We had not fished on here for a few years and both of us have suffered mixed results, but today is a new day. We arrived nice and early and dived into a full English breakfast with Pete Thompson who had followed us into the fishery. With monies and pegs decided on it was the all important draw. Mick was on peg 3, Pete on 26, whilst I was going to be on peg 2 for 6 hours and next to Mick. A proper head to head battle.
I had a cunning plan, as they say, I was going to fish maggot down both edges in 18in of water, a corn line at 2+2 and another corn/pellet line at 11m. This would leave me with around 4m to the far bank and somewhere to go if I was struggling.
I set up a couple of MW Diamond's .3g to .18 Stroft and a size 16 PR36 to fish 2+2 and 11m and targeted the edges with NG Ghandi's on .18 Stroft and a size 18 PR36.
At the all in I potted in a 50/50 mix of corn and pellet on to both 11m and 5m lines and a full pot of maggot to the left hand edge. I sprinkled a few maggots to the right hand swim and for good measure put a few grains of corn and around a dozen pellets. I would drip feed this line regularly but leave the potted maggot line until I started getting bites.
I started off at 2+2 feeding a few grains of corn every 20 seconds but after 10 minutes and no bites I opted to go out to 11m. Second put in and a carp of around 4lb, a good fish as I could hear Mick playing one in the next peg. I missed a couple of rapid bites before connecting with a good fish which took the black hydro to a bed of lily pads to the far right of my peg and snagged me. Out again and a small carp around the 1lb mark. Then nothing, lifting and dropping made no difference, nor shallower or deeper. The wind was blowing the rig a bit so I added a bit more line and tried a "gelled" grain of corn and snagged another 3lb fish. No more bites followed so it was time to plunder my carefully primed margins.
Starting off over the potted maggot line with a couple of stinky maggots saw a procession of ide and small crucian carp. But no carp. A look to the right saw a foul hooked carp which I managed to land. Then nothing.
It seems that the lake had switched off, if it had even started, everyone seemed to be struggling. So it was head down and try to sneak a few fish. By rotating all my lines I was going nowhere and thought I may have overfed my lines at the start and killed it. I added a couple more sections and pushed the pole across to the far bank. I decided initially not to fed anything. The float dipped and a small roach came back. Out again and a small carp around 2lb. I attached a toss pot and placed in a dozen pellets and a GOT Ripper on the hook. After 5 minutes a carp around 5lb was sitting in my landing net. Out again with another dozen pellets and Ripper and another smaller carp. Then nothing again, I tried moving along the far bank foliage to see if there was anything else in the vicinity but nothing. A move back inside saw a couple of small carp but time soon ran out.
I was frustrated I could not build a weight today, no matter how I fed it, it seemed wrong, another day and it may have been right. I reckoned on having 30lb for nowhere in the match, but the scales do not lie and 31lb was recorded on the weigh sheet. Mick was next to weigh and pipped me by one fish with 32-8. So the Nugget was his and leaves him trailing 12-7. As Mick put it, he is on a roll and you have to start somewhere.
Overall
1st Clive Pritchard 81-00
2nd Dave Collier 75-08
3rd Graham Manning 50-00
4th Jim Boase 46-00
5th Tony Roberts 38-00
6th Gary Luck 33-00
To be fair the venue did not fish to its full potential. But it was a fair match with no one really running away with it. A good hour for anyone would have seen them push up the leader board.
The next two club matches are at Rolf's Lake which I cannot attend but I will be back on the bank next week with Troy and Pete as we are going to fish Viaduct and Goodiford Mill as part of a long weekend.
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