Phil's day

Morning all, the Wed club fished its second of 4 matches against Saffron Walden on their Bordeaux Pits lake. We only fish it twice a year and didn't it show. I drew peg 16 - it's a channel between the bank and island. I picked a middle track and a feeder to the island. I baited up the pole line with 6mm pellets and a golf ball size of SwimStim Green groundbait and a handful of red maggots. Started off on the feeder and 3 casts later it produced a small tench of half a pound or so then nothing. So onto my pole line - tried red mags this just got me more little perch so I tried 4mm soft pellet and got a couple of small roach so tried 6 mm hard pellet and nothing. So back to the feeder for another hour - still nothing. So back to the pole on a small piece of corn on a 16 match hook. Sat there for a few mins and it slid off and I hooked a carp for 7lbs. This was a bolt from the blue but welcomed. I went on half hour later to catch a small F1 then back to nothing so back to catching small perch then suddenly there was a big splashing from my carp net and the big carp leapt out of the net onto the bank. In my haste to recapture the carp I got a boot full of water as I slipped in the lake and to boot the carp slipped back in and was gone. At this point I really felt like going home but thought I had better suck it up and get on with it.

I went on to catch another carp later on to weigh in 10lbs 11oz beating the angler next door. First Craig Henderson with 40lbs 1oz, 2nd Graham Carter with 32lbs 5oz, 3rd Brian Newman with 26lbs 2oz and 4th Bill Beeston with 18lbs. Better luck next time Bishop's Stortford - Saffron Walden winning with 67 points to our 38.