Off to Landsend today for the Saturday open. As usual a very good breakfast was consumed before the draw. The girls are doing a great job and the breakfast was fab as usual. I had last but one ticket from the bucket today and found myself on peg 18. Even though it's the first time I've drawn it I fancied it for a few today. For company I had Adrian Jeffrey to my right on 19, so banter was always gonna be good. Andy Hembrow on 16 and Mark Walsh opposite on 5. 4 rigs were set up. A .1 shalla slim to fish pellet in 12 inches of water against the island. A shallow dibber to long line for cruisers between the island. A .4 slim to fish meat at 2+2. And a margin diamond to fish pellet to the margins both sides of my platform. At the start I fed all lines and fired 6mm pellets to the island and started on the meat line. 10 minutes in and no bites so I fed that line again and went out on the island pellet rig. Even though there were carp everywhere over to the island I just couldn't get them. They were coming in for every pouch of pellets I fired across, but getting them to take my book bait was almost impossible. I did get one after about 15 minutes but all I could get apart from that was liners and foulers. I lost five that were hooked everywhere but in the mouth over the next hour and I was a bit confused why they were fighting over the loose feed but never looked at the banded 6 mm pellet. Mark was also getting plagued by foul hooked fish and had lost a boatload in the first hour. Andy was doing ok, and by the time I managed to reverse my second fish into the net, he was on about 12 fish but they were on the small side. Adrian was also hooking them and putting them back, so it wasn't going to plan for most of us. Two hours in I was still only on 2 carp. I think the sight of Mark Walsh fishing topless was putting me off. Mark had given up on the carp and was now fishing for silvers. Adrian had a couple by now and a lonesome skimmer on meat. Andy was still catching fairly regularly. Time to try the meat rig again but that again produced nothing but one missed bite. So I had a look in the margin. Nothing there yet but I wasn't surprised. Back to the island and I did get a few indications but still no hook ups. I thought maybe the pole over their heads was spooking them so I put the long line rig in and I had one first drop. Sorted it then.... not!!!!. Apart from a couple of missed bites, nothing else. Then I spotted the carp had stopped cruising and could see their tails sticking up. I put my pellet rig in and they started having it. For the next couple of hours I had a good spell taking around 16 carp to near doubles. The last hour I came in to the margin and took 5 quickly then lost a couple which killed it so another try on the meat line for the last 10 minutes produced one more. At the end I was thinking I had around 120lb. Adrian had a good finish on the meat line taking 5 in the last half hour and Andy had caught most of the day. I reckoned he was a dozen fish up on me but mine seemed bigger so I thought I might be responsible close. The scales came round and up to Andy, Jim Jenner was winning with 88-2 from peg 15. Andy pulled his net out and he did have quite a few more than me but there were alot of seekers in there. And his nets went to 135-9. My 25 fish went 115-3 which put me second on the day. Adrian ended with 62-5. Overall it ended ok, but the slow start was very frustrating.
1st Andy Hembrow, 135-0
2nd Me 115-3
3rd Jim Jenner 88-2
First in silvers was Mark Walsh with 16-8
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