I hate drawing these featureless corner pegs ! I was all ready to have to fish the Method Feeder on Old Lake then drew one of the five Pegs they had put on New Lake. I was however quite happy to do so as although Peg 8 isn't the peg it used to be now that the gap between New and Old Lake is filled in, it is however a decent looking peg and always produces a few fish.
On a recent trip to Sainsburys they'd reduced the price of their prawns so I thought it was the ideal time to try my prawn paste again and duly sneaked a couple of packets into the trolley !
Unfortunately due to the fact that I spent the majority of Tuesday evening down a drain trying to rescue three baby coots at my local club pond, I had no time to prepare my paste properly and had to do it on the bank in the morning - which for me is not an ideal situation.
My plan of attack was to fish paste by the far edge of the tree and luncheon meat / hemp along the right hand bank at 14 metres and then feed a couple of lines either side in the shallow margins. An early fish of about 8lb on the past eline was very welcome but everytime I shipped back I looked to my right and could see Steve Gardener on Peg 19 (the only peg you can reach the central bar with the pole on Old Lake) netting a fish and with nobody on 14,15,16,17,18,20 or 21, I thought that he was going to empty it !
I had a frustrating morning where I had fish blowing in the peg but couldn't catch them, my prawn paste was too stodgy and not the right consistency (that'll teach me to prepare properly) and I was also snapped up by two fish on 0.18 line when I pulled the fish away from the tree and whilst I was playing them on the top 3 they snapped the line near the hook. I can only assume that the line had been damaged by an underwater branch when I initially tried to pull them away from the tree.
At halfway, I probably had about 6 fish but I could only catch roach on the long luncheon meat line and hadn't seen a sign of a fish in the margins. Ross (Peg 13) and Alan Harrington (Peg 6) were opposite each other on my lake and looked like making it a 1,2 as they were both catching regularly on a tea bag and hair rigged pellet. A quick look in the margin to my left saw me add some nice roach up to 12 ounces to my net but it was carp I needed so I switched back to the paste line where I had a couple more fish before the roach invaded that line as well. In the last hour I did catch 4 more carp fishing two 6mm cubes of lunchon meat on my long line and finished with about 13 carp, 1 crucian and a coupl eof pound of roach for 88-10-0.
As expected Ross took first place with 140-2-0 with Alan finishing second with the only other 100lb+ weight of the day. Steve Gardener took top weight on Old Lake with 98-2-0 which included a fish of about 15lb that he mugged in the edge.
Pound WatchOnly Plummers to beat today and did that comfortably with 88-10-0 -to 69-8-0 which was nice as he was getting a bit cocky having won 4 in a row as a succession of brilliant draws gave him too much of an advantage !
Result
Ross Nursey............New 13..................140-2-0
Alan Harrington.....New 6.....................113-8-0
Steve Gardener......Old 19......................98-2-0
Dave Pearson..........New 8.....................88-10-0
Alan Woods..............Old 11....................79-0-0
Tony Plumbridge....Old 26....................69-8-0
Donald Garnish.......Old 7.......................62-0-0
Mick Keeper............Old 24....................56-12-0
Brian Wharton........Old 5......................53-4-0
Jeff Dickinson..........New 4....................52-8-0
Tony Yianni............Old 22....................52-0-0
Ian Covey................New 1....................38-0-0
Jim Long.................Old 1......................30-0-0
Sunday sees me back at Stub Pond on Plantation Lake with Leatherhead DAS and as long as I make my paste the night before then I should be ok ! Hopefully the fish will be away from the island and we wont have to chuck a lead or waggler across to catch.
