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It has certainly been an interesting week for Joe, with mice and more than a few F1s occupying his time!

It has been a great week for our Match Fishing Drawbags team at Tunnel Barn Farm, but more of that later.

I hope you have had a great Christmas break, I know I certainly did. Every year I use the two weeks to have my own ‘Closed Season’, which gives me a bit of time just to recharge my batteries and catch up with the family, which is always nice.

 However the prolonged period of inactivity has seen a few unwelcome visitors enter my shed! At first the problem wasn’t bad at all, the odd loose pellet hastily chewed by the cute little Mickey but as soon as my gear got damaged it was time to turn up the heat!

 Before I went away for Xmas I noticed that my cool bag had been left unzipped. Without a second thought I zipped it up and carried on with the festivities. Well two weeks later I returned to the shed only to find a very mouse shaped hold straight through the top of my cool bag! I had obviously zipped the little cretin inside and it managed to CHEW its way out. The bags contents were left unscathed so no drama.

 Come the morning of Saturdays match I went into my carryall to take out my beloved pole rollers. It was only then that I could see the extent of the damage as there was hardly any foam left on the rollers! Worse still, Mickey had used the foam (and a Tesco bag) to create a little nest in my carryall! Obviously being the big brave man that I am I got Tom Scholey to inspect the bag to see if the residents were still home. Luckily they weren’t and all was well again despite my damaged pole rollers and cool bag.

 The only solution has been to add a bit of poison to the shed and so far three lots of the stuff has been eaten! Maybe there are a few more than I thought. Luckily though on day five of miceaggedon the poison is left untouched – are they dead, or have they simply wised up? Only time will tell.

 Anyway, back to the important stuff. It was once again decided that Jon ‘End Peg’ Arthur would see to the drawbag and yet again he excelled himself and drew us four fantastic pegs! Jon himself was on House 31, which is a great draw; Steve Ringer was on his favourite peg, Extension 21. Paul Bick was on arguably the best peg on New pool Peg 10 while I was left with the ‘scraps’ and drew Club 1 - a consistent peg on a good lake.

 We were hoping to claw back some vital points on the unbelievably consistent Barston team (Des Shipp, Paul Yates, Craig Elkin and Pete Rice) but they too had a good draw so it was going to be difficult.

 Upon arriving at my peg I noticed straight away the dense colour of the lake! Normally Club pool is relatively clear but the stream at the top of the lake had flooded in. this made the colour unbelievably thick and cloudy and I knew that this would make dobbing ineffective. With this in mind I thought a simple pellet and maggot approach would pay off.

 I had a steady match, catching small stockies on and off all day. I had one poor spell when I tried to dob some fish and got no bites whatsoever. Mal on Peg 3 had caught a barbel just about every put in on bread so I had to try but in hindsight I should have just kept my head down.

 At the weigh in my 41-6-0 was good on the lake however my section was split with the Top Pool, which has been fishing poor lately. It was sod’s law then that it fished its proverbials off and my weight only beat a handful of anglers on there. Hopefully my average score wouldn’t cost us!

 Back at the results and it was clear we had done well. Paul had done the business and won his lake. Steve had done well finishing third on his. Jon won his and produced the performance of the series with an awesome 131lb of F1s! What a weight for January! This left us on 60 points, which was enough to win on the day. Barston were hot on our heels though and with four rounds to go we are just five points behind in the overall standing!

 Follow Joe on Twitter @carassjoe