Well with my stubbornness costing me in the last round, any chance of a frame place in the series is a distant dream, so a positive approach and treat the rest of the series as opens. Into the draw tin and I managed to pull a peg that was taking the brunt of today's high winds, 119, not a famed silvers peg of late. For company I had Fabio on 118 to my left and Tim Clark on 121 on the end bank.
The high wind had me reaching for my feeder rod, although having Tim on 121 on the end bank limited where I could chuck it, so I clipped up at about 20m. 4 Pole rigs, a 0.3 wire stemmed float to fish the standard bulk and two droppers, a Hillbilly Shindig to fish a double bulk and a glass stemmed thin float to fish the edge in the hope of tench and/or perch.
The wind wasn't showing any signs of abating, so only 3 sections of pole came out the bag, no point in feeding an area that you can't fish, on the all in 3 balls of GB and caster at the full 3 sections + topkit, a single ball at topkit + 1 this had a little pinch of chopped worm in. I started on the feeder and had 4 small skimmers and a couple of roach in the first half an hour, but I just didn't get the feeling that it was building into a line that would produce for the whole match.
I had a look down the edge and this produced a micro roach to double caster and then another to 1/2 a worm, so that wasn't ready yet. The short line only produced micro roach, too small to be a viable option, the 'long' pole line produced an odd skimmer, hand sized or smaller. I had brought some 4mm meat after listening to the 'electronic chatter' in the week on FB, I fed this at the 3 sections + topkit, off at about the 2 o'clock position, just as a throwaway line, bur a look over it raised my hopes for a short while. A 6oz tench was my first fish over it, then a carp, then two skimmers, one of which was near the 1lb mark. That was it, the line died as quickly as it sparked into life, not sure why.
The rest of the match was spent rotating round the lines, taking an odd fish from all of them, including a welcome 2lb+ stripey, which I initially thought was a carp, I knew Tim had me well beaten as he had managed some proper tench from his margins and the favoured 124 and 125 had beaten Tim in the section, with the bigger skimmers that seem to live in that area showing up for them. I had 14lb odd, Tim had 19lb and 124/125 had low - mid 20lb weights.
I didn't stay to get the results as I had to shoot off and go to work, but I believe Chris Davies won with 29lb. Next up, a trip to Harescombe on Thursday, a new venue for me, so fingers crossed Abigail, Barney and what ever other storms have subsided by then and don't restrict the fishing.
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