Messingham Sands, Island Lake (27/04/08)

Not such a early start this morning as I was prepared for the match, No maggots to go and buy as I'd been the day before, So up at 6.15, I left the house at 6.45 to arrive at the cafe for 7.30. Everythings going right today. As most of you know I love messingham sands its simply a awesome place the surroundings are spot on apart from the chuffing sand that you seem to find weeks after visiting the place, And i simply love the sound you get when putting pole sections together.... NOT.

I drew up at the cafe to find Monkey stood in the middle of the road in the entrance to the car park, so I simply rammed him out the way, haha, Now the important part of the day, breakfast which was yet again spot on. Then the draw, We was on pegs 1 - 30, Sharpy's mrs was the chosen one to pull the golden peg, she pulled out 65, what the f&%k, I tought we was on 1 - 30, Turns out we are spread across the full lake, awesome, I drew 54 which again meant absolutly nowt to me, Out the cafe to the bait hut across the road, some 14mm pellets and some 4mm expanders, In the car and off to the lakes.

Down the lovely track to the ponds we went in convoy, everytime we go down that road my bumper gets smaller :( I pulled up behind chegers and got my new team clothes off him, Top job carlos, they look awesome.

Off to my peg, I stopped off for a quick abusing session with trolly and monkey, Monkey was mixing his groundbait with a drill, Lazy shit.

I went past my peg and had a chat with Whitty as he was to be my neighbour in this match, He was just removing Mr Crabtree from his peg, lol. His and my pegs looked awesome. Overhanging trees, lilly pads, reed margins, Carp everywhere!

Behind my peg was a scary site, there was an abundance of broken pole sections, which put the shits up me as my main attack was going to be on the pole.

Box in correct place and onto sorting the bait out, Groundbait passed through the riddle twice and it was perfect, Pellets pumped and left for 10 mins.

Setting up time, I had a straight lead that i planned to fish to the island straight out from me at about 35 yards with a donkey choker pellet, Firing 2 pellets every 5 mins, The same to the island to the right which was black with fish.

Pole straight out at 11 metre into open water, 4 foot deep,and a pole line to the island to my left whish was 2 ft deep about 1 ft off it. This peg really was a dream come true!

10am come and whitty shouted time.

Maggot on the 11 metre pole line, I shipped out and dropped the rig in, 4 orange sized groundbait balls were lobbed in one after the other making some right disturbance, carp were spooking all over lol, After the 3rd ball went in I got a bite, So even with all that disturbance going on the fish are still feeding haha, Skimmer number one that turned out to be. I left the rig dangling in the water at 2 metres whilst i fired some pellets to all the islands, the pole tip wragged round! crikey this peg was so solid with fish, this turned out to be a Golden tench of about 12oz, I carryied on at 3 metres for a bit to get some fish in the net, I did this for about 1/2 hour, I think i had 6lb in the first hour, bagging small roach and skimmer son 4mm pellet. I decided to chuck the bomb rod out to the middle island to see if there was owt there, Nowt there after about 20 mins so I went back onto the 3 metre line, All whist I was fishing the 3 metre line i was firing pellets very regular at the island to my left, there was a lot of disturbance down there from summat large.

I decided to ship out and have a look, First chuck in there I lost something big, I didn't even get a chance to try and stop it. Next drop in I had another bite which again i connected with and before it had chance to hit the trees I had shipped back 6 metres so it couldnt get into the trees :D This one turned out to be a gudgeon lol, ooopps, maybe its first flying lesson? From then on it went dead for the next hour or so, I was on the lead for a bit, And at this point I was getting battered off both sides, whitty was getting loads on tench of all different colours, and had lost a lump, Lad to my right had had a few decent carp on the lead and corn. Then I happened to notice that when i fired pellets over to the island to the left there was carp mooching about waiting for the pellets to enter the water, So I thought I'd try shallow, I set up a rig with 0.16, a size 12 animal, Small maver dibber float. Now this may seem a little harsh but they were not small carp mooching and there was a couple of big ghosties in with them. 4 red maggots and a 4mm pellet on the hook and shipped out, Bang, straight into a carp which I lost, next chuck same, The one after I managaed to get it out, It was a fantail goldfish about 1lb, From then until the end of the match that peg was solid, I managed to get 8 - 10 Carp in and lose 10 - 15, If they were any bigger than 4lb i was losing them in the lillys to my left, I only had black hydro and it has wayyyy to much stretch for tight confined swims like that.

When it came to the weigh in there was loads of good weights, Nige winning with 88lb, Stanners with 52lb, Sharpy 42lb 06oz and a few other 30's, I guesstermated around 35lb so I was well happy to put 47lb 5oz on the scale, 16lb of silvers and the rest Carp, Up to this point I was 3rd with about 10 people to weigh, I'd heard robin Gott had done well on the Golden peg(65) so it looked like i was out the money, Before we got to Robin, Jamjar put 47lb 10oz on the scales and i'd been knocked into 4th place.Robin was the last one to put a close weight to mine which was 42lb 12oz, so I ended up finishing in 4th place, which i was happy with, I'd beaten Gaylord Carlos, Monkey, Nob, Trolly and Adecam that all that matters :D :D Nige won with 88lb, Stanners 2nd with 52lb, Jamjar 3rd with 47lb 10oz, me 4th with 47lb 5oz, Robin 5th with 42lb 12oz, and Sharp with his best ever match weight of 42lb 06oz, Nice one Sharpy, I'll let you off for your fish drenching me.

Overall a very frustrating match as I could of won and done 100lb easy, Thinking about it now, why the hell didn't I just wind some elastic on the winder bung!! DOH! Another lesson learnt and thats what match fishing is all about.

Till next time, Tight Lines

Matt