Sunday 22/06/2008 - Carps AC - Rood Ashton

The strong gusting South Westerly winds, which blew all day spoiled the match for most. The venue is very shallow, with eighteen inches of water in most pegs (if your lucky) the water had coloured up some what, due to the wind. I drew peg 16 and had the wind blowing off my right shoulder. I set up three rigs, two for paste right and left of the swim and one for pellet out in front. I started by kinder potting hard pellet with GOT expander on the hook. Straight away I had a liner, out again, another liner. Fed again which resulted in a lost foul hooker. Out again - then nothing - fed again - nothing - um!!! Decided to pot 250 ml of hard pellet in to my right hand swim. Out over this with paste and a lost foul hooker - plus one rig! It occurred to me that the fish were not having the feed. Lucky enough I had kept my left hand swim free of feed, so decided to try the paste. Although the wind made it difficult to present the paste properly, I had a fish immediately and did not look back. I caught 22 Carp (but only weighed twenty one as one jumped the net, giving my ticker a rush of adrenaline) and one Crucian for a total weight of 76lb 2oz for second overall and a pick up of £45. The Crucian weighed 1lb 10oz which gave me third in the Silvers!! It was easy packing up as I had trashed so many rigs I was down to my last one. I will be calling Gerry's of Nottingham in the morning for a top up of his corn & paste floats.
The match was won by John Thompson (pictured top right - apparently on a day out for good behaviour - NB: handcuffs hidden from view) from peg 3 with 78 lb 12 oz (the fish that jumped ship would have given me first overall). John fished the ground bait feeder throughout with hard Pellet on the hook.

The Silvers was interesting with Bill Ferris (pictured right) winning with 7lb 4oz of Roach on whip and caster from peg 15. Bill qualifies for the Sunday Carps AC Silversmania. The second weight was a mere 2lb 15oz!

Full Result:

1. John Thompsom 78-12-0 peg 3
2. Mike Nicholls 76-02-0 peg 16
3. Shaun Townsend 73-08-0 peg 7
4. Jamie White 68-02-0 peg 12
5. Darren Gillman 66-10-0 peg 1
6. Bob Gullick 59-14-0 peg 21

Top Silvers:

1. Bill Ferris 7-04-0 peg 15 (Qualifies for the Carps AC Sunday Silversmania)
2. Tom Thick 2-15-0 peg 13
3. Mike Nicholls 1-10-0 peg 16