Tunnel Barn Farm Open 4/4/10

Hi folks, this is the first visit of the year for us ( me & stav ) to tunnel as we have been fishing winter leagues & pairs matches elsewhere. We came here last year when we had nothing else on as most of our local fishery's seem to turn to afternoon matches, ( I had to stop fishing afternoons when her/indoors started working nights so i could be back for the kids). We had a few success last year so booked in to the open and got there with plenty of time for the 9am draw, we paid the pools money and found out that the match would be on new & canal pools. Les ( organiser bloke) told us that there were 38 booked in and that canal had received 3600 stockies recently, sounded good although i had never fished the lake. Into the drawbag i went and came out with 7 on new pool and stav drew 10 on canal. I got to my peg saw that it had a long left hand edge with every other peg in it looked good for a few fish, there have been a lot of fish still coming form the islands but when i looked over it looked a long way in the strong side wind. I tried to plumb up close to the island at 16m but i spent a couple of minutes fighting the pole and decided this line would be no good unless the wind blew itself out. I decided to fish at 6m infront of me normlay 4m but as it is still cool in went for another section, 8m & 13m down my edge and a shallow rig.
The rigs i set up were;
RIG 1, 6m pellet line, 4 x 14 j8-range float,0.12 line to 18 808, double no6 elastic shoted with a bulk of no8 stotz and 2 x no10 droppers, 5ft deep.
RIG 2, 8m maggot line down the edge up to some rushes, 4 x 12 j8-range float, 0.14 line to 18 tosciro, bulk and 1 dropper, 11 hollo elastic, 3 ft deep.
RIG 3, 13m pellet line down the edge to a tree stump, preston dura 10 float 4 x 12, 0.14 line to 18 tosciro, bulk of stotz 8 inches from hook & 11 hollo elastic, 2ft deep.
RIG 4, shallow rig 8-10m, maver 0.30gr jurassic dibber, 0.14 line 18 pr27 hook with a hair lasso on set 2ft deep & double no6 elastic.
Bait was simple 1 bag of tbf 4mm feed pellets, 2 pints red maggots & some 4mm assorted soft expanders.
I had another t/a member nearly20mbob on the next peg 5 so at least the crack would be good!
On the whistle i potted in 1/2 preston pot of 4mm pellets down the 13m edge line and the same of maggots down the 8m edge line. I started on my 6m line out in-front just throwing 6-8 pellets at the float every couple of mins and feeding the same amount at 13m to prime a shallow line.
After 30mins i was very surprised to have not had a bite at all( most uncommon at tunnel ) i went down the edge at 8m on double maggot and missed a bite first put in, the next 2 put-ins produced 2 f1's around 1 1/2lb each were off i thought????????
No more bites on the maggot i went back to the 6m line to see if the fish had turned up?NO
I decided to try the shallow 13m line and 20mins later no bites i was fast running out of ideas as i didn't want to go down my 13m edge line to early. The only consolation i had was that pegs 1,3 & 5 to my right were also struggling with just odd fish being caught.
Struggle was the only way i could describe the sport but after 3 hours the guy on peg 9 shouted over" how many fish you had" i answered 4 he had got 7 and was doing as well as anyonne i could see, the only one catching was stu pulsar on peg 14 but the island was stopping me from seeing him & pete catton on peg 12.
With around 1 1/2 hrs to go i had a run of 6-7 fish at 13m down the edge on pellet before they dried up again and i know it is only the start of april and a cold windy day but it seemed as if the fish are not in full feeding mode yet? I went shallow down to the empty pallet at 14.5m and had 2 fish in 2 put-ins then dry again, going back to 13m on the deck i had odd fish right up to the whistle and finished the day with 22 f1's( no silvers even on maggot? ). Talking to bob in the next peg who had also suffered a bad day with a few fish at 6m and 3/4 fish off the island we both couldn't believe the total lack of bites i had not had a bite at 6m allday. When the scales came stu pulsar was the best with 64lb, the guy to my left had had a run of 10 fish down his edge at 3m and ended up with 37lb. My 22 fish went 32lb 9oz, bob had 22lb, kev had 41lb 0n peg 3 and bob's mate on the end peg 1 had 21lb.
On reflection it was still a cold windy day and maybe i was expecting to much this early in the year as it was july-october before we started fishing here last year, but still had 32lb of fish which we would of been pruod of last month! Stav had had a few stockies off canal pool and had just under 50lb, 83lb won off peg 38 on new pool and 2nd off peg 12 on canal with 74lb both end pegs with the wind blowing in them?