Barnburgh Lakes - 1st March 2009

Today was the first time I went fishing this year. It was also the first time I had fished at Barnburgh Lakes .
I decided to fish their Sunday Open, having walked the banks on a couple of occaisions.

For some reason, I felt a little nervous at the draw. Maybe the fact that it was an "open" was playing on my mind a little. When I last fished club matches, some twenty years ago, opens were big matches .. or so i seem to remember .. nowadays, it seems there are a million opens every day of the week, on every commercial. Anyhow .. I didn't really know anyone, didn't know the venue, havent fished for three months .. what could go wrong?
Well .. everything.
Glancing around as tackling up, everone seemed to have better tackle, be more organised and ready quicker than me. I still don't have my set up right.

So, I start off on the pole. two or so metres short of the guy to my right, with his tourny pro. "Pole envy" kicks in. Oh, and I must get a potting kit. It seems so obvious that you can ship them out whilst watching a tip.
After about 15 minutes, its woosh, woosh from either side, as the wagglers fly.
Wagglers? ... bugger! .. I'd never even thought about the waggler.
after about 45 minutes, without a knock, I went out with a small feeder. No-one seemed to be catching on the pole, and certainly not those either side of me.
the guy to my right was catching consistently on the waggler. The guy to my left, was getting the odd fish (also on waggler).

Now .. what I should have done, was to set up a float rod, and punch out a waggler to the same line, and catch some fish. What i did, was sit there like a demented rabbit in the beam of an oncoming car. WHY!!!
A switch to straight lead brought a couple of smallish fish, and that was it.

The peg to my left won, with 25lb, and I posted a DNW, though at a guess, 8oz would have been kind.

I am officially a MUPPET.

I CAN fish the waggler.. I would NOT have cast all over the lake like a fool.. I would NOT have sprayed maggots over every inch of all three pegs (the pegs here are cozy to say the least).. yet I didn't even try.
I would have caught some fish. I definitely wouldn't have got close to the winner.. but I ended up looking more stupid than I thought I might look, by fishing the waggler badly.

On the positive side .. I did learn a lot.

The main thing that stopped me going out with a waggler, was that I knew i couldn't get any feed out, with the catapult I had. Turns out that the winner never managed to get any out anyway!

I'll be back.