Sunday 27th September 2015 - Landsend Match and Specimen Lake.

Most fishermen will say that a day on the bank is better than any other. Well, this was a day to test that!!
20 of the HLS crowd assembled at in the Landsend car park and were joined by a guest in the shape of Lee Williams, a well known Bridgy boy. Horny Beards had returned from his two weeks in Morocco; I'm surprised they let him stay that long!!!
Chairman Bob informed us that he had selected all of the match lake and the north side of the specimen lake. I was quick to draw and out came peg 37 on Speci lake. I had never been on that lake before and so was none the wiser for what I had drawn. Peg 37......

I had come prepared for silver only and so I decided on 4 lines to fish; 2+1 in front, 11m in front and left and right margins on a top kit. To my left I had Shaun Larkham on peg 38 and to my right, Tony Fry on 36. The sun was going to be in our faces all day although down at pegs 35 and 34 they had a lot more shade cast over the water. On the all in I fed all lines with a ball of bread crumb containing a few hook baits. I started in the margins on single maggot  just to see if there was any signs of life. 10 minutes and a single small Rudd made me have a look and the lines infront of me. To cut a long story short, I alternated these lines for the 6 hours struggling to get bites. I found I would get ten minutes when I would get a bite a put in and then nothing for 30 mins, very frustrating. Tony said it took him and hour to get a bite and Shaun had his first bite on the hour, netting a 6lb carp. Bob and Rob Eagles were on pegs 35 and 34 and seem to be getting a steady stream of silvers. With an hour to go Shaun had his 2nd bite of the day and it was a huge lump that just steamed off and said bye bye to Shaun. So, there seemed little luck with silvers or carp. Word came that the situation was similar on the match lake.
On the all out there was a handful who had packed up and declared a DNW. I packed up and then Tony and I did the weigh; me recording the weights. We weighed in the speci pegs first and Paul Berry had the silvers target to beat with 12lb 1oz. My meager net of fish only troubled the scales too 7lb 13oz. Tony only just beat me with 8lb 2oz. Then we had the shining stars for the silvers. Bob posted 19lb and Rob had 16lb 1oz, although Rob also had 25lb 12oz of carp to give him a total of 41lb 13oz (4th overall for the day).

The match lake weights were also a tale of woe and Lee Williams posted the first reasonable weight of 44lb 6oz. Nothing bettered that until we got to Phil Beards on the corner peg, 13. Phil had fished the end bank on the pole with 6mm meat and had a steady catch of carp and a few silvers (I wondered if he had been using some Morocccan cannabis resin instead of meat, lol) . He notched up the winning weight of 56lb 10oz. However, he was closely chased by John Barker on peg 19 with a similar catch who posted 55lb 4oz.
Mr B with some of his catch....Well done Phil!

So, the winning weights were...
Overall
1st - Phil Beards 56lb 10oz
2nd - John Barker 55lb 4oz
3rd - Lee Williams 44lb 6oz
Silvers
1st - Bob Pascoe 19lb
2nd - Rob Eagles 16lb 1oz
3rd - Paul Berry 12lb 1oz

And the score sheet.....