Alders Farm Affordable 16 06 15

There used to be something special about the 16th June. You had an air of anticipation and hope for the first day of the season. You had been preparing baits and getting your kit together in readiness, nowadays, it seems to have fallen to the wayside. I know a lot of people who still look forward to the date, but have given up on the rivers and canals a long time ago, preferring to fish commercials and lakes. I am one of those, but still look forward to the odd session on a river and I hope to plan a couple in before the end of the year.
Today saw me fishing the Alders Affordable on Pines lake. Last time I fished it I could not keep fish coming and those I did hook either were foul hooked or slipped the hook. Still today is another day.
My peg for the day would be 5, just tucked away in the trees, I was happy with the peg although it had not showed any form of late. On arrival I could see a few swirls close in and this made my mind to just fish close. A top three and a couple of margin rigs. Bait was corn and some gelled corn with a couple of kilos as feed and around 2 pints of fishery 4mm pellets.
At the all in I tossed a couple of handfuls of corn out to 4m and was straight into fish, a nice common around 6lb, a few 1lb fish showed and after 30 minutes I had around 20lb in the net and was on for a decent day. However this soon stopped and I was reaching for another section, a change of depth and a couple more fish but it was slow. After 2 hours I had around 14 fish for about 40lb. Trevor Price was struggling and only getting odd fish on the pellet cone. However Charlie was admitting to 24 fish. I could see Aidy Freeman getting a few and after a slow start Andy Gregory was putting a few fish in the net.
Hour three was another slow hour but by switching lines I managed another 25lb. Hour 4 was were it all starting turning around for me, I changed my feeding strategy from little and often to a handful and wait. This had a desired effect and although fish were on the small side I was putting fish in the net. This also coincided with Trevor starting to catch properly. He was catching four fish to my one and was like a man on a mission. Proper fish too. He lost a few as we all did on the day.
I kept plugging away hoping for a few of the better fish to show, but alas it was not to be, I kept catching on the dump and wait method and thought it would be close between Trevor and I, Andy was emptying it across on 17 and Charlie and Colin were still catching.

Overall

1st Trevor Price    242-14

2nd Colin Spencer 230-06

3rd Andy Gregory 219-08

4th Charlie Lancaster 179-02

5th Aidy Freeman 153-00

6th Keith Ashby 147-11

I was a little frustrated at the end of the match, I could catch on corn, but had to keep changing lines, depths and shotting after a couple of fish as it would die or I would suffer foul hookers and hook pulls. AND does anyone know how Trevor manages to land fish so quietly.