Cold day at Witherington Farm

Well most of you have seen the weather over the past week (not good by all accounts). Today saw me down at my local venue Witherington Farm for the Reids Tackle open match.
The match was to take place on the back two lakes Selwood and Cottage 1 section per lake. Having been picked up by Si Irwin and got to the venue with no hitches (no snow down here at the miniute) I sat down to a good old breckie and a cuppa wondering what the day would bring(swear I only go fishing to have a good fry up before hand).
In the summer nine times out of ten Cottage lake out fishes Selwood lake in the winter its the other way round with this in mind I wanted to draw Selwood that wasn't to be on the draw i pulled out Cottage peg 1.Not where i wanted to be but like most times you make the best of a bad draw, first thing was first getting the ice breaker out and giving the ice a good bashing.
Having managed to clear a swim 7 meters out and 2 meters wide i decided to set up one rig and sit on it for the duration of the match as i didn't feel having a few lines would work.
So the only set up for the match would be a match top 3 with a double 5 Preston slip elastic running through it fished 7 meters out,rig would be a 0.13mm main line with a Hillbilly F1 wire float 4x10 hook length was 0.10mm with a tubertini 808 size 18 hook, shooting wise i spread the shot out along the rig.
For feed I planned on fishing micro pellet with 6mm expander over the top feeding little and often through a cad pot.
With the all in being called i set to work filling my cad pot and sorting the hook bait out.
For the first hour I never had a bite and had no indications on the float I had fed very little as I wanted to feel my way into the swim and not pile in loads of bait and mess it up.
The weather seemed to be getting worse with the wind picking up blowing right to left across my peg making the chill factor even worse, after another non action packed half hour it was time for a brew in the cafe and a quick warm up.
After a quick defrost it was back to my peg, rig in and the float buried first fish was in the net after another 10 mins the float shot under once again and fish two in the net this carried on for the next 3o mins catching a fish every 10 minutes then it went dead. With 4 gold fish and a small carp in the net in just under a hour I was pretty happy , I had a feeling the larger carp wouldn't show due to the conditions and it wasgoing to be a matter of catching what I could when the opportunity came.
After another 2 hours of watching my float with no action it was brew time once again and yet another quick warm up in the cafe. 10 minute warm up and it was back on the bank for the last hour which passed very slowly due to not having any indications on the float and the wind cutting straight me "all out" was called.
Looking around the lake there was only four of us who still had nets in water the rest had packed up and gone before the all out was called or were just packing up and off home.
When the weigh in came round I put 4lb2oz onto the scales (not the greatest of weights but with everyone struggling it was worth it) and it proved to be a good move with the winning weight being 5lb7oz leaving me to take 2nd on the lake.
Having got back to the cafe to find out the results I learned that 14lb odd had won the match of one of the pegs on Selwood. Still a 2nd on my lake was enough to eran me a nice brown envolope.
Looking back at the match now sat in the warm I must be mad to fish in this weather. The weather has been terrible over the past week with temperatures dropping to below zero with snow due over most of the country. The weight might have not been a big weight but just getting out and fishing is what counts in good company so even though i sat there not feeling my feet or hands I had a good day out.
Next match I am back down Witherington Farm next Wednesday for Army Angling Federation Group 2 Fur and Feather match hopfully some milder weather might have kicked in ? .