Blythe pairs league Sunday 11/11/12

This was the first round of this years Blythe pairs league and for this year I had a new partner John Babb as Stav had given up winter fishing saying he was getting to old for fishing 16-17m of carbon in the snow and ice (puff), joking apart they have changed his shifts at work and has to work some weekends making it impossible for him to join any leagues (plus after winning the league 3 years on the trot we have noting to prove. I on the other hand had decided to fish it again as most of the lads I travel with are fishing ( I don't drive) so if I don't fish this league I would be having a lie-in tucked up in a warm bed on a Sunday morning with the misses!!!! That's why I am fishing. John by his own admission would tell you that he his not the best at fishing the pools and seems to struggle sometimes on our club matches on this type of venue he catches a few on the rivers & canals so it was going to be up to me to give him a few tips and put him on the right path,  this year a few more pairs wanted to fish so it was decided to use 2 pools ( cherries & willow ) as we did a couple of years ago that time we used Bridge pool but not a lot was known about willow pool so a practice session was on the cards Cherries pool was no problem as I have fished it for the last 4-5 years.
We had a good practice session on Willow I fished peg 24 and John peg 27 both pegs were totally different my peg has a natural island to fish to although it is 17.5m to reach it there was plenty of of open water to have a go at, John's peg had a floating boom at 16m which is the same as the boom on Cherries pool about a meter wide held down by scaffold tubes and hollow underneath apart from a few roots dangling from the vegetation on the boom. We both tried a few different things I had 2 Carp & 1 Skimmer from a 16m line towards the island 4 Carp & a Bream from the margins plus plenty of small Roach & Skimmers from a 10m line on light gear, John had around 3 small Carp a nice 3lb Chub plus Skimmers just swapping and changing lines with different baits trying to sort out a few things it looked like there were plenty of fish to be caught!
On the morning of the match I drew peg 18 on willow pool and John got peg 20 on Cherries now Jon's peg I have fished a few times before and it has won more than a few matches on here so after giving him a few tips on where to try in the peg it was just a matter of weather the fish had gone up this end of the pool, this is the deeper end of the pool the only concern was that it had not gone cold enough yet to send the fish down here and the fish would still be in the shallower pegs the other end of the pool. My peg looked OK tucked up in a corner with a long margin towards peg 17 and a boom to fish to a 14.5m slightly to the right again my only concern was that as with most corner pegs on a lot of Carp pools it's normally feast or famine!
 It took me around 40 mins to get a bite from the boom on the pellet which was a 2lb Carp and I was off the mark another 5 mins and bite no2 was a 2lb f1 another 5 mins and bite no3 which felt like another small Carp but it came off while I was shipping back it looked like I was on for a few today! I went for a pee up the bank where John was fishing so I could ask him how it was going he said it was hard up his end of the pool and all he had got was 1 small 1lb Carp and a couple of bits but there were some around him that hadn't had a bite yet, I went back to my peg and try a I might I couldn't get another bite I went all over the peg with different baits but to no avail I had one more bite on the maggot from my right hand margin a 3lb Carp and that was it for my match 4 bites 3 fish! I couldn't work it out I failed to get a bite even on single pinkie on a 22 just no silverfish at all, so much for practicing!!! My 3 Carp went 7lb 15oz for 9th  on the pool out of 15 which was very disappointing and a bad start to the league, John had 3 small Carp plus a few bit's for 5lb 13oz for the same 9th on the pool as me there was a 9lb up this end of the pool John managed to beat all the other pegs around him. As we had feared all the fish were still in the shallow water on Cherries pool although we have had a couple of heavy frosts, the match was won by a mate of mine Mick Davies off peg 11 on Cherries with 47lb so well done to him on his first league match. My pool was won by Ade off peg 15 on the point with 41lb with Martin 2nd off peg 10 there was a few big Carp caught and lost which was the differance between doing well or not Brian on peg 24 had 17lb with 14lb 12oz of that 1 Carp my 3 Carp must have been some of the smallest in the pool, are well there is always next week.