Woodlands View Open Sunday 26/9/10

This was the last day of our fishing week as Stav had to do an errand on Friday and then went back to Manor Farm on Saturday with Bash to fish a series match they fish every 3-4 weeks ( they both blew out again & Bash blew his rod up? ) so this was our last day before we went back to work. The only thing that was worrying us and everyone that was fishing was the sudden turn in the weather, Tuesday & Wednesday saw 18-20 C then on Friday night the mercury had dropped to nearly a ground frost then Saturday the same the wind had changed direction and was cold. As we stood outside the cafe at Woodlands Chris Robson said something that would soon become very apparent during the day " if you don't draw with the wind off your back you will be knackered!". There was 20 guy's out today and the match was to be held on both Dean's pool's so Mike Mason put 5 pegs on each bank which would be your section, into the draw box and out popped peg 4 on front Deans then Stav drew peg 7 the next peg in so at least we were together for our decider on the fishing week. When we drove up to the pool and got the tackle out i started to get a bad feeling as the cold wind was blowing diagonally across the pool from corner peg 21 straight into my face. I set up just 3 pole rigs one for 6m, one at 13m and a margin rig, the wind was a bit to strong for fishing shallow so it was a deck job in the cold wind, i will not bore you with the details of the rigs as they are all broke and failed to go under. To cut a long storey short after an hour i had foul-hooked a 4lb carp on my 6m line and couldn't get a bite on any of my lines, i walked over to Stav to see what he had got and he said 2 f1's there was not a lot being caught from what i could see just a few bits & odd carp on the opposite bank. Another hour passed with only 1 skimmer on the 13m line to add to my lonely carp, the younger of the French guy's was opposite me with around 4 carp and Paul Sibbo on corner peg 33 was having only odd bits it was hard going. Stav had 1 carp to go with his 2 f1's and it was bloody cold with me wearing a tee-shirt, jumper and my windproof fleece on what change from in the week my eyes were streaming so was my nose and i haven't got a cold. This was no good as i couldn't raise a bite on any of my lines so i decided to go to the car and get my gun sling out, i could see the odd fish rising on the other side of the pool where the cold wind wasn't hitting the water so i set up the pellet cone. I threw out the cone to the middle of the lake and on only the 2nd chuck the tip went round and a 6lb carp was in the net, 10mins later and carp no2 was in the net by the time carp no3 went in the onion sack Sibbo on the other side shouted over " i bet you wished you've have set that up earlier". With 1 hour left i had got 7 carp and was looking for a few to end up with when my bites dried up, 2 of the carp i had got out on the cone were foul-hooked then in the last hour i only had 3 bites which 2 were foul-hooked and came off landing 1 last carp with 2mins from the whistle while Matt who had come to weigh us in was standing behind me. I said to Matt that you wouldn't believe that it was the same month let alone the same week as we fished here Tuesday with a tee-shirt on now it felt like November. My carp went 46lb 12oz then Stav put 41lb odd on the scales then a 63&73lb as you went up the pool away from the wind the weights got better, the French guy opposite me had 36lb and Sibbo tipped around 20lb back in the corner. We heard there were 3 80lb+ weights on back Deans with the high bank from stock pools hay & barley protecting them from the wind.
The week had started off well on Ghost pool & Wyatts pool then the brown stuff hit the fan on Thursday & today all i want is a hot bath to warm me bones, at least i had the consolation of beating Stav 3-1 so he had to cough up £2. Never mind back to work in the morning!