Thursday 07/07/2011 - Bathampton AA Over 55's And Disabled - Bridge Pool

There was plenty of discussion before the match on how Bridge Pool would fish especially after recent issues. For me the test would be today’s match with 25 Dodgers fishing, the whole Lake would get a good trial.

In to the draw box and out comes peg 25. As I have said before I don’t mind where I draw on this Lake but would prefer a non-disabled peg, purely for comfort, which luckily peg 25 is. With one no-show resulting in next peg 24 not being drawn, which I thought might help my cause as this can be a Silvers flyer.

I set up one Skimmer rig, a 4x16 Jolly fished at 7 metres in 8 foot of water. A Ronnie rig for caster and my usual margin paste rig. I started slowly with the feed putting in one kinder pot of hard 4’s on the Skimmer line. On went a soft 6mm and I started to catch Skimmers from 4oz to 1lb regularly. I kept topping up with 4’s after every 1lb Skimmer. This lasted for about an hour when the swim went iffy; I struck at a bite and foul hooked a Carp high up in the water. Next put in the same thing (I had obvious brought the fish up in the water by using the kinder pot regularly), so with more of less 18lb of Skimmers in the net I switched to the Ronnie line with caster with the intentions of letting the Skimmer peg settle. I had a few small Ronnie’s before I kept missing bites which are usually an indication that the Carp are about, which they proved to be, as I was soon pulling free from a foul hooker. The Carp had found me once again - bugger. So into the margin with the paste rig, lightly feeding hard 4’s regularly by hand and I was soon netting my first 10lb fish. I kept the Carp coming for the rest of the four hours netting seventeen up to 18lb. My Silvers weighed in at 18lb 4oz for sixth in the Silvers and my Carp weighed 157lb 12oz for a total of 176lb 4oz and first overall.

Mike Jones announced at the start to try and keep a maximum of five Carp per keep net so I ended up with five nets in!! See picture right. The reduction in Carp numbers/weight by fisheries is making it a bit silly now.

The Silvers was won by Terry Bruton (pictured lower right with his enviable catch) with 29lb 4oz from peg 32. Terry caught two Tench in the margin on meat and the rest were skimmers to 1lb fished at 7 metres. Terry MIGHT have caught on meat hook bait or MIGHT have caught on soft pellet (can’t get a consistent answer from him at present – being a secret squirrel me thinks) fished over hard 4’s fed through his toss pot.

Well I can confirm that this Lake is now fishing for Silvers better than any time I can remember with approximately 300lb of Skimmers caught today (my quick tally). That works out at 12lb per angler a good a day’s Silvers fishing by any fishery standard.

At about half term I have now caught 1,251lb of Carp and 1,246lb of Silvers, all most equal tally - interesting.

Full Result:

1. Mike Nicholls 176-04-0 peg 25
2. Bob Price 103-02-0 peg 17
3. Terry Bruton 55-15-0 peg 32
4. Mike Jones 46-12-0 peg 15
5. Dave bacon 39-10-0 peg 14
6. Ray Bazeley 36-08-0 peg 9

Top Silvers:

1. Terry Bruton 29-04-0 peg 32
2. Bob Warren 22-04-0 peg 28
3. Pete Phillips 19-14-0 peg 7
4. Dave Daly 19-12-0 peg 26
5. Ray Bazeley 19-1-0 peg 9
6. Mike Nicholls 18-08-0 peg 25