Makins Teams of 3 - Sunday 8th March

The next round was upon us and due to his drawing prowess in the last round, Nigel was pushed into the draw queue.

He came back with - Thames 7 for me (crap), Crater 10 for himself (average), and Lake 4 B22 for Mick Lees. Now Mick had a word with one of the bailiffs before the draw and on the previous day fish were present in his area so he was more than happy.

Thames 7 , as any Makins regular will confirm, is on the wrong side of the lake. That side is so rubbish that Mark perkins only puts 2 pegs in - 5 & 7. Still, I was pretty buoyed by my performance the previous week and was confident I could catch a few even though the chances of winning money was very remote indeed.

Upon arrival, the wind was blowing a howler from left to right which immediately meant the obligatory 1/2 hour over to the far side reeds at 16 mtrs was out of the question. Lines were - 11mtrs at 10 and 2 0'clock, 14.5 mtrs directly in front at the bottom of the far shelf, margins left and right, and finally that killer line at 4.5 mtrs at the bottom of the near shelf.

For the first half of the match it was a total struggle with only one bite and one carp to show - this being from my left hand margin. I had been trickling casters in on the short line and finally decided to give this a try. It was obvious that there wasn't a tremendous amount of fish in the peg so the decision was made to sit on the short line for the duration of the match - shit or bust !

Odd bites on the double caster produced a chub of about 2lb, a couple of 12oz skimmers and a couple of 4oz roach but there was no definitive pattern emerging in regards to feeding. There were carp being caught elsewhere on the lake on the better pegs but I tried to not let this affect my decision to sit it out on this line.

Then the float sailed away and a firm strike met with lots of resistance. My 10 latex went shooting out down to my right and did not stop - was snapped on 0.11 Powerline. A new rig was dropped in and straight away exactly the same happened. This time I didn't get snapped but my PR21 hook was straightened. T A new rig of .13 and PR28 hook was dropped in and guess what - same again immediately and snapped !

There was still half an hour of the match left at this point so I began to feed corn and beefed up to .15 Powerline. First drop in and and something else shot down the lake. After a brief struggle, I managed to get this fish in (a mirror about 6lb), however it was foul hooked in the belly and I suspect that this could have been the cause of my earlier problems.

2 more large carp followed in the final 20 mins and my 4 carp and a few silvers weighed 21lb for 4th position in my 8 peg section. I was very satisfied with this as the peg had produced virtually nothing the week before. The lake was won with 45lb from peg 1 (end peg) which was a tremendous performance as this peg had not produced for a long time.

Teamwise, Mick won his section so we had 5 points up to this stage. Unfortunately Nigel had a bummer and came last in the section with 10lb for 8 pts.

I would like to take this opportunity to say a big well done to Paul Twigg who was the winner of the whole match from peg A14 on Phase 1. Paul is a mate of mine and this was only his 3rd ever match at Makins - well done Paul !

Next week, Woody999 from TF is standing in for me as I have to take my daughter to the Midlands Finals of the Under 13's Gymnastics competition. I will instead be fishing an open at Thorpe Consadine on the Saturday, a place I have not even seen before !

Snooty

2009 Pools so far - £109.00

2009 winnings so far - £80.00