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As the all in was shouted I noticed a boat approaching 4 to 5 pegs away so only fed a small ball of groundbait on the inside line, I put the rig in and was surprised when it sailed under within 30 seconds and a tiny roach was in the net.

With the boat out of the way i fed two satsuma size balls of groundbait in front of me across then put my double leam joker mix in at 7m slighty to my right then fed a golf ball of the same mix at 11m to my left and the same to my right then came back onto the inside where i added another two small roach, it was now 25 minutes into the match so i decided to try the groundbait line across, straight away i had a bite from a gudgeon, unfortunatly it was not an ouncer but one that would need about 99 of his brothers to make a pound, no more bites there so a drop in on the 8m line and a gudgeon and a small roach were added.

It was at this time that the forecasted heavy downpours decided to pay us a visit, up with the umbrella and hold on tight, it is not easy trying to hold a pole in one hand and stopping the umbrella from slapping you in the face in between trying to take off. If it had been an open match then I can honestly say that I would have been home before 12 o'clock,To make matters worse I was only wearing a fleece due to leaving my waterproof jacket in my mates car the week before, if i had fallen in i don't think i would have been any wetter.

With the weather as it was it was becoming a bit of a non event in our section with only the noted pegs enjoying anything like consistant sport, for me it was just a case of catching a couple of fish then moving lines to catch a couple more before that line died, by constantly swapping lines and rigs i continued to catch odd fish up to the end to finish with 75 fish for around 2lb but with conditions so bad i was a happy man when all out was called.

I quickly packed up and threw my tackle in the car while waiting for the scales to arrive.

The lad on the bush had caught two decent perch around 1lb each to add to 1 1/2lb of small fish, the next lad weighed in 1-11-0 followed by myself with 2-1-0, the next three weighs were 10oz, 7oz and 1lb 9 ozwhich meant I was lying second in section right up until the pegs on the marina, they weighed in 9lb+ and 11lb+ of stamp roach on caster leaving me with my target of 4th achieved.

All i wanted to do now was go home and get dry. While watching the last peg in my section weigh Dudders came past with the news that he had finished 2nd in section with 8lb+, When Crossie turned up with his 2nd in section we were starting to think the team could be well up on the day and this was definatly the case when news came back that both the Simons had won thier respective sections giving us the team win on the day and moving us from 8th to 3rd in the league only 5 points behind top place.

All to play for on the final round at Nordley on the Shroppie next week……..I think I might be drawing….