13 fishing today which included 2 guests, Dean Malin had managed to drag himself away from Shiplate for a day and John the gimp Bradford had also graced us with his presence so I thought it best to put 2 silvers in the payout to avoid the inevitable whinging from certain quarters.
Pegging was a bit of a head-scratcher, Denise suggested leaving out all four corners which I didn't like the sound of (so she had a sulk) but luckily a quick phonecall to Jamie who was fishing a club match at Landsend sorted things out and everybody ended up with a bit of space (sort of)!
The previous Sunday had seen 19 of Tony Rixon's superstars on the same lake so no doubt plenty of information had been exchanged during the week and there seemed to be a definite bread theme going on although, to be fair, it seems to be the "in thing" at a few venues at the moment.
It was quite interesting after the match to see the different interpretations of the bread theme as the evidence was floating around in the margins....
Kev Jefferies up in corner peg 30 had gone for the K&A approach which resulted in a net of fry that even the average canal angler would have been ashamed of while over in the opposite corner (31) Will Dearlove, who does an excellent impersonation of a shrunken down Steve Ringer, had gone to the opposite extreme and it looked as though he had been using a bread punch fashioned from an empty sweetcorn tin however his three carp totalled over 21lbs!
Anyway, back to the match and I had the last ping pong ball out of the basket which put me on 40 and the golden peg (drawn by Denise after she'd stopped sulking).
As there was nobody on 39 I was reasonably happy to say the least. For company I had Lionel leadslinger Legge on 38 who seemed to be having a few problems with the tree behind him so I guess he'd forgotten his glasses.
My plan of action for today was 3-fold.
Slinging a pellet feeder with maggot to the island, waggler with maggot in the open water and, later on, caster into the corner margins which would be my banker as the margins at Sedges are around 2' deep so will still produce in the depths of winter.
And in this peg there is a second shelf further out about 4' deep before it disappears down to 8'-ish so I set up rigs for both.
I didn't bother with a rig for the deep water as I fancied a day fishing the wag so that was untangled from the rod bag and the float set at (a guessed) foot off the deck.
I started off with the inevitable chuck to the island with two maggots which fell too short. The second chuck hit dry land but luckily plopped into the island margin with no drama and looked quite impressive but it took a few more random chucks to provoke a bite which I missed.
A few chucks later I managed to snare one of the culprits but a 2oz roach was not part of the plan!
Eventually I did manage a small carp although Lionel next door had one in the net and pulled out of a second putting his rig in the tree behind.
I stuck with this for an hour or so and managed a second small carp but Lionel was by now well ahead and showing off dropping a method feeder 2 inches off the island.
So, having been sparingly pinging out 4mm pellets since the start, it was out with the wag and double maggot which was quite successful, producing a steady-ish run of small carp.
Not really setting the world alight but enough to overtake the neighbour and it didn't look like Adam Caswell or the gimp were doing much further up so I persevered with it.
With an hour and a half left I thought it was time to empty the margins but that proved a waste of casters as the low sun made it impossible to see anything so that was a pint of caster wasted.
I did manage 3 minutes down there when the sun went behind a cloud but that only resulted in a skimmer fry so I abandoned it and spent the rest of the match back on the wag which produced a couple of better fish.
First to weigh in was Matt Taynton on 21 who put 42lbs on the scales which was worrying as I hadn't seen him catching.
Next up was Ryan Radford with 42-11 caught on the bread / lead.
Steve Wynne weighed in 6-9 of silvers before Alan Healy on 26 (who had been admitting to 14 carp on bread) produced 48-14.
This was eclipsed by Dean on 27 with 73-0 also caught on the bread / lead combination.
Mark Radford managed 38-11 and Kev Jefferies' K&A tactics only yielded 7-14 which included a 2lb carp fry.
Will Ringer weighed in 23-11, the Gimp had packed up early and was somewhere on the M5.
Next door on 33 Bristol's other tackle shop owner, Matt Challenger had sewn up the silvers with 8-8 caught at 14m over groundbait and squatt (owning your own tackle shop has it's advantages)
Adam weighed in 7-4 of skimmers which would be good enough for 2nd in that department.
Next up was Lionel who's lead slinging was good enough for 34-12.
I was admitting to 30/35 lbs but hoping for 40, luckily that grew into 48-11 which was enough for 3rd and left me feeling a bit bruised as Alan had beaten me to 2nd by 3oz, about the same as the roach I dropped at my feet that flipped its way to freedom, never mind!
Overall:
1. Dean Malin (27) ..... 73-0
2. Alan Healey (26) .... 48-14
3. Steve Burgess (40) ... 48-11
4. Ryan Radford (23) ... 42-11
5. Matt Taynton (21) ..... 42-0
6. Mark Radford (28) .... 38-11
7. Lionel Legge (38) ..... 34-12
8. Will Dearlove (31) ..... 23-11
9. Matt Challenger (35) ... 8-8
10. Kev Jefferies (30) ..... 7-14
11. Adam Caswell (37) .... 7-4
12. Steve Wynne (24) ..... 6-9
13. John Bradford (33) ... dnw
Silvers:
1. Matt Challenger ..... 8-8
2. Adam Caswell .... 7-4
3. Steve Wynne ...... 6-9
4. Kev Jefferies ...... 5-10
