Landsend Topkit + 1 Open, Wenesday 1st June 2011

The last match that limited everyone to a topkit + 1 seemed to produce a few fish, so I thought I'd have a go at this one. It has to be easier than waving 16 or 17m around, trying to land a pellet on a carps nose in 6" of water aginst the far bank.....

I didn't really fancy drawing one of the 4 pegs on lake 3, for no other reason than my limited experience of it has been pretty negative - but I'd never drawn at the end the 4 pegs were today. So it was obvious wasn't it - peg 42 on lake 3..... It looked ideal for the long pole to the point of the island, although there were a signs of a few silvers topping by the small weed bed to my right at 3m.

I tried to cover all bases and set up a Malman winter wire to fish caster at full depth on 0.10 with a 20 63-13, identical line & hook were used with a small Drennan stillwater blue waggler for up in the water (topkit to hand). A MW slim power on 0.15 to a 16 808 for devils spawn at full length at the 11 o'clock position. I also set up a righ on 0.17/0.15 with a 18 xedion TXR7 hook to fish meat in the margin - which as it was very shallow (12") I wasn't too confident of catching on.

I had Phil (Fabio) Harding to my right and the large outline of a well known Whitehall tackle dealer opposite, Fabio had a confessional session before the start, openly admitting to criminal acts in the last few months - good job the EA weren't listening in...

At the all in, I fed some 3 & 4mm devils spawn and flicked a few casters to the weedbed, starting on the caster I was soon into small roach and rudd, with the odd better (2oz) specimen. I could see Tony catching the odd better silver, suggesting he'd gone to the darkside and was fishing the devils spawn. I switched to the shallow rig and this did produce fish more quickly, they were still small.

No option but to switch to the darkside and try the spawn, this produced some decent skimmers, a lone F1 and a couple of crucians, but bites were harder to come by than on caster. A switch back to the shallow rig and upping the amount of feed, saw 3 or 4 quality rudd to the net, now hoping that some caster had got through the upper layers, I dropped against the weedbed with a worm, 8oz perch first drop in, then a couple of perch so small they wouldn't have registered on the scales.

Alternating between the lines and baits kept bites coming, although at times the fish were small, still it kept my mind off Fabio who was muttering and chuntering to himself, I couldn't help thinking back to reading the hobbit as a schoolboy, was I pegged next to Bristol's very own Gollum. I think Tony must have sold him some rubber hooks, as he lost carp after carp, much to Ricko's amusement.

With about an hour and a half to go, the roach and rudd had become elusive and the devils spawn line had gone quiet - there had been no indication of fish in the peg all day, no bubbles, no blows or fizzing - so it was difficult to tell if they'd gone. I'd been down the margin where I'd been flicking 8mm meat cubes, not so much as a liner, by now Tony was catching carp from his margins and over his main line on meat. Then I hooked a carp on the devils spawn - was that why the peg went quiet, a short tussle saw it in the net, then shortly after, another, I rested the line and dropped back in by the weedbed with a large dendra. This resulted in a lost fish - a big one (isn't that always the way...).

With 3/4 of an hour to go, I saw a swirl in the margin, rudd?, nope, the big orange tail that came out of the water, definitely didn't belong to a rudd. I dropped in with a cube of meat and a 5lber was netted, no more swirls so back on the devils spawn, trying to boost my silverfish total, another carp and a couple more skimmers. Then another swirl in the margin, a bigger tail and the same routine with a fish nearer 8lb gracing the net - too little, too late as the all out was shouted, the margin was now quite evidently home to meat eating carp.

My silvers went 20lb, the 5 carp went 27lb odd, if only they'd showed up with a couple of hours left... Top silvers on the lake and second overall on the lake - not a laudible achievement out of 4 - I had to rush off at the end to go to work, so didn't get the results, see Tony's blog. Although he did ring me to tell me I'd snuck into the money, 2nd in silvers by default and he had some cash for me to spend on ebay......