Welcome to 2011. After the last match was cancelled there has been quite a break for some of the winter league lads. Frank Hardie, Steve Waters and John were at the lake on Saturday breaking up the ice and running the aerators to try and clear the ice for the first match of 2011 and what a great job they did too. Nearly all the ice had melted.

As the Christmas match was cancelled this would double up as the xmas match so everyone brought along a bottle for the raffle at the end of the match. And there was also a lovely hamper up for grabs, chosen by a peg number been pulled out the bag and whoever was on that peg wins the hamper.

Everyone was milling around waiting for the draw and wishing each other best wishes for the new year.

With the draw out the way the match was starting at 10.30 so everyone was off to get ready. Only one peg needed breaking out and that was poor Gary Haisman on peg 16. Everyone else only really had to scoop out and move the ice from their swims.

The match got underway and there was a lack of movement from anyone floats. In the first half an hour I had managed to hook and land a carp about 8-9lb (I thought :D) and comments were been shouted “Jammy bugger”

Malc had managed 2 roach fish at 13m :O He never fishes more than 6m so this is a rare occasion for Malc 😀 Ady on peg 23 had also managed 2 roach but had hooked and lost the first carp of the day as he was fishing on fine gear.

Not much to report on the middle of the match apart from Mick Lane on peg 13 and Derek Hammond on peg 10 locked in a silver fish battle, both catching regularly. It was going to be a close call between them.

During the last hour the action started 😀 Phil Powell over on peg 18 had managed to hook in to a carp but having light elastic and lots of ice in his swim was struggling to land it. After a nice fight he put the net under his carp. “Bugger” I thought and shouted over “How big is it” I thought it looked about 10lb from where I was sitting. He shouted back “Same as yours” 😀

Then to put the nail in the coffin and stop me from winning my section Geoff Palmer over on peg 14 strikes in to his first and only fish a bigger carp. After playing it VERY carefully he lands it and it did look over 10lbs and indeed it was. 13lb 8oz to take the section.

With half an hour to go Jon Walker on peg 21 had a nice stream of elastic flowing from his pole, carp on……. Malc gets his camera out and takes a few photo’s ….. Carp OFF. It had straightened his size 22 hook.

With 25 minutes to go Pete Arnold on peg 8 decided to chuck the feeder across and this resulted in two carp to win the match. Fantastic, well done Pete.

The Little lake had been the hardest with only 2oz winning the section. There was a battle between Steve Waters on peg 2 and Frank Hardie on peg 7 who both had 4 fish, 2 roach and 2 perch. Frank just edged it by half an oz 😀

After the soup John drew a number from the bag to decide who would win the lovely hamper. Peg 34 was drawn, on that peg today was Clive Pritchard but he had gone home so another name was drawn. The Hamper went to Dai Thomas. You should have stayed Clive 😀

Results

	A Section	Peg	Weight	Team
1st	Frank Hardie	7	2 oz	Heavy Weights
2nd	Steve Waters	2	1.5  oz	Walker Floats
3rd	Pat Pritchard	6	0.5 oz	Pats Lot
	John Bennett	4	DNW	Rolfs Team Gold
	Clive Pritchard	34	DNW	Assassin
	Mick Chappel	40	DNW	Wooden Tops
	Did Not show !!			Rolfs Reject

	B Section	Peg	Weight	Team
1st	Pete Arnold	8	19-8	Pats Lot
2nd	Mick Lane	13	5-11	Rolfs Team Gold
3rd	Derek Hammond	10	5-4	Walker Floats
4th	Steve Palmer	28	7.5 oz	Heavy Weights
5th	Paul Jay	9	3 oz	Wooden Tops
	Steve Wilson	30	DNW	Assassins
	Dai Thomas	32	DNW	Rolfs Rejects

	C Section	Peg	Weight	Team
1st	Geoff Palmer	14	13-8	Heavy Weights
2nd	Simon Mound	24	11-8	Assassins
3rd	Phil Powell	18	10-4	Rolfs Team Gold
4th	Jon Walker	21	8.5 oz	Walker Floats
5th	Malc Doyle	26	6 oz	Rolfs Rejects
6th	Ady Kinom	23	5 oz	Pats Lot
	Gay Haisman	16	DNW	Wooden Tops

	DAY TEAM POINTS	POINTS
1st	Heavy Weights	18
1st	Walker Floats	15
3rd	Pats Lot	14
4th	Rolfs Team Gold	11
5th	Assassins	6
6th	Wooden Tops	3=
6th	Rolfs Rejects	3=

OVERALL LEADERBOARD

	TOTAL  TEAM POINTS	POINTS
1st	Walker Floats	21+10+13+15	59
2nd	Rolfs Team Gold	17+14+16+11	58
3rd	Pats Lot	10+17+16+14	57
4th	Heavy Weights	11+16+5+18	50
5th	Assassins	9+15+12+6	42
6th	Wooden Tops	9+3+13+3	28
7th	Rolfs Rejects	7+8+2+3	20

As you can see its VERY close at the top now with only two matches remaining.

Well done to everyone that caught today as it was a very hard match indeed. Pete Arnold gets his picture in the banner as he is now the new Lake King, not sure 19lb 8oz will last too long though 😀

I have added the new 2011 Peg King board so everyone that caught in this match is now a peg king.

The next winter league match is on the 16th Jan.

Thanks for reading, Eddie, John and Si.