Boxing Day Match - Woodside Pond

With Fiona working on Boxing day, I decided to enter the match to be held on Magiscroft's Island pond - however, with the wind blowing hard, and only 8 of us brave enough to give it a go, we transferred to the relative shelter of the Woodside, where I drew peg 21. On my second outing with my pole last month, I had blanked on peg 10 of the Woodside, so I was relieved not to draw that again!

The Woodside pond at peg 21 is only 12-13m wide, so no problems with fishing on the far shelf. The wind was blowing lots of oxygenated water round the end of the central island, so I picked a patch of slack water just off the main 'flow' slightly left of centre from my peg, where as I plumbed up, my float was constantly registering line bites - a great sign. I would be fishing pellet and corn about an inch over depth to help cope with the gusting wind. I also added a long loop to the top of my rigs to allow for movement of the pole in the gusty conditions.

The all in sounded, and my float barely settled with it's 2mm pellet before it shot away and a nice 8oz common carp was in the net. And this continued for most of the first 3 hours - I lost a couple, but generally I was getting a bite within a minute or two. I missed a good few bites but landed around 40 fish of similar size. I expected things to change at some point and they did, but a quick change of top kit to a rig set for fishing in the deeper water at the bottom of the slope produced a fish within a couple of minutes. It wasn't as prolific as the far shelf had been, but I still didn't have time for a coffee! After an hour or so the bites dried up, and it was back to the far shelf - Bites were now much harder to come by, but there were still fish around and I picked up a further 10 or so before the all out sounded.

There were a few Scottish team members fishing so if I'd managed a top 3 I'd have been well chuffed, but my 68 fish weighed in at a new match PB of 30lb - 1oz which also won the match from James Woodrow who had 12lb - 10oz with Dave Minard 3rd with 7lb - 2oz.

Full results can be found here.

A great end to 2011 - 3 firsts and 2 seconds in my last 5 matches! - I have been really lucky with drawing good pegs. But the New Year's day match will be the real test - a full complement of anglers on the Island Pond (where I've never won).