Shiplate Farm (Westpool).

A total change of plan today as I was heading for the open at Viaduct Fishery but after stopping at Burnham for breakfast on route I felt as rough as I could be after suffering from a stinking cold for the last few days, I abandoned the breakfast & made a call to Steve I wasn't up to travelling that far so arranged to head home & pick up the wife, Dosing myself up to the nines in the process & making the trip up the road to Shiplate, At least she could come back in minutes if I wasn't up to fishing but I didn't want to waste my only chance to fish on the weekend. Not a bad turn-out with 14 fishing but with only 15 pegs on the lake & that many on here I expected it to be hard again, Obviously fancied peg 15 would be my choice but I left it up to the wife to have ago for me today hoping to avoid the narrows for a bloody change! She handed me the ticket opening it to find myself on peg 2" FFS.." what made it worse is the only empty peg today was peg 4 & I would be between Nigel Webber on peg 1 & John Hawkins on peg 3 so not a lot of room with it only being 13mts to the far side, I really didn't fancy it today & was in two minds to fish feeling the way I did but decided to at least try, Owe & who was lucky enough to land on 15? Yep resident Peanut Howell" I've never known someone draw so many end pegs!.

Simple today, A dobbing rig for searching across, A rig to fish tighter over in just over 3ft of water against some stick-ups & finally a rig for down the track in 5ft of water, on the all-in I cupped a nugget of micros down the track & went across on the bread with the rig set a few inches off the deck, 25mins later one small roach!, changed to the deck rig against the stick-ups with expander on the hook feeding a few micros with the cad pot, I did have a carp around a 1lb & lost a better foul hooked fish, I tried the track rig but nothing so began a new line slightly to my left with corn hooking some fish would appear later in the day, I tried other areas of the far side but couldn't get signs of fish, I reverted back to the spot I had caught & eventually had a fish around 3lb, Not going to harp on as it didn't really happen, Nigel had three carp across on the bread all day, I finished with two better carp & three stockies & John who spend most of the day with just a skimmer & some small roach started catching down towards the empty peg 4 in the deeper water & finished with Five decent carp, I called it a day with 30mins to go so was soon packed up desperate to get home in the warm, It turned out to be hard for most today as John went on to win with 33lb so switching lines proved worth while" I tried short but just didn't have the room to draw fish, to be honest I didn't expect much today but by halfway my 10lb or so was looking ok but I never had a bite anywhere in the last two hours, Luck of the draw at this time of the year but not the day I wanted for the start of 2018". I didn't have time over the Xmas period for my stats from last year & it didn't help the lovely Wife threw my list away' even with nearly three months away from the scene I managed to fit in 56 matches through the year picking up in 32 of them with a total of £1387 back in the pocket so not a bad season, Coming up I have the Viaduct Teams Of Five starting next Sunday, Are Team as far as I know consists of the Famous Craig (Trigger) Edmunds, Paul Elms , Shaun Townsend, Vince Brown & Myself so looking forward to it but we all know some of it will be boom or bust with the numbers of us fishing but with Trig there to draw for us we cant go wrong can we?? Lol.

Todays Results -

1st John Hawkins (Wormheads) peg 3, 33lb 8oz.

2nd Golly Jones (Shiplate Farm Pensioners) peg 7, 31lb 1oz.

3rd Julian Pinkett (Wormheads) peg 11, 30lb 12oz.

Silvers - Ron Stark (Weston) 7lb 4oz.