A decent turnout of 26 for this match considering the rain forecast for most of the day, at least it wasn't windy!
I drew peg 45 which I was not sure about as last year I was on 44 and really struggled. I started cautiously with a bit of chopped worm and caster via a cad pot at 6m by the lilies, within a few minutes I was off the mark with a skimmer to single red maggot. I continued feeding like this and catching a mixture of silvers but after 30 minutes or so bites really slowed so this prompted me to give 'em some grub, in went 2 balls of groundbait with some pinkies in it and whilst giving this a few minutes to settle I fed a pot full of pellets and corn to the bottom of the margin slope at 13m to my right and a few pellets and a little corn on the 6m line to my left.
Time to see if I had ruined my main 6m line! NO, it had worked and over the next few hours I caught some nice crucians, roach, hybrids, rudd, golden rudd, perch, a gudgeon, a goldfish and a carp over this spot by swapping hookbaits between red maggot, a caster and a worm head.
Whilst fishing the main swim I had occasionally topped up with a small ball of groundbait and each time I topped up, I also cupped in some pellets and corn to my right and had a look on the 6m line to my left with an expander or a bit of corn, from the left side I only had one skimmer and no signs at all to the right when I had a look with an hour and a half to go.
In the last hour of the match I concentrated more on trying to find a couple more carp and in the last 40 minutes I had 4 on corn from the right hand swim.
A pleasant days fishing despite the rain and 2nd in the match with 25lb 10oz was a much better start to my league than last year.
Full Results and a write up can be found HERE