Manor Farm Open Thursday 23/9/10 Island Pool

Day 4 of our fishing week took us to the Thursday Affordable at Manor Farm, today's match was to be on Island pool and with 12 turning up we would have lot of room as Dave put 3 anglers on each bank. I drew out peg 32 & Stav got peg 8 for company on peg 34 i had Barry Robson who had also had the same week off as us, a quick look at the weight sheet from the open the day before reveled that our two pegs in the 30's had not weighed in! Great i hope the fish no how to use those fins of there's and swim up here! About 3 weeks ago i got battered off peg 33 while i was sat on peg 34 by a guy that caught on the method feeder but he didn't throw it too tight to the island, he also had a few fish by casting 2/3's of the way across over where he was firing some 6mm pellets with this in mind i set up a plan of attack. I set up a method rod, a pellet feeder rod & 2 pole rigs 1 for on the deck at 6m and a shallow rig for 13-14m.
Rig 1, a 13ft method rod 8lb maxima, Preston 30gr method elasticated with black hydro, 16 pr27 0.20 H/L.
Rig 2, a 11ft feeder rod 8lb maxima, Guru 24gr inline pellet feeder, 16 pr27 with a lasso 0.20 H/L for a 6mm pellet.
Rig 3, a 4x14 Maver Jona 0.16 line to a size 3 Tubertini 175 for the 6m line in around 6ft of water.
Rig 4, a 0.30gr Maver Jurassic dibber, 0.14 line to a 18 pr27 with a lasso for the shallow line, i set the depth around 18" but had around 4ft of line above the float to vary the depth plus keep the pole tip off the water.
For bait i had brought lots of different pellets from micro's for the pellet feeder, 4mm's for the shallow line, 6mm's for firing around the pellet feeder 2/3rd's of the way over, i had also got corn, meat, dead maggots & expanders for the hook, ground bait for the method feeder was green swimstim.
On the whistle i put a pot of 4mm pellets & a few grains of corn on the 6m line and cast the method to where i had clipped up around 1m short of the island, Bash had clipped up tight to the island so if they were in the shallower water i would soon see we both sat back and awaited the action. The guy on peg 36 was the first to see action fishing the pole line at around 6-8m after around 10mins, with around 30mins gone he had got 5-6 fish while me & Bash hadn't had a bite yet. Bash was the first to have a carp off the island then after around 45mins i had my first bite on the method a 2lb f1, i stuck to the method for the first 1 1/2 with only 2 fish to show for my efforts Bash had got 3 but the guy on peg 36 had slowed up a bit after his earlier flurry with around 8 fish. I was at a loss for a reason why we weren't catching on the island when we had lots of room to go at? I changed to the pellet feeder at around 30m where the island is around 40-45m away i had been firing a few 6mm pellets in while fishing the method, i packed the feeder with damp micro's & a 6mm pellet on the hook cast out and had 2 f1's in two casts. Just when i thought i had sussed it the bites dried up with only 1 more f1 in the next 30mins, with over 2 hours of the match gone i was going nowhere fast Bash had a couple of fish on the 6m line so it was time to try that. I had 2 fish on the 6m pole line and with half the match gone i had got 7 fish both me and Bash were struggling to come up with reason why we weren't catching as we could see pegs 4,6 & 8 catching, the guy on peg 4 had been catching shallow from the off but he had got some ripple on the water where as the wind was coming off our backs making our pegs dead flat. I had a go shallow and while not setting the world on fire i started to put the odd f1 in the net, i couldn't believe the amount of fizz i was getting on the shallow line i was firing 4mm pellets over the top and slapping the rig in the peg was a mass of bubbles! I tried all-sorts of tricks to try and up my catch rate but it seemed as i was only going to have a fish when they felt like it, i did have a look back on all my other lines but only managed 1 small 1lb tench on the 6m line so i just fished shallow for the remainder of the match. The fizzing on the shallow line was mental when i tried another line and stopped feeding the fizz died down but within 2-3 catty's of 4-5 pellets it would be a mass of bubbles again! When the whistle went i had ended up with 20 f1's & that 1 tench Bash had fared even worse than me, we had both been battered by the guy on peg 36 so we went around to ask how he had caught he said all he fishes here is paste at this time of the year. It had worked for him today not breaking any records but enough to win our 3 peg section ( yes we were in 4 x 3 peg sections with nothing overall for winning overall it is only the affordable after all). My fish went 46lb 2oz, Bash 27lb & paste man won our section with 61lb. Stav came around saying he had come last in his section with 58lb, French guy ( who we had me at Woodlands on Tuesday) on the next peg having 65lb & the guy on peg 4 catching shallow all day had 97lb which was the best weight of the day. The younger of the 2 French guys won his section with 91lb in the teens & the 20's section was won with 78lb on the feeder so our section had been the worst of the day! as i said earlier they didn't bother weighing on the pegs the day before so think there just isn't enough fish there at the moment. On reflection i should have gone shallow earlier and also set up a rig to fish the deck on the same line? I was 15lb off winning the section and worst of all 12lb off being beaten by Stav? Stav had pulled 1 back in our fishing week so it was now 2-1 to me so we would have a decider on our next match double or quits on the £1 side bets. It looks like when you have a lot of room you can catch more on the pole line than when you put 20+ on the pool forcing the fish out to the island?