Ivy House Winter League Round 4, Ivy House, Sunday 10th January 2016

First match after nearly a month of work enforced lay off, although I admit the first week of the lay off was down to not wanting to drive after an Xmas piss up.

Looking at the forecast, my enthusiasm was somewhat tempered, I had done just enough prep and really didn't fancy sitting in a deluge and thunder, which is what the BBC weather was predicting, thankfully they were wrong, a few showers that came to nothing.

I got chatting to Leon and Clint and missed my usual place near the front of the draw, not such a disaster when I pulled out peg 17, which has been either 1st or 2nd in the section every round so far. I had a plan in my mind, fish a negative pole line, a positive one, the draw gave me decent edge, down in front of peg 18 and a long line pinging a single 6mm pellet every 5-10 minutes.

I set up a margin rig and plumbed about 1-2m in front of peg 18 to get 2 1/2' of water - never had a bite here so no more about it.  The long line pinging the occasional pellet, likewise..... not a bite on either a tiny pellet feeder or the waggler.

I started on the bomb and popped up bread, not even a liner after 20 minutes and that saw the end of my patience with that and I had a look on the 14m line off to 10 o'clock that I had fed with about 8 micros and 6 dead maggots (feeding like this kills me) after a 10 minute wait, lifting and dropping a soft pellet the float dipped and once again I was attached to a small carp, surely it wasn't going to be another day where I catch stockies and others catch lumps......

I refed and went back in, float slowly slid under and the lift of the pole resulted in a small perch hooked 'fairly and squarely' in the anal fin. That was the end of the bites from here, a look over the line I had fed positively with maggot brought nothing.  Time to have a look on the waggler and maggot, fishing this over he negative line a little dip of the float brought a 3lb F1 to the net. Another long wait swapping between lines and methods before a look back on the negative line saw a tiny dip of the bristle, this for the first time in the series brought a double figure fish to the net, double maggot on a 18 tricking it.  Next put in a 8oz perch, then a 6lb carp - off and running......... Not quite, that was it for over two hours, I started a new line at 2 o'clock and manged one more carp from that with about 10 minutes to go.

Tricky day, but thankfully my 30.08 was enough for the section win and 3rd on the day. Just need 2 more section wins, hope the drawbag is kind!!