Shiplate Farm Open Hawthorns (Monday)

A later draw time today with it being a bank holiday and after scooting around trying to find somewhere to have breakfast I gave up and had to settle for a Mc'Donalds muffin meal for a change, A welcome change in the weather with hardly a breeze in the air, What a difference a day makes!, with 13 fishing today for some reason I fancied drawing pegs 10 or 11 so wasn't disappointed to find myself on peg 10 with Gordon Jones to my left on peg 9 and John Hawkins on peg 12, I planned to fish as far to the bank as possible to start but plumming up I had over two feet of water and with the carp milling around near the top I had a feeling foul hookers could be a problem?

. Two up in the water rigs were assembled to fish in the open water and down both my inside lines where the depth was around 5ft and last of all a rig to fish on the deck at 5mts with meat.

At the all in I cupped around 15 cubes of meat on the 5mt line and began to feed both my inside lines by hand with a couple of cubes of 6mm meat, Starting across to the far bank  I fished a single cube of meat on an 18 P478 hook just cad potting a few cubes and some ground expander pellet over the top via a cad pot, after 10mins I had a 4lb common hooked in the top fin' and already I was beginning to get liners so new they weren't happy to feed on the deck, I did try fishing around a foot deep but they were more interested in chasing each other around than taking the bait" I decided to take a more positive approach and feed the swim heavier to try and pin them to the deck but when I got half way across with a larger pot full it felt that somebody had stabbed me in the neck and I froze on the spot' I had came home from work Friday with pain in it and after wrestling with the pole all day Sunday had made things worse so for me it was an easy decision to give up trying to fish right over and a change of plan was on the cards.

with fish milling around all over the lake I gave fishing shallow down the middle of the lake with meat but only had 1 Rudd in 30mins, by now the rushes where I had been flicking a few cubes down my inside swims were showing signs of movement so decided to have a go shallow here instead, I did manage one fish from each swim but the spooked easily and I had to wait for signs of fish before trying them again, most of my match was spent fishing down the edge of pinching the odd fish and also taking a few up in the water further along the bank where they had backed of with some nice commons to 8lb, I did manage two carp on the 5mt meat line in the last 30mins but didn't know how the rest of the lake was fishing except for all the splashing going on from Louis Jones on peg 8 so he had caught well all day. At the weigh-in I managed to put 52lb on the scales which was the top weight until we got to young Lewis who put a superb 117lb on the scales for a very easy win catching all of his fish tight over in inches of water first on the pellet and later on paste so well done mate. I also like to see Louis doing well as when he first started out I took him under my wing and showed him a few things as he was keen to learn and its nice to see he took it all in and added to what he has learnt along the way has had some great results along the way. My weight was enough to finish runner up and £45 added to the wallet along the way so despite choosing to give up fishing across making some different decisions paid off in the long run. Sorry but no pics today as the battery went as I tried to get some photos at the end of the match.

Full Results -

1st Louis Jones (Sensas Thyers) peg 8, 117lb 2oz

2nd Dom Sullivan (Maver/Cadbury Angling) peg 10, 52lb 11oz.

3rd Tim Lewis (Shiplate) peg 4, 44lb.

4th Lance Tucker (Sensas Thyers) peg 6, 41lb 11oz.

Silvers - 1st Gordon Jones (Shiplate) peg 9, 7lb 12oz.