By Stewart Lister | No Comments
Last updated: Monday, April 28, 2008

With still everything to fish for everyone is still buzzing at the draw. At 9.15 the entrance to the clubhouse is packed out with anglers looking at yesterday’s results and reliving how they did it or how not to do it in some circumstances. The doors open and were off! I manage to get to the middle of the queue and thoughts are again of a peg around 20. My turn, I pull out a peg to someone saying that I am a lucky bar steward or something like that. I have only drawn 21 the peg that Kieran Rich had 180lb from yesterday! Well, someone had to draw it might as well be me. I must try this positive mental attitude again. I went up to Dave Schofields caravan to sort out the bait for the day; it consisted of 3 pints of meat, 1 pint hemp and 4 pints of pellets.

The Day After 180!

I got to the peg and immediately set up my pole to have a look around for the bar which is at about 16 metres slightly to my left.. I found it and discovered that it was about 4 1/2’ I needed a .5 gram Capri as there was a bit of tow that was caused by the aerator. I also set up some .2 floats for fishing up in the water. I also have a point of an island to my right at 16 metres which is about 18’’ just of the point. I am going to tackle this with a SPRO blob float. I also set up a waggler rod wth a 2 gram Cralusso Rocket light and a straight lead. It is a fair chuck to the island and it’s time to try a new rod. I used a 12’ foot SPRO Escape light rod and a 1 oz bomb.

At the start I cup in some hemp and pellets at 16 metres and cast out the bomb to the island about 40 yards away. I tighten up the line and the tip keeps going around, great way to christen a rod with a 5lb carp! The rod performed fantastically; unfortunately I never got another bite on it! I never fished it again as the chap on peg 20 fished straight lead most of the day and was not getting many bites on it. I fished the waggler for quite awhile but with no success. I tried the island to my right and had a carp before I foul hooked one and it went quite again. I fished the bar again for nothing. An hour in and I had two carp. 180lb yesterday and I couldn’t even manage 8lb in an hour! I did manage a couple more on the point of an island and then one on the waggler but it was just not happening.

One Pole.

It was 2.30 pm and time for a decision. Mine was to fish the long pole on the bar and not do anything else. Hopefully the fish would then come to me, and maybe I could salvage something from the peg. Pinging 8 mm pellets at the float I started getting indications after about 30 minutes and finally caught a carp. I was getting a lot of indications and line bites, fishing shallow even 6’’ off bottom my float would not move! So I fished at depth and suffered a few foul hookers, I lost all them. But, I did start putting a few in the net including 8 in the last 40 minutes. In the end it was agonisingly close in the section. Chris Jenkinson had 105lb from peg 17 and Dave Schofield had 77lb.

I managed 97lb for second in the section. The match was won by Colin Mulholland with 133lb from peg 28. I left the lake wishing I had stuck to the pole an hour earlier!

Elsewhere on the lake Mark Pleavin just pipped Andy Dare for the section to give him two section wins, he is on a roll. I had to go home after the match so cannot say what happened on the other lakes.

Tonight I am dreaming of 10 on Twin Oaks, let’s see if my new found PMA works!