Drennan Alders Farm Ash Lake 30 05 2017

After a week away at Stafford Moor fishing the May festival, I literally came home dumped my absolutely sodden clothes into the washing machine, dried them and packed them again for a trip to Newcastle for work commitments.In two weeks over a thousand miles on the clock. So no fishing last week for me. The shakes were setting in so I booked into the regular Tuesday Open at Alders Farm.
The turnout was unusually small by normal standards, a lot of lads being away, the bank holiday and kids are off school scuppering a few best laid plans. But I was there, Mick was there, so a MK Nugget was at stake.
At the draw I kept saying to myself peg 7 peg 7 peg 7. So peg 5 was my home for the day. Mick had drawn 21, so at least we could see each other. My plan was to be quite simple today. A line at 5m with corn, a left and right hand margin line to the tree line and the stump. I did have a selection of pellets available to me but did not want to use them unless I was going nowhere. I wanted a day on the corn.
At the all in I started off at 5m with a grain of corn feeding three or four grains every 30 seconds. I was soon getting a few indications and a slight adjustment to the rig saw my start connecting to a few fish. However I was losing just as many. For every fish hooked it was a fish lost. I tried feeding heavier but this just resulted in no bites. Feeding nothing brought them back but I was having to wait for a bite. When I got a bite I would then re-feed 3 or 4 grains again. Pete Archer was on my left and was having the same sort of issues with lost fish, yet Trevor Price the other side on 3 was not. Everyone was going through the same dilemmas though. Mick was getting a few fish before I saw him get up off his box and go for a walk. Landing net in hand. Oh dear has he hooked the tree? No he goes past the tree. Wheres he going I think to myself? Apparently, He hooked a fish, brought it back to his topkit, unshipped the bulk of his pole and got a artritic spasm in his thumb. This released his grip on his topkit which proceeded to move to the other side of the lake before disappearing. Ouch.
I continued catching odd fish for the first couple of hours, all on corn just feeding 3 or 4 grains at a time, before moving to the left hand edge. I had fed a few grains since the start and first put in I had a fish of 4lb. Another followed before the swim died. To the right hand side and a good run of fish, although small 2lbers it was still fish going in the net. By rotating all three lines I managed to keep a few fish adding to the total.
At the all out, it was clear to me I had been battered by both Trevor and Pete, who had to fish shallow long to get any run of fish together.Me and Mick though would be close.
Overall
1st Charlie Lancaster 285-10
2nd Trevor Price 265-01
3rd Pete Archer 182-10 one net knocked back to 50lb due to being overweight in his net.
4th Terry Lancaster 171-02
5th Keith Ashby 154-04
6th Mick Wright 144-09
Overall I enjoyed the day and it was good to get back to Alders Farm. I took a nugget off Mick to make it 7-3 in his favour. But Summers coming. Next match for me is Tylers Common Willow Lake. Any ideas as I have never seen the place.