Blythe Pairs League Sunday 22/5/11 Final

This weekend saw us back at Blythe for the final round of our pairs league round 8 of 8 which saw me and Stav lying in second place 5 points behind the league leaders Carl & Chris but a good 12 points in-front of third so barring a total blow out we looked good for second at least, we had a chance of catching the leaders on the last match but my draw arm deserted me and a bad draw saw me lose 3 points to Carl but thanks to Stav beating his man by 3 points we stayed 5 points behind. We were praying for a good draw to try and win the league again as we won it last year it would be great to retain the title! Even though i had drawn myself a bad peg on the last match Stav said i was still drawing as he was catching and winning money off my draw arm so into the bag i went for the last time this league ( until October when it all starts again ), i pulled out Bridge pool again for myself this is the 5th time on the bounce on this pool but i was more than happy with peg 3 as Carl had won the pool off this peg 2 matches ago. I pulled Stav out peg 25 on Cherries which under normal conditions is a good peg as you can reach the boom with 16m of pole but with the strong wind blowing straight down the pool from the cafe end down to peg 22 it would be impossible to hold that length of carbon today. My peg was looking good as the wind was blowing over my right shoulder as Stav and i looked at the peg it seemed one of calmest on the pool, for company i had John Billingham to my right on peg 5 Kev Clarke on peg 10 again which always seems to throw up a few fish but more importantly Chris who i had to beat was on the point peg 7. There is a boom on peg 3 which i could reach with 14.5m of pole and is virtully opposite peg 35 which i had won the pool off previously, that day i caught a lot of fish up in the water as this is the deep end of the pool with 7-8ft of water under the boom and i centered my attack around this as apart from the strong wind the temperature was still good. I also fancied the left-hand margin as there was a good 3 1/2 ft of water down towards a small tree which Carl had caught from when he won the pool off the peg, these were my 2 main attacks with a short 6m line set up for pellet just in-case.
Rig 1, shallow rig, 0.30grDrennan carp 4, 0.16 line to a Preston 16 PR27 , set 18 inches deep and 13 hollo elastic.
Rig 2, the same as above but set 3ft deep both rigs with around 18 inches of line above the float as the swirling was causing the the pole tip to bounce around and pull the rig from the water.
Rig 3, margin rig, 4x12 Preston durra 10 float, 0.18 line to a Tubertini 175 size 3 and black hydro elastic.
Rig 4, 6m pellet line, 4x14 Maver Jona float, 0.18 to a h/l of 0.16 same hook and elastic as above set around 6ft deep.
As usual i came armed to the teeth with all sizes of pellets, 1kg of worm, 4 pints of caster, 4 tins of corn and some 6mm cubed meat.
I stared the match on the shallow rig firing 4mm pellets with a 6mm lassoed pellet on the hair after feed the margin with a mix of chopped worm caster and corn, the 6m line was fed with a pot of 4mm pellets & corn. After around 10mins of pinging pellets at the float i hooked and landed my first carp of the day and a 3lb carp was soon in the bag, around another 10mins went passed before my next fish a 1 1/2lb f1 and although most of the wind was off my back sometimes it would suddenly change direction and i would have to let the pole go or risk a break. I soon changed to feeding 6mm pellets as the 4mm's were getting blown all over the place not that the local ducks were complaining as they were picking off my over-spray from the boom, Talking of the boom the strong wind was moving it away from me when it blew strongly showing all the roots underneath from the weeds, grass and bushes and when the wind subsided a little the boom would swing back towards, after fishing up to the boom for a lot of the match i began to feel sea sick as i would push the pole 1/2m closer towards it to put my rig where the fish tend to patrol and then pull it back as the wind calmed down i was just hoping that the rope tied to a tree at the end of the pool would not snap and leave me without a feature! Back to the match and at the end of the first hour i had 5 fish for around 15lb which was as good as anyone of the 5 of us on the point and the 2 guys i could see opposite so i was happy with the way it was going, my usual 1 hour phone call to Stav revealed that he only got 1 tench on the method up to the boom and the wind was that strong they couldn't hold the pole beyond 5-6m the only good news was that Carl who he had to beat was not catching at this point either. My only advice to Stav was to try a pop-up boilie with a long tail above the feeder as there are always fish up in the water paroling the boom with this the only way to present a stable bait in the wind, the second hour for me went about the same as the first with another 5 fish falling to the shallow rig with 2 of those coming to the deeper shallow rig as i was contently changing the depth to find another fish one of them was a good 8-9lb. JB on the next peg came around the bush that was in-between to spy on what i was doing as he was struggling to catch i asked him how Chris was catching as the same bush was stopping me from seeing him clearly, JB said he was really struggling to get any bites at all this and spurred me on to just keep on what i was doing as although it was hard to hold the pole at 14.m in the wind i knew there were more fish to be had on this line. A quick look on both the short and margin lines produced only 1 skimmer & 2 roach on the worm margin rig so i was soon back shallow, hour three went the same as before and good news came from Stav who had started catching odd fish from down the edge at 14.5m passed peg 24's pallet down to a lily bed this was made better as Carl was still not catching. At the end of the 3rd hour i reckoned on having 15-16 fish with only 3 of them f1's and a rough guess at 50-60lb in the sack with Chris not catching at all, over the next half hour bites started to slow right down with only 1 small carp falling to the deeper shallow rig so another look on my other lines was called for. I went onto the margin rig which i had been topping up with regular pots of worm slop throughout the match and the float buried first drop in, it was a good fish of around 6lb and i was hoping that there would be a few more down there to keep my catch rate up and keep Chris as far away from me as possible, over the next hour i had another 5 carp all in the 4-6lb class and with 30mins left to go i was happy that i was catching well when i hooked a fish that tore off down the lake at a rate of knots before breaking my 0.18 rig. I thought that it was a good foul-hooker so i put another rig on identical to it but next drop in the same happened again i couldn't believe it i hadn't lost a fish all day then 2 in 2 put-ins! Were they foul-hooked or had some of the lake's bigger residents turned up to the party? I looked into my rig draw but couldn't find a rig that i needed as it is a deep edge and all my heavy 0.20 rigs were on short line with big hooks for paste fishing so i had to do what i hate and this is make up a rig on the bank, i went for broke with 0.22 line and a size 4 Tubertini 175 hook as the beasts in this lake go to over 20lb! The next fish i hooked didn't like it and went crazy not wanting to be landed but after around 5mins of hard fighting i netted the best fish of the day 12-13lb ghostie, why do these fish seem to fight mad bulldogs on steroids? With 5mins of the match left to go i had my last fish of the day and at around 10lb the big fish certainly turned up late on down the edge but my main concern was that had Chris caught late on as a few on these margin lumps can take you from no where to right up there in no time at all, i went around the bush and asked JB how Chris had got on and when he replied 1 carp & 3 skimmers i new i had done him by a good few points. A quick call to Stav reviled that he had caught a few form his margin worm line but Carl had caught late on down the edge as well, he thought he had got enough to beat Carl but it was too close to call until they went on the scales. I was first to weigh-in and when JB added them up i had got 104lb 12oz my best weight from the fishery, JB was next with 58lb off peg 12 who had caught all his fish on the deck up to the boom after failing to catch shallow then Chris on peg 7 was next and when he pulled his fish out he was shaking his head knowing that he was going to be close to last on the pool with 7lb 8oz. Kev Clarke was next on peg 10 with 73lb odd and only Dave on peg 12 had got less than Chris with 1 carp and as we weighed the rest of the pool in ever weight over Chris's was giving me another point, by the time we had finished weighing in no one else had got more than me so i had won the pool and no one else had less than 7lb so i had beaten Chris by a masive 12 points. No time for celebration yet as i needed Satv to have got his estimations right on beating Carl, thankfully he had Stav with 53lb for 3rd on the pool and Carl 47lb for 5th beating him by 2 points so added to the 12 i had got we had gained 14 points on them overtaking the 5 point deficit we had before the start of play and winning the league by 9 points, WOHOO we had come for mid table a few matches ago to retain the title we won last year. Bad luck to Carl & Chris who had topped the league from round 1 until the last round better luck next year and well done to Kev Clarke & Tony Bowen for coming 3rd. Thanks to Gail & Dave who kept us feed & watered throughout the league ( espesily Gail's homemade bread pudding after a days fishing goes down great with a cuppa ) and thanks to Carl,JB and Brian for running the league. Another well done for Gail for winning Cherries pool on the day of peg 10 with 84lb. Top 4 on the day were:
BRIDGE POOL CHERRIES POOL
1ST S. West 104lb peg 3 1st Gail 84lb peg 10
2nd K. Clarke 73lb peg 10 2nd P.Durnell 65lb peg 22
3rd C. Owen 68lb peg 3rd Stav 53lb peg 25
4th J. Billingham 58lb peg 5 4th T. Bowen 49lb peg 23
FINAL LEAGUE
1ST ME & STAV 173 POINTS
2ND CARL & CHRIS 164 "
3RD CLARKIE & BOWEN 156 "

Well done to my pairs partner & chauffeur Stavros who turned in a great solid performance through out the league ( he made me say that!) and to all who took part in the league and see you in October when we can start all over again.
Ps. well done to Stav for not crashing the car on the way back as we were listening to the football on the way back on the last day of the season and as my team Wolves were relegated one minute then out of it the next as goals went in elsewhere i was all over the place, i had no nails left but it turned out to be a good day as well as winning the fishing Wolves avoiding relegation Blues were the team relegated along with West Ham & Blackpool, double joy as i could take the mick out of all the blue nose's at work, so i celebrated with 4 cans of Stella. CHEERS.