A month since my last match due to the storms, this one was at Southend Farm in Essex.

I drew peg 22 which is a decent area and the shortest walk from the car park!
The forecast was for strong winds and light rain until around 11am at which time the winds were forecast to drop significally. With this in mind I put in a few balls og groundbait with 2mm pellets and a few casters on the 13m pole line for later and started on the feeder.

Casting a bomb out before the start to clip up I foul hooked a decent skimmer so I was thinking there might be a few in front of me, on the whistle I went straight out fishing rather than putting in several feeders full first.

Not quite as quick a start as I thought it may be but after 10-15 minutes my first skimmer was in the net and over the first half of the match I caught steadily with a couple of good size Bream in amongst them, I caught all these on double dead maggot with a 2ft hooklength of 0.12 to a 16 hook.

The second half unfortunately was not good for me, the fish seemed to have moved off. I did catch a few more skimmers including 2 in the last 30 minutes on a method feeder and wafter bait.

The wind did not really drop tthat much until the last hour, I did try the pole a few times but only managed 2 small Roach on this.

My catch totalled 14lb 11oz which was second in the section and joint 3rd on the day.
Well done to Simon who walked it with 30lb.
In hindsight I should have fed a short pole line too for somewhere to try when the feeder line died.

Here are the full results...
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For my first match of the year we were at Frogmore for a silvers only match (F1s and carp do not count).

I drew peg 5 so a short walk and an island peg, good area for F1s!
I started off by cupping in a ball of groundbait with dead pinkies and maggots in at 13m slightly to my left, this was the deepest part of the peg before it shallowed up toward the island and a few 2mm pellets with some maggots at 12m to the right where I had found the same depth as the left swim.

Starting on the pellet line with maggot on the hook I was soon into a fat F1 of about 2lb which of coaurse had to be put back, whilst fishing the long lines I began loose feeding a few maggots dowm the near shelf to my left. After a couple of F1s I caught a few small skimmers and the odd roach alternating between the two long lines but the pellet line seemed the best. 

When I felt the pellet line needed topping up with the cup I would try the short maggot line which produced a few Roach but wasn't prolific. At the end of the match I thought I might have 3lb so was pleasantly surprised when they went 4lb 14oz, a few of the Roach were obviously bigger than I realised. This was not going to win me anything but I was a respectable 7th of 22.

Full results can be seen Below..