Wednesday 23/03/2011 - Carps AC Plantation Winter League - Round Four

The Special One and took the Granddaughters to Vassals Park yesterday where I was persuaded to have a go on the Tarzan swing. It looked easy enough with a four year old weighing 3 stone. I should have known that it’s a completely different story with 11 stone Pensioner on it. I hit the end buffer and jarred my neck. This resulted in a restless nights sleep. I got up early this morning and I felt fishing the long pole for Skimmers today was going to be painful, especially seeing the pole back on to the back roller, which it proved to be.

The weather was real spring like with bright blue skies and temperatures in the high teens – great this long cold winter is over.

In to the draw bag and out comes peg 27, yet another island chuck and a Carp flyer. My draws must be pissing off a lot of the Carp Slayers. I have fished the peg before winning the Silvers with a good net of Skimmers, so I set up a Skimmer rig to be fished at 11.5 metres and three Ronnie rigs – one to be shallow at 6 metres, one for 7 metres on the bottom and a short rig also for fishing on the bottom. All the Ronnie rigs would use caster hook bait over loose fed caster. After feeding four balls of Skimmer GB on the Skimmer line and a few casters for over the close in Ronnie rig. I tried for the Skimmers, first with maggot which resulted in two small Ronnie’s then 3 mm expander which also resulted in a similar catch. Great, I could rest my neck. On to the short Ronnie rig and I started to catch fish to 1lb. The up shot was I kept switching between the shallow 6 metre rig and the short rig to keep the Ronnie’s with a smattering of Rudd coming on and off through out the match. The 7 metre rig didn’t get used. I weighed 34lb 9oz for 2nd in the Silvers and I think 7th overall.

The match was won by John Dursley (pictured right) with 93lb 4oz all Carp catch from peg 8. John caught at 13 metres using banded 8mm hard pellet at depth. John loose fed about two pints of a mixture of 4’s and 6 mm hard pellet.

The Silvers was won by Dave Wride from peg 38 with an impressive all Skimmer catch of 43lb made up primarily of 4 – 6oz fish. Dave caught at 9 metres using 4 mm soft expander pellet fished over small (Kinder) balls of GB.

At the results there was a big debate over the payout. I suggest that everyone is provided with a set of printed Wednesday match rules, especially the match organiser on the day! It would be beneficial if everyone is singing off the same hymn sheet.

My travelling partner Leyton Palmer picked up fourth in the overall by default but donated 50% of it to Steve Dawson out of sympathy for the Silvers not being defaulted. I would have thought Leyton would have put us needy pensioners first!

Full Result:

1. John Dursley 93-04-0 peg 8
2. Mike Owens 56-06-0 peg 26
3. Steve Kedge 52-0-0 peg 23
4. Leyton Palmer 45-02-0 peg 25
5. Steve Dawson 43-01-0 peg 1
6. Dave Wride 43-0-0 peg 38

Top Silvers:

1. Dave Wride 43-0-0 peg 38
2. Mike Nicholls 34-09-0 peg 27
3. Steve Kedge 32-12-0 peg 23

PS: My neck is still very painful so have decided to take some medication - alcohol!!