Match: TBF Winter League (Round 3)
Venue: Tunnel Barn Farm, Shrewley, Warks
Date: Saturday, 16th November
Angler: Shaun Little (MAP Designer and Consultant)
Morale was high going into the third round.
The weather was mild and the team was sitting in second position. The team vibe
was one of laughter and general banter. What could possibly go wrong?…
Well, I’m going to keep this one short and
sweet because pretty much everything went tits up. For those of you who have
been reading my blog might of realized its been few weeks since I last posted
one (four weeks to be precise), as I didn’t want to re-live the memories.
Anyway enough of my moaning; considering
the mild weather for the time of year, the fishing was hard over the whole
complex in the week leading up to the round. The team plan was simple; start by dobbing
bread towards any features, as the colour had dropped out, then switch to
pellets short and if this didn’t produce bites we would loose feed maggots over
it for the last hour and rotate maggots further out.
At the draw Kurtis was once again required
to work his magic and he didn’t let two of the team down. Would you believe it
Mark Malin was on Extension 21… again! I honestly don’t know if this has ever
happened in this league before, bearing in mind that there are 76 anglers
fishing and it’s completely random where you draw each week. To draw the same
lake 3 weeks in a row is good but the same peg is insane. As for the rest of
the draw Aiden was on Club 11 this is a peg you would always fancy. Kurtis was
on House 1 the most unpredictable of pegs it could be rigid or void of fish.
Then I was on New Pool 4, which always seems devoid of fish.
I’m not going to waffle on about how crap my peg or day was; the peg is about eight metres wide (seven if you take into
account the reeds) and about 4ft deep. I caught pretty much nothing until the
last hour fishing maggots at 13-metres into peg 3 and peg 5 for a total weight
of 28lb. Weights around the lake were very tight – another 4lb would of
propelled me into the top half – but I didn’t have 4lb more so only beat four
others on my lake. Disappointing is a word that comes to mind. As for the rest of the team, Mark once again
won the lake; actually he destroyed the lake with 30lb to spare. He pretty much
knows each fish by name on that peg now! Well done again mate. Kurtis and Aiden both had days similar to
mine; so on the team front things weren’t looking to rosy.
With a team score of 32 points we were
next-but-last on the day, dropping down to seventh in the overall table. What a
rollercoaster – hours before it was all smiles and banter, now the atmosphere
was slightly less buoyant.
I suppose this is the addiction of match
fishing, the extreme highs and lows of winning and losing. It will be case of
trying to hit the ground running for the next round. But there’s still a long
way to go with seven rounds left....
