I knew a few of the other guys fishing this match as 2 of them (Alan and Josh) are also members of VAC and I think everyone in match angling knows Dickie Carr!
After buying some pellets, ordering a bacon baguette (Yum) and paying my pools money it was time for the draw.
At the draw there was much talk of peg 3 probably being the best to draw and with 4 or 5 left in the bag in went my hand and out came peg 3 so that was a good start!
Peg 3 is at the narrow end of the triangle shaped match lake, I set up a feeder rod with a medium hybrid feeder for across to the opposite bank and a pole line a couple metres from my margin on the left and right.
I also had a pellet waggler rod ready to go.
At the start I fed a big cup of pellets to my left and the same with some corn added to the right, then loaded up the hybrid with 2mm pellets and a hard pellet hook bait and launched it to the far bank.
In the first hour I had 4 carp on the feeder, they were all about 4lb so not a bad start.
I continued to catch steadily on the feeder and after 2 hours I had 7.
All the time I was fishing the feeder I had been feeding a few 8mm pellet just over half way across to try the pellet waggler over and when after 3 hours the bites on the feeder seemed to have slowed up I gave the waggler a try at a few depths but no indications on this at all. This had given the feeder line a rest which seemed to help as I had a bite almost straight away when going back out there.
I also tried the pole lines occasionally but did not have any bites here either so I stuck with the feeder alternating between a hard pellet and a Bait-tech "The Juice" wafter, it did not really seem to make much difference which hook bait was used.
I ended up with 23 carp on the feeder for a total of 79lb 10oz which was enough to win the match.
Thank you to Andy for organising the match and for bringing the bacon baguette to my peg!