Thursday, 10 May 2012

Thursday 10/05/2012 - Batchampton AA - Over 55's and Disabled - Bridge Pool

We were all expecting a better day, weather wise, but not. Although it has warmed up a bit the wind was gusting (as it happens in to my peg again), with rain on and off all day – bloody weather.
 
It was all change again for the draw method with Ray Bazeley providing balls in place of the floppy tickets. We all visualised ping pong ball size with big numbers on them. However, that isn’t what we got. The balls were so small that 25% of the Dodgers couldn’t pick them up, 25% couldn’t read the number and 50% forgot what peg they had drawn as we had to hand the balls back!! See picture right of Rich Coles modelling ball number 3. I predict these will be short lived – hopefully.

In to the ball bag and out comes peg 10 (it’s still written on the back of my hand). I was happy with this draw for both Carp and Silvers. Two rigs, a paste rig for the LH  margin under a bush  (no more on this as I had only a few short looks on it, missing one bite), and a 4 x 16 Jolly to be fished just down the inside shelf at 6 metres. I started as usual by potting in 50/50 casters and micro, starting on the 6 mm expander. It was slow so I switched to double caster and did have two quality Roach to 1lb. I then started to get ragged on the drop from small Ronnie’s. I switched to worm and started to catch some Skimmers when Leyton Palmer arrived on my peg and watched me until the rain started and scared him off home. I then had another visitor – Tim Ford. It was nice to see him out and about again, but still a way to go before he out fishing again. Tim stayed with me for most of the match. When Tim did go for a walk the swim died for me, only to catch one Carp on the drop. After removing the said Carp I had a long run of Skimmers up to 3lb, luckily they stayed until the last hour when both the Skimmers and Tim left me. I did manage three more Carp on the drop though. After landing the second Carp I re-baited and because the elastic had stretched I had to use some persuasion to scrunge it back into the top set, having completed this I thought I had hook the keep net – but no it was a 3lb Tench – it takes years of practice to achieve this feat!!

The upshot was I had a great day’s fishing, not losing one fish, landing 43lb of Silvers for a Silvers win, adding my four Carp which weighed 35lb, bringing the grand total to 78lb for second overall – a match I will remember for a number of reasons.

The match was won by Bob “the bread” Price (pictured right with the Silvers winner) with 85lb 7oz from peg 30. Bob caught on – you guessed it, bread on the lead over to his opposite island.

Full Result:

1.      Bob Price 85-07-0 peg 30
2.      Mike Nicholls 78-0-0 peg 10
3.      Ray Bazeley 59-14-0 peg 18
4.      Harry Muir 59-06-0 peg 4
5.      Terry Bruton 59-0-0 peg 17
6.      Martin Alexander 35-0-0 peg 5

Top Silvers:

1.      Mike Nicholls 43-0-0 peg 10
2.      Rich Coles 24-05-0 peg 7
3.      Mike Jones 17-02-0 peg 33
4.      John Bradford 15-07-0 peg 14

No comments: