Thursday 21/12/2017 - Bathampton AA Over 55's - Bridge Pool

First stop with Geoff Francis – Hungry Horace’s – Excellent breakfast, cooked fresh by experienced women.

With the schools out it was a steady drive to the fishery. It wasn’t long before we were waiting for Chris Orris. We were in for a quiet day because his mate “Ear Ache” was otherwise detained by Bristol Water.

Twenty three Coffin Dodgers fishing today  all waiting to draw a flyer - pictured upper right.

Geoff went in to the draw bag before me and peg 15 stiuck to his mitts – good silvers peg. I left it late for the draw bag and out comes peg 28. Happy with this because I could fish to the end of the island where I expected to catch some Carp.

Now with Bristol City beating Manchester United in the League Cup quarter finals last night and me being a Gas Head who don’t you want to draw next to a - Shit Head – Dave Gillard who said he was going to do me today from his flyer peg 27. Never mind it only took ten minutes to shut him up!!

I set up the waggler to chuck about with single maggot over loose fed maggot as far as the wind would permit and a 4x16 to fish at an eye watering 11.5 metres. Out in front.

Fed the pole line with my winter Skimmer GB and started on the waggler and was amazed that in five casts I had landed four decent Skimmers. This is the time where you start to believe that you are going to empty it. However, we all know this isn’t going to happen on Bridge Pool. I thrashed about far too long adding only one more Skimmer on the Wag. On to the pole and I had a run of Skimmers and with 45 minutes to go decided to increase the feed in the hope of one of the few remaining Carp. As it happened this was a mistake as I only caught one fish scale during this time!

I finished the match with 14 lb 11 oz of Skimmers (pictured upper right) for second Silvers and third overall. Happy with that especially as it was a Christmas match. Under the Special One orders I choose a box of Sweets and a box of Biscuits - no booze! I left that to matey “Tea Total” Rich Coles. 

The match was won by match organiser Chris Rolfe (pictured right) with 16lb 8oz which included a 10lb 9oz Carp from peg 33. Chris caught mostly down his LH margin fishing caster over caster.

The Silver was won by Dave Wride with 14lb 14oz from fancied peg 4.

It was back to the pub with the usual suspects where the banter escalated exponentially with the amount of Doombar devoured, a great day out.

We should have been able to catch a Roach a chuck today alas not; the fishery really needs an heavy stocking of Roach

Full Result:

1. Chris Rolfe 16-08-0 peg 33
2. Dave Wride 14-14-0 peg 4
3. Mike Nicholls 14-11-0 peg 28
4. Rich Coles 11-12-0 peg 7
5. Steve Dawson 12-12-0 peg 30
6. Chris Orris 5-07-0 peg 8

Top Silvers:

1. Dave Wride 14-14-0 peg 4
2. Mike Nicholls 14-11-0 peg 28
3. Rich Coles 11-12-0 peg 8

Weigh Sheets: