Next year's match is also on the Saturday however I am thinking of cancelling in favour of a different venue, we shall see.
Anyway, the good news was that it was dry and mild and it was looking to be a good day's fishing however that would soon change when the gale-force winds arrived at about 11 putting the blocks on fishing the pole at anything more than a couple of sections.
Winner on the day, by a country mile, was Rich Britton on peg 6 with 70-15.
Richard caught long on pinkie, kindering a pinch of pinkies after each fish.
He tried various other baits but pinkie was the only bait that produced for him.
I took the photo of the winner before the start of the match, so I guess that means I can predict the future or more likely it goes to show the importance of a good draw on winter commercials.
You can also see in that pic how calm the lake was, which changed dramatically later on for everyone although it did remain reasonably calm in Richard's peg!
Second on the day was Acorn (and Westerleigh) superstar, Simon Belcham who put 40lbs on the scales from peg 33.
Chris Szakacs was third on peg 31 with 26-12. Chris caught early across on top of the shelf with various baits but struggled in the later half after the wind got up.
Fourth place went to another of the Acorn coffin-dodger regulars, Bob Warren with 20-11 from peg 2.
As for my day, peg 10 was the last ping-pong ball in the bag for me and after a chat with my friendly neighbour (and Acorn expert) Kev Jefferies the plan of action was to start across in the gaps to nick a few carp early on and bank on some quality fish from down by the empty platform on peg 11.
So the first hour or so was spent hunting around the gaps in the sedges on the far bank and produced sod all.
Kev meanwhile was doing the same and hooking plenty of fish (landing none) which inspired me to stick at it but I never had a single bite there so I came down into the deeper water at 11m and managed a small skimmer on maggot so a blank was avoided.
Nothing more happened there until a change to soft pellet produced 2 carp in 2 put-in's followed by a lost foul-hooker which seemed to kill it.
An early look down to the platform produced a small carp on maggot and then the wind picked up making things extremely awkward.
I did manage another carp from the deep water in between the gusts and lost another but I spent the rest of the match hanging on to my top 3 down the edge where there was a big clump of sedges which produced a carp that unhooked itself plus a micro roach and a half-tidy skimmer.
I never had a bite in the last 20 minutes which coincided with a visit from two fellow competitors who will remain nameless, one of whom beat me by 4lbs for the section (hmm) but I'm not one to get bitter and twisted so I took that on the chin gracefully.
And to be fair, I did give him a fair bit of stick when he was losing a few so "swings and roundabouts" I suppose and he did buy me a beer in the pub which always eases the pain a little.
Full Result:
Sections:
Finally, big thanks to everyone who fished today and all who have done through the year and provided many laughs along the way.
Pete Uzzell for volunteering to do the weigh-in which is something that doesn't happen often, an eager volunteer that is. Mind you it was the first fish he'd seen all day.
And thanks to whoever it was that filled in the weigh sheet as they had very neat writing which is a big help when I'm sorting the results.
Also thanks to everyone who attended the evening do and especially Lynne Britton for her bingo calling skills and Mrs B for doing the buffet.
Next matches are back on Acorn (top lake) on 12th Jan followed by Sedges (Tile) on the 19th and I will be taking bookings at the meeting on Tuesday Jan 7th.
In the meantime, Happy Christmas to all.
