Monday 26 March 2018

Sunday 25/03/2018 - Shiplate Open/knock Up - Westpool


It was the usual messing around with the clocks Saturday night where we lost an hour, its time to stop this nonsense. The girls in Shipham cafĂ© got it right delaying opening by an hour. This meant Geoff and I had to find somewhere else for breakfast and decided to lash out on a £12.50 Holiday Inn breakfast. There is only so much you can eat.

Only nine of us booked into the Westpool open being run by Glynn Wickham. This Canal is the least of all fished on the complex so Geoff and I were looking forward to it. We had the draw next to the Canal where there was plenty of fish showing. First draw put me on peg 7; however, there were only eight swim cards in the hat, so redraw. This time peg 13. None if this numbers meant anything to me or Geoff who was on peg 11. Dom Sullivan was on peg 10 and wasn’t happy because he was the only one with someone each side. Dave Willmott was giving the impression that he was hung-over, his head wasn’t with us for sure. Dave drew end peg 1 and wasn’t that pleased with it. Got to my peg and found it well constructed with pea gravel and close to the water, no fishing from a high piers with drop nets on this fishery.

The fishery was paying two overall and one Silvers. Because of this I wanted to keep my options open for as long as I could. I had heard that someone had caught 26lb of Chub off one of the pegs, so decided to set up the waggler for across even though it was only 14.5 metres wide for maggot over maggot, a 4x12 to fish at top-set plus four out in front with 4mm expander over micro, The Ronnie rig and a 4x10 for the margin. During the set-up I noticed that there were some very large Carp toping so changed up some of my elastics.

After feeding the micro line and the margin with some micro and maggot I started on the Ronnie rig with caster over caster. Second cast I foul hooked a decent Carp during the tussle I noticed that my landing net was out of reach sat behind me with my keepnets. Not to worry I lost it anyway. In went the nets and started again. It was soon a replay with another foul hooker spending the rest of its match in the Canal instead of my net. As per Thursday’s match I soon realised the Ronnie’s didn’t want the caster so switched to the long line with the 4mm expander. No sign of a fish although there were plenty of Carp showing on the surface. Picked up the waggler and with single red over loose fed reds I had a 5lb Carp first cast, followed by a 1 ½ lb Chub. Another fouled Carp on the waggler which was only on for a Nano second even if it was hooked at all. The Ronnie’s then moved in and it was one a cast, however, it was much too slow on the waggler so switched back to the Ronnie rig this time maggot over maggot and had a couple of hours catching small Ronnie’s and occasionally I was caught by Carp adding two between 5 and 7lb. Time for a Banana walk. Geoff had been struggling but had started to catch Carp in his margin. Dom said he had 30lb of Carp, but both Geoff and I thought he had more. The rest were struggling. So I had to make the final decision Carp or Silvers and as I had 20lb of Carp and was laying second thought I would try the margin for a while. This produced three decent Carp on double maggot over loose fed maggot. However, the water beneath had some hidden snags which I did finally teach myself how to avoid, the lesson costing me three Carp. In the last hour I started to worry about loosing my second place to Geoff who was catching well in his margins even thought like me had a few fights with the marginal reeds. I just about kept even with Geoff on the Carp front knowing my Ronnie’s would make the difference.
 
My Silvers weigh 11lb 3oz for joint second Silvers and my Carp weighed 42lb 14oz just 4oz more than Geoff. My total weight took me to second weight overall with 54lb 1oz. Both Geoff and I was surprised that Dom only weighed 61lb this was due to his fish being half the size of the ones we caught.

The match was won by Dom Sullivan (pictured with the two things he loves most – his misses and a net full of Carp). See Dom’s blog for more details on how he caught. I’m not sure “Caught Short” applied to him today!!

The Silvers was won by Dad Wickham (pictured right with the winner - Dad on the left) with 14lb 7oz catch of Skimmers from peg 3. Dad caught on either single red or double Pinkie over GB supplied by his Son’s.

Excellent small venue stuffed with quality Carp. For future reference the Chub swim is apparently peg 1.

Full Result:

  1. Dom Sullivan 61-04-0 peg 10
  2. Mike Nicholls 54-01-0 peg 13
  3. Geoff Francis 43-13-0 peg 11

Top Silvers:

  1. Ray “Dad” Wickham 14-07-0 peg 3
  2. Mike Nicholls and Mark 11-03-0 pegs 13 and 5
Weigh Sheet:



1 comment:

Unknown said...

Nice comment Mike , Thanks from the pair of us, Dom & Von