Sunday 15/07/2012 - Avon Angling Open - Viaduct Fishery - Campbell and Lodge Lakes

I thought yesterday’s Fish o Mania was another success. The only comment was that all of the anglers interviewed said the trophy was more important than the money – not for me – keep the trophy and get the cheque in the bank!! I wish for more angling matches to be televised.

After another meat free breakfast in Woody’s it was in to the draw queue and found myself one of the last three to draw. Pegs 127, 112 and 131 left in the coffee tin. I just didn’t want to draw peg 131, luckily for me this was left to Chris Davis who not surprisingly DNW’ed as like me he won’t fish the lead. I had peg 127 and Dean Malin 112, my preferred peg as it has a great margin.

For two weeks on the trot I was surrounded by the South West top Carp Slayers with Tom Mangnall on next peg 126 and An-Ton on peg 123 and Tony Rixon on peg 124. I was resigned to being battered again, as the Carp were well out and up in the water. So the focus was solely the Silvers for any path to coin. So it was a start on meat at 9 metres with a 4x14 jolly and two paste rigs one for over the meat line and another for the margin.

Starting on the 6mm meat kindering in 5 pieces, I foul hooked a Carp first put in, which luckily wasn’t on long leaving the rig intact. This was quickly followed by two 6lb Carp. That was it, no more Carp throughout the match as Tom Mangnall had been blasting in the pellet causing the biggest fizzing area I have witnessed, some 12 foot diameter at 14.5 metres. So on to the Silvers and after a few small Skimmers the small Ronnie’s took charge and I was pestered by them. So it was on to the paste over the meat line which just sat there, until the paste dissolved popping the float up. It was early in to the margin then, whilst I loose fed hard 4’s over the nine metre line to see if I could get some fizzing, which I didn’t, so never fished this it again. The margin was full of small fish which made both paste and caster impossible to fish. The only hook bait that would stay on long enough to catch anything decent was a big piece of worm. So I stayed with this, feeding caster and hard 4’s over the top. I didn’t feed any worm. I caught five Tench losing one and Perch to 2lb, but no Skimmers. I did lose quite a few Perch due to the hook pulling free. My two Carp went 13lb 8oz and my Silvers 29lb 12oz for a total of 43lb 4oz. This left my marginally fourth in the Silvers. However, I did manage a default pick up as Tony Rixon won his section.

The match was technically won by Tom Mangnall (pictured right sporting his new ASDA “Smart Price” glasses no wonder he dosn't smile) from next peg 126 with 242lb 12oz. Tom fished shallow at 14.5 metres using banded pellet over loose fed pellet. Fortunately for Tom An-Ton Page (pictured lower right looking distraught) had gone over the 70lb limit by 4lb and then went over the 90lb limit on another keep net and lost his complete net, having altogether 94 lb deducted which would have gave him a grand total of 287lb 3oz!!

The Silvers was won by Shaun Townsend (pictured bottom right with the real match winner now smiling as he only lost out by £10 pools money) from peg 66 with 31lb 15oz. Shaun caught on 6mm banded pellet feeding hard 4’s.

Full Result:

1.      Tom Mangnall 242-12-0 peg 126

2.      An-Ton Page 193-02-0 peg123

3.      Craig Edmonds 162-14-0 peg 59

4.      Tony Rixon peg 138-06-0 peg124

5.      Alan Oram 126-07-0 peg 119

6.      Dean Malin peg 85-10-0 peg112

Top Silvers:

1.      Shaun Townsend 31-15-0 peg 66

2.      Tony Rixon 30-09-0 peg 124

3.      Nigel Bartlett 30-06-0 peg 118

4.      Mike Nicholls 29-12-0 peg 127

During the match a red ants nest decided to make home in my net bag I thought I had
cleared them all out however, by the time Bela and I reached "Bar Gar-age" Bela was bitten
all round his ankles with the red ants crawling all over him.