Treasure Tony was on his way to Lanzarote and so Bob took charge of financial operations and the book keeping. Golden pegs 22 and 30 were selected and with 22 being a favoured peg, there was expectations of a golden payout. Well, guess who plucked out 22? Yep, the second time in my life I have had that pleasure. I had the Bolton Boy Fletcher next to me on 23 and directly across was Brian Chivers on 15, a peg he has performed well on in the past.
I had come to Woodlands without any plan and so packed my bags with a great variety of baits. After picking 22 I knew that it was to be a carp day. Upon reaching the peg, I decided on 3 lines. One, across to the right hand pallet with a method feeder. Two, 8 metres in front. And, third, my right hand margin at about 5 metres. All the rigs had banded hooks because I was going to fish pellet, meat and corn.
I started by feeding the 8 metre line and the margin and then concentrating on the feeder. What I found after the loss of two feeders was a snag to the left of the pallet. So, third feeder and I cast further left. I continued with this for an hour changing between pellet, meat and corn to no result.
In this first hour it became clear that no one was off to a flying start. George was already stating he'd never known a day like it!!
In a moment of inspiration, I put a corn/meat combo on the hook and a small common of 4lb graced the net. However, that was the one and only action from that line. I tried the 8 metre line because I thought there was some 'blowing' over the feed I'd put in. Although I had some bites, they never materialized into fish.
It was about 2hrs into the match by now and I had been feeding the margin line all along. I decided on meat and was rewarded with a nice common of about 10lbs. I continued this line for most of the remaining 4 hrs and hooked a further 7 carp and unfortunately I only managed to land 4. To my dismay, 2 of the fish managed to snap my elastic at the dacron connector. A lesson to us all to check this area of the elastic.
In among the carp, a nice bream and equally nice perch fancied the meat. So, at the end, I had 4lb 13oz of silvers and 47lb 4oz of carp.
Peg 22
From my position in the corner, I wasn't able to see much of the action on the lake, although I could hear Horny and Bob up in the opposite and furthest corner!!! I could see that Brian was performing to his usual standard and depositing carp into his net regularly. George was hooking carp after carp, so he said, but only landed 3. The overall impression I got was that everyone was struggling but I reckon they would do well to beat Brian. At the weigh in I was quickly corrected by the fact that Neil Woolaston had posted 75lb 13oz on peg 33. Brian was a close 2nd with 71lb 10oz and I came third with 52lb 1oz.
It turned out that George had managed better than his whinging suggested but he was thwarted into second place by Paul Bowyer who had 13lb 12oz for first. Badger Bob took the third spot.
Overall, it was a very pleasant day in the Autumn sunshine but Woodlands wasn't kind to us on this occasion.
Next, it's Viaduct Match lake on Wednesday and Landsend on Sunday. Book in with Bob!!!
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