One Week, Two Matches, One Fish, In The Payout Twice

Well that was a week that was, the first outing was the monthly Amal match at Fishpool, the lake was still carrying colour from the Christmas rains, but the morning of the match saw the thermometer go to minus 4 and cat ice had formed at the shallow end of the lake, 8 anglers had booked in, 6 showed up the other two had spoken to me the day before and there was no suggestion of a no show but they did, no call no text, sooo annoying. The match was hard, if you had any wind on the water in your peg you blanked, if it was still you stood a chance. My step son Ryan fished but decided he couldn't afford the pools, so I paid his pools on the proviso that I claimed half his winning should he pick up a brown envelope, suffice to say he drew probably the best peg on the lake ( 10 ) , fished it like a pro and won with 11lb odd four carp on bomb and corn ,

2nd weight from peg 12 was 9lb 5 three carp and some bits well done Geoff Bloxham, and a hard earned third by Dave Kimber with 12 fish for 1lb 12, as he wouldn't stop telling us , he had more fish than the rest of us put together lol. So ryan won and despite my biteless blank, I removed 20quid from his cold fingers, cheers Ryan ;-)
And so to the next Sunday and an invite from Bingham AC's chairman Richard Landon to fish their winter league on the Barrow Canal, as I'd mentioned a few weeks ago this water never floods even when the Soars "bombing through "and so it was proven on the day, the canal resembled cold tea and a cold wind with the promise of yet more rain meant we were in for a grueller. 5 hardy souls made the draw and I suspected end pegs would be a premium, I drew peg 2, oh no, so I planned a groundbait and pinkie line just going up the far shelf and a similar line on my near shelf but 6m to my left thus having my back to the wind and potential rain later in the match, at the all in I primed my lines and sat down for a coffee and Jaffa cake breather before fishing, this was disturbed by the guy to my right having a roach first chuck and I thought , well its either stuffed with fish or this guys lucky, he failed to worry the fish after that so it was the later lol. I couldn't buy a bite despite scaring myself with the size of the hooks I was using, 22's and 24's , help. Then I noticed some bubbling on my far shelf line so I switched rigs and put a tiny piece of worm and fluro pinkie over there, more bubbles and I feared it might have been a carp , which would have seen my tiddler rig off in the blink of an eye, the float dipped and I lifted into a solid thump, I drew the pole back and after a quick tussle netted a big bream, yeh, I cupped in a few dozen casters and some bubbling continued for another hour but no bites followed, the wind picked up, my fingers froze and the switch to my fish laden nearside line produced, not a single bite , so that was it. 4lb 1 went the big girl, with 4oz coming 2nd and 3oz third from end peg 1. I didn't have to endure more than an hour of ribbing after this, my new nicknames now "Spawny Twat" So I picked up the brown envelope through my own endevours this time.

AMAL Business
One of our member clubs Ratby Ac had a match at Fishpool on the 4th January, a great result came from the lake despite the coloured water and pretty rubbish weather, it went like this

 In first place was Dominic Lanni  with 21.14 off peg 10.

 In second place was Tom Watt with 14.07 (peg 6) and third was Billy Hill with 9.04 (peg 8)

There will be a delegate meeting on 21st January at the usual place, there are no issues that I know of but that's the idea of the meeting to get some feedback from the member clubs. Match bookings are as follows

Water Booked                                   Date of Booking     Booking Club

Fishpool                                              18th January              Ratby AC
Barrow Canal                                      19th January             Bingham AC
Fishpool                                              1st February              Ratby AC
Barrow AC                                          2nd February            Bingham AC
Fishpool                                              15th February            Ratby AC
Barrow Canal                                      16th February           Bingham AC
Fishpool                                              2nd March                 Bingham AC
Fishpool                                              8th March                 Ratby AC
Fishpool                                              29th March               Ratby AC
Fishpool                                              11th May                  Bingham AC
Fishpool                                               7th June                   Charnwood Hookers
 Fishpool                                              17th August              Bingham AC
Barrow Deeps                                      28th September       Bingham AC
Fishpool                                              1st November           Ratby AC
Fishpool                                               29th November        Ratby AC

So that's about the lot for now, any questions, catch reports and the like please let me have them cheers Ian