A rare Saturday off for Tony, so travelled down with him, paid up the optional pool and after a bit of social chat and some banter it was down to the serious business of drawing, with 86 fishing, it was going to important to draw well.
Tony had 58 on Hill View, whilst I plucked 8 on Whitepost Top Lake for myself, so had to take Tony's van up there after he got his kit out, a new one for me, I have never fished White post before, so wasn't quite sure what to expect.Once everyone was in off the road, I made my (short walk) way to peg 8.
The wind was blowing straight down the lake right to left, so it was likely to be a short chuck with a lead/feeder to the far side, I set up two lead rods, one with a bomb on, for bread and the other was a maggot feeder. A 0.18 hooklength with a 14 QM1 on the bread rod and a 0.16 with a 16 LWG on the maggot feeder rig.
I did consider not setting up a pole because of the wind, but did settle on just getting a margin pole out and setting that up at its full length, one rig would do, a 4x14 on 0.16 with a 0.14 hooklength and a 20 Kaizen hook. Just before the start the sky went very grey and we were subjected to a tempest, I had Steve Denmead on peg 7 next door and the wind blew his flat roller over and smashed his No6 section, this led him to look up the price of a new one and gave myself and Dave Bruton on peg 9 some fodder to wind Steve up, all in good fun and we had some good banter during the match.
I started on bread and had an almost instant bite, which I then lost, so probably a fouler. Landed 3 and lost a couple more in the first hour, it looked pretty slow for most. I switched to the maggot feeder after an look on the pole, this brought fish at intervals through the match, including 4/5 F1's that I clicked at 2lb, but they were probably over 3lb with hindsight.
I tried the pole line a couple more times during that spell, but nothing doing, until I saw Steve hook a carp on the pole with about 40 minutes to go, the wind was dropping and I soon hooked one after looking in over the micro/maggot feed, a decent fish just over double figures and then another around 4lb, the wind had died off and I could see the odd bubble and indication that there were fish feeding. A few others also had fish on the pole in the last 30 minutes - time of day or that wind dropping, not sure but it was a welcome change from struggling for bites.
Jack Stamp had been catching steadily on the end peg and the end but one peg had also had a few and thats how the lake panned out, Jack winning the lake from 12, with 95.00, peg 11 had 82 somthing and my clicked 55lb was somewhat more, how much more than 55lb I'll never know as the scales bottom out at 66lb and that's the net limit. That was enough for 3rd on the lake, a decnt prize and some pools money.
A enjoyable match, not quite sure how I got the net weight so wrong, just underestimated the fish I guess, still it didn't cost me, as it wasn't 95lb and certainly not enough to trouble winner Gary O'Shea from the bottom lake at Whitepost, which threw up 3 ton+ weights.
Awesome weights for that many anglers fishing in December, looking forward to the winter league on there now.
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