Bristol PSV Fishing Club: Landsend Match Lake, 26 July (12 pegs)

I thought we had 18 booked in for this one at some point but come Sunday morning that number had reduced to 12 due no doubt to the crappy weather forecast.
Friday had been cold, wet and miserable all day and after a break on Saturday more of the same was due today.
It was mainly down to the fact that I'd not been out for the last two weekends that I was still semi-keen but I have to admit I wasn't looking forward to a day sat on a box in the wind and rain and had to force myself out of bed and, after a hurried stop for nourishment at Shipham cafe, made it to Landsend with about 5 minutes to spare.

Alan was in charge of proceedings, pegging every other peg (almost) and paying out the top 3 and 1 silvers.
And he also made it pole only to save any controversy which I thought was a good move.
I pulled out peg 17, no complaints as I was on the more sheltered side and Alan wasn't complaining either as he drew 13 which had won the Saturday open with 133lbs although he had Chris Davis opposite on 11 so had his work cut out today. I think Chris has been banned from Ivy house to give Tony Rixon and the locals a bit more of a chance of framing.

For company today I had Rich Jones on 19 and Lee Williams on 15, although I could only see their poles as the trees and bushes have grown back with a vengeance since their trim last year, but this probably wasn't such a bad thing.
Opposite on peg 7 I could make out Lee Waller through the gaps in the trees (he's not easy to miss) and on 5 the Gimp had settled in for the day.

My plans for the day were to fish short (5/6m) and down the edges with corn or meat so that I could easily feed by hand and stay as comfortable as possible, no chasing mud suckers on the far bank today ....
However, as we were tackling up the rain eased off and the wind dropped so I set up a shallow rig for banded pellet across at 14m (or so I thought).

My bait stash consisted of meat and corn to be supplemented by whatever pellet I had left in the bag from the last outing ... there wasn't any, so I paid a quick visit down to Lee Williams to scrounge some 6mm's.

Kicking off the match I fed all the short lines with corn, meat and pellet, pinged a few pellets over to the island and went across with a banded 6mm.
With 14m on I was nowhere near the far bank so I hastily blew the cobwebs off the 16m section and proceeded to annoy the residents by impaling them in places where they didn't want to be hooked and loosing them (some people never learn)!
By the end of the first hour I'd landed 2 (1 in the mouth) and released about 6 although I wasn't counting.
It was a different story for Richard next door as he had adopted a far more sensible approach and stuck to deeper water at 13m and had a great first hour, putting 9 fish in the net so a battering was on the cards.
Both Lees were getting a few as well so it was already looking like a double-battering.
I had a bit of fizzing happening on the left hand 6m line so went in on that with a piece of corn on the hook and it wasn't long before a carp gave itself up.
That was soon followed by a 1½lb skimmer and then a bigger carp that was fouled in the wing and took an age to land having swam round the peg in ever decreasing circles and annoyingly knackered the peg for a fair while.

I spent the rest of the match swapping round the various lines and picking odd fish off. The margins were disappointing although I think I was being a bit too careful with the bait to make it last, the left hand 6m line seemed the best but I also had fish from the right hand short line on meat and across at 13m, again on meat.
The 16m pellet rig didn't last to the end of the match as the foul-hookers finally got the better of it and although I hadn't took too much notice of what I'd caught, by the "all out" I was guessing at 60lbs, as were mostly everyone else.

Chris Davis didn't disappoint and made the most of his guest pass with 120lbs of mostly small carp.
Alan's "60lb" miraculously grew into 90lbs for second and Chris Szakacs managed 3rd place with 80-14.

The silvers pool was safely covered by The Gimp with 30-4 which included a nice tench and some big skimmers caught on pellet with the rest falling to worm and caster (I think).
My collection of carp and 2 skimmers went 59-12 (no scandalous underestimation from me) which was one of the lower weights on the day
as the lake fished really well overall and it was a close result with 10lbs separating six places so I really quite enjoyed it as the weather wasn't as bad as I was expecting and the only downside was having to give Alan one of his pound coins back.

I wasn't quite so disheartened about giving Lee a pound as it was a fair bit cheaper than buying pellets from Scott's!

Full Result: