float only rnd 5 sedges, brick and tile lake

a full turnout today so 40 fished and with the rain really thumping down i was suprised no one turned round and left before the draw, the rain was proper heavy and there was loads of flooding locally , as usual tom thick turned up in his shorts but at least he had ditched his trainers in favour of a pair of asds trainers, the only person in flip flops was martin mcmahon but he was only showing off the webbing between his toes.
i was in the last 4 of the k/o today and with the top 3 picking up money i needed a good draw, i let ziggy zowinski draw for me for the first and last time as he handed me peg 28 on tile lake, not the best of pegs , it does have an island chuck but its a big one and 4ssg is needed and you dont need any wind to make it difficult but at the mo it was very still, just someone was throwing buckets of water out of the sky. my opposition in the k/o had drawn well with niel mercer on 21 tile and trigger edmunds and shawn townsend on 8 and 19 respectivaley on brick, so my chances of picking up looked very slim as the draw was going to dictate the result unless my peg was going to give up a red letter day but i wasnt overly confident, so the wag was assembled, plus a meat rig and pellet rig for the pole and a shallow pellet rig just in case, for company in my section i had ziggy on 26(serves him right lol)clint wojtyla on 27, nick collins on 29 and the ever smiling anton page on 30, with nick fishing for silvers i had the island to my self so there may be a slight chance, starting on the wag feeding 8,s as close to the island as in could it soon became aparent the fish werent going to play ball, as at the end of the first hour all i had to show for my thrashing was two small carp and with only a few fish being caught on the wag around the lake it looked as though the rain or something else had switched the normally obliging island carp had decided to have an off day, a quick look on the meat line produced a tiny fouled skimmer and a succesion of missed bites, so i put a big pot in and went out onto the 14mtr line with banded 8, that was just as bad with a couple of 6oz skimmers ending up in the net, this lake normally fizzes over the pellet but but there was no sign of that today , back out on the wag and a couple more small carp,but the wind was now blowing right to left putting a big bow in the line , and i did get a few bites but with the line in a big bow it was impossible to connect as it is very rare for the fih in this lake to pull the tip round and hook themselves, i tried a piece of meat over the 14 mtr pellet line and i had a small carp straight away, sussed it NOT then it was back to the small skimmers nibbleing the corners off the meat, for the last hour i decided to stay on the 5mtr meat line where i had a few more small carp but it all got a bit torrid as i lost 4 more , one came off two broke me one of which on a snag on the inside the other was fouled and just kept going and the other was down to equipment malfunction when the elastic snapped at pulla bung and it shot out of the pole stealing the rig and elastic, but the elastic has been in since early in the year, the really annoying thing is that it was a good fish probaly about 10lb and i had it in the net once as it came in like a bream but managed to find a turbo boost once it had touched the net, and it stole me kit, i weighed 24.2, which was the same as nick collins net of whitebait, anton won the section with 32lb so that carp cost me, it was the worst section of the match with both ziggy and clint not weighing
1st on the day was craig edmunds on 8 with 104.4 which included top silver weight on the day of 39lb, catching on pellet at the start then meat towards the end of the match
2nd niel mercer 86.9 peg 21
3rd shawn townsend 85.9 peg 19
4th martin rich 79.12 peg 40
5th vic bush 74.13 peg 14
6th eric fouracre 72.9 peg 11
silvers by default went to john baker with 37.12 on soft pellet then meat
first 3 in the match were first second and third in the k/o so i think the draw was a bit cruel to me today , but they did well as you still have to catch them when you draw these pegs and they are all capable of doing that.
i,m running an open at landsend next sunday if interested ring me at the shop on 01179517250