Alders Spring League Rd4 24 04 16

Having had car trouble on the last round of the Alders Winter league, preventing myself from fishing. I was looking forward to getting out on the bank again.The car had been diagnosed as having done too many short journeys and had clogged the Anti- Pollution filter. Having a good mate who doubles as a mechanic is good and with a quick look over the car started behaving itself and I had no problems for the next fortnight.
However, on route to Alders the same fault appeared and the car stopped. I remembered the cure and sat by the side of the road revving it over 2000rpm for around 10 minutes, before pulling off again to finish the journey.
Our team had drafted in another angler for the last round but we were back to normal today, Ian on peg 4, Madd had drawn the duffer on 11 whilst I was on 21, a good area and with the wind blowing in I was quite happy with the draw.
I set up a small cone feeder to fish past the pole lines if the tow became too much, 2 rigs to fish 13m in the teeth of the wind. Another rig for 6m and a shallow rig just in case. All rigs were tied to .14 Colmic Stream to a size 16 Kamasan B911 F1. On the long rig I had a DT Diamond in .6 with 2 small droppers beyond a bulk shotting pattern.I also set up a .4g DT Diamond with a strung pattern if the wind died down. On the 6m line I had a NG float but cannot remember the name and strung out shotting to the same size 16 hook. Bait was 4mm fishery feed pellets, some 6mm fishery hard pellets for hookers on the band and also some 4 and 6mm expanders. I did have a couple of tins of corn which I had frozen and defrosted but when I threw a couple out on the all in the floated so they were binned.
At the all in I cupped half a cup of 4mm sinkers onto each line and started off fishing a 6mm expander at 13m, second drop in the float disappeared and fish number one was in. The nerves were settled. Out again and by lifting and dropping I was getting a few bites but was struggling to hit them in the wind. A switch to 6mm hard pellet brought another couple of fish and after an hour I had around 6 fish for 18lb. Hour two continued in the same vein as the previous hour but found I had to keep switching hookbaits to keep bites coming.
Hour three saw me change to the lighter rig to see if that improved things, the wind had dropped a little and by lifting and dropping around 6inches every now and again the float would go. I was now up to around 50lb and with the wind slowly increasing again I decided to drop in at 6m. After feeding a few tosspots of feed pellet I managed to nick 5 fish before this line died. I had a quick 10 minutes on the cone for now bites and just one liner, so it was back out to 13m for the duration.
Into the last hour and I was still getting odd indications but was struggling to see them due to a combination of fading light and the wind.
At the all in I weighed in 70-05 for 6th in the section but still managed to beat both sides of me. Overall the lake fished well with plenty of fish coming from all areas.

1st Overall G Donachie 111-02

2nd Overall R Makins 105-15

3rd Overall N Wooding 98-03

4th Overall M Quick 98-01

5th Overall I Pretty 94-08

6th Overall M Dickens 88-08