Hi folks, the big day had finally come and after a team meeting the night before in the club ( poor excuse for larger drinking ) we had decided to fish the method for the first hour after feeding the pole lines so we could assess what was happening in our sections. As me and stav looked out of the cafe window after a good breakie at the constant rain pouring down we soon realized that for once the weatherman had got it right and it was set in for the whole day making it feel like march not and may. After the hour+ drive up the m54 50 odd miles we arrived at spring lea with plenty of time for the 11am draw, once the draw had been made and info had been swapped between people we made our way to our pegs. I had drawn peg 8 on mallard pool with the other pegs in my section
2 & 5, now peg 2 is an end peg with peg 1 out and lots of room around to peg 48 that looked very good as it was calm and out of the cold wind ( is this may? i wished i had put my thermals on ). And on peg 5 for company i had local man Ken Humpries form the Morgan's team who was our contact for the match and the main match organizer for the day. After sitting down on my peg and a few words with ken i had decided to attack the peg with 4 rigs and a method feeder. As you will see from the photo there was an aerator which i could reach with 14.5m so i set about getting some rigs on.
Rig 1, 4 x14 j8-range float for pellet at 13m at 1 o'clock away from the aerator 0.14 to 16 toscrio hook & 13 hollo elastic in around 6ft of water.
Rig 2 , 0.30gr maver Jurassic dibber for shallow work by the aerator 0.14 to a 16 pr27 hook with a lasso set at 18" deep & 13 hollo elastic.
Rig 3 , 4 x 14 maver jona float for 6m with meat 0.16 line to a 3 tubertini 175 in 4 1/2 ft water & black hydro elastic.
Rig 4, 4 x 12 preston durra 10 float for under the next pallet at 10m to my right with the same line & hook as above in around 2ft of water.
Bait for the day was a bag each of fishery micro & 4mm feed pellets, 2 tins of corn, 2 tins of 6mm chopped meat & 2 pints of casters and 1 kilo of mixed g/bait ( baitech voodoo), i also had various hook baits for the method 6 & 8mm pellets and some dead red maggots. It seemed like a lot of bait for a cold day like today, i never expected to use most of it but as it was a team match i would rather take it back home than run out.
On the whistle i fed 1/2 pot of micros with a few 4mm's on my 13m line, 1/2 pot of meat at 6m and 2 pots of caster & corn down the edge to the next pellet peg 7 ( i had no left-hand edge as the rope from the aerator was stopping me from fishing that side).
I under-armed the method to the aerator sat back and awaited the action? after around 10 mins i looked up and the guy on peg 2 was landing a carp, another 5 mins later and ken on peg 5 was now landing a carp. Great i was the only one in my section without a fish, the first hour passed by despite ringing the hook bait changes and throwing the feeder passed the aerator i couldn't by a bite but at least the other 2 in my section had not added to there tally. Out i went with the 13m rig and put a few micros & 4mm pellets in the pot & a 4mm expander on the hook after 20 bite-less mins on that and ken the same result on the pole it looked like being another very hard day. Try as i could i couldn't get a bite on any of my pole lines 13m,6m margin pellet, corn, meat and caster all drew a blank i was now getting very worried as the guy on peg 2 had another fish and we with 2 hours of the match gone i was blank. I was debating as to get a silver rig out just to get a bite because we had decide that on mallard there was a distinct lack of silvers but on horseshoe lake there were a few skimmers you could go for if the carp didn't play ball. Stav on the other side of the lake was having odd carp on method and pole as it seemed there were a few fish on the otherside of the aerator as now and then the odd fish was topping. There was a few fish topping in our section before the start of the match but since we had started there was no sign and ken had started on a shallow rig for the first 10 mins without a sign. I decided to have a look shallow at 14.5m by the aerator and after around 5 mins pinging 3-4 4mm pellets and a 6mm on the hook i hooked my first fish, after a brief scrap i landed a 4lb carp ( hallelujah ). The celebrations were short lived as 1/2 hour later i had not had another bite, back on the pole i went to my 6m line where i had been throwing 3-4 pieces of meat every now and then from the start and i missed a bite first drop in SHIT. Next drop the float sailed away and my black hydro was screaming towards the rope i didn't add any panic sections as this would only made matters worse, i just held on and placed the top kit under the water. The fish surfaced 3m passed the rope so i applied a bit of side-strain, after a 4-5 min battle i was looking at a nice 8-9lb mirror. Had the fish finally turned up on the meat line NO, I managed 1 more fish on the method a 2lb'er and that was it ken had got 4 the last one landed 30 seconds before the all out but i hadn't seen the guy on peg 2 have any more fish. When the scales came peg 2 had 8lb and when ken,s 4 carp went 11lb odd i was hoping that the lump i had had on the meat was as big a i first thought, when the scales went 14lb 12oz i had done enough to win my 3 man section! ( is this a commercial fishery in may?). In the next section our guy tony was last with 8lb and 14lb winning his section after losing 5 foul-hookers in the last half hour! The third section saw baz come second by 3lb with 31lb to 34lb but the main threat the morgan's guy last. Section 4 saw ritchie second behind the morgan's bloke who won the pool with 52lb and the top two weights had come from to two end pegs where the wind was blowing into them both on the method feeder throwing up the long edges where there is no pegs ( farthest away from my end as possible? ). Section 5 saw stav winning his section with 31lb infront of ken's son with 21lb. The last section to weigh in on our pool was the section opposite mine which kev won with 10 carp for 9lb and the morgan's guy on 8lb and 9oz on the peg in-between them? With a quick mental tot up of the points we were winning the tie by 1 point with us on 10 and morgan's on 11 so it was down to the last 2 sections on horseshoe pool! With john coming second to the morgan's lad on point peg 19 29lb to 27lb it was down to the last section as we were level on points and section wins 3 each? Ollie had suffered in the last section coming last with 10 or 11lb and the morgan's guy on peg 6 winning the section with 47lb, Ollie's was the peg i fished a couple of weeks ago peg 13 when the fish came the last hour down the edge under a tree but with the week leading up to the match being cold and heavy rain the fish never turned up, i didn't see any fish come form the margins on the day ( so don't blame yourself mate the fish weren't there ). That was it we had lost the tie by 2 points.
We went to the pub for a consolation pint after the match and all said we would have another go next year, we were a bit unhappy at going out at this stage as the semi-final and the final are very local to us morlands and tunnel barn and we felt that we might have had a good chance but lady luck was not on our side on the day and a couple of foul-hooked carp that were lost and a couple that were landed was all the difference it took. It was always going to be hard to knock a local team out on there local fishery when most of us had never heard of the place before let alone fish it.
MORGAN'S 13 POINTS
HALESOWEN 15 POINTS
COCK & MAGGPIE 20 POINTS
Well done to the Moragan's side and good luck in the semi's at Moorlands.
Many thanks to Ken for organizing the the tie, talking pools money, sorting the pegs out and so on Cheers mate.
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