Short pole series, rnd 1

Off to Chilton trinity for the first round of this league, but not after a stop at lillypool cafe for breakfast, and it was very nice 4.6.
Net Dean Malik in the cafe and I managed to offload Jason on him so he could have a smoke.
I got to the lake (woodland) and went for a wander round to have a look at the work they have done on the far side, all the platforms have been removed, mainly due the fact all the bank was getting undermined by the water movement, when it's all settled.down I think it will be ok, a couple of pegs have been lost but that's not a problem as all the pegs are never used in matches.
I think the local heroin population like it as they a few.shallower margins to go stalking in for breakfast.

Back to the hut to find mish in charge of the  kettle, always a warm welcome by the family here.
Soon had everyone in attendance so got the draw started, I got mish to draw mine and she handed me 14 which is old peg 15, so more than happy with that, on my left on 16 was North Bristol finest scaffolder, Ricky Mills, and on my right was a new two pots angler in the shape of mark"podge"Jefferies on 13.

Today's weather was going to be  hot 🔥 with light winds, and they weren't wrong, we had unbroken sunshine with little or no breeze to cook it down a bit, only three rigs today, a .5g to fish pellet on the deck in the deep water, but I never had a bite on that, also a margin rig , but plumbing that was a nightmare as the bottom is all over the place close in,  I never had a bite on that either, I think my bait may have been going into gaps and holes on the bottom, all my sport during  the day came on the slapping/mugging/shallow rig, I caught a few conventionally lifting and dropping in the feed, but with no ripple it was never going to last, I had been feeding down the margins left and right, with the left clouding up nicely I went in with the shallow rig, and had a fish straight away, then I saw a fish to the right so went in there and hooked another which tied me up around some underwater snags, but pulling for a break the fish popped out , lucky,
For the next couple of hours I was mugging some and booking fish in the margins, but it was all a bit torrid, there were lots of snags underwater on the inside, and with most of the fish being 7 to 14 lb it's not easy to stop them lunging through the snags, every fish I landed had run through these snags meaning the rig line was getting properly chaffed, I was replacing the hooklengths sometimes after two fish of even after one of the damage was to great, even the .22 mainline was getting damaged with that snapping aswell with very little pressure, I got through 15 hooklengths  and had to tackle up at least 8 times, mush did say she would get Tom into the lake with the chesty,s on the try and clear it,   but I think it's mainly roots etc which will clear in the fullness of time, by the end I thought I had 115lb, but it should have been closer to 200.
I actually weight 119 so not to far out with the guestimation, and I won the section so a good start to the league.

Top weight on the day was taken by Joe mcmahon on peg 6 with over 240lb of mainly mugged quality fish, these shallow fish are generally on the large size, well done joe.

Second was part time angler (lol) Dean malin with 130 and third was Vince shipp with 129, I was fourth and Steve seagar had just over 100lb, too silvers weight was taken by Dave Lewis with 31 lb of roach and skimmers, a good weight considering the condithions,

 next match in series is on the 12/5 at Todber on ash and homeground,
Weigh sheets for today is below.