There was a problem this week as the café refused to open early as there were only 9 of us, so being the resourceful lads we are a hasty plan was made to draw at 8am and set up then adjourn to the café for breakfast when it opened at 9.
Al who was supposedly organising the day failed to arrive at the appointed time
so between us we collected monies and did a draw leaving a peg for Al should he arrive late.Again the end pegs were favoured nos 1 and 10 but unfortunately this week my golden drawing arm failed me and I ended up in the middle on peg 6 :(. This put me next to Tony (spamwham) which meant it was going to be a hard match for me as personal pride and several weeks bragging rights would now be at stake. Breakfast sorted I blew the whistle at 10.15 and started by cupping in two pots of 4mm pellets at 5 metres in front and two big handfuls at top two range either side next to the boards a foot out.
My out rig consisted of a 0.4 Wilkinson diamond to 0.14 line with a 16 B911 hook baited with a Got catmeat pellet. First drop in and within 30 seconds the float disappeared and fish no1 was soon in the net. I put a small kinder cup on the pole and was feeding with a mixture of 4mm pellet and hemp every put in but bite were similar to last week and I only had 6 fish between 12oz and 1 1/2lb in the first half hour. While this isn’t too bad I was being out caught by Tony plus his fish appeared bigger. He was fishing hair rigged pellet up in the water although he had also baited by the boards for later.
I decided to go for the inside swim before he did and put my 0.1 Wilkinson margin float on 0.18 line to a 14 B911 down the edge about a foot away from the boards and feed a handful of pellet over the top. Bait was again a 6mm catmeat pellet. After a few minutes wait the float dipped and we were off again. It was obvious after a short while that the catch rate down the edge was much better than at 5 metres so I stuck to it. 16 fish in the first hour followed by over 20 in the second meant that I had an estimated 50lb in the net and with the regular updates I was getting from Tony we were neck and neck. Every time I hooked a fish and thought I would start to pull away a quick glance showed that Tony was also playing one.
After a short break for some food it was much the same for the next 2 hours at which point I was desperate for the loo and with no cover and plenty of people around the rules say you MUST use the loos by the café. I had been holding on for a while hoping that Tony would also need to stop but to no avail. I knew that any break would end up with me falling about 10lb behind but needs must.
On my return I put out my third keepnet and was soon back in action and fortunately my catch rate began to improve so much so that I ended up putting 28 fish in the net in the last hour, not only that but there were a number of bonus fish coming as well up to nearly 4 lb. Tony however was having a nightmare last hour and despite changing rigs and hooks just couldnt hit the sailaway bites he was getting.
At the end Tony was admitting to around 150lb and I guessed that I should be at least 10 lb better than that still the weigh in was going to be a close affair as Al on peg 2 had been bagging up in the water and was estimating 150lb and Trevor was playing his cards very close to his chest from peg 10 saying he had a ton plus which I knew was wildly out as he had admitted to 70lb before the halfway mark.
Well the scales told the truth as Al managed his first ever ton plus with 167lb 8 oz, Tony 157lb my 3 nets with 130 fish totalled 190lb but as I suspected Trevor managed to nick it with a level 200lb. Still I wasn’t disappointed as I felt I had done well to get so close to the end peg 10. and I had won the bragging rights of of Tony.
It just shows what a week and a bit of sun can do to a lake.
