It was a 58 peg "knock-up" that had been organised by Norm Sterry through the Match Fishing South West Facebook page.
I have to say that Docklow was a bit of an eye-opener for me as not only do they have 8 well kept lakes, but there are also holiday cottages, a pub/restaurant and a proper tackle shop
The match itself didn't go quite to plan for me as I treated it like I would do at the venues I'm more used to and to be honest it went a bit "tits up" from start to finish but my peg did look nice ....
Ok so I never bothered to trouble the scales but it still beats work!
And with this in mind I was determined to make up for my failings today so I spent Saturday night making up suitable rigs like proper anglers do.
On to today then and I was on my own in the fishing bus as my usual travelling partner was away watching a non-league football match which his team scraped through by the skin of their teeth to secure a place back in the proper league so well done them.
My first port of call was breakfast at Hilltops which was comical as Trigg was in there quizzing Bela on the finer details of his "random slapping method" while eating lemon meringue pie which is a scene you don't come across every day.
We had 31 between us fishing today on Brick and Tile and everyone was in good spirits with the usual nonsense pre-match banter flying around.
The two team captains sorted out the draw aided by fishery owner Jamie which gave us a fair, if not complicated, mix of pegs and as Carpenters had less fishing than ourselves they kept Stevie Wynne and Rich Jones (who are members of both clubs) and I believe we lent them Keith Ray to balance the numbers (but I could be wrong on that)
The wind was blowing left to right and slightly towards pegs 20 & 40 (looking down the lakes) so I was hoping for a peg with the wind behind me which would make the wag easy to fish, or any corner except 1 or 30.
Most people were hoping for a draw on Brick as it contains a bigger average stamp of carp although Tile has big fish in it but also a lot of smaller ones.
Our lot drew first and I took my chances in the middle and pulled out peg 10 on Brick which is a corner and one of the most desirable pegs out of the two lakes.
Most people would have ran to it but I chose to take a steady stroll with a smug grin and tried to ignore the obvious comments.
Lee Williams drew 30, and he didn't run to his peg either but for entirely different reasons ... never mind!
For company today I had Chris Woolley on peg 9 who apparently is quite an artist when it comes to fishing the paste and legendary amongst his Carpenters Arms colleagues.
Down from him on 8 was, yet again, 2-pegs Taynton who I reckon must have a bit of a man-crush on me considering how often he appears near me on the bank. I think I'll have to print him off a picture to keep under his pillow for the rest of the week!
Behind me (and the tree) was Phil Terry in 31 who I was expecting to do well and next(ish) to him on 33 was our Team Captain Will Dearlove who had somehow managed an empty peg either side of him which was a massive advantage and one not to be squandered in a team match.
Meanwhile Alan Healey, who had drawn 26 on Tile, popped over for a chat and attempted to give me his pound before the match had kicked off but I made him keep it warm and flatly refused to fall for his mind games. I do find it quite comical the depths some people will sink to for the sake of a shiny pound coin!
I did at one point consider walking down to fetch another net before the all in but as I said, I'm not into winding people up.
Anyways, rigs for today consisted of a shallow rig which was capable of supporting an 8mm pellet (unlike yesterday's).
This was to fish tight to the reeds near the tree stump towards the corner and would double up as a rig for "random slapping" in open water.
Next was a rig for the same area but about a meter away from the bank where there was an even depth of about 4 feet and that would be for meat over meat / pellet.
A third rig was set up for meat at 5m at 1 o' clock which was more of an emergency back-up in case all else failed.
Finally a shallow wag rod was set up with a 3ssg float set to 18" as there were quite a few fish swirling all around the peg.
Bait today was nothing fancy, 8mm pellets for the wag (but more like 10's),
2 tins of meat (there's a 3 tin limit at Sedges currently), and a bag of 6mm pellet left over from Docklow for feeding the ducks by the tree stump.
Nothing there to interest the silvers as they were not on the menu today (hopefully)
Will shouted the All-In at 10:30 and after feeding my pole lines I started out on the wag and by 10:31 my float had vanished and I was playing my first fish which took me a bit by suprise, a nice black and yellow ghostie of about 8lbs
Chris next door though was having none of it and also landed a similar sized wag caught fish minutes later and this was how it continued for the first 2 hours with myself and Chris matching each other fish for fish, not loads of them but they were averaging around 10lbs.
And from what I could see of it we were the only ones catching anything of note and especially on the far bank of Brick there was a line of glum looking faces.
The guy in 11 (with the nasty cough) who I had spoken to before the start had said he was going to target down the end bank by the reeds with paste but it seemed that hadn't gone to plan and he was later slinging a wag around to no avail.
A look over my shoulder and I got a big thumbs down from Will who was struggling from his three pegs and he reckoned nobody on Tile was getting a great deal.
After the first couple of hours the wagg line seemed to grind to a halt, bites were few and far between and those I did get I was missing. So I had a look round the pole lines.
The tree stump produced nothing even though I had seen fish moving there and the short meat line gave up one bite that I missed.
I had a go at the random slapping but it only produced one fish that was hooked in the chin.
Chris meanwhile had gone out long with paste and was catching well on it which was concerning as I had hit a wall and was getting nothing.
The bankside rumour mill reckoned Matt Taynton had been catching all day long on the wagg and looked to have it seem up.
With 90 minutes to go I started to get some fish from the tree stump and I was catching well for the last hour adding maybe another 40lbs in that time.
Come the all-out it seemed that Brick had been the better lake and had produced the top 6 weights but Tile had been more consistent with lots of weights in the 50's and 60's
Matt was the clear winner with 135lbs 2oz followed by myself with 115-14 and then Chris with 91-4 (but still battered from both sides).
Lionel Legge in peg 20 took 4th spot with 79-0.
Top weight on Tile was Keith Ray with 69-13 from peg 22
The top Silvers went to Colin Butler with 22-7 of skimmers from peg 5
The inter club match was decided on the top ten weights from both clubs and predictably went to Psv with 656-2 against 582-2
Weigh Sheet:
The guy in peg 11 with the nasty cough packed up early, fishless. I reckon he coughed all the fish out of his peg!
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