Considering we were on the main lake today I was surprised to see such a good turn out. It was helped with two new attendees in Steve “The Scud” Jefferies (I’m surprised Steve’s waited ten years to fish these matches) and Chris Rolfe, Bathampton stalwart in many ways. Also back fishing was Pete Bryer, forget the angling, great humorist, wish he would come to every match. I am not going to discuss the weather and forecasting anymore – what happens, happens. In fact why don’t we close all the meteorological offices in the UK
I drew peg 35 – I would like to say it is the worse peg on the lake, but it probably isn’t – but very close to it. Once again I am next to Mr Pastry who drew peg 36 (lets hope he doesn’t try learning to swim again today). Lucky enough I was opposite Rich Coles so able to hold some sensible conversation during the match! The RH margin looked like it might produce a Carp (who was I kidding), so set up a margin paste rig. I knew the Ronnie’s were going to be prime target in this swim and I didn’t expect anything bigger than 2oz – and I wasn’t disappointed. I set up three Ronnie rigs (how sad is that Rip off). All differing lengths to chase the Ronnie’s further out as the match progressed. For some reason I also set up a paste rig for the big Bream at 8 metres. On the whistle I potted in 250ml of wetted micro at 8 metres and the same in to the RH margin. I picked up the short whip and started after the Ronnie’s with caster. I caught micro to 2 oz Ronnie’s for the first hour, then they got jittery due to the high number of predators in my swim. At one stage the Pike were attacking my keepnet. Rich Coles hooked and landed a 8 pound Pike, only to have to throw it back as they don’t count in Bathampton matches (why on earth not). I must say it was fun watching him play it; everything was either too short or too long to land it. I chased the small Ronnie’s all match, gradually going out to 9 metres on my 4.5 metre whip. With two hours to go it was pointless feeding as the fish wouldn't come anywhere near it. It was a question of casting around away from any feed to pick off the odd fish. As expected I caught naught on either of my paste rigs (except one small skimmer in the eye ball). With an hour to go I had lost the will to live and had completely ran out of ideas. With five minutes to go I threw in the towel with the rest of my bait. I weighed 9lb 12oz of “Whitebait” for fifth overall and a pick up of £20.
The match was won by “The Real” Pete Phillips (pictured right – scary isn’t it – I strongly recommend that you don’t enlarge it) with 28lb of Bream from peg 13 (I think BAA should re-peg it 12A as it certainly isn’t unlucky). Pete caught on the pole at 10 metres using corn hook bait.
It was good to see Chris Rolfe take second place with 25lb 10 oz from peg 11. Let’s hope Chris fishes more of these Matches as we could do with more good anglers (and we want our money back).
Full Result:
1. Pete Phillips 28-0-0 peg 13
2. Chris Rolfe 25-10-0 peg 11 (practice makes perfect)
3. John Wild 17-04-0 peg 12
4. Rich Coles 9-15-0 peg 38
5. Mike Nicholls 9-12-0 peg 36
6. Mike Jones 9-04-0 peg 6 (this is called "ounced out")
1 comment:
obviously darren has lent you his new net and talked you thru the tactics but it dont sound like you took it all on board(you aint that sad). as for that picture of colin looking at it again andy guard could easily pass himself off as tom thicks older twin
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