Dorchester Winter League, Match 2, Warmwell

Warmwell was the destination for this match and I had popped down for a practice on Friday that saw me catch 15-20lb of skimmers on the pole from Kingfisher Lake, so that was where I wanted to draw. Fate had other ideas however, and peg 5 on Horseshoe lake stuck in my mitt.

This gave me plenty of options so I decided on a method to the far bank on the left hand side of the swim under a overhanging tree, a skimmer line at 13m just to the left of centre, a 2+2 corn line in front of the platform to my left and just before the all in I plumbed a line at 16m straight out in 2 1/2ft of water (just in case!). The all in was called and out went 7 balls of Sonubaits F1 with caster, chopped worm, pellet and pinkie on my 13m line, then a quarter of a cup of pellet and corn on my margin line before sending a small method feeder under the tree.
After 15 mins the three other anglers on the lake had all had a bonus fish, the guy to my right had taken 2 carp in quick succession by fishing @16m and pinging pellet over the top so I decided to kinder cup in some pellet at 16m. This also saw me sitting there biteless for another 20 mins, I was 45 minutes into the match and had not had so much as a bite, the guy two pegs to my right was catching net roach and bream one a put in on a 2+1 line and the guy to my left was on a whip nailing lots of small roach. Once again the peg to my right had another carp and a few bits so thing were looking desperate, on my skimmer line I had two rigs set up a heavy one for skimmers and a lighter one for the roach. The lighter rig was duly plumbed up on the top 3 and it touched bottom at about 45 degrees to my platform, I threw 10 pinkies in baited with a maggot and shipped it out to 13m over the gbait line. Instantly I had a small roach on so started catching a fish at 13m and feeding my 3m line as I was landing it. This went on until the bites dried up long and I came in short taking alot of roach very quickly again however, they were not of any size so I ended up rotating between the two lines and fishing for better fish from time to time long with big baits. I worked hard until the last 15 mins when I decided that I needed a bonus carp so sent the method back under the tree to no avail.
At the weigh in I had the lowest weight on my lake and in my section (Split with part of Kingfisher and won with 53lb) I was however, only 4lb adrift from the top weight on the lake and a 2lbs away from 2nd with a total weight of 12lb 5oz. All in all I had caught alot of fish apart from one bonus skimmer on the short line but I felt very frustrated with myself for throwing away the first hour.  I should have stuck to my original plan of a line for roach short and then a long bream line but I got distracted by the far bank and looking for carp. I will not make that mistake again.