My Lindholme Charity Match

Well, the day finally upon me. My travelling partner for the day had blobbed, so I was left to my own devices. I set off from home at about 7:00 and arrived for 8:00. I quickly paid on, and drew my peg. Willows 43. Peg 42 wasn't in. Great and empty peg one side.

On the quid front, I put up a thread on http://www.total-fishing.com/ inviting people to have a quid with me, limited to 10. I ended up with the following candidates:

Cornfrog
Juzzy
Dave Hedgehog (RobB)
Beanhead
Respect
BNF
Max Factor
Avid Merrion
Poorbloke
God's Dad if he's going.

I went for breakfast and then tried to glean as much info as possible. I saw Rob Hitchens and asked him about my peg in view of him being a 'Venue Expert'. He told me naff all, why you might ask. Only because he was on the next peg - Willows 41. to be fair, he told me that I was stuck in a corner. If the wind was blowing that way, I would have a field day. I arrived at my peg to find that the wind was.......................

Blowing away from me into the opposite corner. No fish for me today. But hey, it's a charity match and that is what the day is all about. If you win the match today, you will only get the same money as someone who wins their section, besides, the raffle is later on and I had already bought a few tickets.

I went in search of the quid bets to see who had turned up and to check that they hadn't chickened out. Dave Hedgehog (RobB) wasn't in attendance and neither were a couple of the others. I'll sort it out at the end.

For bait I had pellets, pellets and more pellets. Oh, and some corn and a couple of pints of casters.

I set up the following rigs:

Top 3 kit was a .2g Garbolino DC6 float tied to .16 Ultima Power Plus line direct to a size 16 Colmic B500. I plumbed up at the edge of the reed bed to my left and found that I had about 3ft of depth.

Rig 2 was a .3g Garbolino DC6 float, again, tied to .16 Ultima Power Plus line direct to as size 14 Colmic B500 hook. I plumbed up at 8m to my left into open water. The depth was about 4ft. I swung the rig round to 13m directly infront of me. The depth there was just over 4ft. Rather than mess about changing depth all the time, I set up another rig exactly the same to fish at 13m.

I set up another rig for the 8m line in order to fish the caster. I set up a Drennan Roach on .12 Fox Match Plus line, to this I tied a size 18 Kamasan B611 hook.

My final rig was a .2g Colmic thick nylon bristled float. I set this up on .18 Ultima Power Plus line direct to a size 14 Colmic B500 hook.

The rigs may seem a bit on the heavy side, but there was a lot of reeds in the peg, also the fish can be quite big and I wanted to get everything out that I hooked. As is usually the case.

Jonny Howard was walking around reminding all and sundry that it was a 14.5m pole limit. I had set up my bomb and waggler rod, the only problem being that with me being hemmed in, if I cast my bomb out to 20m directly infront of me, I would be fishing Rob Hitchens' 6m line (that can't be a bad thing, surely) and I couldn't go to my left due to the angler on the next peg.

At the all in, I potted in some pellets at 13m and down the side to the reeds. I threw a couple of handfuls of micro pellets to the edge of the reeds on my top 3 kit. I baited up the Drennan Roach rig with a couple of casters and put some caster and corn in a Tosspot pole cup. I shipped out, tipped the bait in and dropped the rig over the top.

I caught a roach immediately. I rebaited and dropped back in, another roach followed. After a couple more roach and an ide, I snared a small tench of about 1lb. I dropped back in and latched onto something a little bigger. I don't know how big it was, as it broke me. My .12 didn't last very long then......!!!

Rob Hitchens on the next peg, was chucking the bomb up the middle of the lake with corn on the hook and was loose feeding a few grains of corn over the top. He had managed to get a couple of carp before he got broke.

Whilst sorting out my caster rig, I dropped in down the side with corn on the hook. I managed to hook a decent carp, as I played it, the carp run towards me, then went solid. The water was boiling in front of me. The carp had run around a couple of stick ups and was going round and round. After about 10 minutes trying to drag the carp off the stickups, nothing was happening. I was left with no other alternative except get the landing net and start prodding, which as most of you will no is either a do or die. In this instance, it was a die. the carp shed the hook. I managed to get the rig back, but it was looking a little worse for wear as the line had started to chafe, but at least it hadn't broke. That's another rig that I am going to have to sort out.

Halfway through the match, one of the lads was complaining at one of the other participants for feeding too much. One of the fellas near him told him to shut his cakehole as it is a charity match and not to be taken too seriously.

The caster rig was now sorted. I rebaited the caster rig and dropped back in on the caster line. After 5 minutes, I had managed nothing - not a thing, zero. I big potted some corn and caster whilst I went back down the side.

I managed to get a couple of carp down the side and a couple of chub. I went out to my 13m line and managed to snare a couple of fish from there.

The peg then seemed to die. I was struggling to get a fish from any of my lines. In desparation for the last hour or so, I came close in, to the reeds on my top 3 kit to be precise. 1st drop in resulted in a tench, 3 more followed before I caught a carp of about 2lb.

That was it, match over.

Rob Hitchens had emptied it. I had had a few, but nowhere near enough. By the time that the scales had arrived, beanhead had put 40lb on the scales, Rob Hitchen put 50lb on the scales and yours truly managed to snare 17lb 13oz. The next 5 or 6 anglers failed to trouble the scales. Graham Edgerley (?) who was at the back of me managed to snare 26lb odd, but you should have seen his peg. Wind blowing into it, fish rolling all over. Graham, just kidding mate.

The quids result: I owed (or should I say paid) a quid to Billy2fish, Beanhead and Cornfrog. I managed to snare a quid from Avid Merrion and Respect. I should have got a quid from Pourerkev, blunthook and maxfactor, but it seems to have slipped their memory.

RAFFLE TIME

I purchased a couple more raffle tickets and waited in anticipation. By the end of the raffle, I managed to snare a fleece and a couple of goodie bags with some pellets and the like in them.

All in all, it was an enjoyable day out in which everyone deserves a massive well done for supporting the event either by donating a raffle prize or taking part. Nearly £6,000 was raised from the day and although some areas/lakes had fished hard, it wasn't about winning. IT WAS THE TAKING PART THAT COUNTED.

WELL DONE EVERYONE.