Sunday 10/07/2011 - Avon Angling Float Only Open - Landsend - Round Four

With Bela having to miss today's match because he was packing his worldly goods to move home, I was on my own, I must say I missed travelling with him – a great bloke. Still went for a breakfast at the Fountain cafe though.

I was drawn against Dave Roper in the knockout and he had drawn peg 74 (I think) on the fourth Lake – not a great draw I was thinking. I pulled one of my favourite Silvers pegs, peg 36 on Specimen Lake. I decided that Silvers would be my number one priority and the knockout second.

Arriving at my peg I found I had drawn in Blogger city with Chris Fox on peg 34, another great Silvers peg and Tim “Clucker” Ford on peg 33, a great Carp peg – serves his right).

With my Arthritis in the neck now limiting my fishing to 10 metres that was where I would target the Skimmers using the usual rig – 4x14 Jolly with 4mm expander pellet hook bait fished over wetted hard 4’s I set up a margin paste rig and a 10 metre Paste rig. Finally I set up my Ronnie rig to be used with caster over caster at 4 metres.

On the whistle I potted in a few soft 4’s and started with a 4 expander on the hook. It all started well, catching Skimmers from 4oz to 1lb, topping up the swim after every pounder. After an hour the swim went iffy, I think I over fed it. Thinking that I might have attracted Carp I went out with the paste, and that wasn’t the answer. So I rested the swim coming in on the Ronnie rig and caster. I had a run of Ronnie’s; it was nice to see that they were a decent stamp from 4oz to 1lb. However, it didn’t last long as I was soon pulling out of a foul hook Carp. Back out on the expander pellet and the Skimmers had returned (where had they gone – up in the water I suspected). In the mix I also caught the odd decent Ronnie and one Crucian. With ninety minutes left I decided to increase the feed to see if I could catch a few of the bigger Bream. However, I attracted the Carp and had an 18 lb fish on the Skimmer rig. I decided to keep the feed rate up switching to small pieces of paste hook bait. I had a run of another five doubles before in the last 20 minutes I had four big Skimmers to 4lb – my original quarry. I am now thinking I might have a chance of framing in the Silvers and get through the knockout. I was right as my six Carp weighed in 62lb 14oz and my Silvers weighed 32lb for a total of 94lb 14oz. This luckily put me first in the Silvers (The Silvers winner is pictured right with the overall winner) and fourth overall. As I expected Dave Roper had made the best of an average draw weighing 45lb. So I was through to the final of the knockout. Very enjoyable day.

The match was won by Clucker (pictured right with part of his catch) from peg 33 with 126lb 12oz. Tim started on ….see his blog.

Full Result:

1. Tim Ford 126-12-0 peg 33
2. Tony Rixon 111-03-0 peg 24
3. Dean Malin 99-15-0 peg 19
4. Mike Nicholls 94-14-0 peg 36
5. Paul Elmes 86-04-0 peg 31
6. Chris Davis 85-08-0 peg 32

Top Silvers:

1. Mike Nicholls 32-0-0 peg 36
2. John Bradford 28-15-0 peg 11
3. John Green 27-10-0 peg 13