Three in One !

Too much work and too little PC time has meant that I have slipped behind on my blogging by a couple of matches, so firstly I apologise to any regular readers and secondly here is a bit of a catch up.
Since the Government announced there was officially now a drought, nature has been trying to make up for it, and mostly on days when I have been fishing and I have found myself taking more clothing with me on matches than tackle.
The first "Pikey V The Elements" match took me to the Match Fishing Scene match on Lake 1 at Monk Lakes.  For those who have fished Monks, the one thing you will know is that it really isn't a place you want to go when the weather is wet and windy.  However, it was the first Wednesday I had booked off work for fishing for ages so I was determined to fish.  Arriving at Monks it was raining as promised but the wind didn't seem too bad, but that was just probably cos we were standing behind the clubhouse building !
I haven't fished Lake 1 for ages but just knew that with the wind blowing in the direction it was, I really didn't want to draw between 2 and 10 or 24 and 31 as the wind would be right in your face in those pegs.
So, into the Tesco's draw bag went my hand and I latched onto one of the few remaining discs.  This was it, the moment of truth, was I going to have a lovely comfortable days fishing catching a few fish or was I going to freeze my nuts off battling with the wind ?  I slowly turned the disc over to reveal......PEG 4 ! a nice short walk but probably one of the worst pegs weather wise.
Arriving at my peg I could hardly stand up, let alone fish, also with 8 layers of clothing on to battle the wind and rain I looked more like the mitchelin man than someone who has actually lost a stone and a half in weight this year.
Tactics wise fishing the pole out in front was a no no, so I decided to fish a small cage feeder with GB and dead maggots at about 18 metres and both sides right in the edge.  Having fed both inside lines with GB and dead maggots I got myself comfortable and set about fishing the feeder. Whilst very slow (as you would expect given the conditions) I was soon catching the odd little carp and actually started to quite enjoy myself, the only down side was the lack of banter as with the pegs quite well spread out and with the wind and rain, you couldn't hear anything anyone said.  I had ben trying the edges every now and then with no response but with a couple of hours to go, a few fish turned up in the right hand side and I had 5 carp and a big ide in the next hour before the peg died.  I did have a couple more small carp onthe feeder in the last 30 minutes and given the conditions, was actually quite pleased with my final weight of 28-0-0 as it gave me second in my section behind Rusty on the end peg.

Results
Hathers.................Peg 21.........53-10-0
Mark Murdoch.....Peg 34.........53-8-0
Russell Shipton........Peg 43.........44-8-0
Rusty...................Peg 2............40-12-0

The following Wedneday I'd booked another day off and this time was off to fish the Canal Bank of Gold Lake at Gold Valley.  It isn't really a fishery that suits me as to win it is usally method or big wag - which I don't do but it was a days fishing with some good company as this was another MFS match.  The weather once again looked rubbish with high winds and heavy rain showers predicted for all day and when we arrived at the clubhouse the wind was blowing straight down the lake and there were waves crashing against the bank.  Luckily after we drew, the wind turned slightly and came from off our backs on the canal bank.  With the high bank behind us, it made our pegs quite sheltered and I have to say that I actually wasn't too bothered about conditions throughout the day, we did have a few quite heavy showers but when they came I just put my brolly up until they'd passed.

Fishing wise I fished "The Conker" on the lead and had 4 carp for 28lb and added 17lb of skimmers, roach, perch and rudd on maggot and GB fished at 8 metres to win the section and a very welcome £60.

Result
Chris Nicholls...............Peg 2..............88-12-0
Ludders.......................Peg 12.............69-14-0
Herbie.........................Peg 25.............51-10-0
Ken Rayner.................Peg 26.............48-4-0
Pikey...........................Peg 22.............45-14-0

Match number 3 saw me travelling with Rick to yet another new venue to us, Timsbury Manor in Hampshire for our third MFS match in 2 weeks. Once again the rain was falling as we left home and was still falling when we arrived at the fishery.  My first impressions of the lake was how small it was and Slider (who had taken over the running of the match), did say that if he had booked it then he wouldn't have put some many pegs in as the pegging was a bit cosy to say the least !  I did have a quick walk round before the draw but to be fair there weren't many pegs I wouldn't have minded fishing.  The draw meant little to me as I didn't know one peg from another but when I drew Peg 18, I was told by the regulars that they didn't usually peg it and Slider said if he could have taken out one peg that would have been the one !  However, I've heard all that before over the years and it has often been proved that fish have fins and are often caught from unexpected pegs.  For company I had "Kingfisher" to my right and I knew I'd struggle to beat him as not only is he a local (and a decent match angler) but he also had a nice little island in front of him within pole range. 
I had a nice long edge to my left until I reached Rick on Peg 1 but luckily because of the spindley bushes along the bank, he couldn't fish along the edge towards me, which I'm sure helped me.  The edge to my right was very very shallow and I knew Kingfisher would br fishing there as well, so my only other option was to fish out in front on the pole.  I started cupping in some hemp and meat in front and some GB and dead maggots along the edge but in the deeper water but after a biteless 45 mins infront and with Kingfisher bagging by the island, it was clear that I wasn't going to catch in the open water.  I then decided that the only way I was likely to catch enough fish to frame was to fish along the left hand bank where nobody could affect how I fished and I had a bit of room.  I added a couple of sections so I was now fishing at 10 metres along the bank and about a yard out from the edge in 3 foot of water in a lovely white patch of light where I could see a black topped float really well.  I started off the new swim by cupping in a big pot of sloppy GB and dead maggot and left it to settle whilst tying up a new rig which was 0.16 G Line to a size 16 Gamakatsu pellett hook and my trusty Hillbilly Pikey Paste float which I dotted down with 4x8 and a Number 10 shot.  Within 10 minutes I'd had a carp on my new rig fishing three dead maggots on the hook. I then continued catching well for the next couple of hours, by kindering a pot of feed after each fish and switching between maggot and 2 cubes of luncheon meat on the hook. With 90 minutes to go Kingfisher started to catch in the edge to my right and for some reason the fish seemed to disappear from my peg for a while.  However after a brief panic where I started to try and catch closer in the edge, I gave myself a good talking to, cupped in a big pot of feed where I had been catching and within 20 minutes the fish returned and I caried on catching until the end of the match.
With the shape of the lake, I could only see Kingfisher, Rick and Big Ron and knew they'd been catching but had no idea how everyone else had fared.  Fortunately for me only Slider had caught on the main part of the lake and the final results looked like this:-

Results
Pikey.............Peg 18...............135-14-0
Kingfisher......Peg 17...............111-2-0
Big Ron........Peg 2..................102-9-0
Ricky B........Peg 1...................68-14-0
Slider...........Peg 13.................66-4-0

So, that's my match fishing blog up to date, I'm off to Witherington farm for two days next weekend for the annual Steve Ramsay Memorial weekend, wish me luck and hope this weather inproves or it's going to be fairly miserable.