Emerald Pool (Tony Rixons) Re-Arranged Silvers Match.

You know some days when things go wrong from the minute you start the day I had a sinking feeling it wasn't going to be mine as I realised I had forgot the camera half way to hilltops for breakfast and when I put my hot cuppa on the passengers seat it tipped over soaking my cap" still I made it to breky in one piece and had a good chat with fellow blogger Mike Nicholls and Harry Muir & Charlie Barns among others before getting to the fishery to arrange the pegging for Tony, 16 fishing today so there were going to be some dodgy areas to draw with the way the recent form on the lake had been going.

At the draw I was hoping for any peg with a single number so what do I end up with? Peg 11 which is along the bottom end of the lake tucked in the corner next to where Nigel Wickham drew on the Saturday match and failed to trouble the scales so it wasn't promising although I did have Tony on the next peg 12 on the same bank and we agreed to a quid side bet to keep us entertained, the lake at this end is a lot shallower the other  and I could only find around two and a half feet where ever I plumed up so I chose to fish at 10mts to my left and right at ten and two o'clock angles, one swim to fish over loose fed caster by hand and the other over groundbait and maggot, Rigs today were 0.02g on 0.10-0.09 and 18 63-13 and a 4x10 chanti on the same lines to an 18 PR490 to catch off the deck if they came off the bottom but I didn't really expect it to work with It being shallow.

At the all in I cupped one small ball containing a few red maggots and casters and a cup full of loose groundbait over the top on my right hand swim and cupped some casters on the other swim were I planned to feed by hand, starting over the groundbait it was very slow and in the first hour I had only managed around 5lb including a 3lb tench on the head of a worm  but I couldn't seem to catch more than a couple of fish before having to keep swapping swims, already Tom Thick on peg 9 along the fancied bank was catching quite well and Tony was putting a few fish in the net but was already catching carp on the same line at which point I had to mention to Tom the last time the sun was out it was like someone flicked a switch at 1pm and all the lakes carp had a munch as he was playing his 5th and it was only 12.40' 

I re-plumed a swim at twelve mts and cupped in some chopped worm and caster and left it to settle for 30mins before trying it but never had a bite' by now I was finding it hard to string anything together and approaching the half way stage I had to do something different as I was falling behind mainly due to the depth I think as they were spooking, I had had most of my fish over the groundbait line were I had been topping up with the odd nugget so I went for it and cupped in two bigger balls with a palm full of red maggots and floro pinkees in as well as 3 large pots of loose groundbait over the top, This might seem harsh but I had to try and draw some fish into my swim to hold them there for a longer period as although Tony was doing a fine display of carp fishing he was still adding the silvers to his net, I went straight on it as I was finding the fish weren't coming to the loose fed caster line and maybe they didn't like it over there heads.

A couple of lift bites saw a run of skimmers from 3oz-12oz right over the feed so I new they came to the groundbait' but I didn't milk it and fed a ball over the loose fed line and fished the rest of the match rotating between the two swapping the hook bait around, by the end of the match I had put more in the net in the last 3 hours than I did in the first but didn't have time to catch up with Tony and lost my pound as he had 35lb to my 27lb so a quid lost but still a good day and a few laughs along the way mainly for Tom doing a good impression of trying to catch birds with the rig ending up in the tree as a fish came off swinging it in' for him start a trend as Barry Fitz on 13 did it next followed by Tony, and yep you guessed it' Me..!

It was nice to have a day in the sun for a change and everybody caught fish so a good day had by all with Tom winning the match with 67lb of mainly skimmers on soft pellet over micro pellet at 8mts a method he likes and he's good at so fair play to him and its nice to see someone try a different method although I tried it last time the sun was out and got carped to pieces so though twice about it and I'm sure if I had tried it I would of nicked the carp from Tony so left him to it". 

Full results -

1st Tom Thick (Thatchers Tackle) peg 9, 67lb 4oz

2nd Steve Tucker (Garbolino) peg 7, 53lb

3rd Tim Clark (Avon Angling) peg 1, 45lb

4th Barry Fitchew (Pole Repairs) peg 13, 38lb 6oz.