When Tony mentioned this match and it was a pole only, it seemed a good idea, not when the morning of the match came and a gusting wind made the low number pegs tricky to fish. Of course, I drew slap bang in the middle of the three windiest pegs (1, 3 and 4), with my old mate Ray Bazeley on 4 for company. The longest I felt that could be fished comforatable and to any effect was 11m, Ray opted for about 7m max, but that put his float about level with mine, as peg 3 is set further back.
I wasn't over chuffed with the draw, as I felt that it wasn't likely to hold many carp, but it can produce silvers, so that was the target, shame about the wind as I would have felt more confident at 14 or 16m.
I haven't caught anything from a margin for ages now, so didn't bother with a rig for that, 2 maggot/caster rigs and a soft pellet rig were all I set up. A 4x16 Jolly on 0.14 with a 20 on 0.10 for fishing short, a Nick Gilbert float, whose name elludes me, but its like a Carpa Chimp but stronger on 0.14 with a 18 on 0.12 and for a bit of stability in the wind, the most stable pole float I have ever used, a MW diamond (0.6g) on 0.16 to a 16 on 0.12.
It was going to be important to catch skimmers, I felt, to make a weight that would result in a pick up, so I fed three lines at the start, 11m straight in front with groundbait/caster/dead pinkie, 11m at 2 o'clock with micros and a couple of grains of corn. Finally a short line (3m) loose fed with caster, first drop in over the groundbait with a maggot saw the float bury and a skimmer the best part of a pound grace the net, good start. It didn't continue though and the bites were from small roach, I am convinced that the wind was so affecting the presentation that the bigger roach were shying away from the hookbait.
Caster didn't improve the size of the fish, a quick look at the close and pellet lines brought nothing to the net, so back over the groundbait and when the wind didn't gust for 20 seconds or so (which wasn't very often) the improved presentation resulted in a better roach. I laid some extra line on the bottom, but still couldn't tempt another skimmer.
The next look on the short line brought a short flurry of better roach and 2 perch, before that died off and for the rest of the day it was a case of take 1 or 2 fish from it then 20 mins rest. The next look over the micro feed with a 4mm expander produced another pound skimmer, then a very small roach and that was it for bites on pellet, corn couldn't muster so much as a twitch of the bristle.
It was very frustrating, as there was obviously a good number of roach in the peg, they wouldn't feed consistently closer than 11m, but the wind was making the 11m line very difficult, a waggler would, I'm sure, have settled long enough to improve the catch rate, shame I couldn't use one!!
I persevered and managed one more decent skimmer on double caster, by now I'd swapped to using the MW diamond, as whilst its not really a sensitive roach float, it was giving better presentation, resulting in slightly bigger fish.
Andy France on peg 1 managed to fish 13 down the edge and get enough carp to take 2nd place and bizarrely given the weather lately, the match was won from 28 on paste!!! My silvers went 14.02 for no where and I didn't even hook a carp, so my hunch that there wouldn't be any there seemed right.
1) John Thompson 66.04 peg 28
2) Andy France 59.01 peg 1
3) Matt Tomes 58.7 peg 27
4) Aaron Britnell 53.10 peg 32
5) Anton Page 44.10 peg 38
6) Andy Curry on peg 18 35.7
Silvers
Tony Rixon 26.12peg 19
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