Plantation Lake, Saturday 18th February 2012

Back to the scene of last weeks disasterous blank, surely I'd draw a form peg today. The day got off to a bad start when I realised that my trolley wheels were still in the garage, the upheaval of packing everything up ready to move contributing to the chaos in the garage.

I wasn't too happy when peg 33 stuck to my hand, its a decent silvers peg usually, but after last weeks match and cold weather, I wasn't convinced that a bay would be any good today. A simple choice of rigs saw me set up a Sensas Auchy for close in, and a couple of carpa chimps one with 0.10 and a 18 and one with 0.14 and a 16 63.13. There were a few bubbles in the bay, so I was hopeful that it was fish. I fed two lines at 14m, one at about 11 o'clock this is the usual place to catch skimmers, today I also fed a line at 2 o'clock towards the open water of the main lake.

Devils Spawn usually sort out the skimmers, so the 11 o'clock line was fed with micros, the 2 o'clock line with groundbait and dead reds and a close in line with caster. It was a slow start, with the usual skimmer line not producing a bite, the 2 o'clock line did produce a couple of fish, but I doubted that it was going to be a day for hectic sport. The 11 o'clock line produced an unseasonal tench and a carp to the Devils Spawn, but the skimmers that are usually the mainstay of the weight on this peg were conspicuous by their absence.

It was a matter of rotating lines and working at it to get the odd bite, it was so slow that Rod Wootten on peg 38 had a little nap, much to the amusement of some of the others, I must admit I was close to nodding off myself - bloody nightshifts!!

The big perch didn't show again, I managed just one, along with 3 decent skimmers, a crucian and a few roach and rudd. Although my 9lb 12oz of silvers just snuck in last in the silvers money. As predicted, the pegs in the main body of the lake dominated the overall and silvers weights, with the plastic thing chuckers catching fish from the islands.

1) Glenn Calvert 74.10 peg 27
2) Mark Bartlett 64.12 peg 29
3) Rich Lovering 59.04 peg 4
4) Rich Heatly 45.08 peg 25
5) Nick Harvey 40.14 peg 7
6) Andy France 30.12 peg 5

Silvers

1) Paul Faiers 17.04 peg 19
2) Mark Bromsgrove 15.08 peg 31
3) Chris Fox 9.12 peg 33