Sunday 1st May - Sedges Tile Lake

Pinch punch 1st of the month and all that.......... Actually turn out to be a day all about SW wind, a seagull and a sore ear. There was also some fishing!!

I was third man in the car park and witnessed the arrival of the remaining 17 of the HLS guys looking forward to a day fishing the Tile lake. Jamie had opened up the office and had put the kettle on. Some of the guys arrived after having had breakfast and Horny Beards had obviously had too much coffee because he was much livelier than normal. This culminated in a challenge to the Chairman who obliged and belted him around the ear. Apparently his ear was tender for the rest of the day. I tested this at the end of the match by giving it a good flick!!

Onto the fishing and the the sun was out but a brisk SW wind was driving down the lake. The question was; would the carp follow the wind for the benefit of pegs 30 & 31? At the draw, the golden peg was 27 and this ball stuck to the fingers of 'Golden Nuggets' Chris Rossiter. Would he take another nuggets from Beardsy this week? I drew 26 and so could watch the Nugget Meister at close hand. The favoured corner pegs were secured by Horny Beards, Ninja Eric, Steve King and Martin Western.

I got to my peg and made a quick decision..... Carp!!

I decided on a Pellet waggler, straight lead, pole rig to fish meat at 8m and a margin meat rig. By the time the horn went at 10:00 the wind had got stronger and fishing the waggler to the island became hard work and was put aside. Also, after ten minutes of feeding pellets out to the waggler, my heavy catapult snapped. That left me with the option to put the lead out to the island but no way to feed. So, a quick change to a cage feeder and some wetted 4mm pellets and I sat patiently waiting for bites.

Now a bizarre and amusing thing happened. My gaze drifted to Chris on my left as he was casting his pellet waggler. The float sailed into the air and struck a seagull who was flying towards him. The seagull and waggler and line flew over Chris's head, over the boundary hedge before the gull got loose from the rig and left it up a tree. I accused Chris of fishing floating bread, a method used by a previous member for catching seagulls!!!!

Back to the fishing and after an hours wait I got to carp in quick succession. Thus became the days pattern. I did try the pole lines but felt that the tip was the way to go for the day. I hooked into 10 carp overall but 3 shed the hook. Around the lake, it was clear that the carp had followed the wind and pegs 30 and 31 were busy. Also the other corners were giving up more fish than elsewhere. The silvers buys were quietly pulling out skimmers but no large bream that I noticed. I ended up with 48lb 5oz. The overall winner was Martin Western with 108lb 12oz and Chairman Bob snared the silvers and a nugget from Danny.

The most important result of the day was Horny Beards gaining a nugget from Chris Rossiter, but then Chris did say that Phil did a have a boys peg.