Fished club match today at New Farm Fishery near Maidenhead.
Anywhere from pegs 1 to 6 is generally the favoured draw here, with 3 the favourite as it's opposite a treelined bay/ cutting in the island (there's a rope across about a yard and a half into the cutting so you can't get to the back of it, I suppose as otherwise it would probably win every match)
Drew 4 so happy enough with that. Looks a bit limiting compared to a lot of other swims here as it's relatively tight to 3 to the left and also there's another rope across to the island about 8 ft to the right so can't go too far to either side but a nice easy 11.5m across so not too bothered.
Plumbed up, too shallow in the edge for a proper inside line, deepening to about 2'6" at top 2 range and then off to nearly 5 ft. Far side only inches deep tight over but straight off to full depth within three feet of the far bank. Only set up pole, 5 topkits, two white hydro, two black, one of each for dead depth and shallow, and another with a 12 solid if needed for across where the fish could be bigger and apparently a lot of roots so might not want anything too stretchy. 0.11 on the black , 0.10 on the white and 0.13 on the heavier rig, size 18 and 20 Silverfish Pellet on the hydro with a 18 B911 completing the set up.
Whistle went and put two full pots of pellet and maggot on the bottom of the drop off across and loosefed maggot with a few pellets just to left and next to rope to right both at 6m. A few quick 4 to 6oz skimmers and a couple of little carp by the rope, switched left for two more skimmers and an ide, loosefeeding all the time, but things quickly went quiet. Across at 11m found a tench about a pound , two more ide and a nice roach before that too stopped. Bounced around between the three lines just picking up the odd fish but all the while Derek on 3 was catching small carp steadily on the waggler to the rope. Gradually the far line became the only place I could catch with the occasional small carp and tench apart from a short burst of rudd shallow at 6m and with an hour and a half to go reckoned I had around 18 to 20 lb with Derek about 15 lb in front of me. Had already had a few good looks shallow over for little reward but then suddenly there were some carp there and started picking them up about 2 ft deep on double maggot. Caught well for the last hour and a bit, never needed the heavy rig as most of the fish around the pound/ pound and a quarter mark, although could have done with it for the 4 to 5lb ghostie, far bigger than anything else I had, which didn't want to come in for quite a while on white hydro.
Derek had still been catching on the wag and at the whistle I didn't think I'd done enough to catch him while he thought I was about 10 lb ahead.
Scales got to me, silvers net went 7-12, carp and tench 43-6 so 51-2 in total, top so far with a couple of high 30s next from 16 and 6.
Derek's fish went 48-9 so I was very glad of that bonus ghostie. 28lb was best in the last half dozen to weigh, so a nice win.
Not sure why the carp suddenly appeared/switched on like that, hadn't really changed the feeding at all or anything else for that matter. Got through just over three pints of maggot in total, think I could probably have fed more