Nice to get a ride down with Tony (Rixon), surely whatever angling demon has been sabotaging my matches since I went over in the net in the Viaduct Winter League, will have relinquished its hold and moved onto a new victim!!
It seems not, just in front of me in the draw queue the fancied pegs were coming out thick and fast, Mark Poppleton on 115, Tony Rixon on 116, along with various others heading to big weight pegs that they grace with alarming regularity, For me, as you might expect, Lodge, at least it wasn't the hotly discussed car park bank, 68, which can be a decent draw, so hopeful in the section.
I did set up a lead rod and a depth waggler, a rig to fish hard pellet at 14m to try and 'catch all' - ie skimmers and carp. A meat rig short and a margin rig for going down to the pallet of 67. I started at 14m after cupping in a few 4mm pellets and it wasn't long before I was latched into a lump, after a long tussle I felt that the next lift of the topkit would see it surface in front of the keepnet where I could net it (too big to scoop, it was one that had to guided and shuffled into the net).
I lifted the topkit and had the heart wrenching moment when you realise the elastic has snapped, in slow motion the elastic (which had snapped about 1/3 up from the puller bead) slipped from the topkit and coiled on the water. Then ensued that fruitless trying to twizzle the elastic around the topkit, whilst it slipped slowly and serenely away. Next that scrabble to dump the topkit and get the lead rod out, that too was a frustratingly pointless act as the arc of casts failed to come back with even a dead leaf, let alone my rig and precious fish. That was at least 18lb, so not a good start.
Back onto that line and I did have a couple of fish over the next 90 minutes, which was good on the lake, apart from Ben on 66 and Leon on 64 who were catching best of all. The cold seemed to have been a signal for the skimmers to shut up shop, as there were very few caught, even when I switched to 4mm pellet, the remained conspicuous by their absence. Meat was no better as a bait, with everyone struggling still. The sun came out from behind the clouds and the wind dropped, all of a sudden the carp were visible, cruising round 6-12" below the surface, so into the rod bag and out with the shallow waggler, this brought a near instant response by casting to a visible fish. Sadly the sun and the wind contrived to make spotting fish a very hit or miss affair, in very brief spells and the waggler only accounted for one more fish.
Todays first mistake was not bringing some bread, that popped up 12" below the surface may well have snared a fish or two as they cruised round. Second mistake may have been feeding the short meat line too soon, as it produced nothing for me, at the end I had to rely on the margin. That would have been OK, but I had been feeding half a section short of the platform and could not get a bite there, I had to flick the bait under the platform of 67 to get a bite and that ended up a miserable: Me 3 v Carp 7, with for the first time ever, a straightened Guru XS size 14 along the way.
That saw me chip shopped as Ben won the section from peg 66, as his peg got stronger and stronger towards the end, whilst Phil Cardwell on 69 managed a couple from his short line, a couple of popped up bread and even a couple from the margin between us to take second in section. A fourth in section was how I wanted to start the series, but surely it can't be too much longer before that bloody monkey climbs off my back. It must be a coincidence, but the downturn in my results since that net disqualification and resulting losing out on winning the match, has been dragging on a little too long now.
Travelling companion for the day Tony did the business from 116 and put over 200lb in the net, so well done to him, I just hope some of that mojo has worked its way onto my kit for this week, which will see me at Viaduct bank holiday Monday, the Thursday Costcutter and then back for round 2 of the spring league on Sunday 8th - need to put things right for that one.
I have also had a week of stripping elastic out of my poles, I have been using Sensas Magic Latex, but as it broke (3 weeks old) so easily and the piece I had left was snapping like cotton, I have junked it all and re-elasticated with hollows, so a couple of matches to get used to it before the next league. I have also gone over to the Paul Holland way of doing it with a bead, I have never had confidence in putting line straight onto elastic, but many people have told me they use this method without problem now, so in with two feet. Not content with that, I have put some Preston pulla rollers in 5 topkits, I was reluctant to drill a 10mm hole in a Daiwa topkit, but again, plenty seem to do it without issue. As a balance I have a couple with MAP inserts and several with Frenzee, I'll see which ones suit me best over the next few weeks.
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