C.I.U Teams of 5 Larford sat 11/9/10 speci lake

I had booked the day off work for this annual event the C.I.U teams of 5 which my club Cradley Heath Labour have fished for years many different venues like the Severn, Trent, Poole hall, Blodings pools but for the last few years has been at Woodlands view. We have had some good success on this match over the years winning it a few times and producing the winner on more than one occasion. The main thing we have found out over the years fishing this event is the the organization is next to none they send one bloke normally who couldn't run a piss up in a brewery, that's why over the last few years the event has been held at Woodlands because Mike Mason has done all the hard work for them. To repay Mike for all his hard work weighing in, sorting the draw out & working the results out this year they have canceled Woodlands and moved it to Larford? Now don't get me wrong i like Larford but if they think that Phil Briscoe will do all the pegging and sorting the results out at the end they are living in cook-oo land. Stav had gone away on holiday so i was traveling with an old mate Kev Clarke and when we got there we soon found out how downhill this event has gone, 8 teams had booked in for the event and one of them didn't bother to turn up leaving 7 teams of 5. When we first had this event at Woodlands i can remember having 5 pools booked with 1 person from each team on a pool and that was your section, we were worried that the pegging on Ghost pool would be tight as every peg was in that's 20 pegs so we had 20 teams now down to 7? It might have something to to with the organization??? Yes true to form they had sent 1 old guy to run the match that hadn't got a scooby?. I did our team draw then we drew our own pegs out of the envelope i ended up with peg 16 in the middle of the lake on the burr side. I thought that our team draw was good as we were on the last peg in every section supposedly giving us 2 end pegs 1 on the burr & 1 on the chalet bank?? wrong, the C.I.U had struck again Steve Robson should have been on end peg but they had put Chris Owen on the next peg to him but all the rest of the section was on the opposite bank? Kev who i had traveled with had drawn end peg 82 and with the wind blowing into it i told him that i thought he would win the match off his peg, our other 2 pegs were Bash on 50 odd and Mark Farley on 70 odd ( the exact peg numbers escape me). When i got to my peg i found out that Big Ritchie was next to me on 17 fishing for one of our other teams ( we had 3 of the 7 teams fishing and Beach-dale from Walsall had 2 teams?). I had spoke to a couple of mates Dan & Ian who had fished the festival down here for advise and set up the following kit, the pellet wagg, straight lead and the pole at 6m. Most of the fish had been coming to the lead & pellet with a few on the pole for some reason the pellet wagg was not catching many fish, i set up 2 pole rigs both 1 gram 0.18 & 0.20 respectively 1 with a size 3 175 & a 4 175 if the were having it in around 7 feet of water. For bait i had got 2 bags of Larford 8mm pellets for the lead & wagg line, a jar of hemp and 5 tins of 8mm cubed meat for the pole line, i had also got some super g groundbait & dead reds for the method if it all went tit's up!
On the whistle i put a big pot each of hemp & meat on the 6m pole line then threw out my 1oz fox lead with a 8mm lassoed pellet to around 30-35m and started to fire 8mm pellets over the top. Ritchie on the next peg started on the lead the same and had 6-7lb carp first chuck? I had to wait 20 mins for my first fish a 5lb job, after the first hour i had got 4 fish and Ritchie was on 3 i potted some more hemp & meat on the pole line and thought that we were doing as well as anyone i could see. Over the next 30mins i couldn't get a bite yet Ritchie had 2 putting him back in the lead 4-5, i had 2 more in the next 30 mins without response from Ritchie so i was back in-front 6-5. I had the next 30mins on the pellet wagg changing depths from 12" to 4ft but it was all to no avail as i hooked only 1 fish which came off after 5 seconds, we were now at the half way point in the match and the word on the bank was that it was not fishing too good. I thought to myself that i would have another go on the lead before i tried the pole as people around me were fishing the the pole but only catching the odd skimmer & no carp. I went back on the lead and had 3 fish in the next hour putting me on 9 fish and losing 1 in the process, luckily Ritchie had stopped catching but there was the odd carp now being caught on the pole now. With 1 hour 10 mins to go i had got 10 carp & 4 skimmers but there was still the odd fish coming to the guy's on the pole so i decided to give it a go for 10 mins, but if i didn't get a bite i would have the last hour on the lead. I had feed the pole line all match with pots of hemp & corn so i put a 8mm cube of meat on and shipped out, i was just about to go back on the lead with the 10 mins up and only 2 skimmers to show for it when i hit a bite that i knew wasn't a skimmer. I soon had a 6-7lb fish in the net on the 0.18 rig & 15 hollo elastic so it made me stay on the pole a bit longer, another 10 mins went by before the next bite which was a 10lb fish. The next fish i hooked made a b-line for Ritchie in the next peg ripping loads of laccy out and soon had me adding a couple of panic sections, despite me putting the pole under the water in an attempt to slow the fish down we soon parted company the fish and broke me! Out came the 0.20 rig & 17 hollo i had 2 more fish on this rig one being around 10lb then i hooked a fish with around 5 mins left to go that pulled loads of laccy out again i just held the pole under the water and prayed! The all out was sounded but i was still playing the fish, some 5 mins after the whistle and i had got the fish to the net twice but he didn't like the look of it and the hook pulled SHIT! I would have put the fish at 15-16lb and turbo charged. God i hate losing fish! At the all out i had got 14 carp & around 6 small skimmers which i was happy with as i felt that i had got more than the guys around me and that will do for me on a team match. When the scales came up from the bottom end of the burr Chris Owen on the end peg had 67lb but my team mate Steve Robson had suffered a battering on the next peg with 30lb odd but as i said earlier Chris was not in Steves section as the rest of his section was on the chalet bank opposite ( blind pegging). There was a couple of 5olb+ weights in Steve's section ending with Ritchie who had 48lb so Steve was well down in his section, I put my fish on the scales for 88lb 6oz and i went off for a walk up the section to see how the rest had got on. There was a 49lb & 52lb on the next two pegs up then the weights got worse as they got higher up the pool, so i had won the section with 35lb+ to spare and i was well pleased to win my section for the team, Job Done! all we could do was hope that the lads on the other side had got on ok. When we got back to the cafe to sort the results out i was told that i had won the match as 70lb was the best weight off the chalet bank, Result, but this is a team match and there is nothing for individual only a team payout. Kev had won his section with 46lb, Mark has suffered a bit in the middle section with 27lb and Bash had done well in his section with 48lb, it looked like it was going to be tight as all the teams had good and bad results. After a lot of working out we won the team event after tying on points with one of our other teams and tying on section wins so we had to go back to weight overall we had 244lb the others 213lb. A good day was had by all despite the low turnout and the lack of organization from the C.I.U , I was well happy with the way i had fished it ( despite losing that lump and costing me the ton!) and the team win was great. I might have an extra stella tonight to celebrate?