B Division Match 5

Today was the 5th round of Magiscroft's B Division (fourth match was cancelled due to snow/Ice). Iv'e asked a couple of folk what the 'B' stands for but nobody seems to know.

What I do know is that it's a team competition with 4 anglers per team - No1s are internationalists, champions and top quality fishers - No 2s are high level club anglers. No 3s are up and coming juniors and folk who have been winning the odd match. And No 4s are folk newer to the sport fishing less than a couple of years.

I'm in amongst the No 3s which seems about right.

So today the No 3s were to be fishing the right hand side of the Island Pond - and I managed to draw the same peg that I landed 35lb+ from in the New Years Day match - Which sounds great, but I know that the fish move around and very rarely does the same peg produce on consecutive winter matches.

The temp was around 6 degrees but there was a strong North Easterly blowing which it feel very cold and also made presentation extremely difficult.

I had to add an extra 2 feet of line to my 'down the shelf' rig as I couldn't hold the pole steady against the wind. For all it was a hard, hard day, but well done to young Scott McCauley who managed 7 carp for just over 16lbs - which won the No 3 section and the overall match. Second in our section with 15lb odds was Alan Welsh which also was second overall. I managed third in the section with 5 fish for 7lb 1oz - 2 of these came in the last 15 mins when the wind dropped enough to allow me to fish the far shelf.

Bites were very hard to come by and I connected with all bar one - I lost the first one and then had a 2lb F1 at the 90 minute mark followed by 2 12oz tench in 15 mins. After that I didn't see another bite 'till I could get to the far bank late in the match, where I picked up another similar sized F1 and a slightly smaller one.

So I ended up 3rd in the No 3's and 4th overall in the match (33 fishing) - a good result given the conditions.