Luckily for us though there were only three people in The Hilltop Cafe so we never had to wait for breakfast and we arrived at The Sedges just about in time to cobble together something resembling a draw.
Jamie wasn't about today as he was fishing the first of the "Teams of 3" at Avalon (see here for results) so Denise was in charge of the hut and she reckoned it was best to leave out the pegs at the bottom end as the fish had pushed up the lake a bit.
So with only ten fishing it was a simple case of every other peg going in which gave everyone plenty of room.
The match itself started slowly with a few odd fish coming out around the lake but nobody seemed to be setting the world on fire.
I had a small carp early on the tip as did Matt Taynton on peg 24.
I could also see Brian Shanks opposite on 33 sneaking a few out and although fortunately, Chris Gay was out of sight hidden by the island on 37 apparently he was getting a few small carp on the method feeder.
And Steve Wynne was having a bit of an adventure in peg 22 hooking and losing fish on the shallow wag along the end bank.
Lionel Legge was also suffering a few mishaps in peg 30 but luckily he didn't manage to fall off his box (see pic below)
As the day went on though things picked up and the last 90 minutes saw the fish switch on and get their heads down.
Chris Szakacs in peg 31 ( yes he drew another corner peg ) had a late run of big fish from down the edge catching on worm over groundbait and Rich Jones was tackling some proper lumps from the margins in peg 26 after following some tactical advice from Tony Rixon and filling his margins in with caster ( it worked)!
Winner on the day was Chris Gay with 62-0 of small carp caught on the method with a popped up expander plus a few from down the edge on dead maggots,
Second was Chris, corner peg, Szakacs with 58-10, just ahead of Brian Shanks who had 57-10 and avoided framing by 1lb (must try harder).
Silvers, in the absence of Simon Belcham, went to Rich Jones with 7-4
As for myself, I drew peg 28 which I was happy with as this was the most consistent area last winter.
Last night I had a dream that I was catching huge bream that wouldn't fit in the landing net and it's very rare for me to dream about fishing so I took this as some kind of premonition and with that in mind I set up a rig for on the deck at 11m with light elastic and fed it at the start with 4 babies heads of sweet/fishy groundbait laced with a couple of big handfulls of micros.
I also put a feeder set-up together and I would have set up a waggler for on the deck further out but I didn't have time so I put together the shallow wag rod that was in the bag and set it at about 3 foot deep.
I never had a touch on that so never mind.
To start off I chucked the feeder out with a piece of punched meat in the general direction of the island and had a 2lb carp in the net after 10 minutes.
That was a "false dawn" though as it took almost an hour to add another.
By then it was about time to try the 11m skimmer line and with a soft pellet on the hook I was in to a small carp almost straight away followed by its brother and then it died so I plopped in another 2 babies heads (still thinking about my dream of a bream bonanza) and then hooked a proper carp that took an age to land on skimmer elastic.
After that the 11m line died a death so I fed it again and left it to settle while I had a play about with the feeder/ lead which didn't produce.
Another look at 11m produced a 4oz skimmer (happy days) followed by 2 foul hooked (and lost) carp which completely killed the swim so I went down the edge with caster which only produced a few roach and not the anticipated crocs that Rich Jones was struggling with next door so, having run out of options, I went back to the 11m line and spent the last 15 minutes of the match wrestling a near-double figure fish which boosted my total to 34-2 and no trip to Curry Kings!
And on a lighter note I had a chat on the phone earlier with Alan Healey.
He didn't fish our match today as he was fishing the open on the main lake at Shiplate with his sidekick Des Malin, practicing for the winter series, which Dean (Des) is currently winning with 2 wins out of 2 matches (plus a golden peg win).
Unfortunately though, they both crapped out today and to add insult to injury, they got drowned in torrential rain whereas 14 miles down the road at Sedges, other than a few light showers, it was quite pleasant.
I will be sleeping with a smile on my face tonight knowing that!
Full Result:
- Chris Gay (peg 37) ....... 62-0
- Chris Sakacs (31) ........ 58-10
- Brian Shanks (33) ....... 57-10
- Rich Jones (26) .......... 54-12
- Matt Taynton (24) ....... 52-11
- Lionel Legge (30) ........ 35-10
- Steve Burgess (28) ..... 34-2
- Ron Hardiman (35) ...... 28-2
- Derek Lucas (39) ......... 21-12
- Steve Wynne (22) ........ 12-0
- Rich Jones ..... 7-4
- Chris Szakacs .... 4-12
- Brian Shanks / Derek Lucas .... 4-8
And finally, a reminder that the meeting this Tuesday is at The Horseshoe (not The Spinner) and I will be readily accepting monies for the Christmas Match prizes.
And finally finally, the winter pellet ban will be in force for Sundays match at Viaduct.
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