Mega At Moorlands
Back to Moorlands Farm yesterday for another round of the Matrix Commercial Champs. I thought “Nice!” when peg 12 on Moors stuck to my hand… only to discover that famous corner is now peg 10 since the lake has been revamped and renumbered! I still quite fancied catching a few. Only reservation was being in a section of death with Pete Caton on 10 (the old 12!), John Nicholls opposite him on corner peg 8, both with the wind hacking that way… and Kieron Rich directly opposite me on peg 6.
Kieron went off like a rocket and would take some clawing back, while Pete was hooking plenty of decent fish in his corner. I had a slow but steady start with a couple of fish short then a few F1s on worm and caster shallow, but I’d catch one and have to wait a few minutes for the next one. Really windy day made things tricky with the surface really rocking and lots of tow.
Back short on meat I strung a few fish together, mostly F1s, plus a couple of skimmers and small carp. Tried my left-hand edge facing the wind and the fish wouldn’t settle at all with loads of silvers down there. Swapped sides and it was just the same. I felt the 3ft depth combined with the wind bouncing off the boards was really wrecking presentation.
Eventually I kind of sorted things out and had a run of mostly F1s on worm before the carp pushed them out. Two very angry ghosties for 18lb in two drops really got me back in contention. Even had a little eel as well!
At the all out we all knew it was ever so close between Pete, Kieron and myself. Pete ultimately got a hard-earned section and lake win with 144lb. I was 2nd with 136lb and Kieron was 3rd with 129lb. A proper three-way battle that could have gone either way!
Elsewhere the venue fished tremendous with six 200lb weights, topped by Wayne Sharman’s winning 228lb from High Meadow 2. It just shows how different a venue can fish with normal pegging compared to being crammed in on things like Fishomania qualifiers! I’m quickly coming to the conclusion that it’s better to fish a brilliant league like this than chase a 100+ peg lottery… but I’ll no doubt keep doing both!
So, 2nd in my qualifying zone at Barston yesterday and 2nd on Moors today. A decent fish-catching weekend, but room for improvement! Hope you all had a great weekend!
