Hammered both sides!

Beastie Lake, Decoy, peg 24

This was a 15-peg Open, and I drew the same peg I had had ten days earlier. It's got form...but I can't find it! I had Nigel Baxter on my left on 23 and Alan West on my right on 25. The wind was light, but had turned round to the South-East and it was in out faces, and cold!

My swim. The wind was light but very cold.

First 45 minutes was spent on a maggot feeder but all I had was a few liners; next 45 minutes I spent looking for roach where I had caught some previously - at four section - without a bite. So I went out to 11 metres with maggot and halfway through the match caught the first fish any of the three of us had caught - a 3 lb F1. But no more.

With about two hours to go Nigel and Alan suddenly started to catch odd fish, perhaps once every 15 minutes. Then their rate of catching went slowly up, until the last half-hour when they were getting a fish every few minutes. Meanwhile I had gone out to 13 metres but still sat biteless until 90 seconds before the end of the match, when a 2 lb F1 came in. At the same time Alan netted a 13 lb 1 oz mirror - his last fish.

Alan with 13 lb 1 oz mirror.

The winner, Chris Barley.

My meagre catch was 5 lb 3 oz - the only two bites I had -  while Nigel had 34 lb 15 oz and Alan 47 lb 7 oz. Chris Barley, on 30, took three fish on a waggler, and the rest on maggot feeder fished in the open water, and won with 74 lb.

The fish were obviously down towards the Southern end of the lake as those towards the North fared badly. But I have no idea what I did wrong - presentation was OK and I was feeding similarly to Nigel and Alan.

The result - at least I wasn't last...