Day three and the last and final day of the Alders Farm Festival. Going into the last round there were three anglers all tied on 12 points, one on 11, two on 10 and another three on 9. And we had the unknown factor of Pines Lake to contend with. We had spent two days on Ash Lake and from a personal point of view, I was just happy to still be in with a shout. OK I needed others to fall by the bank-side and I needed a near Herculean performance. But that's the beauty of fishing, anything can happen.
As a group we decided to amend the fishing times as some lads needed to get away sharpish at the end of the match. At least this time we will finish weighing in during daylight.
With yet another Full English firmly tucked away, it was onto the ever important draw. Again two sections of 7, although John Haselar was unable to attend as he put his back out lifting his nets on day two. Slowly the pegs were going and as I got closer there was not many left. In goes the hand and peg 15. I had to ask where it was, but was told it used to be a good area. Nice, used to be.
All the draw bags had still managed to draw well, even without Pop Ups assistance. Nick was on Peg 1, Followed by Ricky and Nick P on 2 and 3. Fozzy had secured 4 with Dave Taylor sitting on 5. Colin Spencer on 22 and Paul Kearns on 24 made up the section,
My section went Pete Archer on 6, Rob on 9 with Lee sitting on 12. I was next on 15 with Matt Kearns keeping me company on 16. Alan made up the last man in the section.
My plan today was simple, 4 pole lines, one up at 11m due to the wind and one down on the same hole. A 5m line for pellet and a top three line for maggot. I also set up a waggler rod for fishing beyond the pole in case the wind dropped. I did not expect to use it but it was available.
I started off at 5m and spent the first 30 minutes trying to stop foul hooking fish. I had landed three all in the tail and was shortening the rig to no avail. So I went back to plan A and changed the shotting to a spread shot pattern. This seemed to work better. Very few foul hookers and bites almost instantly. I was feeding a mixture of fishery micros and 4mm and fishing a 6mm on the hook. I had not fed the top three line as I was leaving this for the last hour unless things dried up. I had put a pot of micros and 4mms onto the 11m line in case but again with the wind it would make this awkward to fish.
To be fair I was getting into a rhythm, I would hook a fish and ping 6 or 7 pellets onto the line whilst playing it. Net it and feed again by hand again about 6 or 7 pellets. Load up toss pot with micros and 4mm , ship out, float settle and bury, repeat process. It was working well. If I felt fish were coming up in the water I simply cut out the 4mms and fed micros, this seemed to put them back down.
With 2 hours gone I reckoned on having around 40lb and although not a brilliant weight I was going OK against those in my section and that was the main priority. Section Points. I could see Pete Archer on peg 6 and he was catching well and good fish. All mine were on the 2lb mark with the odd better one. Rob was slowly putting together a good weight, whilst Lee had a few early fish but was struggling at 14m for only small yearling carp and odd proper carp. Matt was getting odd bites but was again getting pestered by the smaller yearling fish. Alan I could not see very well but I did hear his spool going regularly on his feeder reel.
For me it was heads down and focus and having had a nightmare start, make use of the remaining time. Hours three and four flew by, I was still catching well and putting fish in the onion sack.
However with around 90 minutes to go , disaster, the elastic snapped at the puller and everything was lost elastic, rig, the lot. A quick re-plumb of the 11m deep rig and I was back in but with a firmer elastic than I really needed. I then decided to start feeding the top three lines and only feeding the 5m line every now and again to keep it ticking over.
Another couple of fish on the 5m line and after spending 20 minutes of regular feeding the top 3 line I started fishing it properly. I was feeding very regularly around 30 or 40 maggots every 30 seconds and getting a mix of fish, mainly carp to around 4lb but odd yearlings, an odd skimmer and a perch.
Fortunately I was able to keep things ticking over to the end.
All out and the festival was over, Pete had battered the section and would be crowned Alders Farm October Festival Champion for 2017 so any hopes I had were gone. It was left for the weigh in and the results to be shared.
Matt Kearns Peg 16
Alan Harrison Peg 19
Barbel and A Tench for Colin
Paul Kearns peg 24
Top Three Individuals
1st Pete Archer 246-02
2nd Colin Spencer 232-14
3rd Colin Fosdyke 206-00
Overall Section 1
1st Colin Spencer 232-14 7pts
2nd Colin Fosdyke 206-00 6pts
3rd Ricky Quick 192-08 Section Winner 5pts
4th Nick Pringle 171-08 4pts
5th Dave Taylor 145-08 3pts
6th Nick Rowe 117 -00 2pts
7th Paul kearns 49-04 1pt
Overall Section 2
1st Pete Archer 246-02
2nd Keith Ashby 172-00 Section Winner 6pts
3rd Alan Harrison 146-04 5pts New Personal Best Match Weight beating yesterday's weight
4th Rob Rendle 140-00 4pts
5th Matt Kearns 101-12 3pts
6th Lee Newson 96-08 2pts
7th John Haselar Did Not Fish 1pt
Final Points table
1st Pete Archer 19 points 541-01
2nd Colin Spencer 18 points 534-04
3rd Colin Fosdyke 18 points 517-00
4th Ricky Quick 15 points 431-11
5th Dave Taylor 15 points 421-03
6th Keith Ashby 15 points 403-08
7th Lee Newson 12 points 355-04
8th Matt Kearns 12 points 325-12
9th Nick Rowe 11 points 343-02
10th Alan Harrison 11 points 334-03
11th Rob Rendle 8 points 308-02
12th Nick Pringle 6 points 296-14
13th Paul Kearns 4 points 213-01
14th John Haselar 4 points 153-12
So that is it for another year, many thanks to all the competitors, plenty of new faces which is always good to see.No moaning or complaining, instead discussed and agreed. Well done to all the winners and losers. The staff at Alders Farm over the 3 days, first class service as always. You do realise you are the standard I measure everyone against. To Trevor Price who has organised the event and been on hand every day to assist, guide, supply bait and coach where required. Also to Alders Farm Fishery (not the people), the fish have surpassed themselves over the three days, excellent and fair sections with you making us work for our catches.Finally to Drennan who as a surprise, laid on a few prizes, rods and umbrellas, for some of the contestants. Unfortunately not for me though, still I cannot complain, I have picked up a few quid and enjoyed three days wonderful fishing in good company.
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