It was pretty windy for round four and when we got to the pond the level was well down. There were only five of us fishing tonight because Robin was in Nottingham (maybe his second name is Hood and not Cox!). We put all five pegs on the field side as with the level down, where we would be sat wasn’t so steep. I fancied peg 4 but pulled out peg 6, so I wasn’t too far away.
I quickly set up the usual whip rig and also got a rig out for eels but I didn’t think I’d be using it. I mixed up a little groundbait and had maggots, casters and hemp for bait. I called the all in and cupped in half a pot of casters, hemp and dead maggots at 10 metres for the eels before starting on the whip. I had a decent roach first put in and feeding the odd nugget of groundbait along with some loosefeed I had a good first hour, catching 57 fish (mainly roach). Everybody seemed to be catching quite well, including Justin who had turned up late per usual and was fishing the chopped worm.
I kept trying caster and would get the odd better roach but then suffered a spell of missing bites and bumping fish. A switch to maggot saw the stamp of fish drop dramatically so I thought I’d try a grain of hemp. I had to wait longer for the bites but I was hardly missing any bites and the roach were a decent size and I even netted a couple. Fieldy was a few fish ahead but he was getting a lot of smaller fish so I felt I was ahead of him. Justin had netted a couple of good perch and we all thought we’d be fishing for second place (it would make a change for him as he hasn’t weighed in for the last three matches!). After two hours I was on 92 fish and although my catch rate had dropped the size had increased to (hopefully) compensate.
The third hour saw me suffer a bit of a nightmare, I was still getting loads of bites on hemp but missing or bumping most of them. A switch to caster made no difference and I struggled on to 121 fish. Fieldy ended up with 131 and he’d also landed a decent-ish perch but I still felt I’d beaten him. Justin had added a third good perch and an eel and I thought he would definitely be there or thereabouts.
The scales started with Justin and we were all surprised when he only weighed 6lb 2oz, Alvin then weighed 6lb 14oz before it was my turn. My fish went 8lb 1oz and with Moses adamant that I’d beaten him I thought I had another victory under my belt. Then Fieldy ruined it when he weighed 8lb 10oz and that perch had made all the difference although I’d bumped/missed enough in the last hour to have done double figures. Moses weighed 7lb 3oz so once again it was all very tight with not much between everyone.
I ended up in second place and picked up £20 plus a £1 off Moses (cheers mate!). In the league Fieldy and Alvin are leading with perfect 3 point scores followed by Moses on 4.5 and then me a further point behind.
1 – Graham Field (Taunton) – 8lb 10oz
2 – Jamie Rich (Against Men and Fish) – 8lb 1oz
3 – Moses Holbrook (Ilminster) – 7lb 3oz
I’m at Perry St on Sunday and any chance of the league went out of the window in the last match but there’s still the individual knockout and it would be nice to take a £1 off Picky for a change!
