Well it started with the M1 closed a junction above us which meant we could not even get close to a getting on point. We risked being shot travelling into Nottingham for the next junction down but luckily Masticman told me we would be ok ( I was picked up in his immaculate truck).
We got to the venue just as we were about to turn round to try and find how we had missed it and there was everyone, a great friendly bunch of folks. Larry Teepot was still practicing (though we were told he was sorting out the pegs). We made our way to the clubhouse and had a drink and a well earned bacon sarnie during which of course we all made a point of calling everyone "DUCK."
Finally Larry stopped his practicing and sorted some pegs out (think he had already drawn his because I was next to last and there was only my peg in there). I felt he had his eye on 8th place for the bottle of whisky since he refused to land many fish, Luckily wormaster was continuing his bad run and was pushing him all the way)
the peg I drew looked good to me as we had seen some good fish topping whilst in the clubhouse (if you can't be good at the fishing bit be good at the draw), and lo and behold first put in got a crucian around the 10oz mark. next put in got a small carp around 6-8oz, oh yes I was on a roll. Unfortunately I must have put them off then since I had one more fish then nothing for an hour.
Opposite me I had Wormaster, Brian G and then Weldec, none of which were catching, surely I was in with a shout. I picked up the odd one or two fish but by this time Wormaster was dropping micro-perch off the end of his worm (and we are talking a maggot would have strangled these fish!), Weldec was losing a few, and Brian had sorted out what they wanted. Brian just said but they are only "babby's", these so called baby fish were nearly pulling him in.
We had a bit of lightening just to make it interesting then the weather turned out quite nice. With 5 minutes of the match remaining Colin (who I assume is the owner) came behind me and told me my peg had won loads of matches (told you I can draw well). He also told me how to fish it (in fact I had fished it right for about 20 minutes). I really wondered how I was going to admit to doing so badly off such a good peg but after seeing Larry teepots weight I realised I might have done Ok?
Packing up was another good time, brilliant sunshine, the only problem I had was that I was up to my neck in mud and it had gone all over my tackle (how was I ever going to get this stuff back into masticmans truck?) I hid my tackle over the fence before masticman came over looking like he had just stepped from the catalogue (now was my chance, while he was kept talking I threw my tackle in the back of the truck and covered it with the cleanest bits of my coat and fleece)
When we pulled off I am sure larry was still practicing (maybe he was fishing there the next day?)
Joking apart had a right good time and really enjoyed meeting everyone. Hope to get invited on some more in the future