pier fishing at landsend

with us having the driest 6 months since 1929 this is a venue which is in desperate need of some serious rain. its normally filled up from the numerous springs which run in from the surrounding hills but they have run dry , as they seem every year now probably due to the water companies abstracting from source, what makes it worse is the fact they are foriegn owned. and when i drew peg one it looked as though i was going to need a drop net not a landing net as the platform was a good 4 foot above the water,i set up a rig for the island to the right for banded pellet in 1 foot of water, a pellet rig for the left hand margin against the trees, a shallow stalking rig and a hard pellet rig for 5 mtrs on the deck, with the bushes sucking the water up as well and growing at a rate of knots i could only see a large north bristol brickie opposite on 24 (he was supposed to be in work so i cant say his name)and ed wynne(who would love to be in work) on 22.
starting out stalking only produced a couple of rudd which i managed to shake off and 1 lost carp , not a promising start and with ed taking 3 or 4 fish quickly i was already behind as far as i could see.i had been feeding to the left and the island with 6,s so out to the left but apart from a couple of liners and a try with the shallow rig which produced no bite at all it was the island for me, with a few swirls and tails showing i soon had 2 carp in the net ,then i had a bit of a wobbly moment, why are all fisheries right hand friendly, there was abig bush behind me to my right which i kept getting my net handle caught up in making putting fish in the net difficult, so i decided to move the keepnet to the other end of the bar to give myself a different angle with the net handle, and yep i dropped the net and it sank, so a bit of panic sets in as i couldnt get it with the landing niet as it was 4 foot deep so off the box to get the weed cutter and walked into my top set which snapped, but i did get the net back and the 2 carp were still in there.
with the water levels so low the carp were hard to get in the mouth and everyone was suffering foulers on the islands, as i,ve said before these landsend fish a cagey fish as they have been in there for a long time and have seen it all , they are not to keen to take a static bait against the island, but will take a falling bait, but with 18 inches of water missing there wasnt enough time for a fish to take it before it hits the bottom, and they wont take it shallow, and if you dont feed or cut the feed right back or stop the fish dont even come in to the swim, but by switching between the left hand margin and the island i ended the match with 15 carp and 2 tench for about 50 lb.
i was first to weigh and put 59.2 on the scales which was top until we got to
mat(the shrimp)tomes on peg 10 who had 16 fish for 89.14 on 8mm banded pellet at 8mtrs and that ended up top on the day.
2nd stu foale(he beat me so you are named and shamed)with 60.7 peg 24 with most of his fish taken on meat at 6 mtrs
3rd me 59.2 peg 1
4th phil(fabio)harding 57.1 peg 15
5th mike west 49.4 peg 19(i excpect the carp were glad of the rest)
6th andy bryant 45.7 peg 5
silvers went to the gimp john bradford with 18.8 on peg 21 on caster