Tunnel barn farm

This was a fundraising event to raise funds for the women and disabled national angling teams, it was a north versus south clash to add a bit of a twist, with 140 booked in it was good to be involved in a good sized match. Lots of good anglers in attendance and with lots of us southern softies not being to practiced in the art of f1 fishing it was going to be more than likely the northern monkeys would triumph on the day, two draw tins , one for the south and one for the north meaning we would be alternating around the lakes.
Into the draw tin and out comes peg ten on new lake, meant nothing to me but des assured me it was flier being a short island reach and normally plenty of room as it was on the end bank on its own today, travelling partner Chris fox drew on canal lake 4 , not to good but on this venue you can expect a days fishing off even the worst pegs.
I got to my peg and I must admit it did look good , nice margins , a small hole in the reeds against the island and I could get round the left hand side of the island aswell as it was only 11 mtrs to get there.
Rigs today were a margin meat rig , two hard pellet rigs for across to the island (I was told it was the wrong approach as it's a w&c venue). And a deep and shallow maggot rig for top set range.
At the start I began on the short maggot rig and had bites straight away from small skimmers and the like, all the time feeding 4,s across the the two island pellet swims and dropping some meat down the edges, by the end of the first hour I,d had a few f1,s but with swirls from the f1,s on the island I felt it was time to go across, I soon had a few f1,s but they can be notoriously hard to hook on banded pellet at times, hence lots of people today were pinning there faith on worm and caster. From there on I had a nice days fishing , missing plenty of bites/liners but catching more than enough f1,s to keep me more than interested, I can certainly see the appeal of this venue, and it would be nice to see a similar venue closer to home , hill view is about the closest, so perhaps a few visits to there may be in order. Bites came right to the end of the match on the two island pellet lines aswell as a few fish on the short maggot line including a handful of small barbel up to 1 1/2lb, I didn't catch on th margin meat lines, although I did miss some bites lol.
By the end I wasn't sure as to what weight I had but I expected it to go 90plus, in fact when the scales mounted on the golf trolley turned up my two nets went 62 and 41 pounds for 103 total, overall no good probably but I at least beat the two northern anglers each side, although it was touch and go for a while with the angler sat in his bed chair on my right. As far as I could tell 130lb won but with lots of weights down to me , Chris and I decided to leave as it was going to be a long winded affair to get the results out, bob gullick stayed on though and both Chris and me picked up some section money , although bob did say they felt very thin , I think the monkeys beat the softies which didn't suprise me as they have a lot more f1 venues up there.
Float only league next Sunday at landsend but before that I will fish the huntstrete coffin dodgers match at Withey pool, and with temperatures set to soar this week it may be hard .