A really nice breakfast it was too for a fiver and turned out quick as well so no hanging about either which was good as I have known cafes to collapse under the strain of a horde of hungry anglers descending all at once.
It was probably not quite substantial enough for those that like an early morning Man vs Food challenge but I'm sure she would be happy to do something on a slightly larger scale for the Rixons and Bakos's and others that obviously like a good portion in the morning!
On to the fishing, and the pegging went 1-9 anti-clockwise on the inside of the "horseshoe" then the rest spread around the outside with 10 being the first peg as you enter the lake.
As expected with winter fishing it was relatively tough going for most although both Simon Belcham and Derek Lucas were into carp early on but these turned out to be "false dawns" for both of them and not much else happened for either and both ended up in the list of dnw's.
The best of the action was concentrated in the left side of the lake,
Matt Taynton and Chris Szakacs in pegs 2 & 3 seemed to be doing well as was Rich Britton in peg 11. But Mark Radford, after a slow start in a featureless peg 12, then turned his attention to his margins where he found plenty of fish willing to feed and cruised to a convincing win with 55lbs 14oz.
Mark fished at 11m alternating between his left and right margins fishing double white maggot over caster.
Matt Taynton, who is well known for his winter "scratching" abilities (apparently), finished up second with 29-6 caught on red maggot tipped with a pinkie and feeding micros and pinkies.
A bit of a late turnaround for Darren North, who had spent much of the early part of the match whingeing about a lack of section payouts and catching very little, meant he went from nowhere to third with 27-2 out of peg 15 which goes to show there's a lot of truth in the saying "good things come to those that wait".
Fourth place, and just 2oz out, was Rich Britton with 27-0.
Top Silvers went to Chris Szakacs by default courtesy of a lonely 2lb 1oz fantail.
However, there is (unusually for me) a bit of controversy here as Darren actually won the silvers with an equally lonely 2lb 10oz crucian and, as the Silvers payout was bigger than the overall 3rd place payout he should have had the Silvers money which then put Chris into 4th overall by default.
Anyway, Chris doesn't know about that yet so apologies mate if you are reading this but you owe Darren a fiver and Rich Britton £15, there we go, job done!
Confused? .... So am I!
As for me, well I drew peg 13 which put me at the back of the lake out of the worst of the wind and a nice easy reach to the island of 13m or so.
Three rigs, one at the bottom of the far shelf at 10 o clock which was as far as I could go leftwards without going out of the shade of the trees and being unable to see my float in the glare, and one at 3 minutes past 12 (just to be different), again at the bottom of the far shelf. The third rig was at the bottom of the near shelf at 2 o clock at "maggot-throwing" range to slaughter the silvers if need be.
All three rigs were on 0.13 powerline (it's winter) to size 18 808's for single / double maggot / corn or 4mm soft pellet.
After about an hour the 12 o clock line produced a good carp but nothing much else and the 10 o clock produced absolutely naff all for the entire match. Although on my first look at that line I got the rig stuck on an overhanging branch which, due to my far from brilliant eyesight, I couldn't see against the background of undergrowth on the island.
Now I know that Powerline is a tad understated in its diameters but whoever it was at Preston that made this batch of "0.13" must have got it mixed up with something normally used for big-game fishing or towing broken down tanks so pulling for a break from the tree was a bit traumatic to say the least but it did provide some amusement for Darren and Mike Wilson who were hoping to see my topkit explode or myself impaled by a polefloat missile so sorry to disappoint!
So anyway, a change of plan was required so I set up a fourth rig to fish on top of the shelf across which produced a "sailaway" and a "dink" neither of which connected with anything. But this rig doubled up to fish my near right margin which, having spotted Mark Radford slaying his margins, I had "cautiously" filled-in with maggots.
Sure enough the fish arrived but it was too late in the day to do any damage and to cap it off my "cautious" feeding had sent the residents into a bit of a maggot frenzy resulting in me losing three good ones in a row due to the hook pulling out.
The end result was 13-7 for 7th place but on the plus side I gained pound coins from venue expert Mike Smith (7-11 from peg 5) and self-confessed superstar Alan Healy who ran to peg 9 with a huge grin on his face but ended up tipping back his pathetic three roachlets.
Full Result:
- Mark Radford (peg 12) .... 55-14
- Matt Taynton (2) .......... 29-6
- Darren North (15) ........ 27-2
- Rich Britton (11) .......... 27-0
- Chris Szakacs (3) ......... 24-6
- Mike Wilson (14) .......... 14-0
- Steve Burgess (13) ....... 13-7
- Mike Smith (5) ............. 7-11
- Ade Crawley (8) ........... 7-7
- Adam Caswsell (6) ........ 1-9
- Ryan Radford (16) ........ 1-8
Don't forget this month's meeting tomorrow night as normal for booking into matches which includes Harescombe match lake this coming Sunday which is a new one for Psv so should be interesting.
Finally, a quote from the day ...
"If I don't win today from this peg I'm going to pack in fishing"
There are no prizes for guessing who came up with that gem but he is fishing the Frys series next week at Bullocks which is as close as you can get to packing-in fishing!
Oh crap that curry I had sunday night is turning out to be very expensive then! :(
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