Had my usual walk around the Pool, joined by Kev Winstone. It was clear to me it was going to fish hard, especially the far end pegs 30 to 34 and 1 to 5 absolutely no signs of fish. Unfortunately, my predictions were to proved true.
Hoping to avoid the pegs mentioned above, but NO, Dave Gillard pulled me peg 33. Not happy with this one, but happy to be out fishing. Another downside to these pegs you are in the shade all day and today I would be sitting opposite anglers with tea shirts and I would be in my fleece still feeling chilly. I think the fishing Gods are averaging out my catches.
I set up the usual - Paste float for the margin and one for top-set plus one out in front, Ronnie rig and a 4x16 to fish top-set plus three barrels. As it would be a question of scratching around for fish I thought about setting up a waggler, but foolishly couldn't be bothered. A lot more rigs that usual and expected to use them all.
So started on the long paste float hoping to catch a couple of decent Skimmers, but ended up catching small ones to 6 oz with very small pieces if paste. I did have one a pound. Then switched to the long lone line with the 4x16 with a 4 mm expander over micro and had a couple of Ronnie's so switched the line to chopped worm and caster before starting on the Ronnie rig with caster. This proved more productive catching a 2 lb Skimmer, some decent Ronnie's and Perch. I did pull put out a decent Perch I estimated to be near 2 lb fiddling trying to find my landing net. The line died indicating some bigger fish present to dropped the paste in and had four F1's before the line completely died. So last hope was the worm line which was poor, accounting for some small Perch and one Roach/Bream Hybrid of about 1 1/2 lb. About halfway through I went for a walk to warm up as much as anything. The Pool was fishing really hard. Went back and spent nearly three hours staring at the float hoping to catch fish that weren't in the peg. This is the point of the match where the waggler would have come into play! I had noticed a Carp swimming around on the surface for some time. However, last effort I shallowed up the Ronnie rig and added another section and with single caster on the hook feeding 6 casters a time hoping to catch some more better Ronnie's. I had a definite liner from a decent fish, so switched to paste and first dob in caught and landed a 10 lb Carp. Whilst playing it I notice another swirl over the caster feed, so couldn't waiting to get the paste back in and hey presto another positive bite, so I thought, anyway I missed it right on the whistle - bugger.
My Silvers weighed 11 lb 9 oz for one out of a Silvers pick up by default and my Carp net weighed 15 lb 12 oz for a total of 27 lb 5 oz for again just two out of an overall pick up. Fine margins one more Carp or one more Ronnie, either would have done for me.The match was won by Tony Rixon (pictured right with the Silvers winner) with 106 lb 4 oz from peg 11. Tony fished 17. 5 metres to the island using hard banded pellet over loose fed pellet - see his blog for further details. Well done matey definitely have a weight advantage over the majority of the anglers. Well done matey.
The Silvers was won by Kev Winstone with 23 lb 3 oz from peg 16. Kev caught short up and down in the water using caster over caster. His catch consisted mainly of small Pech and Roach.One thing anglers are noticing at the moment is that it's very difficult catching fish on the bottom. I wonder if it's anything to do with all the Siltex that has been put in this Pool?
Back to HQ (pictured) with the usual suspects.
Result:
1, Tony Rixon 106-04-0 peg 11
2. Paul Barnfield 39-12-0 peg 24
3. Hughie Evans 38-12-0 peg 28
4. Chris Ollis 31-05-0 peg 14
5. Mark Tanner 29-15-0 peg 18
6. Mike Nicholls 27-05-0 peg 32
Silvers:
1. Kevin Winstone 23-03-0 peg 16
2. Paul Barnfield 22-04-0 peg 14
3. Pete Greenslade 14-04-0 peg 15
4. Gary Bowden 14-0-0 peg 1
Weigh Sheets:
