We had a rather disappointing turnout for this match, after a few last minute drop-outs there were 7 of us.
Another club also had a match on the same lake and with that many anglers plus the hot humid weather we suspected it would be tougher than the recent open results would indicate, and it certainly was.
We started at 9.30 and would fish until 15.00.
I started by cupping in 4 balls of groundbait at 11m which contained some chopped worm and caster mixed in. I had also plumbed a line at 5m close to the reeds on my right and a line by the lillies at 6m on my left. A rig for fishing shallow was also set up, I planned to use this over the 5m line as I would be loose feeding casters regularly there by hand.
We all had a slow start and for some it didn't really get going at all.
During the middle of the match I found that by using a pole pot with some chopped worm/caster/soil mush I could get 2 or 3 small skimmers on red maggots hookbait then repeating this feed would get me a couple more but this only really worked a few times. I did manage a couple of decent Ide from the 11m line fishing a small piece of worm on the bottom.
Now and then I fed a little corn and meat to the lillies and tried this line several times in the last 2 hours but did not have any bites on either hookbait.
I kept having a try on the 5m reed line on the bottom and shallow but did not get a bite there until 14.00 when I caught 2 Ide shallow then 2 more on the bottom, after that I did not get another bite anywhere!
So, it had been a hard match and my total of 8lb 15oz was enough to take 2nd place.
The club report and results can be seen HERE