton but with only one carp net in and a 70lb limit per net I doubted that. Still he could have beaten me and knowing Colin had a dozen carp in the first 2 hours I thought I was looking at 3rd in the section, good team points but a bit disappointing.
Well the scales always tell the truth and so it proved with peg 2 having 47lb it was going to be close but my carp averaged over 3lb apiece and with Colin only getting smaller fish plus a blank 2 hours his 18 carp went 33lb. So it was top points for me and 3rd overall to go with my win last year.
Bad luck to Tony who finished 2nd again and also beaten by the same 5lb margin.
All in all a hard days fishing for most but a cracking team performance with everyones points being important. Well done everyone.
