Thursday over 55,s, huntstrete bridge poool

After a nice breakfast at the Toby inn carvery in whitchurch I was on my way to the fishery, only 19 fishing today, which meant a bit of room so no complaints.
The same as last time I did the recording which meant I had the option to get into the draw bag before the rest, out comes 28, nice peg , a reasonable area for skimmers , with the option of an island to go at aswell, even if it was nearly 17 mtrs away.
Only two rigs to begin with today, a .6g for the skimmers and a .25 Corby slim for a little way off the island in about 3 foot of water to fish hard pellet.

We were all hoping for a good day as the club has stocked a reasonable number of f1,s, which has been feeding well for the anglers recently, today we had to stop after three hours to weigh in any carp caught , then start again for another three hours. For company I the affable Jeff Francis on peg 29 and southwest match fishing legend Mike Jones on 26.
At the start I cupped in some groundbait on two lines, one with caster and the other with some chopped worm, both lines were at 13 mtrs, the caster line at 11 o'clock angle and the worm one at 1. And started firing 4 mm hard pellets towards the island , one just off the end of the island and the other to the right down the side of the island,
I started off with maggot for skimmers over the groundbait lines , it was a bit slow for me but Jeff was getting some sensible skimmers, a switch to a piece of work worked and I was soon having some skimmers aswell, along with one of the lakes new f1,s.
An hour in and a few skimmers in the net I decided to go over to the island, and I was soon catching the f1,s along with occasional small carp, towards the end of the three hours Mike hooked a lump on the whip, which eventually turned out to be nearly 18lb .

The three hours of the first half were soon up and when the scales for to me I put 31lb of mainly f1,s in the pan to go into an early lead.

We started the second half, and as expected it was a bit slow, I could get odd skimmers over the groundbait lines, but it was to slow, so most of the rest of the match was spent over towards  the island, using banded 6mm over catapulted 4,s, during the break I made up another rig, this one was to fish a bit tighter to the island as I felt the fish wanted to be in the shallower water, even if it was a bit clear, I had  less fish in the second half, but I had more proper small carp along with a couple of late better fish up to 8lb, although I had less fish the carp went 36lb and along with 13lb of skimmers I ended up with a bit over 80lb for first on the day, Mike nicholls was 2nd with 57lb which included a carp of over 18lb, although some of the weights looked good, there were still some difficult areas , but as the water temp improves I thing it will get better, and I think the rain the day before knocked some of the colour out, which never helps, weigh sheet below.