Easter Festival Day 2
.
Sunday 16th April 2006

After yesterdays grueller, We had hoped for a better match on the Sunday. Bright sunshine and showers were forecast for the day, but the bright sun in the morning had sent me digging in my box for my shades! The days weather mirrored my match - a bright start but it went very grey and started raining. In short I took 50lb in the first hour with fish to 14lb 8oz, but struggled to buy a bite for the remaining 4 hours. The peg did produce an 8lb Chubb for me, which made the day a little better, but I'd rather of had 100lb!

Gary Thorpe had drawn his favourite peg 7 and after a slow start switched to a 16m line with pellet at full depth although he did continually lift and drop the the pellet to produce a bite over his regular fed pellet (about 6-10 every 30 seconds). He eventually ran out match winner with 188lb.

Russell Alexander drew well, picking out fancied peg 24, and made no mistake converting it into another section win with a net busting 180lb 8oz. He enjoyed a quick start putting 50lb in the net in the first hour while those around him simply watched enviously. His second hour went to plan with another 50lb before he slowed up and his bread hook bait lost its allure! To make things worse Andy Johnstone, after a slow start, had got the fish lined up on the next peg. Going into the last hour Russell had to make a change to keep pace with the Welsh International angler who had overtaken him on the next peg. Russell added a section and fished the last hour at 16 metres with bread hookbaits at half depth during which he added another 50 lb to overtake Andy and win the section.

My mate, RAF Tek-neek Trabucco Captain and Welsh International Andy Johnstone, had just one fish in the first hour before throwing caution to the wind and feeding pouches full of pellet at 16 metres (he neglected to use a revolutionary new feed pot I lent him but promises to test drive it tomorrow). He was rewarded with 2 carp fishing shallow before retuning to full depth with expander on the hook. A purple spell of 3 hours in the middle of the match would have put him first place in section and match at the 4 hour mark. However, without the opportunity to add any length to his pole (16 metre limit at Rolfs) saw him struggle for just 2 fish in the last hour and allowed both Gary Thorpe and Russell Alexander to move ahead and push him back into 3rd place in today's match.