I'm back down at Rolfs lake in Oxfordshire today for the 4th match in the Jinx series
As there was a night match fished down at the lake last night hopefully there would have been a lot of bait gone in and the fish will be really up for it today So all my drawing hand has to do today is draw a peg that was fished last night and to make it easier for the fool I have given it instructions to pull peg 9 from the bag What could be easier ? Once everyone had arrived and no we weren't waiting for Malc as for some weird reason he was at the lake early today the draw got under way This week it is a free draw to mix all the sections up for the second half of the series so everyone has the whole lake to draw from (except for me of course as I'm destined for peg 9 ) Any way to save you having to read through a tirade of abuse directed at the bumbling fool lets just say I was soon on my way round the lake to peg 4 
Peg 4 is not so bad as I have fished it quite a few times so hopefully I will get a few fish today and seeing as Gemma has drawn peg 9 it's looking like I will need to get quite a few to avoid a Minxing Just to add to my fast sinking day the Jinx rolled up to tell me we were drawn in same section for the rest of the series and even better he was on the next peg to me today  My plan for today is a very simple 1 as I have had some good weights from peg 4 in the past fishing out in front at 7m and in the right hand margin under the tree So that's my plan for today the first swim out in front at 7m
And I have set up 2 rigs for that swim both identical on Jon Walker 0.3g Diamonds on 0.20mm Silstar line 1 rig with a size 16 B911 tied direct and 1 with a B911 size 12 tied direct both set to fish at dead depth
For the margin swim I also set up 2 rigs the first was a Jon Walker 0.3g short Margin on 0.20mm Silstar line with a B911 12 hook tied direct and the second was a Malman medium paste float again on 0.20mm Silstar line with a B911 size 12 hook tied direct On the whistle I shipped a pot of pellets into each swim then went out over the 7m line with a 6mm catmeat soft hooker on the size 16 hook The float settled then bobbed up and down the buried and I was into a fish straight away  After a bit of a battle I slid the net under a nice 15lb common
I have to say that both Malc and I thought it was getting on for a 20lber as it was quite a lump and it had quite a belly on it too but the scales only went to 15lb I went back out to the 7m line with another 6mm catmeat pellet on the hook and after a couple of mins the float buried again and I was soon up at the scales weighing a mirror of 11lb 04ozs back out to 7m with another soft hooker on the hook and after a short wait my float buried again and I was on my way up to the weigh station again this time with a mirror of 11lb 08ozs things were starting to look good 15mins gone and I have 37lb on the board Webbo over on peg 34 seemed to catching a few on the feeder but no one else in the small lake was catching After the 1st hour I had 3 weighers on the board and 3 fish in my net but the 7m swim had died off a bit suddenly my float buried again but this time it felt very different as the fish just headed off up the lake towards Malc on peg 5 and had no intention of stopping I managed to ship the pole back and get the top kit off but by then the elastic had bottomed out and I was deathened by the loud expensive explosion that all anglers dread as my top kit exploded  From the look of it the bung had been pulled up too far into the section and it just blew apart I still had hold of the bung that was now protruding out of the no2 section and was just about to ship it back to get hold of the no1 when the line snapped on the crows foot knot  So that's a broken top kit and 1 of my favourite Jon Walker Diamonds gone  From then on things just got worse I was unable to get any bites at all on the 7m line So I swapped to the margin swim
I couldn't get a touch on corn or banded pellet but eventually an 8mm cube of meat brought a bite which resulted in a net fish of about 5lb from then on I suffered with a string of foul hooked fish and annoyingly a lot of them waited until I was just about to net them before the hook pulled which left my rig stuck up in the branches of the trees around the peg which resulted in 3 trashed rigs By now people were starting to walk round the lake and word had it that everyone was suffering from foul hooked fish all round the lake But worse news of all it appeared that Gemma was bagging up on peg 9  As Malc came round for a walk I had just hooked into another fish and he stayed to spread the full force of the Jinx effect I got it round from the margin and shipped back in ok
Top kit off and give it a lift ready for netting
Opps! it's realized that it's hooked
The fish heads off round the bush towards Malc's peg
And once again the hook pulls  Nick across on peg 38 was catching well now and most of his fish seemed to be weighers and I could hear a lot of splashing from Malc's peg so he must be catching a few now and I'm sure he was paying Liam to come round and tell me how many fish his dad was catching  For the rest of the match I stuck it out in the margin
Hoping that the big fish would turn up and get their heads down but it never happened in the end I managed 10 net fish from the margin and 1 more weigher which I think was 9lb 08ozs as I was up at the weigh station I noticed that both Malc and Gemma had over 100lbs on the board looks like I may be Minxed today by Gem and thrashed off the next peg by Malc
In the last 10mins I lost 3 foul hooked fish which just about summed up my day at 6.30pm Malc called the all out and that was match 4 over I packed my gear away and pushed it round to the car then set off to help with the weigh in on the way round the lake the main topic of conversation was the prospect of being Minxed and also the speculation the Nick W-P had at long last after 6 years of trying done the ton at Rolfs At peg 4 my fish weighed 97lb
Malc put a fine 176lb on the scales to take the section and the overall win and with Nick on peg 38 doing 123lb that left me in 3rd place in the section The Minx silenced the crowd that were following the scales with a fine 126lb from peg 9 and all thoughts started to turn to Pink Hats  Fred ran Malc close with 173lb from peg 15 for 2nd place on the day and the only other person to escape a Minxing was Mugger on peg 18 who was lucky enough to save a few silvers to weigh in which just eased him past the Minx point  Round on peg 26 Nick W-P achived his PB match weight and first Rolfs ton with a fine 109lb although he still got Minxed  With the weigh in done and all the results sorted the only thing left to do was for the Minx to select the victim to wear the Pink Hat on the next match from those that she beat today and she sure had a lot to choose from  Well what can I say
At least I won something today 
Position | Peg | Name | Weight | 1st | 5 | Malc Doyle | 176lbs 04ozs | 2nd | 15 | Fred Parker | 173lbs 00ozs | 3rd | 18 | Peter Morton | 133lbs 12ozs | 4th | 9 | Gemma Doyle | 126lbs 12ozs | 5th | 38 | Nick Williams | 123lbs 00ozs | 6th | 26 | Nick W-P | 109lbs 12ozs | 7th | 4 | Clive Pritchard | 97lbs 12ozs | 8th | 13 | Marcus Burgess | 92lbs 08ozs | 9th | 14 | Simon Mound | 90lbs 08ozs | 10th | 17 | Steve Wilson | 88lbs 08ozs | 11th | 34 | Dave Webster | 81lbs 00ozs | 12th | 32 | Mitch Auger | 79lbs 00ozs | 13th | 2 | Paul Dolby | 68lbs 04ozs | 14th = | 31 | Terry Goff | 66lbs 04ozs | 14th = | 25 | Ant Haywood | 66lbs 04ozs | 16th | 10 | Al Loader | 57lbs 12ozs | 17th | 23 | Dave Moore | 57lbs 00ozs | 18th = | 22 | Tony Roberts | 47lbs 12ozs | 18th = | 8 | Geoff Palmer | 47lbs 12ozs | 20th | 11 | Jon Hatch | 36lbs 00ozs | 21st | 20 | Matt Edwards | 35lbs 04ozs | 22nd | 7 | Dave Collier | 30lbs 00ozs | 23rd | 19 | Steve Akal | 27lbs 13ozs | 24th | 28 | Paul Roberts | 24lbs 00ozs | 25th | 36 | Dai Thomas | 15lbs 08ozs | 26th | 40 | Kevin Loveland | 3lbs 12ozs |
Ade was missing today so our points took a bit of a hit in the pairs but we are still in 2nd place and only 3 points adrift with 2 matches still to go and as for the individual I am in 4th place and only 2 points behind so it's still all to play for  It was certainly a frustrating day today fishing wise but as ever the banter from the Jinx crew more than made up for it Roll on next weekend as I have the Jinx night match on Friday and Jinx match 5 on Saturday
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