I decided that before this match my best bet on doing
well would involve a days practice at the midlands bagging mecca so on the
Tuesday Morning, I met Craig, my practice partner in the café and we hatched a
plan to practice on lake 1 and then move to phase 2 later. We sat on the far
bank from the café and I started on the method to the island whilst Craig
fished the pellet wag, we both primed short pole lines and margin swims but
neither of these really produced. The
pellet wag was the way for the day and I let Craig go 3-nil up before I got off
my box and started to show him a few tricks (even though he showed me a few
back) By the end of the day we were both knackered and had caught a shed load
of fish, I was even catching Bream and roach on my slightly more refined
tactics. All we really knew was that we
wanted to draw open water on Lake 1 for the big day as there were loads of big
fish moving in those areas.
So the big day was upon us and we had spent the night in
a local Indian restaurant enjoying the fine food but this did mean that I had
not replaced any of the hooklengths that I had trashed the day before, this is
why I was in the car park desperately tying hooklengths before the draw. A few of the army team old and new were at
the draw so we all sat in the café and had a good catch up, it was then that we
noticed that there were fewer people around so we had a quick look outside,
this put us all nearly at the end of the draw queue. The pre match brief was
short and sweet and then it was the agonising wai8t to the tickets whilst all
the other anglers were coming out with their tickets, including most of the
pegs that we fancied on lake 1.
Lake 2, B20 was my pitch for the day and no one was happy
about being in that area, still there was a section to fish for so I set up a
method rod, pellet wag for across to the island, a pole rig for the base of the
shelf at 7m and a margin rig that I plumbed towards the empty platform to my
right, but I was not holding my breath on that producing at all. Just before
the all-in I got to look up and down the section and realised that I had Jamie
Hughes and Adam Waklin for company, so I was well and truly up against it. Unperturbed
at the start I sent the method across for a couple of liners, then at 45
minutes I had a quick look on my 7m pellet line, I managed a couple of small
skimmers and wondered if dead maggot would be better on the hook, so I gave it
a go and first dob I had a carp of about 5-6lb, then a few small roach to
follow. Back out on the feeder with dead maggot saw a run of 4 smaller carp at about
a pound a piece so with a couple of skimmers I had about double figures and was
right up there in the section. It was about 1:45 and I had a phone call from
the wife that saw me putting my fish back and bugging out in double time, I
will never know how I would of done and considering what happened I don’t
really care, there is always next year.
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