Sunday 18/03/2012 - Avon Angling Open - Chilton Trinity - Woodlands

With a quick detour through inner Beirut for Bela to do the Mothers day thing, it was off to the Hill Top Café. Bela went for the “Over the Hill” breakfast, complete with half pound of Liver and onion rings!!

The match was on Woodlands Lake and I was thinking it was a bit too early in the year for the venue – well for me. As long as I didn’t draw a corner peg I was going for the Silvers with Ronnie’s – for some reason I just can’t catch the resident Skimmers on this venue. In to the new draw box and out comes peg 28 – not a corner peg. However, I did have reservations as the wind was blowing in to my bank which only got worse as the match progressed. Mid match nature decided to also add freezing cold rain. I set up the Ronnie rig and 4 metre whip and reluctantly the Skimmer rig to be fished at 10 metres. On the whistle I fed a small ball of GB laced with Pinkie at 10 metres at 12 o clock. I followed this up with half a cup of micro at 2 o clock, loose feeding the Ronnie line with caster.

Starting over the GB with double dead red resulted in nothing. Not to worry, over the pellet line with 3mm expander pellet on the hook, which also resulted in nothing. Not to worry out with the Ronnie rig with caster and it was Motherless Minnow every put in. So it was out on the 4 metre line again with caster and once again it was Motherless Minnows, that was until I hooked three Carp on the all of the taking ownership of my 16 808 hook. I decided to feed CW& C over the GB line and try and feed off the Motherless with lashings of micro – mistake they loved it and it only got worse, such that I had to hide the hook bait until I cast!! I tried the worm and allsorts of other desperate measures to catch Silvers – it didn’t happen so I set up a paste rig for the RH margin and watched the Motherless to their Piranha trick of attacking the paste in vast numbers vibrating the float until it was all worn away. The wind was taking its toll on my eyes so I had to rest them by turning my back on the swim. Whatever I tried it was a motherless or tiny Rudd. I did pack up early weighing in a mere 5lb 10oz (Mr Avon Angling insisted that a picture be taken of my catch - pictured right) of mainly Motherless, well it was Mother Day. I thought I could net 10lb plus of Ronnie’s which is usually enough for coin, which was true for today.

The match was won by Bryan Shanks (pictured right with his catch) on peg 15 on the opposite bank with 97lb. Bryan caught on 8mm hard banded pellet, either at 16 metres up in the water or down his LH margin. Bryan fed hard eights on both lines.

The Silvers was won by Shane Casswell (pictured lower right) from peg 26 with 14lb. Shane caught on worm fished over chopped worm, cater and GB. Shanes catch also included a 4lb Tench.

Full Result:

1.      Bryan Shanks 97-0-0 peg 15

2.      Martin Lenaghan 75-14-0 peg 10

3.      Tony Rixon 56-0-0 peg 24

4.      Tom Mangnall 36-04-0 peg 29

5.      Mike West 32-11-0 peg 11

6.      Ron Hardiman 31-08-0 peg 14

Top Silvers:

1.      Shane Casswell 14-0-0 peg 26

2.      John Bradford 10-12-0 peg 33