17 fishing and some tough competition, as well as the weather forecast of rain and more rain, into the drawbag and out comes 35, I can't recall ever having drawn it before and it was commented that it's not usually in. We all had a fair bit of room and with 34 and 1 not in I had the point of the island and the point between 34/35 to fish to.
Two rigs, one to fish over to the island - nice and easy as its only 11m, two lines, one to the point and one to a bush along the LH side, the other rig was for the point in my margin towards 34, this is a foot or so deeper than the LH margin which is about 10" deep and slopes quite slowly away until it drops off steeply to full depth.
Rigs were both on 0.20, the one for across a yellow tipped Drennan Carp float, with a 0.14 hooklength and a 18 LWG and a band. Margin rig was a Hillbilly AK47 again on 0.20, this time with a 0.18 hooklength and a 14 B960, again with a band.
I'd left my side tray in the garage, luckily Tony Rixon had a spare one, (Judith's coffee table) so I borrowed that and it was just big enough to get my bait and bander on, simple bait table of pellets, 4, 6 and 8mm. I was planning to feed 4mm across, with 6mm in the band and 8mm down the edge.
On the all in I fed 4mm across with a catapult and it wasn't long before I had indications and then a fish in the net. The first hour wasn't exactly manic but I was putting fish in the net, an assortment of carp and F1's, I couldn't see anyone else except Tony catching much. At the end of the first hour, I had 18lb on my clicker and it had slowed to nearly a standstill. I found that initially, I had to feed regularly to get fish in the peg, but that then resulted in a couple of foul hookers, which I lost, one trashing the rig.
The second hour was very slow, doubt I added 3 or 4 fish to my total, that was trying both lines across and pellet down the edge, at 20:00 with an hour to go I tried a worm over and did get a couple on that but it was not helping me keep pace with Tony who I could see catching fairly regularly now. At 20:10 I mixed up some GB and potted that down the edge and with double hair rigged worm on the margin rig, I went straight in over it.
That saw me catching at a much better rate and bigger fish than across, I got to 50lb on the clicker and did wonder if I'd under clicked by about 8lb, so the last two fish went into another net, I had one about 5lb that I landed after the all out.
Tony had weighed 71.04 after telling me he had 63lb on his clicker and had over clicked, so probably had less.... He wandered round to see me weigh in and when I lifted my first net out I knew I had definitely misjudged the weight of these fish, I was fairly sure that it wouldn't be over the 70lb net limit (strict here, no leeway at all, 70.01 sees the whole net disqualified) the net went 67lb, so a bit of a nervy moment, the other net was weighed and it gave me 75.13, enough to win on the night and a wake up call to how those fish that look 2lb are probably 3lb, it would have been somewhat frustrating to lose the win by going over, although Tony wouldn't have been too upset!!
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