Enfield Round One

Well round one came and went with a bit of a whimper really. A late change of venue
saw sixteen of us heading for the road stretch in Kilcock. The closest venue to home so that at least was good news.
Meeting was to be in the usual car park in Enfield for 09.30 with the draw for swims at 10.00
One of the members has bait for sale on the morning so thats handy and saves time on Saturday, with no need to head in to Dublin. It's all there, in the car park in Enfield.

So jostle jostle in the que, watch that Bartley lad he'll allways try to get ahead of you and it's hand in the box, I drew peg 3. Quite happy with that as the closer to the town the better.
Driving to the stretch and heads thinking of various things, how many lines, which rigs, which baits, why did I not bring bread, wonder how Rob will get on in his soccer match, who's pegged beside me. Ten minutes later and all is revealed, gin clear, no weed, no far bank cover, nothing !!! and Pat Bartley is pegged next to me !!!
Haul a shed load of kit from the car and it's set up time. My favourite time this as the expectation level is high, despite the peg and bright sunny morning, I'm allways excited and expectant, because you just never know what the next four hours will throw at you.
I decided on three lines, I don't like and can't handle more than that. It can all get way to
messy and I'm all for keeping it simple. Main line was down the track at 10 o clock. Second was straight across at the bottom of the shelf and the third was an inside line to my left.
Kilcock roadside is a bit awkward as theres very little room to ship a pole and fishing here
involves, breaking down a couple of times and shipping back hard to your right. Depths were as I'd have expected so rigs that had been prepared the day before were selected, clipped on and adjusted accordingly. Don't know how I missed it but did that wind start just as the All In was called or what. Fed the three lines at the start and before I've finished that, Pat has had two fish, how they heck has he done that ? Whatever happened it became a bit of a mare for me, as I had no heavier rigs and holding bottom was just never happening. Big cock up Kavo and not one that will happen again. I really was kicking myself and then unexpectedley, theres two pals from the infamous Carlow Mafia tapping me on the shoulder, telling me to use heavier rigs, ggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
What the hell are they doing here I'm thinking.They stayed for a while and we chatted and thankfully I put a couple of fish in the net. The Mafia buggered off to fish the harbour and the fish buggered off with them. I didn't have another bite for the rest of the match and was feeling
pretty useless. A shout from Pat asking me if I was getting fish and confirmation that he hadn't
had a bite for the last hour and a half and confirmation from swim no 2 to my right that he had nothing made me feel not quite so useless.
Now on a day when the two end pegs on a canal match weigh in 2 ozs and 9 ozs, you know it's
going to be a day of small bags. So bad as it was my 4 ozs somehow didn't seem as crap as they
actually were. Pat won the day with a good bag of 3lb 11ozs and there was 3 other bags with more than ozs. Other than that either blanks or less than a lb.
So there it was, four hours has flashed past and it's "All Out". I'm not last going in to round 2 another lesson learned and for some mad un explainable reason I can't wait for the 17th,