B Division Match - Island Pond - Sat 17th March

Saturday dawned bright and cold - The Island pond produced 50lb+ weights twice in the last week, but with Friday being very wet, and the overnight temps being close to freezing, I expected a tough day.

The number 3's were on the high numbers of the Island, and I drew P23 - which is known for having a tree overhanging the far shelf line directly in front of the peg. It was evident that this has caught out previous anglers as there were 2 rigs hanging from one of the low branches just where I'd like to have fished!

I could reach the far bank with the 14.5M section, but given the 2 tree rigs, I setup to fish on the slope about 2 feet from the far bank.

It was a pleasant change to be setting up with the sun on your back, but the water was still pretty cold - so I also setup a short rig for slivers, in case the cold water stopped the carp feeding.

The all-in was called at 11:00 and after 10 mins I hooked a fish which I lost after 15 seconds. But within another 5 mins I got my first carp in the net and another 2 followed within the hour.

I could see that Curtis Craig who was on P21 (the end peg) was catching fairly regularly, but no-one else was.

I kind of expected it to be this hard, and I'd been feeding 5-10 maggots on the short line, so I switched to this line and started catching small roach. And I mean small, maybe 1oz max. Every 30 mins or so I went back out to the far side and managed to pick up another 3 carp by 15:00. I'd also started feeding sweetcorn on the short line and this resulted in a few roach of 4-6oz and a couple of perch up to 3/4 of a pound.

As ever in a match, I was keeping an eye on what was happening around me, and only Curtis was catching much - But at about 15:30 Alan Welsh (P22) went out to the far shelf and got a carp within seconds. So I followed and finally the carp were over the area I'd been feeding. In the last 30 mins I landed 6 carp with a couple of 2lb+ and Curtis and I knew that it'd would be a close call between us. Closer than we thought as it turned out - The small roach had made the difference, and I weighed in 2oz more than Curtis - and even better for me, the match had been tough for everyone and I took the section and overall win with 15lb - 6oz.

Full results can be found here.

Now I'm looking forward to the club match at Orchill tomorrow.