This has been an enjoyable series so far, a third and a fourth over all, each time with a section second saw me in fourth place going into this match, so only a section win would do. The banter started a couple of weeks back, when Tony Rixon text me a photograph of the knockout draw sheet for this match, accompanied by the tasteful words.. "Your ass is mine". So the challenge was set, I needed revenge for Shiplate in the Float Only series, where he needed a foul hooker to knock me out.
Tony picked me up, so a bit of banter and general chat as we made our way to the venue, via the cafe, keeping a close eye on the weather as we did so, were the dregs of Hurricane Bertha going to cause us problems?? The usual friendly greeting and mug of coffee greeted us, whilst the weather held fair, with virtually no breeze, overcast and warm. I managed to get myself about fourth or fifth in the draw queue, before I stuck my hand in the tin, Tony had fishery manager, Misha, draw his peg and she put end peg 32 into his palm, he looked like the cat who'd had the cream.....
My drawing arm must have been charmed this week, as I managed to pull out 23, the other end peg on the car park bank, so at least I would have some chance. It was to be a simple approach again, although as there was so much time I set up 5 rigs. My usual paste rig, on 0.20, to a size 12 B911XS, a MW diamond with strung out No 10's to fish banded pellet, two margin rigs, both NW Springer Sampson floats on 0.20 to 0.18 hooklengths one with a band, one without. Finally I set up a 0.6g MW Pinger with a bulk of No8's against the hooklength loop, fished 4" overdepth, as the wind was starting to get up. Bait tray consisted of 8mm pellets, corn and paste, with in reserve, a bucket of groundbait and several pints of dead maggots.
Starting on the 'long line' with 8mm pellet produced one small skimmer and a foul hooker that that took me through a margin snag and whilst I got the rig back complete, the float had been pushed down to the shot and the line was an artistic spiral pattern, so that was the end of that. A switch to paste on that line saw a fish about 7lb in the net and next put in I hooked a decent fish and was somewhat frustrated to lose it at the net, discovering that the hook had straightened out, the fish was around the 15lb mark and with the lake fishing tough, that could be costly.
No more bites forthcoming on the paste and by now, the wind had got itself up into a good blow, which was resulting in difficulty presenting a bait at the full length of topkit + 3, I tried worm on the Pinger rig, laid 4" on the bottom and this gave me a 4lb ghostie, along with some 3 or 4, 12oz skimmers, before that too became dead. The edge hadn't produced any bites to hard pellet or corn, so I put two big potfuls of groundbait in, with half a pot of dead maggots and this did give up three fish in three drop ins, before I needed to go for an unplanned walk to the toilet. This enforced walk gave me the opportunity to see how it was fishing and it was looking tough, Tony had just landed a fish about 9lb and he told me that was his sixth, I had five, so tight and all to fish for.
The margin line then saw a few roach come to the dead maggots, so I refed heavily with groundbait and dead maggot, taking one more fish on paste whilst I let the margin settle. The last hour was a decent one, with a fish most drop ins, I even had them swirling in the margin at one point. With 20 minutes to go I started a second net, this held three fish which went 22lb, with 65lb in the other net and 3lb odd of silvers, my total went 89.09 for first on the day, giving me the needed section win and sweet revenge for Shiplate, that'll teach Mr Rixon to send cocky texts.......
All to fish for, in round four, the final round of this league, on Sept 13th.
1: Chris Fox 89.09 peg 23
2: Rod Wootton 81.01 peg 8
3: Paul Elmes 74.13 peg 29
4: Glenn Bailey 64.07 peg 2
5: Tony 'spanked' Rixon 56.13 peg 32
6: Steve Seager 52.08 peg 25
Silvers
1; Tom Mangnell 18.07 peg 15
2 comments:
Always tell when you do well the blog appears a bit sharpish lol, at least you were smiling all the way home . I must let you win more often if it has that effect on you, bit still well done, all you need to do now is to learn how to catch on another venue ha ha ha
Now, now, don't be bitter, you ran to that peg..... lol
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