Wednesday 13/08/2008 Carps AC - Sedges Fishery - Tile Lake

The full results and payouts are now on the Carps AC website. I was pleased with my third in the Silvers and the pick up of £90, particularly, as £15 of the £25 match fees went to pools on the day. Paying the top six in each category was excellent. Well done to Martin Rayett (Overall League winner) and John Bradford (Silvers winner).

Whilst on the well done's, it was excellent news that Callum Dicks (pictured with Des Shipp with previous Team England Gold medals) won World Individual gold in the under 22's. I am sure it won't be long before the South West has a senior World Individual Champion with Des Shipp. Des is without doubt the best Angler in Europe, who also works full time! Come on tackle sponsors pay him his worth - he's awesome. The South West has done well with England representations (in addition to the above - Ben Leech, Colin Golding!). However, I would like to see a bigger England squad and more competition around the country. I believe this will lead to increasing the South West's contingent- bias perhaps? Whilst on the subject why does angling need joint England Team Managers - doesn't work for me, you don't see this in other sports - question for the NFA?

To today's match, the weather was absolutely awful with gale force winds and heavy showers. Not a day to be fishing facing the wind then! I drew peg 36 - four of us with the gales blowing straight at us. I was pleased with the peg, but feared the conditions for catching Silvers. I fed at 4 metres with ground bait and dead maggot, but started on the caster at 2 metres with a wire stem PB14. I had to abandon this due to the conditions. Went out on the 4 metre line with dead maggot on the hook and caught three Skimmers straight away - then small Carp moved in, I decided to switch to 6mm GOT pellet on the hook which resulted a run of small Carp to 1lb. Time to make a decision - all out Carp or stay with the Silvers, I could see Paul Locke catching what I thought was Carp (I didn't know it also include a number of Tench), so decided to go back and persevere with the caster for the rest of the match. This resulted in two big Bream and one 4lb Tench and a lot of Ronnies from 2oz to 4oz, plus about 5lb of quality Perch. My total weight was 54lb 5oz which was made up of 32lb of Silvers. This gave me fifth overall and first in the Silvers and a pick up of £40.

The match was won by Paul Lock (pictured bottom left) from peg 30 with 90lb 6oz. His catch included twelve Tench for 29lb. Paul caught long in to the end left hand margin with 6mm expander pellet and short to his right with paste over loose fed 4mm pellet.

Considering the conditions the venue fished exceptionally well, with all Anglers having a good day's fishing.

Full Result:

1. Paul Lock 90-06-0 peg 30
2. Roy Short 72-12-0 peg 26
3. Mark Chilcott 66-13-0 peg 27
4. Ian Dawe 60-08-0 peg 39
5. Mike Nicholls 54-05-0 peg 36
6. Gary Barne 51-10-0 peg 40

Top Silvers:

1. Mike Nicholls 32-0-0 peg 36
2. Ian Dawe (pictured bottom right) 29-06-0 peg 39 (Qualifies for the Carps AC Wednesday Silversmania by default)
3. Paul Locke 29-04-0 peg 30