Thursday costcutter at huntstrete bridge pool

Only 18 fishing today, a few missing due to other commitments, the normal decent breakfast at the Toby inn carvery in whitchurch started the day off nicely.
Got to the fishery with loads of time to spare, I found the two mikes, Jones and nicholls sorting the pegging out sat in the back of my jones,s skip, which he uses to transport his kit around  behind his Mondeo.

Mike j soon had it sorted and got the draw underway, I got in early and pulled out peg 4, a nice peg on the right hand bank at the end of the far island. Its a Shortish reach to the island to a nice reed bed , which was a nice depth, a shade over 2 foot, but with the water quite clear I wasn't to convinced the fish were going to respond.

Mike nicholls in the background trying to find his lucky paste hook as he must have dropped it.
So I set up a rig for the reed bed for banded pellet, a.silvers one for chopped worm and caster in a bit of groundbait on two lines at 13 mtrs left and right, also a rig to fish pellet right in against the island , but I thought it would be a tad to clear for that to be effective, and lastly a meat.rig for 5 mtrs.
at the start I cupped in two balls of g bait on each of the silvers.line, and began firing pellets.to the island.
starting with apiece of worm I soon had a  couple of small skimmers, but it was hard, I did manage.a.few.better ones, but I wasn't going anywhere with it, I probably tried for to long, as.we have to stop after.three hours to weigh the carp and return them, John Smith on peg 6 went across to the other end of the island and was catching a.few.carp, I waited till they was about 75 minutes remaining till.we had to stop, and it was was to late as i caught straight away on banded 6mm hard pellet, mainly.small stocky carp and f1,s, John was.catching slower than me but his fish were bigger, so by  the end of the 3 hours I new he had beaten me, but it was closer than I thought with John having 34lb to my 30,

The second three hours started slowly, with just odd small f1,s, and it never really picked up, I was catching a few with the odd small stockie carp ,  it at least I was catching , poor old John couldn't get a bite, in fact at the end of the match he only had a perch and a small carp, I had faired better so I new I had beaten him. And as far.As could see I had done ok, my second weigh went 27lb

 and with my few silvers I had 67lb, not.quite enough as Dave wride on peg 21 ended up first on the day with 71lb, well done, silvers.went to Paul barnfield on peg 27 with 24lb of skimmers on mainly worm., It wasn't an easy day , the water has cleared, and the water temp had fallen by a few degrees, but it was interesting fishing and I really enjoyed it. Weigh sheets below.