Blythe Pairs League Sunday 18/3/12

This weekend saw us back at Blythe Waters on Cherries pool for round 6 of our Pairs League which Sav and I are currently leading with a 4 point cushion over Carl/Chris in second place, as we were doing well Stav decided to leave it up to me to do the draw again so into the draw-bag I went and out popped peg 2 for Stav and peg 10 for me. Peg 2 has yet to throw up a good weight in this league and is not a good draw as there is a lot better pegs in his section, my peg 10 has had a good track record in the passed but this year only one good weight of 43lb has come from it Stav fished it in the last round for 2 Carp for 10lb so it looked like we were going to have our work cut out to get good points from this draw. The wind was blowing in the same direction as the last round which was catching me straight in the face and still quite cold so I was going to base my attack on the method feeder up to the boom as this was the only way Stav could catch on in the last round, I was still going to set up the pole but with the cold wind chilling the water I wasn't holding out much hope of catching on it.
Rig 1, Shimano Beastmaster 9/11ft feeder rod, Shimano Stradic GTM 4000 RA, 0.23 Maver dual band line, small 24gr Guru X-safe method feeder, 0.18 hooklength with different size hooks for different baits.
Rig 2, 14.5m pellet line, 4x14 J-range8 float, 0.16 to 0.12 with 18 808 hook, J- range 6-10 elastic.
Rig 3, 6m maggot line, the same float as above just with a 0.14 hooklength 18 Tosciro hook,13 hollo elastic, I could switch between both rigs on both lines as they were the the same depth (4ft) just in-case the fish show up.
For bait I had brought the usual array of pellets from micros to 8mm,4 & 6mm expanders, half a tin of team corn (Stav's shout), 2 pints of maggots, some dead maggots for the hook and boillies of different sizes and colours.
On the whistle I fed the long line with 1/2 a pot of 1mm micro pellets with a few 4mm's and a couple of grains of corn and the 6m line got 1/2 a pot of maggots, I loaded up the method feeder with 1mm micros and a 6mm lassoed pellet and cast up to the clip tight up to the central boom around 30m away. It was around 45mins before I had my first bite and before long my first Carp of the day a 5lb mirror was safely netted, I could see Stav from my peg who had netted a couple of fish so at least we were both up and running. It took another 30mins before my next bite another Carp of around 4lb which again fell to a 6mm pellet again but another 45 mins went passed without another bite so it was time to try my pole lines, I had a small 3oz skimmer first put in on the pellet line but that was it until after around 20 mins just when I was going to give it up I hooked a Carp which went 2 pegs to my left and then the same to my right before it tried to hit the boom 30m away before we parted company I think it was slightly foul hooked! I stayed on the pellet for another 10mins just in-case they had turned up but to no avail and a bite-less 10mins on the short maggot line saw me back on the method feeder, over the next hour I had 1 more bite and Carp no3 was netted it was slow going but apart from Stav catching odd Carp on peg 2 the rest of the top end of the pool was fishing slow. I rang Stav to see what they were catching at the bottom end of the pool in my section as he could look down the pool from his peg I can see nothing passed peg 12 he said there were 3 catching Carp in my section pegs 20.19 & 14, this was bad news as Carl was on peg 19 and Stav said he was catching one a bung and looking like the section winner already. The next hour passed without so much as a bite and with around 1 hour left the wind dropped which made it feel a lot warmer I went back on the pole and had six skimmers in around 15mins on the pellet, it just goes to show that they were there all day but with the cold wind hitting the water they wouldn't feed but another call to Stav confirmed that I would need more Carp for better points I went back on the method for the last 45mins. Back on the feeder I started to get line bites which I hadn't had all day the bites I had were straight round or nothing but now the tip started to dance a bit, I managed 3 more Carp one of which was around the 8lb mark and 2 skimmers something else I hadn't caught on the method all day! It is just frustrating knowing that the fist are there but the cool wind was stopping them from feeding and on another warmer day you would catch Carp and skimmers all day but when that day comes I won't draw it. Stav had put on a fine display winning his section from an out of form peg with 32lb 12oz despite loosing 8 Carp that took him under the boom but better still  was that Chris ( part of the chasing pair ) on the corner peg 32 had hooked 10 Carp but lost 9 of them coming last in the section, my 6 Carp+ skimmers gave me the same weight as Stav with 32lb 12oz the best in my section until Kev on peg 14 with 33lb 6oz pushing me into 2nd until the last 2 pegs in my section where Carl on peg 19 won the section and the match with 95lb ( not won the match but p****d it) and Ollie on corner peg 20 had 38lb putting me 4th in the section. Well done to Carl for the match win and after the points had been added up we found out that we were now 8 points clear at the top of the league with 2 rounds left to go so we were looking good but 1 blow-out could change all that.