Thursday 29 March 2012

Thursday 29/03/2012 - Bathampton AA Over 55's and Disabled Match - Bridge Pool

Today saw the start of the increasingly popular 2012 BAA Coffin Dodger matches, which has been sold out for some months, with potentially 34 anglers on the books. It’s going to be interesting if all turn out!!

After a jam doughnut and a rendition of Happy Birthday to celebrate Bob Price 74th birthday it was in to the cloth draw bag with the floppy draw tickets. Out comes peg 25, which has so far this winter produced very few Silvers, but it does have a good summer Carp record. With the Silvers league over I could target this species from their normal margin habitat. So I set up the usual Skimmer, Ronnie and margin Paste rigs.

Waiting for the all in could smell something that took me back to my teenage years, which was wafting over the Lake from apparently the Main Lake. – Cannabis!! I have always liked the smell, finding it much better than tobacco or cigars.

On the whistle I fed a pot of 50/50 mix of caster and micro pellet at 9 metres for the Skimmers and started loose feeding the Ronnie swim with caster. Starting after the Ronnie’s resulted in a 3oz Hybrid and a few missed bites. So the Ronnie’s were not going to put in an appearance, I started feeding hard 4’s in the margin instead whilst I went out after the Skimmers with soft 3 mm Sensas expander. The first two puts resulted in hooking two big Skimmers, both coming off – bugger. I then got frustrated with small Skimmers nicking the pellet with what appeared to be un-missable bites. I then couldn’t believe that I hooked another two big Skimmers which also shed the hook. I was the had a nervous half hour not being able to pull the pole back in fear of losing a fish (a bit like a dart player not being able to let go his darts). I came to the conclusion that the fish were up in the water and those that I had lost may have been foul hooked. I then had a good spell of catching Skimmers to 1 ½ lb at various depths. The Skimmer line died, so I re-fed and tried the margin with paste which resulted in one lost Perch of about 8oz. The margin water was so clear that I had lost confidence in catching Carp here. So out again after the Skimmers and once again I lost two more Skimmers, only be teased by more of youthful ones. I tried all the usual baits – maggot, corn, caster and worm. I did have a couple on worm and caster. I don’t like feeding chopped worm as it can kill the swim, but as I was now struggling I fed six Dendrabena with another pot of caster and with a piece of worm on the hook I had a Skimmer – happy days – NOT. For the next hour I was plagued by tiny Perch. So I had to try and recover the swim feeding caster and micro whilst I tried the margin again, which produced nothing. Out again and I had a run of four biggish Skimmers on double caster. With ten minutes left I went back in the margin with paste and had my first bite on it, a 2 ½ lb Tench which I pulled out of at the net – bugger. I reckon I lost 10lb of Silvers off the hook today – very unusual and probably signs that they were hanging around up in the water and not really feeding. One thing I did notice was that the new Skrettings 2.4 mm pellet appears to sink only for them to subsequently resurface. Wonder if they are suspending off the bottom, I will have to look in to this.

My Silvers weighed in at 21lb 12oz for second in the Silvers being beaten by Bob Feltham off the next peg by 12oz!!
The match was won by organiser Mike Jones (pictured right) with 57ln 14oz from peg 7. Mike started after his usual Silvers but after finding this unproductive went out on the waggler with banded 8mm pellet catching four Carp shallow and two on the deck.

The Silvers was won by Bob Feltham (pictured rlower right with his great catch of Skimmers) with 22lb 8oz from peg 24. Bob fished at 5 metres (because he broke his Maver pole again) soft pellet fished over micro, softened hard 4’s with a bit of Green swimstim GB.


Full Result:

1.      Mike Jones 57-14-0 peg 7
2.      Andy Shields 34-09-0 peg 3
3.      Harry Muir 30-10-0 peg 9
4.      Paul Haines 27-12-0 peg 14
5.      Alan Jones 26-10-0 peg 18
5.      Terry Bruton 26-10-0 peg 28

Top Silvers:

1.      Bob “MD” Feltham 22-08-0 peg 24
2.      Mike Nicholls 21-12-0 peg 25
3.      Alan Jones 19-04-0 peg 18
4.      Bob “Most improved Silvers Angler” Price 19-0-0 peg 15

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Bob broke his MAVER pole.

Nothing new there then.

Sold my 301 best thing I ever did with it.

Woody
West Sussex