This was our third and final inter-club for the year with Frys at Shiplate.
I'm not sure of the overall result of the first match back in July, I never got round to working it out (so that must have been a win for us).
The match in September was a draw so there was a lot of pride at stake today.
Unfortunately we were at a big disadvantage from the start as I had a few cancellations ....
Ryan Radford was out due to an England Under 21's trial (football, not fishing), which also meant dad, Mark, wouldn't be fishing or Uncle Adam either.
Aaron Britnell was also booked in but I was kind of expecting a "no show" as he's about as reliable as a pva condom and I received a Sunday morning text from the Bromley Heath drunk tank which counted Chris Gay out.
The upshot of that was that we had just 8 fishing against 16 of Frys big guns and local "ringers".
Unusually the pegging / draw was incident free with three sections consisting of 7 on Westpool, 8 on Hawthorns and 9 on the main lake giving everybody an empty peg either side. Payout was 1st and 2nd overall with 3 section payouts and a Silvers payout in each section.
I usually have the last peg in the bucket but Dean Malin insisted and I wasn't going to argue so I took the second-last peg which was 9 (or 9a) and Dean was left with peg 1 on the main lake (how do they do it)!
As it happened the match fished really well with lots of close weights and, despite the unfavourable weather, everybody caught.
As expected, the top weights came from the main lake and no surprises then that the winner was Dean Malin with 73lbs 4oz. Dean caught early on the method feeder to the island but caught most of his weight at 5/6m on corn and maggot (I think)!
Second was Brian Shanks on Main Lake 7 with 69-2 caught on corn down the edge.
Third place went to Andy Hembrow on Main Lake 13 with 61-10.
Silvers went to Ray Cooper with 21-3 from Main Lake 5.
And the all-important overall result went to Frys with 143 pts against 89 (after dropping their 8 worst results)!
Overall Result:
Sections:
Silvers:
As for myself, as mentioned earlier, I drew peg 9 , or 9a on the Main
Lake (I even had a choice of pegs) and I was quite happy to find I had what must have been the most sheltered peg in the South West today which was a bit of good news considering the harsh weather we were expecting!
I was told by Dean and owner Steve to fish into the inlet channel to the left so I set up a lead rod with a banded 8mm for that and also to fish down the right margin with corn so I set up a rig for there and another for 13m straight out into open water.
Starting on the tip I didn't have to wait long for my first fish which was about 3lbs. The next one was a lot bigger but came off and a few more followed but it wasn't hectic and I was getting a few liners and odd foulers which had me thinking the fish were coming up for the pellets as I was struggling to catapult them out in the wind.
I had a look on the 13m line but this was only good for small skimmers and a couple of small carp, one of which was hooked in the dorsal, which again had me thinking they were up in the water.
A look in the margin produced a 2lb skimmer and nothing else until 15 minutes from the end when I managed to sneak out my best fish of the day so I spent most of the match on the lead to end up with 47-10 which got me halfway in the section and 11th overall which wasn't too disapointing.
I did have to give Pete Sivell a pound as he beat me by 4oz but he should have beaten me by a lot more from peg 15 but I wasn't too worried as Alan Healy and Jason Bird's coins covered that slip-up.
Thinking about it I think I would have caught well on the waggler, shallow as I had the wind off my back and it would have been easy to fish but never mind!
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