Shiplate Farm Hawthorns & Westpool

After a last minute change of plan I ended up on the list for the latest Shiplate Farm open match on the canal lakes, With 21 fishing I was hoping for a draw on hawthorns as I had forgot my trolley and despite managing to borrow an old one off owner Steve but the problem was it had two flat tyres' And after loading my kit on it I couldn't shift it! At the draw I couldn't of ended any further away ending up on peg 11 Westpool, Tich Williams came to my rescue and lent me his trolley after dropping his kit off at an early draw on hawthorns, Which I must say has to be one of the easiest trolleys I have used being the preston shuttle 4 wheeled model,

When I arrived at my peg I new it was a long way over to the far bank which I must admit I wasn't keen on holding all day so was putting my faith in catching tight to the near bank as Steve had done a good job of trimming back through the week and a meat swim around 5 mts. I did plan to fish over to the far bank to start the day and after assembling a 0.03g dibber style rig which I could see easily  on 0.15-0.13 and an 18 where I had about 2ft of water. tight to the bank I planed to fish maggot over groundbait in 12inches of water with a heavier 0.06g rig with the same line and hook so it sat tight to the bank without it being waffed around by feeding fish?? My final meat rig was a 4x12 Chanti on 0.13-0.11 and again an 18 PR478. Company wise I had young Lewis Jones on peg 12 who likes to fish over as tight as he can get and John Hawkins on peg 10 who is known to target silvers.

At the all in I cupped in a pot of meat and hemp onto the 5mt line and two cups of dampened groundbait tight to the bank on my left, I started the match right across at 16mts,

 This is where my first problems occurred as I was soon adding my mini-x extension on the end of the 16mt section to allow me to get tighter still to the far bank as Lewis had already taken around 5 carp on soft pellet touching the far bank although it wasn't quite as far over as my swim and after 10 minutes of trying and a carp of 4oz on meat I was already losing interest, I could see the pegs further down from me seemed to also be catching well so it was change of plan time and I decided to change tack and switch to targeting silvers with what bait I had. Using the same rig I had assembled to fish meat at 5mts I plumed up at the bottom of the far shelf at 13mts and fed a ball of damped micro and a few dead maggots added, with 3 dead red on the hook I had a couple of 6oz skimmers and some small roach before my next problem occurred, What was left of the vegetation which had blow into the lake along with a large film of scum had decided to pitch itself in front of me and Julian meaning neither of us could ship a rig out without catching up on something" Terrific!.. After moving to and throw for the next couple of hours nothing was simple and it was really frustrating, The pegs below me continued to catch carp across and by now Julian was temping a few silvers close in on caster (Which I didn't have") so felt I was on the end of a losing game today so decided to count my loses and switch to fishing meat on the 5mt line for the last 90mins, After a fish first chuck of 4lb closely followed by one of similar size I was thinking perhaps I should of tried it earlier, Ending the match with 42lb odd of carp and just short of silvers it just wasn't to be today but you always learn, Lewis stuck it out right over all day to finish up with 70lb odd but below him Dave Coco on end peg 15 taking top weight of the day with 98lb catching on meat down his edge, closely followed by Andy France on peg 13 with 94lb, Silvers went to Jonny Page On peg 2 Westpool with 13lb odd and the top weight from Hawthorns went the way of Mr venue consistence Steve Howell from another flyer' Peg 1" with 70lb, And Gorden Jones taking the lakes silvers with 10lb odd.

 Winner Dave Coco.