Third day and I drew Jenny's, peg 5. The first 2 days saw pegs 8 and 9 first and second in the section, as Des Shipp drew 8, I had little doubt it would win the section for the third day. 40lb had come off my peg the day before, so I at least wanted to beat that.
I have realised in a couple of days how little I understand about F1 fishing and the intracacies of meat up in the water. The bait limits have screwed my brain, it has resulted in me taking more bait than I need, my resolve to keep things simple also being tested, with advice coming from all angles, much of which I had taken on board and then found it to be wrong or I just couldn't put it into practice.
I arrived at the peg to see the sun beating down on a flat calm lake, never a good sign, I set up a straight lead to fish meat to the island, a feeder to fish short of the island and a pellet waggler to fish meat, if the wind allowed. 3 pole rigs graced the roost, a Carpa Chimp to fish at 14m with worm, a Malman float whose name eludes me to fish 5m and a Preston something to fish shallow. With the advice from Faitheey that worm & caster would be the way to go I mainly had that in my plan. Pepperami king, Paul Nichols was on peg 9, but as I have only ever managed to catch one fish on it I didn't have any.
I carefully clipped up the lead rod to fish to the point of the island and plumbed up the pole rigs, although therte was only an inch or two difference in the lines. On the all in I cupped in chopped worm and caster at 14 & 5m, then sent the lead to the clip, with a piece of 8mm meat on. That instantly found some underwater snag (dead rushes) that weren't apparent when clipping up, snapping the main line. That was that rod chucked up the bank after 5 minutes, I then tried the cage feeder with groundbait in for the F1's, I managed 1 in half an hour.
Onto the 14m pole line and a slow start on the worm, a few small skimmers were all I had to show for it, before a small tench joined them. I tried the 5m line and had 3 skimmers then nothing, back to 14m and the fish came slowly, very slowly, I was potting in (kinder pot) chopped worm & caster and the peg was fizzing like mad, but the bites were few and far between. I tried upping the groundbait content of the pot, increasing the worm, adding a few grains of corn,all of which didn't speed up the wait for bites.
I started pinging a few 8mm bits of meat to the island, as I knew I was getting well behind, I was looking for a swirl or some sign that carp were there, I saw some dark shapes with just over an hour to go and picked up the waggler rod. Six carp came in the last hour, with 2 lost, foul hookers I suspect. I knew Des Shipp had won the section, he stayed on the feeder all day and weighed in 97lb odd of F1's, my weight of 50lb odd beat yesterdays weight off the peg and was a miserable halfway or so in the section, the six carp tight to the island saving another embarrasing result.
Back to the caravan for a shower before another session in the bar, which as my festival dreams are now nightmares, it will make no odds, roll on Porth on Friday!!
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