Lemington Lakes

MAGGOTDROWNING.COM INDIVIDUAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

16TH SEPTEMBER 2006

Westminster Lake

Well I travelled up to Lemington Lakes today for the MD's Individual championships

I arrived early so that I had time to enjoy one of their cooked breakfasts before the draw little did I know that this was to be 1 of the high points of my day or else I would have taken a photo of the breakfast

Other Maggotdrowners started to arrive and I met up with old friends and put some more faces to names of new ones

9.30 arrived and time for the draw

I pulled peg 31 out of the bag and never having been to Westminster Lake before I had no idea if it was a good or bad draw

So I drove down to the bottom car park unloaded all my gear and set off to peg 31

The peg looked quite nice so hopefully I would have a good day

My plan of attack today was to fish soft hooker pellets at 11.5m over 4mm sinkers and meat and corn in the margins and I also set up a feeder rod just in case

Plumbing up the swim I had a disappointing shock as there was only 2 ft of water in the margin and 2ft 6in at 11.5m a look out at 14.5m also found only 2ft 6in

I should really have taken stock of my situation at this point because

To my left

Was Peter"Mugger"Morton


And to my Right

Malc "The Jinx" Doyle

I should have known the game was up at this point (trapped between the Mugger and the Jinx) but naively I intended to fish on expecting to catch fish

As the whistle (yes Vince has brought 1) went I shipped 2 pots of pellets out to 11.5m and 1 pot of corn and hemp into the margin swim and dropped a 6mm soft hooker over the top of the 4mm sinkers at 11.5m and waited and waited nothing nowt zilch

After about 30 mins of not a lot happening I managed to hook a small skimmer of about 2oz which I managed to bump off as soon as it broke the surface also around this time Peter who was also struggling on the next peg managed to land a decent skimmer

About this time the hours all seemed to blur into 1 and slowly the hopelessness of my situation started to dawn on me

I tried pellet meat corn I fed pellet tried hemp tried groundbait gave the feeder a go all with the same result nowt not a bite not a dip not even a line bite

Peter was stuck in the same still life as me with nothing since his 1st skimmer and Malc had somehow managed to wrangle a skimmer out too

Next to Peter Dave Red Leader Was catching a few fish as was Hazel on the next peg

The poor guy fishing the other side of Malc lost the will to live and went home and further round that side Muskie had caught 2 Carp

But our little corner remained dead

Eventually Vince Put us out of our misery and blew the whistle

Malc managed to hook another skimmer right on the whistle

A 5 hour blur for me resulting in the dreaded D.N.W

The only positive comment I can make about Westminster lake is - the Platforms are well made and the rats are thriving .

Further round the lake most people managed to catch some fish

Match result

1st Steve12 - peg 21 - 56lb 11ozs.

2nd LG - peg 16 - 54-04

3rd Milo - peg 42 and Matt Nutt - peg 12 both 43-04

Only other high point for me today was unlike Peter and Malc I didn't blank in the raffle

But it was a well run match thanks to Vince and good to meet up with the Maggotdrowners again I just hope for a better draw next time