BLYTHE PAIRS LEAGUE

Hi folks, this weeks adventures take me back to blythe waters on a pairs league match that we haven't fished since the end of november due to the bad weather. The league starts in october and runs through to the may with only one match a month as to miss other league dates and club match's. With only two match's fished and two canceled due to this crap winter me and my pairs partner (stavros) were sitting pritty at the top of the league with a 13 pt lead over second. The format for the league is that one of the guy's from each draws a letter A or B to see which section he and his partner fish then he draws a peg from two seperate bags with the peg numbers on. As we had dropped only one point over the first two match's and stav had drawn both times i saw fit to let him draw again (if it ain't broke don't fix it). When stav appeared form the draw queue and handed me peg 12 again i was well pleased as it was the third match on the bounce that i had drawn the same peg!!! shouts of jammy sod (thats the clean version) were pointed in my direction. I was concerned though as the two times i had fished it before it was about 10'c warmer and three month's ago and as i had found out at woodlands the fish have fin's? the other problem was stavs peg 28 is about 8m behind the next two peg's 29 & 30 that can reach the central floating boom/island that runs down the lake and out of pole range off stavs peg ( unless you have about 25m of carbon?).
On to the match and i set up 3 pole rigs and a small method feeder to throw at the boom which is about 25m out on my peg. Peg 12 has an advantage that it sticks out on a point compared to the pegs either side of it so you only need to fish at a nice comfortable 13m where they would have to fish 16m+ to get to the same line.
Rig 1 , pellet line 4x14 j8-range float 0.12 to 18 808 set dead depth in 5ft of water shotted with a bulk of no8 stotz and 2 no10 droppers, double no5 elastic completed the set up.
Rig 2, pinkies/maggot line 13m to my left at 10 o'clock a garbo dc13 0.30gr 0.10 to 20 808 at 2 inches over depth with strung out stotz, elastic was the same as the pellet rig.
Rig 3, margin rig fished 6m to my left up to a dead reed bed j8-range float 4x12 0.14 to size 1 turbetini 175 3 ft of water with just a bulk set 10 inches from the hook, hollo 11 elastic.
Bait for the day was 1 pint of soaked 1mm natural swim stim pellets, 1 pint of fluro pinkies, 1 pint of red maggots, a few 4 & 6mm soft expanders and a few dead reds.
On the whistle i put in around a kinder egg full of micros on my pellet line and the same down the margin line, around 20 pinkies & 6 maggots on the 10 o'clock line and then threw out a small preston 30gr method feeder double dead reds on the hook moulded with micros at the boom.
After around 20mins the tip dropped back and a 6oz skimmer was in the net, around 15mins later the same again happened and another skimmer of around similar size. After the first hour with no more action out went the pellet rig and as i was looking around while on the tip there was very little being caught up my end of the lake just odd silvers. On the pole i put a 4mm pellet on the hook and a fruit shoot pot of micros in, it took around 10 mins to get my first bite and a 4oz skimmer was in the net ( the skimmers in Blythe go from 1 oz to around 2lb i have yet to see any proper bream). Over the next two hours i was catching skimmers regular enough to just keep me going with the odd look on the pinkie line resulting in a few 1 oz roach but not enough to make me come off the pellet as they were to small. Kev clarke in the next peg was catching at around the same rate as me but his fish seemed to be a bit smaller, a quick phone call to stav reveled that he was suffering only having a few slivers on pinkie and couldn't get any bites on the pellet. To make matters worse at the deep end of the lake in his section there were around 3 guys admitting to catching carp ( crap)!!!
With around an hour to go i had seen the guy on peg 1 have a couple of carp and carl ( the gaffer) have one off peg 5, my 13m line was slowing up so a quick look on my margin line for 10 mins while i rested the main line ended up biteless, so i thought i would have a couple of chucks on the method. Within 30 seconds of the feeder settling a quick pull round and the best skimmer of the day was in the net at around 1 1/2lb, 20 mins later and no more bites it was a false hope that i was going to sack on the method the last hour. Back to the 13m line and it was solid every put in on the pellet produced a skimmer with 10 mins i hooked a carp and 5 mins later i was looking at a chunky 4lb mirror, that was the breathing space i was after and when the whistle went i new i had done well in my section and the carp should put me just in front of kev on the peg who had fished a tidy silvers match without any carp.
At the weigh in peg 31 ( the first in my section ) had 4lb odd but the guy on peg 2 was admitting to 6 small carp????? he weighed 14lb i thought i was close to that but was only admitting to double figures.Carl was next he had managed 2 carp from down the edge to a tree at 16m he and 11lb odd the rest of the section was hard with only single figures for the rest, it was my turn ti weigh and when i pulled the net out i knew it would be close the scales read 15lb 9oz and with only kev to worry about i was happy.Kev had 11lb 15oz and with only 4lb & 6lb on the next two pegs i had managed to win the section GREAT, all we need now was stav not to slip to far down his section as he had not been able to catch on the pellet so had had to settle for scratching for bits on the pinkie.First weight in his section was 11lb of silvers and the next was a single 13lb carp oh SHIT we were seriously worried now, 30lb on the end peg 22 ( one fish was 15lb ) 24lb on peg 23 and it was now apparent that like woodlands view the carp had gone to seek out deeper water after the big thaw.
All the others in the section had suffered with only small nets of silvers stav managed just under 7lb beating 5 in the the section making him 6th wasn't as bad as we had thought and after the points had been sorted reveled that we had managed to hold on to our 13 point lead at the top PHEW!
Looking back it was a tight section and that carp had got me maybe another 3 points at the end of the league they might be invaluable?
Thanks for reading my drivel. i'm off for a stella.