Hayfield Open

Hayfield
Tuesday evening saw me at the former home of the fish-o-mania final at Hayfield lakes, This is not one of my favourite venues as I always seem to stuggle in matches here, but what the hell. The draw was at 5 and after the usual banter I drew 54 on Lucy’s. This is the first in a series run by Paul (Yanni) Yates and was not going to be easy with a few local experts on there. With 25 fishing we used every other peg. To my left on 52 was Steve Barrowclough winner of the Skol masters at White Acres just a few weeks ago. With less than an hour to set up I kept it simple, a meat rig for the inside just short of the next platform, a paste rig at 6mtr on the slope and the pellet waggler as an after thought, this was because the wind dropped as I was setting up.
The banter was flying around the lake and I have been given a new nickname by Yanni "Scooter" this is because of my disability scooter used for getting to my peg on some venues.
I fed the inside line heavy at the start with two big pots of 6mm strawberry meat and 6mm pellets and started on the paste. After 30 minutes not a lot was showing anywhere, so I had a look on the inside, then the pellet waggler and back to the paste. Nothing, Zilch, devoid of fish, but this was of no surprise with my record on the venue and the weather over the previous week. I had seen Steve catch a few small fish to my left and heard of one or two other fish from around the lake.
It was no past 8 and less than an hour to go, I put a piece of meat on the paste rig to try it. Success the float buried and my black hydro shot out. After 10minutes I had a ghostie in the net I guessed around 7-8lb. That was it not another bite, I wasn’t going to win but weighted the fish any way 8lb 8oz.