Plantations, Horseshoe Lake, 26 April

Well this could be my shortest update for a while!

Apparently Frys had fished here last week and found it tough but the last hour proved to be productive.

For most of us today the first five hours were challenging and so was the last one.

I missed the draw and started 30 minutes after the rest, not that it made much difference.

Alan Healey showed a rare bit of compassion and skipped this week's side bet (although he has lost the last 2 and was out for a meal after so maybe wasn't taking any chances).

Steve Sewell was not feeling quite so generous, especially as he was aware that I'd spent all day and half of Saturday night driving across Europe and back on a humanitarian mercy mission and was therefore absolutely cream-crackered,

But I wasn't going to let that stop me fishing!

My peg (13) looked good. It was on the end of the island on the right hand side facing into the far right corner and the wind was pushing up this end.

I had no kit prepared (although past experiences have shown that this isn't always a bad thing).

Bait options were whatever was lurking in the holdall which turned out to be various sizes of pellet. Some 6mm soft hookers and a tin of corn so plenty there to empty the lake with!

I dug out a suitable rig to fish at 10m, the depth here was around 5' and varied by about half the float's depth around the peg so would do.

I also found a rig suitable for the left hand margin. 

The right margin was taken up by overhanging branches which looked to be a tackle graveyard and was best avoided (although I did try it later on out of desperation)

I was tempted to set up a shallow wag to chuck to the opposite bank margins but chose not to as the tree behind would have been a pain with casting.

To cut a long story short I missed about 6 bites on the pole lines, probably liners, and foul hooked a skimmer and a carp.

Set up a shallow rig which produced nothing.

Went down the edge and had a properly hooked skimmer on corn and finally went in amongst the tree branches and missed another sail-away.

My three fish went 8-4 (less than I thought) and I was glad to get home and sink my face into a couple of bottles of "wife-beater" and fall asleep on the sofa.

The match was won by Paul Preston (below) with 31-4 caught on the lead with 8mm pellet fished over to the reeds on the opposite bank.

In second place was Ross Baker with 26-8 caught on the pole with dead maggot over to the end of the island.

3rd was Rocket Ron Hardiman (below) with 24-12

Sneaking into 4th (and getting his first, and last £ back) was Steve Sewell with 16-12 and his biggest match weight ever.

Full Result:

1. Paul Preston (15) ........ 31-4
2. Ross Baker (3) .......... 26-8
3. Ron Hardiman (14) .... 24-12
4. Steve Sewell (4) ........ 16-12
5. Darren North (2) ....... 14-0
6. Steve O'Toole (9) ...... 13-8
7. Chris Szakacs (7) ...... 12-0
8. Alan Healey (11) ....... 11-8
9. Warwick Davis (8) ..... 10-0
10. Steve Burgess (13) ... 8-4
11. Derek Lucas (11) ...... 2-4
12. and a few dnw's

Next week we're down at Viaduct on Cary so hopefully there should be some 1's in front of the above results (or 2's even).
And it will be the first Psv match under the control of the smaller of our match secretary duo.
I have a feeling it will go well (he's organised)!!