The 2nd match of the seaon was on our club lake at Frogmore, near Radlett.

I drew peg 29 which was not the area anyone wanted and a peg I have drawn before and struggled, and it proved to be similar on this hot sunny day.

First put in on the pole to the island a 2lb carp grabbed the bait while I was still turning the pole to drop bait from the pole pot so a good start but I did not manage another carp until 2 hours later.

I also fed the 5m line with groundbait with some 2mm pellets, chopped worm and casters mixed in which I switched to when it was evident the carp were not really feeding in the area, trying different hook baits this produced a few decent skimmers, a 4lb bream and a few roach.

Alan G on peg 28 mugged a 10lb carp at the whistle and I thought that would probably mean he overtook me and sure enough he had a total of 19lb 1oz to my 14lb 15oz, this was 7th on the match which was a reasonable result from the area I thought, with some very low weights at our end of the lake.

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

Not a great start to the new season for me, drew a difficult area.

I started on a little hybrid feeder and caught 2 crucians and a small tench on this then later managed 2 carp and a crucian in the edge on maggots over groundbait, that was it for a total of 12lb 3oz which was enough to win the section but a long way down the list for league points in 19th.


Club match report and full results can be seen HERE

For our Champ of Champs match (match winners from last season plus a few by default) we visited the lovely Alders Farm Fishery.

For this match we had 8 pegs on each side of the lake with the favoured draw being the end pegs at the clubhouse end, pegs 1 and 30.

I drew peg 5, certainly not the worst draw but would always be difficult to beat pegs 1 and 30, especially with Alan Thomas on peg 1.

I started at 5m with pellets, throwing a few 4mm pellets but this just got me foul hooking problems so I reverted to a pole pot, this worked better but the first 2 hours were still hard going by Alders standards, at this stage I had 8 carp of around 2-3lb a piece. In the middle part of the match I had a good little run of carp on this line then it went iffy again.

With an hour to go I tried the margins which I had been feeding for 2 hours, to my left I fed groundbait and maggots and to my right I fed sweetcorn, I did get a couple on the maggots but the sweetcorn line was better and I had a busy last hour with carp from 3lb to around 6lb.

On the peg to my left Andy had been very busy using a method feeder close in but I did think I might have caught him in that last hour and this is how it turned out as I weighed 119lb 6 oz to Andy's 114lb 10oz.

As predicted this was not enough to beat pegs 1 and 30, Alan winning with 171lb 15oz and Kev 2nd with 137lb 14oz but I was next best so 3rd on the day.

Club report and full results can be seen HERE.