Sunday August 14th

After last Sunday's fish filled day I was hoping that the new lake was going to fish a bit better than it had been.

When my hand went in the bag a few of the numbers I wanted were still in, but when 35 came out it wasn't the best option in the bag. In fact, I think I described it as the worst peg on the lake last time I drew it!

Plumbing up gave me 15in of water at 16m, but this was probably 2ft off the island. If I went any tighter the water was very shallow, just 3-4 in. This wasn't ideal as I like to get as tight to the island as I can to stop liners, but with the water low this isn't possible on some pegs now. On a more heavily stocked water I'd have put a rig up for it. The rig was normal for fishing across; a NG XTM on .17 to .15 and a size 18 Fox Series 2. This rig was matched to Preston 15h. The only other rig I put up was for the margin at about 8m down the bank to my right. I had a nice sloping area with 2ft of water near to the bank here. The rig was pretty much the same as for across but the float was a .2gr DC5.

On the whistle I fed a small pinch of pellets across, while the margin got a small pinch of hemp and corn. I wasn't going to feed a lot here and if it didn't go with half the match gone I had some groundbait to feed.

I had a liner more or less from the off, and after about ten minutes I started to drip a few pellets in via a toss-pot. Pretty much dead on the half-hour mark I had my first proper bite on a 6mm expander which gave me a carp of about 3lb. This wasn't the kick-start to the day I hoped and the fish that had been present started to fade away.

On the hour mark I decided on a change, as while there wasn't as many fish present there were still some. I had a few worms with me so took a small handfull plus some of the peat they were in and gave them a liberal dose of liquid worm before mixing them with a few pellets, casters and an odd grain of corn. The first drop feeding this via toss-pot gave me a small perch and the next half an hour gave me a couple more small perch before any activity faded. The next bite gave me another carp of about 3lb before the swim totally died on me.

On the halfway mark I'd had no more bites so I fed the margin with two pots of loose crumb with a few small cubes of meat in. I then noticed an odd movement under a tiny bush to my left. This needed me to just hold a top-kit and a foot of the no4 to reach. I decided to flick just an odd pellet here after I'd plumbed up to find it about two inches deeper than the other margin. After a fruitless try across another movement to my left saw me drop in on a pellet and the float went away as soon as I lowered it in. A carp of about 3lb was in the net before it even knew what was going on as I'd hooked it so close to me!

No more bites came so I tried both the other lines but with no joy. Another movement under the small bush saw me about to try there but just as I was going to the angler on the next peg (who'd not caught) threw all his bait in down that margin as he packed up. That was that down the edge after then!

I plugged away on the two lines I'd originally fed and with an hour to go I had two bites in two drops from across where I'd still been feeding the worm mixture. Both these fish were bigger at about 5lb each, but the last hour bag-up I hoped would happen didn't and the bites faded, funnily enough as the angler the other side packed up noisily....

I kept the bait going in and with about ten minutes to go I managed my sixth carp, a smaller one than the last two at about 3lb again. I hoped I'd had enough time for another but while I had fish in the swim I never managed to get another bite before the whistle.

The match had been hard for all those that I could see, with the four anglers I could see one having one, one having four and the other two were the pegs either side that had packed up carp-less.

Walking round following the scales peg 14 was the first person to put a weight on the scales around what I thought I had with a 20-14 total. A couple of other weights around that mark came to the scales with the best being 22-10, until peg 27 put their fish on the scales and totalled 32lb odd, with more fish than they'd admitted to! I knew I didn't have that so it was second I was hoping for but I knew it was going to be very close. A couple of double figure weights went on the scales before they got to me, and when I put my fish on the scales I totalled a level 24lb and narrowly pipping the last peg to weigh in who had 23-6 into second place.

In the end I was quite pleased with the result, and I'm not sure I could have scraped much more out of the peg in the end, certainly not through my own errors anyway, although I wasn't best pleased with the anglers either side and they way they packed up as I'm pretty certain they cost me fish. Still, next week is back on to the old lake and that's fishing much better!