Good morning!

Happy Birthday Sue, 21 again xx

We’re obviously doing something correct here as we had another record attendance yesterday. 15 participants in all and may I pass our sincere thanks to all of you for taking part.

Next week will see the 1st Ladies match with at least 3 participants. If there are any other ladies out there who’d like to take part you are warmly invited.

The weather couldn’t have been better for yesterday’s match. Warm, sunny and only a light breeze. Pretty good for November.
I have to mention that I thought there would be good weights from the house bank given the conditions. I fully expected in excess of 20lbs to be needed to frame. Regardless, I think everyone enjoyed the day.

Sue drew peg 11 for me. I was slightly disappointed as I really fancied the house bank for a good day’s fishing for grassies. Oh well, Tollostolob here I come.
I plumbed up and found 2metres of water at the 7 metre mark (top 6 of my pole). The main reason I fish at that distance is comfort – It’s much easier to fish a shorter pole on the wall and the little twitchy bites are easier to see closer in, plus the water temperature stays pretty constant throughout the year at 2m deep.
My rig consisted of a 0.17 line (3.5Kg), 1g in-line float with the bulk shot 30cm from the hook and 1 number 8 shot as a dropper. A size 12, barbless, strong hook completed the rig. I dotted the float down to approximately 6mm of tip showing.
On the wall I set the float at the precise depth (or as close as I can get it!) under the tip of my pole. Bites are more noticeable when doing that and it also minimises the amount of time snagging the bottom.
I use back Hydro through the top 2 of my pole.
8 jaffas laced with wheat, corn and maggot went in at the off. Loose feed of wheat, maggot and a little corn was regularly fired in on top.
I alternated between corn and maggot on the hook and the 1st hour was biteless.  I was surprised that I had caught no taranka, grass carp or sun perch in that hour, that’s the reason I fished maggot. Even the waggler fished a little further out produced nothing. Then a few bubbles came up and my hopes rose with them.

I went to  move the van off the wall, the tractor men had turned up and I thought they’d be wanting to get across to the fields. They took a different route and I wasted my time! Oh well.

On returning to my peg, I baited up with a piece of corn, plonked the bait in the water and hit a fish immediately. 1o minutes later a 9.75lb tollostolob was in my net. Fairly hooked in the mouth. I felt much better after that.
The next 3.5 hours saw me foul hook 4 more tollostolob and catch a small taranka. I knew they were foul hooked as each time mu hook had a scale on it.
With about 1 hour to go, I spotted Assen’s pole bending under the weight of a big fish. It proved to be a tollostolob as well. I was quite sure he landed it and knew that it would probably be a close thing at the weigh-in. It was. Assen’s 2lb 11oz common carp compared to my 2oz taranka made the difference.

There was lots of chit chat going on along the house bank and I had the impression things weren’t going too well for them all. I was surprised to say the least.

Results:

Section A

1. Gencho      -     9lb 8oz (4.31Kg), peg 4
2. Plamen      -     7lb 15oz (3.6Kg), peg 2
3. Vlado         -     6lb 13oz (3.09Kg) peg 5
4. Jivko          -     5lb 3oz (2.35Kg) peg 7
5. Rado           -     4lb 6oz (1.98Kg) peg 6
6. Simon        -      1lb 11oz (0.765Kg) peg 3
7. John           -      13 oz (0.368Kg) peg 1

Section B

1. Assen        -     10lb 14oz (4.93Kg) peg 14
2. Paul           -     9lb 14oz (4.48Kg) peg 11
3. Hristo       -     3lb 6oz (1.53Kg) peg 13
4. Yanaki      -     1lb 15oz (.879Kg) peg 12
5. Nikolai      -     1lb 9oz (0.71Kg) peg 10
6. Nevyana  -      1lb 3oz (0.538Kg) peg 8
7. Assen        -      10 oz (0.283Kg) peg 15
8. Miroslav  -      6 oz (0.17Kg) peg 9

Next week we’re going to do it all again. The forecast is quite good for Sunday, sun and clouds with a light winds. I think this could well be the last match of the year, the weather is likely to go rapidly downhill in the next 2 weeks.
I will try and organise something over the Christmas period if we get the opportunity with the weather. It would be good if you guys gave this some thought and maybe suggest a format for a Christmas match should we get the opportunity.

No doubt I’ll be having a fish later this week. If anyone fancies coming up for a practice, let me know.

Thank you all for taking part and see you on Sunday.