Having got home from Gran Canaria in the wee small hours and 3 hours sleep, I was grateful for the lift from match organiser Tony Rixon. I had got everything ready before I went on holiday and was grateful there was no delay on the flight home, as lying in second place in the league I wanted to at least consolidate that, if not win it.
My best hope of overtaking league leader Paul Elmes, was to draw in the same section as him, but that wasn't to be, as I drew peg 27 and he was on the far bank, peg 12. Of those who could catch me up, I had Trigger and Glen Bailey in the section, Shaun Townsend on end peg 23 was in with a good chance of winning his section, so I needed to not blow out.
I had read the blogs/heard how the lake fished last week, so had added a couple of extras to the bait bag, just to give me options if it was similarly difficult. Main attack was to be pellet, with the option of fishing paste over it, one margin was to be particle fed, just meat and corn, one to be fed groundbait/maggot and see which worked. Although the margins aren't brilliant with every peg in, being a bit short.
4 rigs today, a paste rig, two very similar rigs - MW diamonds, one with a banded hook, one with a spade end and a rig that would do for either margin.
I started on a soft pellet and had a small carp, then a couple of skimmers, before liners became an issue, losing a couple of foul hookers, which were sitting about 12" off bottom. I tried stopping feeding, this meant no bites or liners, so I fed a bigger pot, this resulted in two fish on paste, before the liners got troublesome again. I tried coming off the bottom, set up a shallow rig and a light 'deep shallow' rig, all to no avail.
I wasn't alone in struggling, Craig 'Trigger' Edmunds, next to me was finding it tough going, as could most I could see. By the half way point I had less than double figures, as my three carp were small, along with three small skimmers. Earlier than I would have wanted, I fed the GB/maggot edge and left it 10 minutes, before dropping a bunch of maggots in, only for the hordes of fry to rag them off the hook. A switch to double worm saw a angry common that doubled my weight netted. A look to the particle fed margin with maggot, meat, corn and worm was pointless and it didn't produce a bite all match.
The GB margin was enticing the odd fish in, which was revealed by the hordes of fry leaping out when a carp arrived, if a bite was missed, or the carp brushed the line, there was as a swirl and the fish was gone, taking up to 15 minutes for another to come back. A couple more margin carp on worm and a skimmer and carp on worm over the open water pellet line saw me end the match behind a couple of the pegs to my right, but hopefully not lower than third in section. My 42.02 was enough for third in section (even took the section money by default) and more importantly, enough to keep me in second place on weight, so a decent serie and worth the lack of sleep.
On the day:
1: Shaun Townsend 72.11 peg 23
2: Glen Bailey 59.01 peg 26
3: Dick Bull 58.04 peg 24
4: Dave Evans 51.03 peg 9
5: Bela Bakos 50.06 peg 31
6: Tom Mangnall 50.02 peg 17
Silvers on the day.
Joe McMahon 19.03 peg 32
League Overall.
1: Paul Elmes 23 points
2: Chris Fox 20 points - 305.02
3: Shaun Townsend 20 points - 290.01
4: Glen Bailey 19 points
5: Craig Edmunds 18 points - 263.05
6: Dave Evans 18 points - 178.01
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