Heronbrook Spring League Round 3 Sun 3rd April 2016.

Hi all.

The third round of the spring league today. For a change there was no match the day before so everyone was raring to go.

Team stayed the same from the previous round and our draw gave Jon on Canal peg 11, Neil Pritchard Bridge 13, myself peg 13 on Meadow and I did Alan no favours by drawing him the same peg as the previous round on peg 3 on the Match lake.

Both mine and Neil's peg were a bit of an unknown, Jons peg had fish moving the stick ups on the far bank when he got there, so that looked good. Hopefully Alan would have better luck with the bigger fish on peg 3.

I have not fished this area of Meadow before and from peg 2 round to 12 more or less every peg was in. Before the start it looked like pole alley or the 110 metres hurdles along the bank Peg 14 to my right was empty and I was told that in the last match the angler on my peg caught best towards the right in the deeper water. The peg itself did not have many features just the odd small clump of spiky grass on the far bank. Plumbing up did show that the peg was deeper as you moved along the bank to the right. With this in mind I set up 2 rigs for fishing across, one for the shallower water directly in front and another for fishing in front of a clump of grass to the right at 14.5 metres. The other rigs covered the maggot track line, a rig for the deep water just before the far shelf and a dobbing rig.

As I felt I needed to make some sort of positive move in an attempt to improve my weight and section position I had decided to bring some cubes of meat with me and feed smaller pieces mixed in with a bit of groundbait. I would fish this along the far bank in front of me as I felt that the deeper water line might be more productive. So I did not use meat here in case it ruining the peg. I also had with me maggots pellets and corn.

I began fishing the match with meat, hoping to catch an early carp, but after a couple of small fish knocks and no positive bites I started fishing pellet in the swim to the right. This was not very productive and needless to say the entire match was a struggle. I tried different lines and different areas of the peg but only ended up with 2 stamp F1's  and a small carp, together with some small roach caught on either maggot or bread. I only weighed 8lb 1oz and knew I was last in the section. Such a disappointing match and a few others around me struggled as well. The better pegs like 16, 21 and 24 all weighed over 100lb and I would have needed over 50lb to get half way in the section, so I was a million miles away. As a footnote several good carp were caught on meat fishing short (2+2) from pegs 4 and 5 behind me, so at least I could try that in future.

Team wise we got it half right with Jon and Neil scoring 4 and 5 points and Alan had a struggle again on Match lake scoring 9 points. That gave us a total of 28 points and still leaves Team POHAS near the bottom of the league.

There are 3 matches left now and I can only hope that in those matches we get the right pegs on the right day and we enjoy some good weights. That will be some consolation for the time and effort the team have put in over the last 6 months.

Club matches with POHAS start again in earnest with the Spring League kicking off at Lloyds Meadow in Delamere Forest. Due to the increase in members wishing to fish matches and the pegs available there is simply not enough to go around so I will have to miss this one. I may fish the open at Partridge on Saturday then onto Heronbrook the following day for the 4th round of the Spring League.

Hopefully there is more good fishing to be had, and I will have to remember to take a few pictures to brighten up my messages.

Tight lines.