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