My turn to drive and with no idea where I was going it was down to the trusted Garmin to take us there, and to be fair it did, although I must question what it constitutes as a road. Still, arriving nice and early we were greeted by Gino, Terry and Simon at the on site cafe. Tony and Clive joined us fairly soon after and once breakfast was out of the way it was a short drive to the lake.
Dave was already orchestrating proceedings only becoming of the Chairman. Monies, pegging and draw went smoothly with me nearly sneaking in front of Mick only for my hand to suddenly retract at the last minute. Mick draws first, what was I thinking? With a scolding look on his face, he goes into the hat and draws end peg 1, something do not change. For my misdemeanour, I was going to make peg 9 my home for the day.
Walking around everyone seemed happy with their draws, so the match should be a good one on paper.
Last time I was here was over a year ago, on that day I caught steadily throughout, using pellet hook-baits and feeding 4mm sinking pellets. With plenty of room in front of me I planned to fish up and down on a top kit plus one and two. Setting up kits with various depths from 8 inches to 2 ft all with orange vespe elastics as I was expecting it to be fast and furious. No messing around with rigs, .3g MW Margin floats .22 line and a size 14 B911x. 6 pints of 4mms would suffice as I would be fishing a banded 6mm over the top.
I had Rod to my right and he would be fishing either a float or tip match but Clive, Terry and Gino would take some beating from the better pegs towards the point of the spit. I could see Mick on peg 1 from where I was and could keep an eye on him throughout the day. Simon was pleased with his peg, nice open water to fish up in the water, a method he excels at.
I would start the match feeding 10 pellets every 30 seconds trying to tempt the fish up in the water. After a few false starts and liners on my 2ft rig I switched to a rig around 12 inches and this seemed to work better with my feeding regime. I was getting a fish every couple of minutes, still feeding around 10 pellets every put in. I would place the rig in and if no bite within 10 seconds start again, However, the feeding never changed. I was going well, not big fish like Monks Lake 2 but regular fish around the 2lb mark and after an hour I had 25 fish with Simon admitting to 30, so I was a little behind. Terry and Clive were both catching up in the water whilst Mick was getting stuck into the edge fish.
Surprisingly, I managed to keep fish coming throughout the match from the same line, whereas normally when I fish for f1's I need to rotate lines regularly, nicking a couple of fish from one line before going onto the next, continually rotating the lines.However the fish were moving up and down in the water column.
At the all out I thought I had around 150 fish. Clive was admitting to 137 and Simon a mammoth 182. Mick had a sneaky grin on his face and that meant he had caught well throughout the match.
Mick was first to place his catch onto the scales and after multiple weighs settled on 244-04, a tough target for the MK Nugget challenge. Simon was next from peg 2 and after what seemed an eternity, net after net came to the scales and 385-08. Chris managed 79-08 before Chairman Dave placed 108-08. The Reverend Tony Roberts got among the double tonners with 241-12 and only 3rd in section. Amazing set of weights.
Into the second section and Gino, from the peg I fished the previous year, 202lb and another happy angler, unfortunately it will only be good enough for 4th in a 5 peg section. Terry and Clive had been going hammer and tong with each other throughout the match and it was too tight to call. Terry weighing first and 259lb dead.
Clive followed this weight with 257lb dead. One fish in it at the end.
Onto myself and I had a good day 150 fish and a total of 326lb despite going over in my nets. Rod was last to weigh in and had secured another enjoyable day where the tip went round and the float buried. His weight of 41lb was not going to win the match but his enjoyment certainly helped ease his pain.
Overall
1st Simon Watkins 385-08
2nd Keith Ashby 326-00
3rd Terry Goff 259-00
4th Clive Pritchard 257-00
5th Mick Wright 244-04
6th Tony Roberts 241-12
7th Gino Exell 202-00
8th Dave Collier 108-08
9th Chris Withall 79-08
10th Rod Turner 41-00
Between the 10 of us we managed over 2 tonnes of fish, 2 triple tons, 5 double tons, 1 ton and 2 others.
A good day out amongst friends, good banter and a few fish for all of us.
I won the MK Nugget to wipe the grin off Mick's face and take the lead to 3.
Keith 8 Mick 5.
Next club match is Puddledock Road Lake in September.
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