Just before the draw, we had the small matter of rescuing an unfortunate anglers car, trying to be gentlemanly and letting the very posh looking red Spyder convertible past, proved to be his downfall. The lush grass verge, was a mere illusion and the silver Peugeot estate proved a tad too heavy for the grass to support. One Transit van and a team of anglers anxious to get on with the draw, managed to extract the Peugeot, with not too much damage, except some dented pride.
I won't mention his name, no doubt someone will recognise the car.....
I drew a nice short walk, 110, with Dick Bull on 111. He'd had 180lb from 110 last weekend, shallow on the pole. There didn't seem to be too many fish out in front today, but I could see plenty of dark shapes up in front of 135.
I set up two pellet waggler rods, 11' Maver Reactorlites, with Preston Inception 4000 reels, rods I've only used a couple of times and new reels - I usually use TDR's, but the Prestons were slightly lighter. 6lb sensor main line, with 0.17 hooklength and a 18 PR36. I did take a lead rod from the hardcase, but it got put back at the end without a cast being made.
4 topkits set up, a shallow pellet rig, a inline dibber on 0.17 to a 16 B960, a full depth pellet rig, a MW diamond on 0.17 to a 0.15 hooklength and a 16 B960. A paste float on 0.17 to a 14 Mustad paste hook and a MW power for the margin, on 0.19 with a 0.17 hooklength and a 16 TXR hook. Once I'd set up the paste rig, I discovered, as mentioned, that my paste was 35 miles away, in the fridge. I hurridly made some up, but I prefer to make it the night before.
At the all in I started on the pellet waggler and was almost immediately a fish behind to Dick, as he had one straight away on the wag. I started to get bites and had two fish before the third snapped the 6lb sensor - brand new line!! I picked up the other rod and had another fish, but they weren't exactly giving themselves up, I could only catch if they took the pellet almost immediately it hit the water.
I decided to rest this line and had fed a pot of micros and expanders at 10m to my left for paste, a line at 14m straight in front and some meat down by the stump. I had a look on the meat and this produced a rudd and next put in, a 3lb bream, then a run of unhitable bites. A lookover the micros and expanders with paste, produced not so much as a liner and I never went back there. A try shallow at 14m, not a bite, but there was some fizzing, so I dropped the full depth rig in and had a carp nearly straight away. A couple of liners next, so back on the shallow rig to no avail.
I spent the rest of the match on the pellet waggler and had spells of catching, spells of frustration as I got snapped a further 5 times, once when a decent fish kited along to 136 and picked up a big branch, I managed to get the branch and fish back to the stump on my left, before the hooklength snapped. All looked OK and back out with a new hooklength, a smaller fish landed OK, then a bigger fish snapped the main line, on closer inspection, about 4' of the main line was abraded by the branch. That'll teach me to inspect line more closely after a snag.
I had a spell when The fish seemed to back away from the feed, I caught without feeding, then a spell where they wanted a pouchful everytime, so much so, they were boiling on the surface. This resulted in a spell of a couple of snapped hooklengths, some fish lost due to hook pulls and a some foulers. It seemed best to cast, then feed, this seemed to result in bigger fish, with a decent hook hold.
Interesting discussion with Steve Long afterwards, he put forward a point of view that when there are many fish competing for the pellet up in the water, the hooklengths may be breaking against other fish, I've no doubt this can happen. I also wonder if the 11' rods are forgiving enough for the 6lb+ fish, I've certainly had nowhere near as many hookpulls with my 13' Reactorlites - perhaps the 11' rods are best for venues with 2-5lb fish. Although I do like the way the fish pop up at exactly netting range with the 11' rods.
I eneded the match with 24 fish, a couple not far off double figures, so that adds weight to Steve's theory, not enough I was sure to beat Matt Tomes on 132 (see Matt, for bad karma, like cars off road, theres good karma like drawing 132) who'd caught steadily all day on the pole, although had I sussed out the feeding and not lost so many, I would have undoubtedly beaten him, I feel it should have been a 200lb peg. Once again my total ineptitude at gauging fish weights was evident as I was deducted 1.13 from my total of 161.12, leaving me with 159.15, third on the day and a section win. The net that was over by 1.13 had 12 fish in it. The average weight of my fish was over 6.08, so that only 11 per net from now on.
Winner on the day was Lee Werrett who chucked a lead at 120 all day from 119, apparently it just kept going round.....
1) Lee Werrett 232.05 peg 119
2) Matt Tomes 165.02 peg 132
3) Chris Fox 159.15 peg 110
4) Scott Russell 136.04 peg 124
5) Andy lloyd 110.05 peg 127
6) Paul Blake 103.09 peg 116
Silvers
1) Paul Blake 53.12 peg 116 (Tench on meat)
2) Howard Webb 43.03 peg 128
3) Tim Pallant 41.10 peg 123
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