Ups N Downs Again

Another up n down weekend! Yesterday was the final round of the Tunnel Barn teams of four. After nine long rounds fished in all sorts of weather we were sitting in 2nd place with one more to go. Last year on the final round I did our team’s draw and we ended up winning the league in style. This year I did the draw, hoping for a repeat… Oh dear, it was the complete opposite and we came stone last on the day! I felt really awful for the lads as we ended up 5th overall, which ended our great run of results each year since we got together. 

A hard frost in the morning after a week of rain knocked the sport and the F1s had clearly backed off. I had our best draw in Extension 9 and saw numerous fish roll between the ‘pots’ while I tackled up. Well I never hooked a single F1 there all match! I caught mostly in shallower water to the right-hand island and down the edges, but it was painfully long waiting for the float to go under most of the day. Thankfully I had a few better F1s amongst them. My 45lb was quite a bit more than I thought I’d weigh, but still only enough for 7th on the lake, but the weights were really close and only 59lb won it. One of those days where I just couldn’t make anything happen and had to really wait for a bite, despite lots of resting and rotating. 

I ended up 2nd overall in the individual aggregate, tying on points with Baz but 8lb short on weight, but would’ve swapped that in a heartbeat for a top-three team finish. A big well done to the Southwest Allstars who fished well all league and were deserving league champions. Always very hard to beat those guys. 

I’m not sure if anyone else gets exhausted from agonisingly willing a float to go under, but it always zaps the energy right out of me! I got home, ate a lovely valentines day meal and then totally sparked out. Struggled to get up in the morning for the second round of the Ivy House Silverfish League and loading the van in sleety rain didn’t make it any easier. It poured down all the way there and most of the match too. 

Half of us were on Kingfisher and half of us on Old Match Lake. I drew peg 2 on the latter and fancied doing ok from there, but knew I’d hook a few non-counting carp. I’ve had lots of immaculate looking baby carp, plus a few old warriors, but managed to get plenty of bites most of the match, mostly from really tiny roach. The skimmers had really switched off, but I had a couple of decent netters earlyish, plus over 100 little roach and half a dozen F1s from 10oz to 1lb which do count. My 12lb 9oz was thankfully enough to win the lake while Pete Philips won the other lake with 15lb. 

As always, I caught best on maggots, but had quite a lot of roach on pinkies and a few fish early on pellets. Used the same groundbait both days, too, which was 50/50 Sonubaits Supercrush Green and Expander. 

Looks like there’s even more rain to look forward to next week… time to start building an ark?