Matt and I had discussed this and we were sure, to be in with a chance, you needed a corner peg or one in the reedy short arm ideally the end corner pegs in that arm.  Those not familiar with Baggers you’ll see from the picture below that its kind of U shaped and the corners are generally the places to be offering a bit of rare sanctuary.

There was a good turn out with the lake pretty much full. At the draw Paul Bangs and Richard Wheatland had got the rated corner area of the long arm on the left hand top of the U Paul on peg 30 and Richard on peg 1 opposite Paul. Brian had got one of the corner pegs,9, at the bottom of the U with Reg Mees taking the other side of the same corner peg 10. Along the other side Steve Burfoot on the corner swim on the right hand side peg 14 . The fancied area in the reeded section was taken by Matt Young in peg 19 who was firm favourite to win, Connor has been fishing very well this year and was next to Matt on 20 in the reedy section. Opposite Matt was Tom Bedford on peg 18.

At the start Brian fairly quickly latched into a carp on maggot and Matt was catching well from the off on pellet to the reeds. Connor was getting a few on paste and pellet. Richard Wheatland had a good start quickly getting into the carp. Elsewhere on the lake where many people did not have a corner a few bites were coming in from small fish with the odd skimmer and small carp but it was not fishing well.  Matt continued to catch well and Connor was getting bursts of carp. Paul Bangs was getting the odd carp tight to the reeds at 13m. Steve Burfoot in the corner had a carp fishing long but apart form the odd small carp much of the lake remained fairly quiet . Brian’s switch to bread was giving him a work out playing tug of war trying to pull the carp out of the snaggy margins, he was getting a few out but a similar mount making the sanctuary of the reeds.

A couple of hours in report were that Matt had already had around 20 carp so was clearly romping away. In the open water Jay was knocking out skimmers nicely and  Kevin Wilder next to him was catching small carp well but very little else was happening at the bottom of the U. I’d had a few silvers and foul hooked a carp but had to switch to a single maggot on a size 20 to get bites.

The highlight of my day though was seeing a P51 Mustang flying low overhead with invasion stripes painted on followed by two Spitfire Vbs.

Back to the fishing, Steve Burfoot to my right was now switching to the corner margin and starting to pick up the odd carp on pellet. Connor and Matt were still catching in their corner and reedy margins and Brian was getting the odd fish. There had been a few carp caught if not in the corner margins in the longer arm where the wind was pushing.

Toward the end of the match the heavens opened and gave as a good soaking to add further insult to a tough days fishing.