We Take The Lead!

Joe Carass has been back to do battle in the Tunnel Barn Farm Winter League with a hint of success too!

The Tunnel Barn Farm winter league is now fast approaching its climax and with four rounds to go it was all to play for. In the last round we managed to whittle away at Barston’s lead and had reduced it to just five points.


We were all looking forward to round seven but sadly the arctic conditions put paid to that and the match was cancelled. Nevertheless the following week the snow had melted and it was game on!


However what hadn’t melted was the ice and every one of us was going to have the lovely task of creating some ice holes. Jon Arthur was on hand at the draw bag again and his pegs didn’t disappoint! He drew himself a favourable Peg 25 on Extension, Paul Bick drew Club 11 AGAIN and Steve Ringer was to be on New 15, which was far from a disaster. My Peg 8 on House was perhaps the only iffy one but I really enjoy House pool so felt confident of catching a few in the harsh conditions.


Anyway on arrival I had Neil Machin for company to my right, Amer Jawad two to my left and I could just see venue expert Pete Caton on Peg 31. It was by no means going to be an easy task beating them. Back to the job of ice breaking!


My ice breaking set up is something that Tommy Boyce made for me. It is a weight well unto double figures and I must admit I can’t throw it very far! First throw and the breaker sailed out to nine metres – No problem, except the whole peg shattered! This was not good.


Anyway I spent the next hour clearing my peg and chipping away. Luckily Keith Haynes was behind me and he had a much smaller breaker that I hastily borrowed. First throw with this was much better and two channels were cut into the ice up to 14.5metres which gave me a bit of room to play with – Thanks Keith!


I wasn’t the only one to receive a helping hand. Jon gave Steve a help in clearing his peg while Stu Palser cleared Paul’s peg for him, which was a top effort from both of them!


The match was to start at 10.30am and I finally got my pole out at 10.10am. Luckily with my peg being open water, two rigs were all that was needed and I was just about set up on time.


I decided to start on the edge of the ice at 8metres on pellets just to see what kind of response I got. No response is the simple answer and I noticed everyone else was in the same boat. It wasn’t exactly fishing well early on. With this in mind and knowing what I have learnt in the past on ice days I decided to just fish long for the rest of the day and wait for bites.


My first F1 came on the hour mark and I was off, two more quickly followed and I were yet to see anybody else catch one. It certainly wasn’t hectic and bites were hard to come by but I knew if I remained focused I would catch a few at some stage of the match.


With 90 minutes to go I was up to about six fish. This was good on the lake. I had lost something big that tore off under the ice but there wasn’t much I could do about that. Going into the last hour and things were starting to look up. I was beginning to get indications every time I fed and the odd fish. I was soon up to 13 fish and with five minutes to go I latched into something that clearly wasn’t an F1! The fish tore off under the ice but I managed to get it back. I spent 10 minutes battling with the creature and even caught a glimpse of the tail hooked beast but one final run and as I quickly added sections my pole met ice and could go no further as the fish powered off and all I was left with was a very broken pole rig!


Come the weigh in, my lake was in a split section with the extremely good pegs on Club Pool. Luckily though it had fished tough on there with Des Shipp winning the lake with 56lb while 35lb was second and 23lb third. As they began to weigh our lake it was clear that low weights were all that would be needed. 12lb was best as the scales got to me and my 23-2-0 was a decent effort. Neil Machin weighed in 12lb and Pete Caton with 9lb. this left me third in section and meant I won my lake also.


At the results I was clear we had done well. Steve had yet again won his lake thanks to a 23lb effort, Jon had come third in his section with 36lb and Paul was also third thanks to his 39lb. this meant we won the day for the second match running. More importantly for us, Barston had suffered a couple of bad results. This saw us leap frog them in the league to take top spot with a 17-point cushion.


Top man Stu Palser won the match individually with a fantastic 61lb net of F1s from extension Peg 13. Well with three rounds to go it is seemingly in our hands, hopefully Jon will keep on drawing us the goods!

Follow Joe on Twitter  - @carassjoe

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