Thursday over 55,s , huntstrete

With only costcutter,s really available on thursdays, I don't see much point in driving for an hour or more to win 30 quid , when I can just drive for 15 minutes and still win the same ammount, but of a no brainer really, plus I can go into the Toby inn carvery in whitchurch for a nice breakfast.
Got to the lakes to find 21 fishing, which is a nice number for bridge pool, Mike Jones was in charge today and tried to peg it so we all had a bit of room or and island to go at, so no moans today, didn't have to do the recording today so I wasn't early into the draw bag, but I wasn't to disappointed to see disc 30 looking at me , last time I was here I won with 90lb, mainly fishing towards the island which is over 18mtrs away, so another day waving 17.5mtrs around, and with temps probably going to hit 30c it was going to be uncomfortable, company wise I had Mike nicholls on 31 and bath legend Chris ollis on 29, both of which would really be more interested in the silvers population of the lake. My peg did look nice , just wish it was at least a mtr less to get to the island.

Rigs today were all banded pellet orientated, a shallow/mugger , a .2 to fish in 4 foot of water at 17mtrs, and another to fish the bottom of th slope in 7foot of water, bait today was 6mm hard pellet for feed and some 8,s for the hook, very minimalistic , but it's all you need at the moment.

As normal the match is split into two halfs, with a weigh in after 3hours so the carp can be weighed and out back !!!!. Rules is rules.
At the start I went across to 17mtrs and expected bites straight away, but  it was ominously quiet, but I did begin to get a few indications and soon had a carp in the net, I had a couple of fish shallow , but it never switched on, last time I had a lot of f1,s in the first half , but today they weren't playing ball so it was carp or bust, I had a few so at the half time weigh in i had 37lb, which was too weight in the first half.
I didn't see to much reason to change in the second half, so I persevered in the same vein, but it was even more difficult in this half, and it was extremely hot, I had left my water at home, I only had one small bottle , but luckily Martin McMahon had a spare bottle and as he was in the shade all day he let me have it, thanks matey.
I did manage a couple of muggers but it was hard , about an hour from the end I set up a heavier shallow rig and began swing it in against the reeds by the island, and this bought me three fish in the last hour, should have done it earlier to be honest, but by now the heat had all but done me in, the only other person I could see catching was Paul haines on 15, but I needn't have worried as my second net went 32lb and with my 5lb of accidental silvers I had 77lb to Paul's 2nd place weight of 59lb, it was certainly a  bit of an endurance test today with the heat, weigh sheets below.
Too silvers weight today went to Steve Dawson on 26 with 27lb of skimmers caught shallow on maggot in the second half, a brilliant weight on the day in hard conditions when most struggled to catch silvers, well done.