Back to our club water at Riverside Road in St Albans for our 6th match.

Following a nice bacon sarnie (thanks Brian and Kev) in our new clubhouse it was time for the draw, the hot favourite pegs were 2, 16, 30, 34, but Josh had already drawn 30 so in I went and out came 18 which I did not expect to be very good but the fishery had been fishing very well in recent weeks so you never know.

In peg 18 I had an obvious feeder chuck so out came my 8ft browning wand set up with Preston ICS method feeder.

I prepped half a bag of micros for the feeder and some groundbait for the 5m pole line which could also be used on the feeder, also on the bait tray was 6mm pellets and corn plus some bandums and wafters for feeder hookbaits.

To start the match I fed a few balls of groundbait with some pellets and corn on the 5m line then started casting the feeder regularly to the point opposite me. After a few casts the rod went round and a little carp about a pound came to the net.

I caught a mixture of sized carp from a pound to 6lb on this steadily until about 1.15pm when bites stopped coming so to rest the line a bit I tried the pole but only managed 1 skimmer and no more bites on this so went back on the feeder but no more fish until the last 30 minutes with 3 more carp in this time.

I had certainly caught more than I expected to from this peg and although I knew Josh had bagged up for the win (and new venue match record), I was looking at a place in the frame and my 82lb 12oz (equaling the previous match record) was indeed good for a clear 2nd place.

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

Southend Farm Fishery for our 5th match.

After a nice breakfast at the fishery came the draw and I was happy with peg 22 as it is a good area and a short walk from the car park!

This fishery is known as a good pellet waggler venue so I started on that and had 8 or 9 carp in the first few hours. With 2 hours to go I started feeding my edge swim and after 20 minutes I saw a large tail waving at me but as soon as my pole was shipped to the spot the fish swam out of the swim so I quickly removed the rig and replaced it with one a bit longer so that I could keep the pole a couple feet off the water.

In the last hour or so I landed a bream and 5 carp from the edge swim fishing with sweetcorn over groundbait and corn feed. 2 of these carp were over 16lb.

I weighed in a total of 122lb 10oz which was second on the day, the winner had 125lb 9oz and third had 120lb 9oz so very close in the top three.

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