Sunday 06/02/2011 - Boyd Valley Open

Both Son Steve and I were booked in to fish the match, however, Steve cried off because he had the squirts and missed a good match. It was Leyton Palmer (pictured right sorting out the pools with clip board upside down!) who organised the match on this wonderful little venue. Where else can you find a red carpet on each swim?

The water was nicely coloured to the usual bright red, so sport should be good providing you could manage the strong SW gusting winds blowing down the lake from peg 5 to peg 11.

Into the draw bag and out comes “on its own number 8”. Leyton uses Bingo balls for the draw so can run matches up to “top of the house 99”. Reasonably happy with this draw but would have preferred pegs 3 or 4. The decision was made not to have a Silvers pool, instead paying the top four overall. However, I still felt I could pick up just fishing for Silvers. So I set up two Ronnie rigs and a Skimmer rig to be fished just down the inside shelf at 6 metres, Imy thinking was because of the wind the shorter the better. I started by feeding the Skimmer line with some wetted micro, but started on the Ronnie rig with single caster to an 808 16 hook. Because of the wind I fished the swim down wind at 10 o clock and started catching straight away. I was soon catching Ronnie’s up to 1lb regularly, interrupted by the occasional accidental small Carp. I could see Leyton Palmer catching 4lb plus Carp regularly opposite me on peg 3, but I kept on with the Ronnie’s – simply because I was really enjoying it, plus its what I like doing best. I tried the Skimmer line once with 3mm expander hook bait, giving it three counts of sixty. I wasn't happy with the presentation so wrapped it in for the remainder of the match. Because of the gusting wind I did have a couple of run- ins with the bank side vegetation losing my rig on the last hour. I had another rig but for some reason they never seem to work the same. I finished the match with 13 small Carp which I estimated at 20lb and I was hoping the Silvers would give me 50lb. However, although my Carp guess was spot on I fell 1lb short on the Silvers weighing as total of 49lb, putting me third overall.

The match was won by organiser Leyton (picture right with half his catch) with 82lb 8oz from peg 3. Leyton fished 10 metres with either soft blackened expander pellet or red maggot over micro pellet feed. Leyton fed about half a pint of micro throughout.

What a difference a week can make. Change out of 50p for petrol and change out of a pint of casters – can’t be bad.

Full Result:

1. Leyton Palmer 82-08-0 peg 3
2. Lee Wallar 61-04-0 peg 4
3. Mike Nicholls 49-0-0 peg 8
4. Shaun Townsend 43-11-0 peg 7
5. Martin Rayett 20-10-0peg 12
6. Alan Jones 19-13-0 peg 5