After a poor first match in this series I was hoping to turn things round tonight. There were six of us this evening as Graham Field had joined us and we put three pegs in on each side of the pond. I drew peg 10 and was quite pleased with that as there were loads of fish topping. I quickly mixed up some Sensas Matchblend groundbait and set up the usual 4 metre whip. I also set up a light Drennan Squatt float to fish on the drop with caster if I couldn’t catch on the whip.
Rob blew for the all in and I was into fish straight away, all on maggot, feeding caster, hemp and maggots and the odd nugget of groundbait. I was catching mainly roach with the odd perch and rudd thrown in for good measure. I quickly eclipsed the 30 fish I had last match and after the first hour I’d had 44 fish and thought I must have 3lb+. If I could keep this up, I’d be on for double figures by the end of the match.
As always I couldn’t really see what was being caught around me although Justin Charles on the next peg had pole problems and was now fishing the feeder without much success. Then the first of several visitors arrived in the shape of Steve Hurford who I hadn’t seen for ages, we had a good old natter and he said he would be getting into fishing a bit more this year. My catch rate slowed during hour two but I still had over thirty fish including a couple of net roach and was still on for a decent weight.
Max and Rich White were the next visitors and Rich said he’d be fishing on Sunday so hopefully there will be a decent turnout. The last (but not least) visitor was Scotty Russell who sat behind me for the final part of the match, I ended with 110 fish and Scott reckoned I’d had around 2lb with the 18 fish he’d seen me catch so I thought I might be close to double figures. I had the scales so walked round to weigh Moses (the venue expert) and he put 4lb 9oz on the scales and I was pretty sure I had that. Graham Field went into the lead with 5lb 10oz and then Rob was close with 4lb 6oz.
I was disappointed when my fish weighed 7lb 10oz and I’ve gone from under estimating to chronically over estimating (I’ll get it right one day!). Justin didn’t weigh and then Alvin had a lovely 2lb+ perch in his bag to pip me with 8lb 9oz, he also said he’d lost several as well. I ended up in second place and picked up £20 to keep my winnings ticking over.
1 – Alvin Jones (Enterprise Angling) – 8lb 9oz
2 – Jamie Rich (Against Men and Fish) – 7lb 10oz
3 – Graham Field (Taunton) – 5lb 10oz
We’re back out here on Sunday so it will be interesting to see how it fishes with more anglers on it and during the day.
