Sunday March 25th - Magiscroft Winter League Match 4

Sunday was another day of unbroken sunshine, no wind, and 20+ degrees - in March!

This was the final round of the Magiscroft Winter series, and as I'd only fished the last one and wan't in contention, I had already decided to try a new bait.

With the warmer weather of the last week, I had hoped to draw at the shallow end of the Island pond, but it wasn't to be - P26, which is a great cold weather peg, was drawn:-( Davie Smith had over 57lbs from it on Wednesday, but normally the fish will have moved…….

I was drawn with Tommy Lauriston and John Perrela to my left and Dave Minard to my right. Of these only Mr Minard was in the running for the winter championship so I made a mental note not to fish anywhere to the right of the centre of my peg - normally you can go half way, but as he was in the running, and I wasn't, I didn't see any point in being silly.

Today's bait was to be hard pellet - over the last few weeks small roach have become a real problem, attacking 2, 4 and even 8MM soft pellets.

But I did start with soft pellet and snared a couple of small carp in the first 30/40 minutes. Next door, Dave Minard was catching steadily underneath the tree directly opposite hi - to the left, John and Tommy were much the same as me.

I then switched to hard pellet, but I doubt soft would have helped - the fish just were't there - from me and to the left, folk were struggling to get a bite.

Normally I would sit it out on the far bank/slope to pick up a carp or 2, but I decided to spend the middle 3 hours targeting roach, hoping I might pick up bonus carp or chub. I managed 30/40 small roach, but nothing bigger, so for the last hour I went back to the far side with hard pellet and managed another four smallish carp.

Meanwhile, Dave M had continued to catch regularly, which won him the match with 27lb+ - Tommy and John had stuck it out for carp and both had managed more than my paltry 4lb - 12oz.

Full results can be found here.

I wasn't happy with how the day had gone, so I fished on for another 2.5 hours, which did get me another 4 carp, but it was hard work - not a good day.