Blythe Pairs League Sunday 27/2/11

Back to Blythe this weekend for round 3 of our pairs league at Blythe waters on bridge & cherries pools i was hoping for a good draw as we were around half way in the league after the first 2 matches and needed to start climbing the table. I drew peg 21 on Bridge at the wrong end of the pool for catching carp as most of them had been caught at the deeper end before Christmas, Stav had been on this peg on the first round and had 10lb of silvers on the short line which left him in the top 5 on the pool on the day so that was to be the main plan of attack as a top 5 finish would be a good result off this peg today. I set up 3 pole rigs and a maggot feeder to throw at the island which is 25m away but very shallow and very snaggie if you cast too close.
Rig 1, 14.5m pellet line a 4x14 j-8 range float, 0.14 mainline to 0.12 h/length and a 18 808 hook,11 hollo elastic.
Rig 2, 6m pinkie & maggot line a 0.30gr inter 9 float 0.10 straight through to a 20 gamma black hook, double 5 elastic.
Rig 3, 4x12 KC caster float 0.10 straight through to a 18 gamma black hook, double 5 elastic.
The feeder rig was a simple running rig with a small Drennan carp feeder with a 18 b611 hook to 0.14 line & 4lb maxima mainline.
Bait was 1 pint of fluro pinkies, 1 pint of red & white maggots, some micro pellets & 4mm hooker pellets, with half a tin of corn ( team tin me & Stav share).
At the start i put in a few micros & 3 grains of corn on the 14.5m line and feed a 1/4 of a pot of pinkies on the short line, i started the match on the feeder cast around 2m short of the island in hope of a rouge carp. After 30 mins on the feeder without a bite i had a look on the pellet line with 3 crayfish and 3 0z skimmer in half hour it was time to go for silvers. I started off on the deck at 6m and began to catch small roach in the 1-3oz bracket quite regular, i was using a small fruit shoot pot to feed 8-10 pinkies at a time and although the fish were small at least i was catching. Ade to my right had a carp of around 3lb in the first half hour but had got nothing to go with it, Ollie opposite on peg16 was struggling so was the guy on peg18 so it was a case of getting my head down and catch as many silvers as possible while keeping an eye out on the others to see if the carp began to feed. Around an hour after going for silvers i started to feed maggots by hand a little shorter to try and speed things up a bit, by dropping a section off and fishing at 4m it was quicker than using the pot. I had a few fish up in the water and even had a couple off 5-6 ounce roach but had to work hard to keep in touch with the fish, the shape of the pool stops you from seeing most of the other anglers but of the 4 i could see no one was catching anything of note. Ollie had 1 carp off the island half way through the match on maggot feeder that looked around 4lb which was ok as long as he didn't have any more, with around 1 1/2 hours to go Brian Smith on peg 10 had a small carp and a couple of 1 1/2lb skimmers over the next half hour. Into the last hour and Brian had another good skimmer and i was getting worried that he was going to overtake me so i had a decision to make to stick with the silvers or try to catch a carp?, with half hour to go i decided to chuck the maggot feeder back out for the last half hour towards the island as this is normally the best time of day during the winter to hook one. I had 1 roach on the feeder but no pull round from a carp so that was it silvers only but at least i had beat the 3 anglers around me, Ollie was the first to weigh-in and had 6lb odd with his 1 carp and a few bits on the pole late on 16m to a small island to his right. Peg 18 had 1lb odd and Ade on peg23 had another 6lb odd with his 1 carp + bits, my silver bag went 9lb 8oz which i was quite happy with, but as i walked around the pool it was clear that more carp had been caught at the deeper end Barry on peg 29 had 6-7 f1's for 16lb and second on the pool, corner peg 31 had 3 carp for 12lb and 3rd. Kev Clarke on peg 11 won the pool with 23lb thanks to a 10lb+ lump in the last half hour, and as Brian pulled his net out i could see that it was going to be close to my weight CRAP the scales pulled down to 9lb 12oz putting him 4th on the pool and me 5th out of the 14 fishing. I was kicking myself later as going onto the feeder for the last half hour had cost me around a pound of silvers and another point, Stav gave me a telling off later for coming off feeding fish and i tried to fend him off by saying that had the tip pulled round with a 3-4lb carp it would have put me 3rd and a hero! I knew i had dropped a clanger and a point might be costly at the end of the league. Carl had destroyed Cheeries pool with 61lb off corner peg 32, Stav had come 2nd with 34lb off peg 10 (flier) mainly on the method chucked up to the boom. We were now around 6th in the league due to my first 2 crap performances? ( sorry Stav i'm crap).