Thursday 02/09/2010 - Bathampton Over 55's - Bridge Pool

It was great to see Mike Chapman attending his first match, by the looks of him he must have qualified many years ago! The last time I saw Mike was thrashing away on Barrows number two. With Steve Jefferies showing his face for the first time this year added to a good turn out of 28 anglers. However, it was nearly a redraw because someone took two pegs – time for recorded draw perhaps? Anyway Colin sorted it in his usual fashion sending anglers to peg 1 and 34!

It looks like that the BAA Thursday Silvers Winter League is going to be a sell out – glad I got my name down – contact Mike Jones if you want one of the few remaining places.

What a beautiful start to the day, with the crisp smell of autumn in the air and an ASDA “Full Monty” inside me. I drew peg 33 today which is two up from the far end bank. I wasn’t too displeased with this. However, I was undecided whether to fish for Carp, Ronnie’s, Skimmers, or a bit of all, so kept my options open. It would be the Ronnie’s rig and caster to start, followed up with a Skimmer line at 7 metres, and then if all failed a paste rig in the margin. I felt that the fishing might be harder this end of the Lake so I thought I would knock up some Gimps Gold with some wetted micro to be fed on the 7 metre Skimmer line. However, I started on the caster and had a couple of Ronnie’s and a couple of small Perch – the writing was on the wall – no Ronnie’s again today – umm. So out on the Skimmer line it was to be, whilst feeding 4mm hard pellet in to the LH margin. I had a run of tiny Skimmers to 3oz, this was OK as no one I could see had caught a fish! After two hours when I had about 5lb of Silvers I foul hooked a Carp – one of five on this line – the fish were not feeding, which I put down to the changing of seasons and the bright sun light. I didn’t know whether to re-feed or not. I can confirm that once you have put bait in you can’t take it out – unfortunately! The swim all but died, not a disaster as Harry Muir and Steve Jefferies each side of me hadn’t had a bite!! At half time and to plan into the margin to give paste a try. In four hours fishing it I had three decent Carp. The swim had completely died after this, so decide for the remaining half hour to fish for Skimmers and added about 2lb. My Skimmers weighed 7lb 8oz and my three Carp went 35lb 7oz making a not so grand total of 42lb 15oz. This put me 5th in the Silvers and 6th overall. I have stopped recording pickups on this blog; however, this was an exception as I picked up £19!!!

The anglers both sides of me DNW’d which for Steve Jefferies on peg 34 was probably foreseen as he arrived without his nets. Martin Alexander came to the rescue loaning Steve both landing and keep nets on the condition that if Martin had more than 80 lb he would want it back – that would have been interesting.

The match was won by Terry Bruton (pictured right with the Silvers winner) on peg 30 with 94lb 10oz consisting of nine Carp. Terry caught on the pellet waggler with 10mm pellet feeding the same over the top, Terry also caught at 12 metres with 8 mm expander on the hook, fished over potted hard 8’s.

The Silvers was won by Rich Coles with 24lb 12oz from peg 8. Rich caught a mixed bag consisting of mostly Skimmers fishing worm over CW&C – Rich by name rich was nature!!

Full Result:

1. Terry Bruton 94-10-0 peg 30
2. Paul Haines 59-14-0 peg 19
3. Rich Coles 56-15-0 peg 8
4. John Smith 52-0-0 peg 52-0-0 peg 26
5. Ian Sheppard 46-0-0 peg 4
6. Mike Nicholls 42-15-0 peg 33

Top Silvers:

1. Rich Coles 24-12-0 peg 8
2. Bob Warren 12-09-0 peg 10
3. Mike Jones 11-08-0 peg 5
4. Bill Ferris 10-0-0 peg 31
5. Mike Nicholls 7-08-0 peg 33