Milemead open.

Sunday 15th August 2010.
About 18 of us turned out for this one and we were greeted with nice warm and mild conditions. The lake had a slight ripple and there were a few fish cruising which was a bit concerning. Because of the problems with my broken pole i was hoping for a bit of open water and was pleasantly surprised with peg 3 again. Although a very good paste peg, I still had an island chuck to my left as well as plenty of open water and there were only 3 others down this end so i had the space i needed. I set up a paste rig on a top 3 and a lead rod and a pellet wag rod but to be honest i was expecting to catch on the lead to the island. the paste rig was plan B and the pellet wag plan C as this just doesn't produce like it used to. The fish have got bigger and wiser and they just do not need to compete like when they were stockies. I still planned on feeding all my lines though just in case. On the whistle i had a carp first chuck on the lead then a second a few minutes later, but that was it for the first hour. I tried the paste line and had half an hour on the waggler without a touch so it was back on the lead alternating between 8mm/11mm pellet and the conker. The second hour was a bit better but it was now obvious that it was going to fish hard. I plugged away in the third hour for a few more but felt i needed to change something and force the action if i was going to compete, so i switched to a large method feeder with soaked micros a bit of green swim stim for binding and a hair rigged 11mm trout pellet. The response was instant and by almost hitting the bank of the island i kept fish coming through the fourth and fifth hours with a good run of fish towards the end of that fifth hour. I then suffered a couple of breakages as i snagged the island, but i literally had to get within inches of it before the ledge plummeted down to a 9 foot hole!! It was tough going but I persevered had a had a few more. The last half hour was bite less as I got snagged again and lost a very good fish and all the commotion just spooked the fish. I ended up with just over 65lb all carp for second overall and another nice little brown envelope. Paul Carpenter fished an absolute blinder from peg 7 and won with just over 121lb.