An open on Bonsai is often a rarity on summer weekends so I was looking forward to this, even though the wind was looking like causing a bit of a nuisance. We had pegs 21 to 68 and with the turnout it meant that the match was pegged with two anglers next to each other than a spare peg. Also six pegs on Beeches were included. I didn't want one of those, not least because I didn't have my snag poles with me, so I got in the bag early and thankfully I found myself peg 47 outside the café on Bonsai. Initially I wasn't too happy with this as I was sure much bigger weights would come from further down the lake where the wind was blowing, especially those with island chucks in the 60s where there had been some big weights on the national the day before. The only saving grace was that the wind was at a diagonal angle off my back and would make fishing the long pole shallow possible, though I wasn't sure if there would be enough fish up here for it to work.
This year I've taken a much more positive approach to my open matches by setting up less gear and just concentrating on a couple of things and it seems to have been paying off. Today that would be simply the Method to the island, with a good ripple here I suspected this would be my main line of attack. I also set up a couple of shallow rigs and a bomb rod to fish over the Method line. That was it. I smiled to myself as in years gone by I would have been frantically rushing around before the whistle plumbing up 5m rigs and 14m rigs on the deck... exactly what young Ryan Whilton from the Kinky Pellet Club was doing opposite me on peg 59!
Steady is the word best described for my start as I put several small mirror carp in the net but nobody was setting the world alight. After 40 minutes I had a look shallow and I was a bit concerned as it took a while for a bite before I caught a couple of F1s then that was it. It wasn't looking great. I swapped between the two and even tried the bomb to no avail but around the half way point my shallow line suddenly sprung to life and I was catching 1lb 8oz F1s, plus a few mirrors, every drop for a period of about 90 minutes. It died off so I spent the last hour catching a few fish on the Method. I had another look shallow and caught two F1s in the last five minutes. I didn't realise at the time how important these fish would be!
I was shocked that my catch registered as much as 130lb 14oz but I thought that may be beaten by KPC man Rich Allen on peg 66. He fell just short, but his travelling partner Ryan Whilton thought he would try a little wind up on me. Ryan started shouted across the lake that Rich had ounced me, laughing as he did so. I didn't take kindly to this and decided to take out my revenge. You see unluckily for poor old Ryan, late on in the match something on his rig caught my eye. He had a bright yellow float stop above his Method feeder. This is against Lindholme rules as you cannot have any knots or bits of tackle above the feeder that prevent it running free completely up the line. I had planned to simply have a quiet word with Ryan about this but now, well I innocently mentioned it to venue owner Neil, who as always was completely up for a wind up. He went round and gave Ryan both barrels and jokingly threatened to ban him unless he did a forfeit. Well poor old Ryan fell for it and was soon embarking upon a litter pick round Oasis lake, a classic Lindholme punishment! Oops!
Match result (30 fished)
1. B Fisk 130-14-0 peg 47
2. R Allen 129-2-0 peg 66
3. D Gosling 113-11-0 peg 27 Beeches
4. J Allerton 111-1-0 peg 37
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