TUNNEL BARN FARM - MARCH 11TH - OPEN MATCH

Breakfast room was busy as usual with 2 matches being run today

Back in the tackle shop Les was talking to the lad about what pegs to put in today

Drew peg 11 the closest peg to the car park - view from my peg to the right

Straight out in front of me

 To my left where noted pegs 8 and 6 are - i had 2 spare pegs to my left and 3 to my right - me thinks the peg is'nt the best but here goes !!

All set up and ready to rock'roll

The usual setup as the previous days - this time i have 5 tops ready as i have such alot of differnet features to fish to with a varied spectrum of different depths

House pool peg 11 for the day

Today i decided not fishing out in front of me as the island was some 25 metres away so i decided to fish a line to the left and right at 6 metres as it just starts to slope up - depth was about 1.2 metres. Then i had a rig for fishing at 13 metres to the spare peg to my left at about 75 cm deep. Also set up duplicate rigs for really close in underneath the 2 small trees close to the water at about 65 cm.

I placed pellet on the left hand and maggot on the right and see what works best. I also cupped feeder pellets ,corn and maggot on the far left 13m swim and at 6m to the left upto the tree. The tree was closer to the right at 2.5 metres so i put 2mm feeders there.

The match started in nice sunshine but that changed 20 minutes later as the sun went in  and the wind came out ......into my face ....again !!......it was a slow start with only a few anglers taking a stocky F1 and some taking skimmers and roach.

I had my first bite after 20 minutes and missed it.....then i hooked a see-through roach and it came off. So after 45 minutes i had nothing in the net and the anglers on 8 and 6 were about 3-5 F1's each.......i decided to go 13 m to the next peg for a go .....normally i fish the margins much later.

First put in i had a small dip on the float which was typical F1.......then 5 minutes later after re-setting the float in i pushed the float closer to the peg pole in the water and the float disappeared.......solid !!!......it was a big one .....and it started to move out to the middle ......i knew it was something good........10seconds only did i have it and the hook pulled with a foot of elastic hanging from the pole tip !!!.......it must have been foul-hooked ......bad start !

First hour passed and i had tried every position i had set my rigs up for .....then after about 1.5 hours i went back to the spare peg and i had 2 decent sized 1lb F1's.....things are looking up but then i lost 2 as the peg was covered in old branches fallen from the tree and i lost a bottom line in the process - well at least i was clearing the branches out !!

About half way thro the match i tried the 2.5 metre to my right under the tree.......missed a bit then hooked ....something very substantial ........that came off !!!..........No.......that was it , i took the rig off and put it onto a Middy 4-6 elastic top kit........next put in ......fish about 1.5 lb next put in ....hit another big one ....please not third time unlucky ?.......it was a mirror about 3lb and i took it well ....the elastic change made me feel more confident.....the fish did'nt move so much as the water was so cold.

Then with and 1hour and 25 minutes left i decided to fish the shallowest bit of the peg i had which was about 60 cm deep and did'nt stop catching till the end of the match , however i still lost 4 or 5 fish including another big one.......i wonder if this will cost me as i felt confident of getting 2nd place as peg 6 caught all day.

So we weighed in ...................

 

Charlie on peg 8 had 27lb-ish

Gary had top weight on peg 6 - 53lb ish

20lb ish

Have Cart will weigh

21lb ish

Pegs on the internal island have posts with prepared brackets so they can weigh the fish ...ingenious

Weighing can be back breaking and Les does this every day

Another post weigh in

32lb ish

28ish

31ish?

31ish

last but one weigh-in

26ish

last to weigh.......just short of 30.......missed fish cost me dearly- Les seen me in the last 10 minutes loose an animal and a decent F1 PLUS THE OTHER 2 ANIMALS I LOST......its costed me...oh well thats fishing.

4th place but could have been better.......this is why we keep coming back for more!