I’d been chatting to Matt during the week about what pegs could win the next match and we kind of agreed 22 or 20 would be very strong contenders. At the draw Matt pulled out 20. This is one he pleasure fishes regularly in the winter and, with an angler as good as Matt on a good peg, it was likely he was going to be at the sharp end of the results. Colin was to his left on peg 19, Charlie Palmer was in fancied peg 11 and Brian Lakin on middle platform, 13.

Up around the islands we had Peter and his son, George, Fell on 29 and 30.  Paul Bangs was opposite them on peg 4. I’d pulled out peg 8 - one of the very few pegs I really didn’t want with little space and very little water I knew it was going to be very hard for me as I didn’t expect any carp or bream to show with anglers either side of the island points. The howling wind, floating leaves and bright sunshine was going to make things tricky too.

Shortly after the starting whistle Matt was netting a good fish and AndyK, on 24, was into something large and eventually landed a nice carp of 7lb. Elsewhere round the lake it was a bit slow with very few fish being caught.

Matt had found a small feature on the bottom of peg 20 and was fishing a light rig with 4mm expanders to get further interest from carp and bream. Paul Bangs hit a purple patch and was finding some good sized carp with a liking for white maggots. Fishing away from the island it's a good job that maggot was working as he had forgotten his pellets.

Later in the match Kev Laird, to my left on peg 7, got two carp in quick succession, loosing a third in the reeds. Later he was to hook and lose another, on a light rig, that straightened his hook. By now I’d sneaked out a carp…. of about 1lb !

Matt was still catching carp with odd fish coming to a patient approach whilst most were scratching and finding the silvers really not playing ball. The exception was Stan on 27 who had some success on caster and, early on, had picked up some good roach and rudd. A late switch to pellet saw him pick up a surprise perch of 1lb 14oz.

George and Pete Fell had both swapped to method feeder and this was bringing some success too, both with one carp.  As the match drew to a close Brian L managed to snare a couple of proper fish but we needed the weigh in to be clear on the results as it sounded like Paul Bangs had picked up a good number of decent carp as had Matt.

Paul was one of the first to weigh in with his six carp to 7lb recording a very good 23lb, Kev Laird on 7 had 6lb 3oz , Brian's late big bream and skimmer matched to this to the ounce, another 6lb 3oz. Little else to report until Colin with a few small carp to weigh 5lb, totally eclipsed by Matt with around 8 carp and a bream for a superb 29lb 7oz. Stan was looking good for third with his silvers going 7lb 15oz ahead of AndyK' single carp and a couple of  'spratts'  with 7lb 5oz. But, in the last five mins of the match, young George had added a 7lb'er for a total of 11lb 9oz beating his dad off the next peg and taking a superb 3^rd place.