Back to my favourite venue for this match and at the draw I was quite suprised to see only six other anglers there. Still there was a match and money to be won. I stuck my hand in the bucket and pulled out peg four which was by the pumphouse. I have drawn here a few times and struggled to be honest but the tree had lots of cover on it and there were loads of reeds on the inside and it looked really fishy.
I got to my peg and after beating some of the reeds down and making myself comfortable I surveyed the pond, there were loads of fish topping and I couldn’t wait. I mixed up some Sensas Magic groundbait and set up two rigs, the first was a 0.5 gram Drennan Tipo with a spread bulk, 0.08 mm bottom and size 20 B511 for fishing in out in front at 11 metres and the second was a 0.4 gram rig with 0.12 mm bottom and size 18 B611 for fishing by the bush. On the whistle I cupped in four balls at 11 metres and two cupfuls of hemp and caster by the bush to hopefully hold any big fish.
First put in with double red maggot saw me catch a decent roach and another soon followed, I then had a small perch which was the signal to switch to caster. After half an hour I had five roach and that perch and was happy with the way things were going, I reckoned that if I could carry on catching like that I would do 12-13lbs. Big Frank Woodard was on the opposite bank and was catching regularly as was his boy, Jake, on the point to my left. Barney Crockett was on my right and was catching small fish quite quickly on the waggler. I had a couple more decent roach on the caster before losing a good one on the way in.
After an hour my 11 metre swim was definately slowing which was quite worrying, I fed another ball of groundbait and tried by the bush, half an hour later all I had to show for my efforts were two small perch. I fed some more hemp and casters here and went back out to 11 metres. A couple more roach quite quickly got me excited before it went quiet again. I could see both Frank and Jake netting fish on a regular basis and I could see Jake was fishing a much shorter line at around 6 metres. I then had a panic attack and plumbed up at the same distance (6 metres) before balling in five ‘jaffas’. With over half the match gone I was probably last on the pond.
Frank then netted three bream and a 12oz tench in quick succession to storm into the lead, Jake also got in on the action and landed a chub and some good roach. I had a couple more roach but I was really struggling, I tried my newly primed 6 metre line and a decent roach proved to be a false dawn. Odd fish were topping so I even set up a rig for fishing up in the water but I never had a bite on it. I had a decent last half an hour where I added another three or four roach but I knew my 28 fish wouldn’t be enough for a brown envelope today.
I packed up and electrocuted my gonads climbing over the electric fence which proved to be about the most exciting part of the day for me. I weighed Graham Field in who had loads of small perch and a couple of better ones for 8lb 13oz, Barney weighed 6lb 10oz which I didn’t think he had and my fish weighed a disappointing 5lb 2oz. Elsewhere Frank was the clear winner with 17lb 13oz and his boy weighed 6lb 13oz for third place behind Graham. It was just a good job Janders didn’t fish as that saved me a pound.
Next week it’s back here again so we will see if I have lost my touch!
