With the Marsh AC season drawing to a close, the penultimate match was fished at Alders Farm near Milton Keynes. At least I will not have to be chauffeured this week as I only live 10 minutes away. Mick was away for a few days leading up to this match but had managed to juggle his schedule to allow him to fish this match, so at least I would hope to close the gap in the MK Nugget stakes. I am down 9-6 and need to pull one back soon.
With the venue being so close to home, I still managed to get there early and was met by the other early birds, Kev and Jean, Simon and Gino and Tom. As the others were arriving and getting there nets dipped and bait orders, I progressed to the café for breakfast and to help peg out the lake. With monies paid Vic ran through the rules regarding nets.
Mick had drawn peg 28, a decent peg although in the shallow water, but will have a few fish. Vic was bemoaning his luck having drawn the dam wall and peg 21. I had drawn peg 13 and thought to myself that it could be a good peg if the wind was blowing in, however, it wasn't and I did not know how the fish would react to a corn approach. I had for company Tony Roberts on peg 11 and Gino opposite on peg 16. The Lancaster brothers had drawn peg 10 Terry and 19 for Charlie so at least I could keep an eye on them. Dave Collier was feeling at home on 30 as he has drawn nearby every time he has been to the lake.
I planned to fish 2+2 no matter what peg I was on and I felt this peg really suited it. I set up a .3g MW Diamond with a strung shotting pattern to a PR36 size 14 and another identical rig with a bulk shotting pattern set a foot from the hook in 3ft of water. I also set up a couple of NG Edger floats to size 14 PR36s to fish tight into the edge both sides, if required. Bait was stinky corn over standard corn with around 2 pints of fishery pellets in case I needed to boost the swim.
At the all in I shipped out to 2+2 and straight away the float dips and a firm strike sees a 2oz Rudd come flying out of the lake, next put in saw a bit more resistance and a small common around 2lb came to the net. I was now struggling as was everyone else. It was strange. After half an hour I had caught 4 carp and a rudd for around 7lb. I refed a little heavier to see if this spurred them on and a couple more followed. After an hour I reckoned on 10 fish for 20lb. I tried drip feeding the line and kept plugging away for the next hour and doubling my weight.
I had a quick look down the edges that I had been feeding since the start and only had 1 small carp to show after 30 minutes so it was back out to 2+2. The rest seemed to have done the trick and by fishing 6inches off bottom I managed to start putting a run of fish together. I was now feeding 4 grains every 15 seconds and lifting and dropping the stinky corn hookbait. Tony was now catching regularly and his fish looked bigger although I was getting more. Charlie and Vic were both catching well and if the continues would be on for a good weight. Terry was catching well from a slow start. Gino was catching although I felt he was not feeding enough to keep bites coming. I could see Mick catching but could not really gauge how he was doing.
Going into the fourth hour I reckoned on 80lb and the fish were still coming before dying off in the latter part of the hour. I then switched to 2+1. Something I had learnt from Josh Blavins on the Academy day a couple of years ago. The argument being that sometimes rather than the fish back off into the lake they sometimes come closer and you would end up fishing over them, so they felt safer. It seemed to work as a steady stream of fish to 4lb came to the waiting landing net. I was now on around 120lb. The fifth and final hour, saw bites tailing off but by mixing my feeding I managed to keep getting bites. Alterations to depths both up and down kept bites coming, although I did start foul hooking a lot of fish and losing them. I also had a lot of strange hook pulls where I would hook a fish and have it under control and with no added pressure the hook pulled.
At the all out I thought I had around 180lb and this may be enough to win the section. I thought I would beat Tony but it would be close. Little did I realise that Charlie was in mine.
1st overall Terry Lancaster 264lb 4oz Corn/Maggot
2nd Vic Nugent 222lb 12oz Maggot
3rd Charlie Lancaster 216lb 12oz Meat
4th Clive Pritchard 194lb 8oz Banded Pellet
5th Keith Ashby 187lb 8oz Stinky Corn
6th Tony Roberts 163lb 12oz Unknown
22 fished
Mick had 135lb 8oz to beat the Chairman again but was still forced to hand over a nice shiny Nugget to myself to make it now 9-7 and another chance on Tuesday to get a bit closer.
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