chilton trinty, open match woodland lake

21 booked in which is a nice number on this lake but with one no show due to being an oversleeper we went down to 20, which is still ok.
jason radford pulled out 2 tickets stuck together so i took the one stuck out and ended up on peg 9 which is just about in the middle of the far bank, i would have liked to have had an empty peg on at least one side to give me more chance of catching down the edge, but it wasnt to be as i had alan oram on my left on 10 and martin rich on my right on 8 , so with the water being a bit clear i didnt expect to catch down the edge, and thats what happened as i missed a bite but it looked like a liner any way so i wont mention the margins again, my othe r rig as i only set up one as it was the same depth wherever i fished, so i decided on 3 areas , one at 5mtrs where i would feed only caster, then 13 and 16 mtrs out in front where i was going to feed a mixture of 2 3 and 4mm softened pellets, my rig was a 4x18 float with a 18 middy 6313 hook on.12 on the end, starting at 13 mtrs i had to wait 15 mins for my first bite which resulted in an 8lb mirror gracing the net, followed by a 7lb fish about 30 mins later with a few small roach in between, so far it was all close as several people were on 2 carp , with rod"this is the worst peg on the venue" wootten, on 31 beginning to catch on hard banded 6mm pellet, martin mcmahon on 32 who was slinging a method feeder into cliff jenkins peg opposite but had still managed to snare one, and bridgwaters lady ga ga tribute act in the shape of mike west on 29 beginning to make the most of an empty peg each side starting to catch on that most popular of winter baits, PASTE,
the wind had now picked picked up and was blowing straight into our bank and with the sun being out and the ripple it was making presentation difficult with the rig coming back under the pole tip plus the nasty light was making the float hard to see, i tried putting a float on with a fatter bristle on but it didnt seem right so i reverted back to my original rig and increased the eyestrain, by halfway through i was still on 2 carp plus a few silvers, but martin mcmahon had begun to catch on the pole down the edge into empty peg 33 (take note chris fox as you always seem to draw here),it was like sat watching the three stooges with mike rod and martin all catching odd fish right up to the end, i did get 5 more carp in the last half but it was never going to be quite enough to compete with the pegs opposite and thqat was how it ended with martin mcmahon winning with66.10 of peg 32 with all but one of his fish falling to maggot over micros in 3 foot of water down the edge
2nd was rod wootten on 31 with 50.14 on hard 6mm over 4,s at 14mtrs and at the bottom of the shelf to his right
3rd mike west on 29 with 48.15 on paste
4th tony rixon 45lb peg9 on dead reds over softened pellets
5th kev molten 43.12 peg 2 on maggot over micros
6th dave evans 42.12 peg 15 on corn down the edge
silvers were won by venue regular andy hembrow off peg13 with 8.8 of small skimmers