landend weds

with daytime air temps of between -3c to plus 1c and a water temp of .5c (temps taken by chris fox)which is probably the coldest water i have fished in to my knowledge, it was never going to be easy. the pegs that had been broken out at the weekend had re frozen to over an inch ,and the pegs or parts that hadnt been broken were now nearly 3 inches thick, even dean who was throwing a 30lb breaker about was struggling (the gimp tried to throw but he had trouble just picking it up)and jason radford is probably the worst breaker thrower i have ever seen, he was obviouisly missing his mum to do it for him. i wont slag him off to much as he drew peg 5 for me which is a nice peg , only 13 mtrs to the island, sham,e was i couldnt break the ice past 6mtrs as this is as far as it had been broken in the 2 previous matches, beyond that it was to thick for the normal 8 pounder and i certainly wasnt going to attempt the 30lb big boy. i did manage to break 2 mtrs to my left, even that was 3 inches thick so i had to hurl it over my head just to chip away at it.
one rig again today, a 4x14 with an 18 6313 on .10. at the start i cupped in a few casters at 6 mtrs each side of the gap at 6mtrs and began feeding a couple of maggots to my left every few minutes, i had my first bite after 10 mins and that was a 3oz hybrid on the left hand side of the gap, then a few minutes later i lost a small roach, i went to the right ang had a 6oz perch, then nothing for the next hour, so i switched from feeding caster to maggots on the 6 mtr line and went down the edge on single maggot and i had a bite straight away which resulted in another perch, so i spent the rest of the match between the 6 mtr line and the left hand margin, the margin would produce a small perch or two then i would go out to 6 mtrs where i would sometimes get a bite and sometimes not the inside line was the most productive but due to the clarity of the water you really struggled to string more than a couple of bites together but what i could hear of the bankside chat ,it was fishing as hard as expected so i stuck to the perch ending up wit about 18 but mainly on the small side, but it was enough as they went 5.12 for first
2nd was mat(tyrone)(shrimp head)(harry hill)tomes with 3.12 peg 7
3rd alan oram 2.13 peg 20
4th john bradford 1.10 peg 1
5th chris fox 12 oz peg 3
the rest dnw
mike has got his xmas match this sunday ,and it is going ahead as there is a slight thaw forcast, but if you do go pl;ease make sure you take an ice breaking implement just in case, dont go moaning about ice when you have been warned, also only book in if you are definately going as mike has to go out and buy food and prizes and its a pain in the ass when people let you down, but with a brief mild spell forecast it should be ok