Mathern Mill Friday evening open

 I was away on a training course all week in the classy metropolis of Dudley in the west midlands (yawn fest) and got back in time to go off to Mathern for a Norm Sterry run 4.5 hour open. Weather had been good and there were a few fish showing cruising around. Into the draw bag and out comes peg 8, a fancied peg in the corner with a hay bail at 13 meters to the left that always holds a few lumps.so a rig was set for that line plus a short edge line at 2+1 length. also set up a .4 slim to fish at 11 metres in open water, and a bomb rod to drop in for the many occasions that rig changes would be required. I started by feeding the short edge line heavily with groundbait laced with 4mm`s and corn. it was late in the day and I thought it might be good to get them straight in on that line. Then I went along to the hay bail and had one straight away. After about 10 minutes of it bullying me I managed to fold it up in the landing net and two handed lift it in. it was a beast i recon was in the 15lb + range. I stayed on that line for an hour landing 5 out of 7 and I had 53lb on the clicker. I`ve never had 14-16 elastic put through that punishment before. They are animals that just dot give up. that action didn`t las long and I had a long period when the two edge lines died. even though I hadn`t tried the short line no fish were showing. a go on the long line produced a fish firt drop but it was foul hooked and gave me a torrid time getting it in. A bit later another foul hooker returned a huge scale. Then fish showed up short again but I was foul hooking and loosing them. Back to the hay bail for a while got me two more and my 70lb net limit was close with 6 fish. Switching between the two edge line for the rest of the match got me 5 more before the all out. I guessed on over 100lb by the end. At the wiegh in my 11 fish went 106- 0 and got me second on the night. Norm won from peg 22 with 175-03 of mainly edge caught fish. third was Adam Brown on peg 16 with 102-09, so it was close between second and third. It fished ok but those big lumps I lost cost me a lot of weight as most were over 10lb and virtually unstoppable. full weigh sheet below.

Landsend saturday open.

Back to landsend today for the usual Saturday open. A quick stop in the motorway services for a Mcdonalds salmonella breakfast before getting to the fishery. Crap as always but it filled a hole.

11 fishing today and It just had to be my turn to draw the farbank top end. Its been a long long time since I saw that end of the lake. And woohoo, I draw 15. A good peg, so lets see if I could stuff it up. The wind blowing down the lake was scary but at least It was from my end and it looked a bit more sheltered, so I got the full 16 meters out. The guys at the other end couldnt hold the pole out to the island, but I could with a struggle. I started off on the meat line at 2+2 but after 20 minutes it was fishless and biteless. So I went across and fed a few 6mm`s in 10 inches of water. As soon as they hit there were tails showing but they skilfully avoided my hook bait. Plus, as nobody else was fishing across I was the only one feeding and my favourite group of ducks sat on my line and didnt move for hours. Little shits ate everything I fired across. I did get four out from there after a couple of hours but the wind was so choppy I had to bin that line as the float was being dragged all over the shop and presenting a still bait was all but impossible. So it was back to the meat line. One lost carp and two F1`s after 45 minutes was not what I needed. Then it all went tits up and I had nothing for a good 90 minutes. Said I could stuff it up lol. A try at the bottom of the far shelf produced nothing either. Another try across and a couple more were landed but it was just too hard to fish for long at full length. I had been feeding the edge both sides for an hour so I tried in there but only a good skimmer for my efforts. Another go at the meat line for 1 carp and another f1. So I bit the bullet and stayed down the edge for the last hour. I did manage to hook 7 but lost 5 of them. At the end I knew Id nowhere near enough to get in the coin, but due to third place getting the top silvers I managed to get a few quid by default in 4th place. Match winner today was Neil ? on 17 with 64-8. Catching a few big lumps short on meat in the last 90 minutes. Second was Sir Rod Wootton on peg 8 with 54-0 of mainly carp. Third Eric ? with 51-12 from peg 21 which included top silvers of 24-0. Then it was myself with 51-2. Second in the silvers was Ray White with 13-8. It didn`t fish that well today with the carp being very finicky. But at least the silvers showed up in better numbers.