After drawing two pegs to the left of Swifts bridge and struggling for 3lb two weeks before i was quite happy when i was told that i was on the boat on the other side of the bridge for this team match, especially given the fact that the peg had won the section in the practice match with a big 5lb of dumpty roach.
I pulled into the car park and took the worms and casters out of the bag as i would not be needing them. As i walked over the bridge i was surprised to find an angler setting up on MY peg!
I told him i was on F5 and he just looked at me. I had been given bum info, he was sitting on F3 and i was the other side of the bridge, two pegs the other side of the bridge...same bloody peg as in the practice match
Anyway i was there to do a job for the team so had no option but to get my head down.
After 4 nights of frost i decided to put my opening line in at 5m in 4ft of water, line two was at 8m then two lines, left and right, at 9 1/2m into 2 1/2. last line was to be at 11m slighty down stream into 18inches.
With frost still on the ground i thought it would be beneficial to feed my joker in VDE damp black leam on the two shorter lines and also the line to my left at 9 1/2m, the other two lines would be fed heavier with joker with a bit of kryptonite.
Starting at 5m i lost a 4oz roach 1st chuck, a bonus on the day perhaps, and 3oz bigger than anything encountered in the practice match, a gudgeon opened my account on the 2nd chuck before i lost another 4oz roach at the net.After this it was a gudgeon a chuck for 20 minutes before they slowed. After losing the early roach i decided to put 1/2 a pot of raw joker here just in case they came back.
Another surprise came on the 1st chuck at 8m...not a bonus fish but a 1oz ruffe, then another and another.these were the first ruffe i had ever caught at Little Onn, in fact i ended up with 8!
Unfortunatly these lines were to be affected by the unusually high amount of boats (sign half term is here) so it was a case of trying to get my far lines to produce. whilst it was a bit slow i was able to keep putting tiny fish into the net on a regular basis by keep swapping lines.
I weighed 3-10-6 to finish 4th in my 10 peg section, not the disaster i feared but i think i made a couple of mistakes
1. I had a spell halfway through where i had gudgeon fizzing on my inside line and i was catching quite quickly until they went a bit iffy and instead of leaving them i re fed and killed the line.
2. With 1 1/2 hrs to go i started catching dumpty 1oz roach on my 11m line, i kept resting it, couple of fish, resting, couple of fish, resting.....when it started dying on me i left it a bit longer inbetween fish. i should have re fed earlier as when i did put a bit in i got an immediate response.
Ow well......Atherstone next week.