rat holes at witherington farm

every year the tackle dealers from the southwest and the reps from various companies get together for a match and general chat about the trade, well that didnt take long, i had the longest chat with mark from KAC about the benefits of cctv as it can make very interesting viewing of low lifes who think its there god given rights to shoplift, and its quite often people you wouldnt think it of.
well into the draw bowl and out comes 66 on the inner triangle and i was told by various locals that this was not a good draw as you cant clear the far bank as its an island with no access, whereas the outer triangle can come onto our bank and clear there far side as did lee woodhouse and mike (buzzer)bernstien behind me, both are fairly local and they both told me i was one 2 pegs off a flier and with a local sat there it was going to be tough.
at my peg i set up a margin rig on .14 for each side for corn to my right and various baits over dead maggots to my left, a meat rig for 5mtrs in front and 2 pellet rigs for over ,one for up against the far side foliage and one down the shelf.
at the start i fed mags and corn each side some 6mm meat at 5mtrs and decided to feed with a cup to the far side to try and keep the fish out of the foliage , looking at the local to my left and he was getting out a loaf of bread and proceeded to ship half a slice to the far side(well it was a big piece)and had a carp first put, well no noe told me about bread being the bait, i went across with some 4mm in a pot and a 6mm on the hook, i also fired a few onto the down the shelf line. the first hour was a bit slow with only a big f1 and a golden coloured carp of about 2lb and the bites had now stopped so i came back down the shelf and started firing some 4,s to the far side to see if i could get some activity, i began getting bites off skimmers on hard 6mm with them averaging about 8oz they were worth catching, i came back over the meat line and had skimmers there aswell, by now there were carp moving about under the grasses and branches on the island just where they think you cant reach them, by now my neighbour was well ahead but with the carp being on the small side it wouldnt take much to catch up, with this being only a 5 hour affair it tends to go really fast , so before you realise you only have 2 hours left and not a lot in the net ,i had tried my margins but only had a small perch over the maggot line, with fish showing on the far bank i only had one option and that was to cut the line above the float to 3 inches and poke the rig right in there, i was suprised as to how far back i could push the pole from using 13 mtrs to get to the edge of the foliage i could push the pole to 14mtrs before the tip hit the far bank, so i had to push it right in under water the pull it back a bit until i could see the float and it worked as i was getting bites, thing was though it was a no no to strike as all you did was hit obstructions above the pole tip, all you could do was throw the pole back in an effort to set the hook, thing is a lot of the bites were liners resulting in foulers as you were dragging the rig acdoss there backs but i was catching enough to claw it back against my neighbour, the last 90 mins were my best and i did manage a six pounder down the edge just before the end and i thought it was close between me and the angler on 68 for the section in the end my net net went 42.8 to win the section by 9lb.
vic bush was top on the day with 48.7 on peg 74 using worm and having a double figure fish certainly helped in a tight match
tom thick on 78 was second with 45.6 on corn
3rd nick collins 43.12
4th d baker 43.2
5th t rixon 42.8
6th j farrant 41lb
silvers went to steve mayo with 20.12 of caster caught fish on peg 62