{"id":7780,"date":"2025-12-22T14:36:50","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T14:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/?p=7780"},"modified":"2025-12-22T14:36:50","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T14:36:50","slug":"a-runner-up-xmas-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/?p=7780","title":{"rendered":"A Runner-Up Xmas Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Runner-up prizes both days at the weekend! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Saturday I fished the Christmas Big Money Bonanza at Tunnel Barn. I pulled out peg 1 on New Pool. Great peg, but definitely not the most comfortable to fish! I had a strange old match and suffered with foul-hookers, no matter what I tried. A small stamp of fish, too, but I did manage one big bonus mirror about 8lb, which was very welcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After a chilly and frustrating day I ended up with 54lb and assumed I\u2019d not done any good. While slowly packing away Sarah came by waving two envelopes at me. It turned out that everywhere had fished tough and I\u2019d actually come 2nd in the match (again)! Well done Andy Douglas winning with 64lb from New 44.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On to Sunday, it was the final round of the Solihull Angling Silvers series at Packington and my turn to be back on moody Molands. I was really gutted to draw peg 27. It\u2019s in the middle of the back straight and been really grim the last couple of rounds. I assumed I\u2019d get a sore neck watching everyone to my right catching bream\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tap water clear, so I just fed one 11m swim, one at 16m and a feeder\/waggler swim. Kicked off on the feeder and was surprised to get indications straight away. Unfortunately they were big non-counting F1s, but I did manage a lone 3lb bream amongst them. With blanking a very real possibility I was well chuffed to catch one so early.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tried 16m and never had a single bite there all match. Dropped onto my shorter swim with a single maggot and had two bream in two chucks. Here we go, I hoped\u2026 Sadly not another bite anywhere for two hours, then a single perch to break the boredom. The last 20 minutes it was suddenly a roach a chuck!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile Dave Ashdown on 25 caught a bream every time I looked around! Fortunately Kev Folwell to his right had only caught three like me. Kev\u2019s went 11lb and mine went 10lb, so we were 2nd and 3rd in section, but miles behind Dave\u2019s 11 for a terrific 37lb winning weight!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Back at the results, despite not having the greatest of matches I\u2019d still moved up one place in the league to secure the runners-up spot. A very well done to Jack Shirley winning the league with six solid performances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oh and I also did the midweek rover at Packington. Got ninth pick, not ideal, but eventually opted for Gearys 31. The lake fished extra tough with just 34lb winning it, which was 4th overall. I had just five bites and five fish for 30lb. Tried a few things and they \u2018kind of\u2019 worked\u2026 Elsewhere Dave Roberts smashed the match with 126lb from Molands 43.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So the fishing\u2019s been a bit tough, but it\u2019s thankfully still been a rewarding weekend. I can actually afford Christmas now! Hope you all caught a few if you managed to get out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RUP-match-gearys-31a.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"358\" data-id=\"7784\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RUP-match-gearys-31a.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7784\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RUP-match-gearys-31a.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RUP-match-gearys-31a-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RUP-match-solihull-silvers-rd6.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"358\" data-id=\"7783\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RUP-match-solihull-silvers-rd6.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7783\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RUP-match-solihull-silvers-rd6.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RUP-match-solihull-silvers-rd6-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RUP-match-xmas-bonanza.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"357\" data-id=\"7785\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RUP-match-xmas-bonanza.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7785\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RUP-match-xmas-bonanza.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RUP-match-xmas-bonanza-300x167.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Runner-up prizes both days at the weekend! On Saturday I fished the Christmas Big Money Bonanza at Tunnel Barn. I pulled out peg 1 on New Pool. Great peg, but definitely not the most&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,87,72,7,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bream","category-carp","category-f1s","category-packington-fishery","category-tunnel-barn-farm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7780"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7786,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7780\/revisions\/7786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}