I was gonna go to Landsend today but the weather forecast was for a horrible day, so I decided to stay closer to home and after an invite from Craig Challingsworth I decided the 5 minute drive to Marthern was far enough for today. The day started badly. Went to get my gear from the storage, where I keep it, and found my nets were at home so my 5 minute drive turned into 45 by the time I'd sorted myself out. 10 fishing today so everybody had empty pegs left or right or both. Second into the draw and I pull out peg 9. I've been fishing this place for 6 years and never had this peg before as it's only been used in matches for a short while now. For company I had Andy Gard on 7, who took the wrong turn for Acorn and ended up here 😂. It was carp only for me today as I had drawn the golden peg, so the pressure was on. Four rigs were set up. Two margin rigs, as there was a foot difference either side. A .3 Slim to fish 2+1. And a .5 to fish the full 8.5 meters of my margin pole on pellet. Plus a bomb rod as this can produce plenty from open water on the right day. Fed all lines and started on the bomb pinging 8mm's. 30 minutes in and not a touch. But I'd seen a couple of scalely horses in my left margin so it was into there for a go. After 5 minutes I hit one and the first carp was netted, all of 15lb. They are big in this place. But that was it for a while. There was plenty there, but they were skillfully avoiding the hook bait and clearing up all the loose feed. I had a problem after an hour. With the wind in my face and the non stop rain, I had now lost dexterity in my hands. I was struggling to put pellets or corn on the hook, and I couldn't grip my pole with my right hand. They didn't feel cold but we're swollen from the non stop soaking. So things were hard. And to be honest I couldn't wait for the end already. I was proving to be hard with the fish being cleaver in their feeding and after 3 hours I only had 3 that went around 35lb. Andy though, was catching very well on the silvers and was putting a good weight together. The second half of the match improved a lot and I started to catch a few. Even the sun tried to pop through when the rain eventually stopped. And feeling in my hands nearly returned to normal. Theft margin was the only place I could get a bite with all other lines void of fish. Even though the size of fish got smaller I managed to put 15 in the net, all but two on pellet, for 132-9 for 4th on the day. So the golden peg lived on. The match was won by Zac Williams on peg 20 with 200-9, caught half at 14.5 meters and half down his margin. Second was Craig Challingsworth on peg 14B (?) With 148-8. And third Norm Sterry with 147-7 from peg 5. Overall it fished well but it was a miserable day with crappy weather. Full results below.
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