Stafford Moor - May Festival, 15th May 2019

Putting the disappoint result from Oaks behind me it was fishing Tanners that I was looking forward to next.  The easterly wind had started to blow after the previous beautiful day so I fancied a draw down around peg 10 - 14, lets see what the drawbar had in store for me today.

The Draw
Well, peg 2 on the lawns, which is a good waggler and bomb peg so wasn't too disappointed.  I had the pellet waggler master for a neighbour on Peg 1, Dave Stockton and Silvers on Peg 4.

Set-up
The bomb rod was straight out of the bag together with a pellet waggler set up, really simple!

While not a lot had been reported coming out from the margin I just had to set up a margin line to my right and a 5 metre pole line too.

Again mainly pellets together with worms and sweetcorn.

All-In
At least the ducks got a feed!
Speaking with Hathers after the draw he mentioned that I'd probably be spending 80% of the match on the bomb and pellet line, which I did to be fair, 5 hours in total.

To begin with I was casting to the gravel bar in line with the island and just off the back of it too and after the first hour had nothing in the net to show for it even though there were fish clearly moving in that area.


Dave Stockton had setup 3 pellet waggler rods and I was very interested to see how he fished the line together with his feeding pattern.

I started to drop the bomb short of the island and gravel bar and just about immediately connected with my first fish, so did Dave!  Another cast and another quick fish for me.  Now my bomb swim just wasn't producing the results and Dave quickly overtook me on the fish count.

I mentioned to Dave that his patience was admirable, Dave responded and said it was plain stubbornness!

This produced an interesting bite!
I decided that I would no doubt need the 5 metre and probable margin line as after 4 hours, I had two carp in the net!

The 5 metre line was a banded 8mm pellet feeding very small amounts of 6mm pellets and as the match ticked into the last hour I started to get fish, carp at that!

I also lost fish, three, not that I was counting.  The margin line never played apart despite heavily potting in corn after a chat with Neil Dudsbury who fished a festival a few weeks prior to the May festival.

The all-out was called, Dave has smashed me out of the park.


Result
32lb for 7th in section.  This festival result was slowly getting worse and as predicted pegs 10-14 had done well however a big well done to Dave Stockton for taking the match with with 115lb.


Conclusion
Thought of the day was that Pegs 2 and 4 had been hammered the previous day and the fish had simply backed off in a sulk.  The next day, Peg 2 threw up a 100lb weight.

What should I have done differently?  Well, set-up a long pole line and abandoned the bomb line earlier.

The fish I lost on the 5 metre line broke the hook length which is always gutting and they were definitely larger fish.  Lesson learnt, onto Pines tomorrow to try and salvage some points.

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