Plummers arrived at 7am on Sunday morning and despite me having purchased a new slim rod bag and managed to put all my gear and bait in my box so I could leave my bait bag at home, we still struggled to get two lots of gear into his BMW M3. Arriving at Willinghurst Jeff Simmons had forgotten to turn up so we were down to nine pegs only which was actually much better as I could put in all the pegs I really wouldn't have minded. There were still some I'd obviously have preferrred like 12,16 and 5 but I really wasn't worried where I drew. For those interested, I'd pegged 1,3,5,7,10,12,14,16 and 18. 
At 8.30am following a very nice egg and bacon sandwich courtesy of Sue the new cabin supremo, the draw commenced and with just two pegs left in the bag I was quite excited as my favourite Peg 5 was still in the bag. Luckily for me Windy Ben (Emery) drew Peg 10 and I was left with a decent chance of winning (or so I thought). We made our way up to the lake and as we arrived I noticed that the wind was strong and cold and blowing from from Pegs 17 and 18 up to the dam end (Pegs 7 and 10). My plan of attack was to fish a lead to the island or at least in the open water off the island, a pole at 13 metres and a longish pole down the edge. Bait was to be dead maggotts and corn on the pole lines with a touch of Marukyu 130 GB (that I'd scrounged off Ben) and bread / Corn on the lead. Unfortunately the match was much the same as the previous weeks as despite switching about on all the lines, I couldn't get a bite anywhere. Just as I'd started an angel appeared before me laden with an insulated bag full of hot tomato soup and some french bread (it was actually Sue and at that point I think I fell in love again) !! With 45 minutes to go, I was still fishless but still felt I was in with a chance of framing if the fish turned up in my edge peg. Malcolm Heaver on Peg 12 was likely to win as he already had 5 or 6 fish fishing corn to the island on the lead whilst Gary Simmons on Peg 7 had caught 4 lumps down the edge but the next best was "The man in Black" Geoff Dickenson who'd had three fish on the lead from Peg 14. My hopes were raised considerably when my three dead reds were picked up by a fish in my edge peg and after a brief tussle, I netted a nice Barny Rubble. Unfortunately no more fish showed for me in the last half hour and at the weigh in my one fish pulled the needle round to 12-14-0, a nice fish but unfortunately a bit of a billy no mates as was obviously swiming about on his own. As expected Malcolm's 8 fish went 47lb ahead of Gary's 4 fish for 34lb. Geoff's 3 carp went 15-4-0 and that pushed me into the one out of the frame spot ! So that was it, 2 carp in two weeks isn't exactly exciting stuff and this weekend I have a Match Fishing Scene match on the Ribbon Lake at Sumners Pond, so don't expect a report next week on story of how I had a bite a chuck.
