Anyway, we arrived at Arundel with the weather still wet and windy but not as bad as had been predicted. Following my first visit a couple of weeks ago, I fancied drawing Pegs 8 or 9 and anywhere between 17 and 30. Ross drew Peg 10 (which I really didn't fancy as it doesn't have many features to fish to) but luckily Malcolm (the owner) told him it had won more matches than any other peg recently so at least he was fairly happy. I had a quick rummage about in the draw bag and finally came up with Peg 18 (just two pegs from where I drew last time) and a peg I really liked the look of.
With an 8.30 draw and a 9.30 start, this gave little time to hang around so I quickly made my way to my peg and set up a rig to fish by the weedbed to my right, one to fish by the rushes to my left and one to fish at 14 metres to the bare far bank. All rigs were on 0.18 line attached to red hydro - and if you've ever fished Back Arun then you'll know why !
Having set up my rigs I then set about setting up my anniversary present from Mrs Pikey (pictured left). I know they are heavy and very expensive but they are very good and will be invaluable on the rare occasions that I have to fish at more than 6 metres !
With the cold rain of the previous few days making the fishing hard, everyone seemed to be struggling and it wasn't until the final couple of hours that I started to get the odd bite and finished with 4 carp and a roach for 9-4-0. The good news was not only was it enough to beat Plummers (whose feeble catch of 2 carp and 3 barbel can almost be seen here, if it wasn't mostly hiding under his hands) but it also put me third in my 12 peg section and won me £30.
At Back Arun they don't do an overall payout but split the match into two sections (as they say that one end is far better than the other) and pay the first three in each section and the result went like this.
Section A Pegs 2-18
Tony Kent............Peg 2................38-8-0
Ken Norman........Peg 8................19-6-0
Dave Pearson......Peg 18...............9-4-0
Section B Pegs 19-30
Mick Prankus......Peg 21..............22-12-0
Martin Bond........Peg 19..............22-2-0
Mick Keeper........Peg 22.............10-12-0
Pound Watch
Regular readers will know that Plummers usually draws better than Rolf Harris but this time I manged to give him a proper beating by 9-4-0 to about 6lb and he couldn't even find a pound coin to give me !
Next Sunday sees me back at one of my favourite venues, the Leatherhead DAS club ponds round the corner from my house - a match I can walk to and hopefully given a half decent draw will catch a few fish.
