The Road Lake at Puddledock Farm for our last championship match of the season.

As per last year we finished the league with a visit to the Road Lake at Puddledock and as last year the far end would be a good draw, I drew peg 26 which is one more peg away from that end than last year!

I fed simarly to the previous year as it had worked quite well, some groundbait with pinkies at 11m and loose fed caster at 4m hoping for some good silvers action.
I also started loose feeding a few grains of corn about 3m from the far bank an hour into the match, I had a waggler rod set up for here but would need the wind to ease up to be able to use this.

I started on bomb and popped up bread to the far bank and after 20 minutes I caught a very lightly hooked F1, this was the only fish I managed on the bomb despite trying different baits and areas towards the island including over the corn loose feed.

After 90 minutes I tried the pole at 11m but no bites and the same at 4m!

With an hour to go the wind did finally ease a bit so out went the waggler and I was very happy to catch a few carp and an F1 in the next 45 minutes until the wind got up again so no further bites in the last 15 minutes.

There were some very good weights of carp and F1s down the far end including a few bigguns.

My 5 carp and 2 F1s went 20lb 3oz on the scales which gave me a section win and 8th in the match.
This was enough to ensure I retained the Championship title for another year.

The club match report and full results can be seen HERE.

For our penultimate match of the league we visited Southend Farm.

We were booked onto 2 of the smaller lakes, Damsel and Kingfisher. I had never seen these lakes before myself as I have only fished on the main match lake.

From info available it seemed there should be some skimmers to catch if they were in a feeding mood with a few carp here and there.

I drew peg 5 on Damsel which is in a corner of the lake facing at an angle towards the main body of the lake, I set up to fish at 5m, 13m and 14.5m on the pole and I set up my 8ft feeder rod with a small pellet feeder.
We had a 16m limit to stop anglers crossing lines hence the short rod.

At the start I fed 3 balls of groundbait containing micro pellets and pinkies at 14.5m and 1 large ball of groundbait with pinkies and a few maggots at 5m. I then had 30 minutes on the feeder in the hope of a carp or 2 but had no bites on this.

Time to try the 14.5m line, with maggot on the hook I caught a few plump Roach and some small skimmers (and 1 Perch), after an hour I was waiting longer for bites so I refed with a ball of groundbait, at this time I also fed some micro pellets at 13m then tried the 5m line.

The 5m line produced a few roach and small skimmers but I was waiting a long time for bites so after 20 minutes I tried the pellet line at 13m with a 4mm expander on the hook. After a little wait the float disappeared and in came a big skimmer so I then alternated between the two long lines to keep catching.

Having loose fed the 5m line with maggots for most of the match I kept having a look here and in the last hour or so I managed to catch fairly quickly including a couple of big roach and a few more skimmers.

With 15 minutes to go in the match Richard on my right had 2 small carp in 2 casts on the feeder and Neil on his right had one of about 5lb so for the last 10 minutes I tried the feeder with no luck.

I thought I had around 12-14 pound so was pleasantly surprised when they went 16lb 13oz on the scales which was enough for 6th in the match and importantly increased my league lead over second place a little.

The club report and full results can be seen HERE.