Landsend Open, Monday 4th June 2012

The 12.30 draw time proved the attraction for this match, although I can't get my head round this dangling pellets next to islands for carp, so 3 pints of caster and some Devils Spawn were the mainstays on my bait tray, trying to get a decent net of silvers.

So, what do I draw, 19, a peg dominated by carp!!  I have drawn this peg once before and failed miserably to avoid the carp, so I still set up my silvers rigs, but also two paste rigs, one for full depth and one for the shelf that juts out of the island at 16m.

There were plenty of carp moving around, but they did seem to be in the gap and tight to the island, so would they stay away from my two silver lines (one at top kit to hand and another at about 9m). I started by potting in some caster and micros at 9m and loose fed caster short, then out with the shallow caster rig across towards the island. A four of chunky F1's graced the net before I got tangled in the island foliage - a particularly tough plant with pod like green fronds. I got the rig back, but the float was trashed. I quickly set up a new rig and that wasn't as successful as the trashed one - how often does that happen!! I then dropped in on the 9m line and had another f1 and a big skimmer, but it was slow going.

Dropping in on the short line with double caster produced another big skimmer, but the roach and perch were conspicuous by their absence. I had started on a 0.16 hooklength with a 16 Drennan carp maggot hook, thinking that if I hooked carp I may as well as try and get them out. Was this too heavy for the silvers? A switch to 0.14 and a 18 hook produced a few more bites, both short and at 9m, but not to caster or soft pellet, I had to switch to double red maggot to get a few more decent skimmers and a tench.

With two hours to go I thought I had 25lb and perhaps 40lb could be on the cards, but then the bloody carp started cruising over the 9m line and even dropping down to pick up the maggot hookbait, this seemed to be the kiss of death for the skimmers, as I only had one more on the short line, with 20 minutes to go. A golden tench was the only other fish of note in those final two hours and I landed a 8lb carp just after the whistle, taken on the topkit.

If one of the carp slayers who can dangle a pellet at 16m for 6 hours had the peg, I reckon they'd have done a big weight, but I was reasonably satisfied with my 32lb of silvers, shame about those last two hours, as I was pushed (by a good margin) into second spot for silvers by Eric Fouracre.

At least we were well entertained by Mike West, who regaled tales of family feuds, flats with water gushing through the ceiling, kept shouting "hello,hello" in vain to his phone which gets no signal at Landsend and most entertaining of all, was him losing fish after fish - although fair play to him, I'd have probably smashed my pole up with the frustration of it - silver fishing is never that bad, even though the vermin trashed a few delicate silvers floats.  Finally, one guy whose name I didn't get, found out he was becoming a grandad during the match, it was like an episode of Mr Bean and Jeremy Kyle all rolled into one!!

1) Terry Green 109.05 peg 7
2) Vince Brown 78.09 peg 1
3) Mike west 73.14 peg 17
4) Eric Fouracre 68.02 peg 11

Silvers
1) Eric Fouracre 43.15
2) Chris Fox 32.00 peg 19