Two trialing days

Ivy house on sunday for the third round of the winter league, travelled with mr fox so it was a stop at the wessex flyer in whitchurch for breakfast, very nice 4.7. Got to the fishery in plenty of time for the 9am draw, my turn on kingfisher, which is the old canal for thise out there who remember it, did the draw and pulled out peg 45, not the best , peg 37 end peg is the dominant peg, so just try and have a few bites, to say it was unpleasant is an understatement, strong wind luckily slightly off my back, and heavy rain, generally speaking i dont mind one or the other, but together its a real pain. i decided to try for silvers down the middle just to get something in the net , a rig for over to fish pellet, and a rig for the margins to my left and right to fish maggot, no pics and not to much to report, silvers line was a waste, two carp from the margin on maggot, and several small ones from the far side, ending up with 24lb for middle of the section, as expected peg 37 was top with over 50lb jamie dixey making no mistake, second was jon howell on 48 with 47lb catching down the niddle on corn in the last couple of hours, turns out my bib and brace is still waterproof, but the jacket isnt, 6 layers on and my skin was wet, at least it wasnt cold.

Monday and back down to plantation fishery for a silvers match, cant fault this fishery for the consistent sport you get. Dont mind where i draw as a decent day is virtually guaranteed, quality roach and skimmers are the target, cant remember who drew for me but i had 11 handed to me, just into the big bay at the far end, happy with that, not to sure how it would fish today as we had a lot of cold rain the day before, to my left at the back of the bay was the always genial lee waller, and to my right was gary "proper angler" cross and river brue champion, always good to see him as he likes a laugh, Ive had the stiff breeze blowing into me, i set up a .4g rig for 11 mtrs on two lines left and right, and a .3g for topset and two line, i fed both longer lines with two balls of groundbait with some caster in, but started short , second put in i had a nice skimmer of over 1lb, so expected a good day, definite false dawn then, never had another bite on the deck on that line, i did have a few roach later on the drop but it was never going to be any good, i concentrated on the two longer lines picking up odd skimmers. Although i started with a .4g rig, i swapped it for a .65g wire stem for a bit of stability, as the rig was vlowing back at me very quickly, hiding under my pole tip, presentation was crap, but i was catching as well as anyone i could see, about 4 hours in, paul faiers had a bit of a landing net handle malfunction, whilst netting a good skimmer, the top section came off, he was on his knees stretching to retrieve it but slipped in, knocking the two other sections of the handle in, which duly sank , so as he was already in to the nether regions he decided to stay in to try and retrieve the bits, needless to say he never found them, shame he forgot to take his phone out of his pocket before he got right in.

And yes he did pack up and go home, lightweight, 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 anyway it was a bit of a tricky day, i ended up with 17.13 for forth, so happy, consistent dave(des) willmott drew peg 1 and made no mistake to win with 24lb of mainly roach, well done , just beating steve kedge who had 22lb on peg 32, and mat tomes on 4 had 19lb, so not as good as the Thursday before but still good sport, well worth a visit.