Rolfs Lake 3 Day Easter Festival

DAY 3 

Monday April 21st 2014

Going into the 3rd and final day the Leader Board looks like this

3 Points

Steve Waters --- 294lb 13oz

Mick Lane ------ 229lb 8oz

4 Points

Mark Newbold --- 219lb 1oz

Anthony Flint ----- 192lb 2oz

5 Points

John Draper ---- 153lb 8oz

6 Points

Malc Doyle ---- 289lb 7oz

Chris Telling --- 177lb 6oz

Today saw me and my section compatriot's move onto B section for the final day and this is where we all drew

Peg 9 Anthony F -- Peg 10 Dan D -- Peg 13 Ernie M -- Peg 28 Mick L -- Peg 29 Paul N -- Peg 31 Justin M -- Peg 32 Frank H and myself on Peg 8

Following my blow out on Peg 36 yesterday when any 2 of my lost fish could have won me the section and i ended up 5th in section by just 21lb i had settled in my mind if lucky a top 10 final position by the end of the Festival.

So draw time arrived and i was pleasantly surprised to find Peg 8 left in the bag for me as it is always worth a few fish although EVERYONE that fishes it fishes 16mtr to the far bank and to the bush on the left.

But i just dont do what others do and i've had a fair amount of success in the past by fishing at 6mtrs in front and top 2 to the right and these were the lines i elected to fish today.

Peg 8

I set up 2 rigs both with JW JINX floats tied to .24 Powerline ending in a Guru hook-length with a 10 hook.

Rig 1 was for fishing long (for me) at 6mtrs

Rig 2 was set to fish at top 2 distance to both left and right hand sides once i'd plumbed around to find the same depth on both sides.

At the all in i went out to 6mtrs and instantly missed a bite on pellet but second put in resulted in a net fish of about 6lb which i thought hey up could be on for another good day.

Well i was wrong

As in the next 30 mins the only other action on this line was a Skimmer about 2lb followed by a small Roach so that line got 2 big pots of feed and a switch to the top kit to the right with Paste followed.

A few missed knocks to my right which  never developed into real bites and then BANG i was in (much to Dai's annoyance on peg 7)  lol this fish went about 12lb at a guess.

Looking around this actually put me right up there section wise with about hour n half gone) as i'd only seen the rest of the section catch odd silvers although id seen the odd carp lost.

For the next couple of hours i took the odd Carp from the right side with just a roach to the left (which made me fill that side in as i don't do roach at this time of year).

During the first 3 hours i'd been feeding pellet across to stop Frank on 32 taking all the far bank fish but with just 2 hours to go i ran out of 6mms and 4mms wouldn't reach, and shortly afterwards frank start to take some lump from down his margin.

I guessed the 6 Carp and couple of Skimmers i already had went about 80lb but knew that Frank could easily put a lot more than that in the net in the time left with me no longer able to feed across.

When the all out was called i guessed my 10 Carp and 3 Skimmers went about 100lb and i knew the only angler in my section pushing me close was Frank and i had a feeling i could end up in the top 5 overall depending on how those above me had done in their sections.

Couple of my doubles today

By the time it was my turn to weigh in we all knew that Steve Waters had WON the festival as he'd won his section today and Mark Newbold was 2nd in the festival (well done both Steve & Mark top results).

With my section split on both sides of the lake i had to wait till the last Peg which was frank on 32 had weighed in before i really knew where i'd finished both today and overall.

Well much to my surprise i had won my section today with 118lb and that meant i actually came 3rd overall in the festival (to say i was well chuffed is an understatement) as i seriously never expected to be higher that top 10.

FINAL TOP 6 POINTS & POSITIONS 

1st STEVE WATERS ------ 371lb 10oz --- 4 Points

2nd MARK NEWBOLD --- 355lb 12oz --- 6 Points

3rd MALC DOYLE -------- 404lb 7oz ----- 7 Points

4th MICK LANE ---------- 294lb 10oz ----- 8 Points

5th JON WALKER -------- 270lb 1oz -------  9 Points

6th FRANK HARDY ------ 237lb 6oz ---------9 Points

To round up my thoughts over the weekend fishing The Easter Festival i can honestly say i really enjoyed myself EVERY DAY as i fished how i wanted to (99% on top 2) and caught the best weight of the weekend on day 1 with 244lb 1oz, had a cracking 20lb 9oz Common on day 1 along with many other cracking fish and 99% of my fish were caught on My Paste.

AND FINALLY 

BIG THANKS TO JOHN and PAULINE and EDDIE and PAUL FOR ALL THEIR HARD WORK BEFORE - DURING AND AFTER THE FESTIVAL