Drennan Alders Farm 040417 Pines Lake

They say things come in threes, well this is my third fishing trip within my four days off work. Good luck normal follows bad luck as they say, so I was looking forward to this match. It was on Pines lake, one of my favourites in the country let alone Alders Farm.
Mick and I were to resume battle for the MK Nugget so that added a bit of extra spice to the day and with 15 other anglers vying for top spot and a separate silvers pool. There was plenty to go at.
That was where my day started going wrong, en route to the venue a Wood Pigeon decided to headbutt my front grill at 70mph. One very dead pigeon and a gaping hole in the grill. Still I was going fishing.
Get to the venue and everything was good, chatting away to friends old and new. Then the draw. I wanted any peg except 10 or 12 as I thought it would be too shallow at this time of the year. I also thought for a change I would go into the bag before Mick and see if I could get one of the flyers he regularly draws. Wrong peg 12, great in Summer, not so good this time of the year. Off I trot with Mick in tow, on his way to peg 19, another peg he would do well off.
I decided to fish similar to my last outing on Pines, corn at 5m, pellet or corn at 12m and the left hand margin with maggot. Wrong side for me as I am left handed and have to turn completely ninety degrees to fish it.
Starting off at 12m on pellet I had a small carp around 3lb first put in and then nothing for 10 minutes before his mate joined him in the keep net. It was slow going and despite pinging and toss potting I could not string a run of fish together, after an hour I had five carp for about 15lb.
A look onto the 5m line saw no bites, in fact I never had a bite on it all day despite trying corn, maggot or pellet.A quick look down the edge and a couple of quick fish. Then nothing. Back out to 12m and another couple of fish before it again went very quiet.
Back to the edge and I decided to concentrate on this for the remainder of the match. It was too early but I was getting battered off the next peg by Graham West and was struggling so felt I had nothing to lose.
Cupping in two pots of GB and the same of maggots I was hoping for a reaction. I was fishing at 11m in about 12 inches of water. I managed to nick a couple quickly over the feed but then started to foul hook a couple which disturbed the peg. Re feeding the margin did not seem to work as I was still having to wait for bites.
At the all out I felt that I had not fished the peg as I should have, I got it all wrong. OK there were not many fish in the peg but those that were there were catch-able and I did not do it. I got it wrong.. No excuses.
And to make matters worse Mick popped 98lb on the scales to double my weight.

Overall 

1st Gavin Mills 171-07

2nd Pete Archer 159-14

3rd Charlie Lancaster 133-01

4th Graham West 129-14

5th Trevor Price 114-00

6th Mick Wright 98-10

I will be back on next week on the Tuesday Open and hopefully my luck will have changed and I start to get things right on the fishing front.