Manor Farm Open Sunday 5/9/10 Island Pool

Hi folks, it's back to Manor Farm for the third week on the trot as we had a club match on the flowing thing ( the river Severn ) at Hallow that me & Stav had decided to give a miss. We were shocked at the draw to find out there were 38 booked in for today's open on Island pool and with only 39 pegs on the pool it was going to be tight! Most of the talk before the draw was that a peg with a throw to the island would be of paramount importance today, i drew peg 34 and with Stav on peg 27 we both had drawn with a chuck to the island first job of the day done. Peg 34 is next to a rope/aerator ( 1 0f three on the pool) so at least i wouldn't have the problem of someone throwing in my peg from that side, for company on peg 35 i had John Cattermole the other side of the rope and local rod Mark Hemming on peg 33.
I set up 3 rods and just 1 pole rig as i felt that with this many anglers on the bank that the pole wouldn't produce enough fish to win ( unless you are one of the 16m tappy, tappy piece of line anglers?), i had my 13ft Normark method rod for chucking to the island, my 9-11 Shimano Beastmaster set up for the lead to the areator, my 12ft Daiwa Tournament wagg rod for pellet wagg and my 1 pole rig for an 8m pole line that i had a few fish on last week just in-case.
For bait i had got 6mm pellets for firing on the pellet wagg/lead line, some 4mm pellets & corn for the pole line and some n-tice meaty mix g/bait for the method plus various hook baits for the method like dead reds & meat.
On the whistle as expected most of the people with a throw to the island started there ( me included) the poor carp must have thought that it was the battle of the Somme, John was the first to catch as he had the only cover left on the island after Dave the gaffer has hacked all the vegetation back in the form of a reed bed. I saw Stav have a fish and then Mark on my right have one i was the only one without a fish, it stayed like that for 45 mins before the tip finally pulled round and carp no1 was in the net.
I must have a little rant at this point because of the metcheck straight form the met office weather report online, i went online at around 10pm Saturday night to check the weather for Sunday and the forecast no rain at all until Monday night/Tuesday morning? they said sunny
periods with a bit of cloud and 20c? SO WHY WAS IT ABOSLUTLEY PISSING IT DOWN???
I don't mean a bit of rain it threw it down for the first 2 hours, there must be millions of pounds spent every year on weather forecasting and loads of that in peoples wages i wouldn't pay them in PEANUTS. Not that the rain bothers me that much as i fish all year round through ice and snow but how do they get in so wrong?
The fishing was a bad as the weather with only odd fish coming out around the lake, John was the only one i could see catching with any sort of regularity. My match was going very slow and after 2hrs on the method i had got only 4 fish, John was on 8 and Mark on around the same as me. I switched to the pellet wagg and had a fish on it straight away then nothing else? i was going nowhere fast, nothing on the straight lead over the pellet wagg either the day was going from bad to worse now Mark on my right was catching as well as John. A session on the pole produced 2 fish but i just couldn't get a run of fish on anything or settle on a method i was happy with. Stav was having odd fish on the method but i general it was slow, i was having a bad day at the office!
John's fish on the method had dried up but was having a few fish on the pole on the bread up and down in the water, Mark was starting to catch fish regular and during the last 45mins i had 1 fish on the method and he had 8? I had tried all the different hook-baits i had got but to no avail, i was casting tight to the island but Mark seemed to be catching about 1m short so i had taken 3-4 turns off my line clip to no avail, i was struggling to come up with reason why i was not catching and all i could come up with was that i was using a red coloured g/bait and Mark was on green! that was the only thing i could see different because our feeders were only 5-6m apart? At the all out i had been well and truly slapped from both sides ( both cheeks were rosy red), i tipped my 11 fish hall back before the scales arrived to save myself the embarrassment of the slapping i thought that i had around 30lb. I packed up and got around to Stav just before the scales got to him, he thought that it was going to be close for the section between himself and the guy to his left, the best on the scales was Chris Cameron with 108lb and 2 weights of 70lb+. Stav put 44lb on the scales and when the guy to his left put 40lb on the scales he new he had won the section, Mark put 94lb on the scales and John 71lb to win the section as Mark had come in second. I am still racking my brain to think of why they had caught and i hadn't? ( yes i know i am crap) but i have no answers. Well done to Stav for doing the ha-trick of section wins on the trot at Manor in the last 3 weeks ( he made me say that or threatened to make me walk home) you can now buy some more sandals mate?