It was a tad windy when Tony Rixon picked me up today, with much stronger winds forecast - great!! The usual Shipham cafe breakfast and then onto the fishery where everyone was evoking all their lucky charms and willpower to try and draw a sheltered, or at least wind off your back peg. Into the tub fairly early and out comes 130, which wouldn't have been my first choice, but it was at least offering the wind over my shoulder.
As the wind was forecast to get up to just under 50mph, I set up a feeder, initially a 4 square cage on 3lb Maxima with a 0.10 hooklength and a 18 hook. I had a 3 square feeder on the sidetray to swap to if necessary. Next up was a waggler, I have been trying the Drennan Glowtips and like the way they show each shot registering as they settle. This was on 2.5lb Maxima, with a 0.10 hooklength and a 20 hook.
I only got two topkits out, one with No8 elastic for fishing down the edges - no more about that, as I didn't have so much as a bite either side, not surprised it was a bit shallow. The other one had No6 elastic and a wire stemmed 0.3g float, again 0.10 and a 18 hook. Only 4 pole sections out of the bag, as I didn't want to feed a line and then not be able to fish if if the wind got too strong.
Started on the feeder about 3 yards short of the aerator, a couple of liners, a small roach and a skimmer were all I had to show for the first half an hour, when a tentative twitch on the tip had me striking into a lively Tench. I was putting an odd piece of corn or two through the feeder with caster, so decided to try a kernel on the hook - not one of my better decisions, as it didn't hit the bottom before a 9lb carp grabbed it, I landed it and decided not to pursue using corn on the hook!!
After 40 minutes I switched to the waggler and loose feeding caster, this saw me getting bites and indications every cast, but it was from roach and small ones at that. Upping the loose feed saw me get a couple of skimmers, before the carp moved in and I hooked several on successive casts. The carp certainly seemed to be coming to the loose feed and pushing out the roach and skimmers.
With a couple of hours to go, I had a look on the pole at topkit+ 4 and this produced a run of skimmers to either worm head or double caster over GB and caster, with 30 minutes to go a large section of willow tree branch appeared underwater, right where I was catching, hooking it and getting it out killed the peg and I didn't have another bite, the results show how costly that willow tree debris was. Maybe I should have switched back to the waggler, but hindsight is the best tactic.......
My net went 18.04 for a default section win and 5th overall, just 3lb off the weight needed to win, nice to keep the envelopes coming, frustrating to be so close.
1: Chris Boulten 21.03 peg 126
2: Dom Sullivan 19.09 peg 112
3: Tony Rixon 19.06 peg53
4: Ziggy Slowinski 18.08 peg 124
5: Chris Fox 18.04 peg 130
6: Gordon Canning 17.05 peg 125
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