Blythe Pairs League Sunday 1/5/11

Hi folks, back to Blythe this weekend for round 7 of our pairs league and if you have read my blog before you will know that me partner Stav have shot back up the league over the last 3 matches from mid table to just a few points behind Carl & Chris who are on the top of the league at the moment. With a good draw we were hoping to try and close the gap from 6 points or even overtake them but it would take a good draw to do so, with a 3rd, 1st and 2nd in the last 3 matches Stav left it up to me to draw again ( if it ain't broke don't fix it! ). On the way up to the draw i felt confident of catching off most of the pegs on bridge pool except peg 33 which has shown nothing off it all league even now when the weights are picking up Paul Durrnel had 10lb off it on the last match which was the best weight off the peg all league! Yes you can guess what happened next out i came with Bridge peg 33 for myself SHIT just when we have got into a good position to attack the leaders i draw the worst peg on the pool Crap, crap, triple crap, i drew Stav peg 22 on Cherries which looks a good peg on the far end of the pool but it is the only peg on the pool that you have no boom to fish to and it has no recent form it also had the strong wind off its back blowing down the pool towards pegs 10 & 32 it was going to take a mammoth task to do anything from this draw. When i got to my peg i sat there looking at the water for inspiration and to be fair the peg doesn't look that bad with the same 2 islands to throw to as peg 29 which i had 50lb off on the last match but from this side of the pool they are over to the left, just to the right at around 16m there are some tree stumps just sticking out of the water and when Stav drew it in the winter he plumbed up all across from the stumps all the way toward the islands and said it was very snaggie which must be all the roots from the trees. I decided to set up 3 pole rigs and the method feeder, one for worm at 13m short of the snags, a short line at 6m for pellet and a margin rig for corn & meat down my left hand edge at 6m just passed a small bay, i was going to fish the method feeder this time up to the islands instead of the lead which i caught on 2 weeks ago because of the strong wind i thought that trying to get loose feed 8mm pellets over there would be very hard.
Rig 1, 13m line 4x14 Maver Jona 0.18 mainline to a 0.16 hook-length and a size 3 Tubertini 175 set on the deck around 5ft deep with 13 Preston hollo elastic.
Rig 2, 6m pellet line the same rig as above but in 4ft of water and 15 hollo elastic.
Rig 3, margin rig 4 x 12 Preston durra 10 float 0.20 line straight through to size 10 Preston pr27 hook in around 3ft of water and 17 hollo elastic.
I was going to fish quite heavy as the fish can run well into double figures here and with very few fish coming off the peg i felt that if i hooked any i needed them to come out! As i was setting up Carl came passed with his tackle and when i asked him where he had drawn he said peg 31 which made me feel worse as its a peg i fancy with a big long bay to itself in a corner, with Carl the man to beat for league points i felt that it would be near impossible with him on that peg. I had brought the usual armory of bait to cover all eventuality's as you need different baits for different pegs, you might need 8mm pellets on one peg for the wagg and lead, g/bait for the method and then you could draw a peg which you can reach the boom with 13m of pole and leave the rods in the bag!
At the start i potted in worm & caster at 13m, 4mm pellets & corn at 6m and corn with a few 8mm cubes of red meat down the edge, i started on the method feeder up to the island to my left as this is as far as you can go on this peg with the gap in-between the islands and the far island belonging to peg 29 on the other side of the pool. Over the first 30mins i had a few casts without success on the method feeder and i wasn't happy with my g/bait as a couple of times the feeder had been in the water for 5mins but most of it was still on the feeder when i reeled in, the g/bait i had got had been in and out of the freezer a couple of times as i said you don't know where you are going to draw until you get there this had been with me a couple of times with being used. I don't know if it was the g/bait or me thinking that i had caught on the lead 2 weeks earlier that made me switch to the lead but i did and 10mins later i had my first pull on the tip which saw me connected to my first carp of the day, i gained around 4-5 turns on the reel to get the fish away from the island but as i did the fish kited right when it all went solid on me the fish had snagged me. After trying to pull the fish out this way and that standing up all to no avail i eventually had to pull for a break in which i lost the lot and had to set up again, with the first hour coming to a close the tip pulled around again and carp no2 had sucked in my 8mm pellet but this time i put the rod to the left of me and just kept cranking until i felt the fish had come over the snags at 16m and a 4lb fish had got me off the mark. A quick call to Stav reveled that he a caught steady from the off up the edge on his corner peg and was doing well on his pool all i needed now was a few more bites and a bit of luck with the snags and we would be ok, Carl had got 2 good but Mark Farley had got 4 the other side of the island on peg 29 the others i could see were pretty quite. I stayed on the lead for the second hour which produced 2 more bites 1 a 3lb'er and the other i pulled out of trying to pull it over the snags, it was time to try my pole lines which i had been topping up from the start first was the worm line at 13m which after a couple of small roach produced a nice 1lb skimmer and i thought a few of those will do. I had a small perch before the bites dried up so after putting some more bait in i tried both my pellet and margin lines without a bite, back on the worm line and i couldn't get another bite on that either the peg was going from bad to worse 3 hours into the match and i had got around 8lb. Back on the lead and that was the same bite-less i was now fearing the worst and i was finding out why it has been the worst peg on the pool all winter, it was now May 1st but still there are not a lot of carp on the peg but it was the lack of silvers that i couldn't get my head around most of the other pegs you can do a decent weight of silvers off if there are no carp showing but this peg for some reason seems to lack both! The matches i can recall from memory on the peg in this league are ounces, 4lb 1 carp, dry, 2lb 1 chub, Satv had 7lb of it 1 carp + bits, 9lb 1 carp & 2 bits and 10lb 3 carp as you can see the peg has been of fire this series??? I was getting desperate but despite trying all the tricks i knew i remained bite-less until the last 20mins when i hooked a fish on a piece of red meat from the margin where i had decided to fish for the last 40mins as this offered the best chance of hooking a fish at this time of day, the fish tore off at a rate of knots across the pool towards peg 7 on the point pulling loads of 17 hollo elastic with it, then the carp carried on swimming with my rig attached CRAP it had broken my 0.20 line! Whether it was a big fish or foul hooked or both it had broke me and i had to get over it as i was fast running time, i attached another rig plumbed up again put on another 8mm cube of red meat and re-fed the line with a kinder pot of meat & corn. 5mins later i hooked and landed a fish of around 10lb i was now getting some line bites as there seemed to be a few fish down there now but i was running out of time, with only 5mins of the match left i managed a small 2lb carp then next put in hooked another fish and while i was playing it the whistle sounded. Around 2mins after the all-out i was still playing the fish which felt like another good fish but as i was just about to land it when the hook pulled out SHIT! What a day i had hooked 8 carp and only managed to land 4 i was not a happy bunny ranting and raving at myself for losing that last fish, the fish had come late down the edge but i had managed to loose 2 big lumps B******S. After i had calmed down a bit i went and followed the weigh-in Kev Clarke the best on peg 10 with Baz Robson winning the pool off peg 23 with 71lb falling to the method feeder, Mark Farley 2nd off peg 29 with 58lb, the next peg 31 was the most important as i new Carl had got more than me but by how many places was what i was worried about. Carl had 31lb for 4th on the pool and my fish went 20lb 13oz for half way on the pool 7th, that meant he had gained 3 points on me so now it was all resting on Stav to beat his partner which was Carl's dad for today as his regular partner Chris was on holiday. Stav had done brilliant off an out of form peg to end up 2nd on the pool with 65lb behind Martin Yardsley who won the lake and the overall match off peg 10 with 91lb and the best weight of the league so far so well done to him, but more importantly Stav had beat Carl's dad by the same 3 points i had lost to Carl so we were the same points adrift as we were at the start of the day so nothing gained but nothing lost. On reflection the match could have gone a lot worse for me on the worst peg on the pool but when either of the fish i lost could have got me 2 more points, at least i had got the privilege of having the best weight of the series so far off the peg, well done to Stav for putting in a great performance and keeping us in contention for the last round.