Thursday 04/04/2013 - Bathampton AA/Veals Silvers Championship - Final Round - Withy Pool

I watched a program on channel 4 last night about “Global Weirdness”, which seems to have now replaced “Global Warming” – makes more sense to me! We are all now pissed with the weather.

 

This was the last of this years Silvers Championship matches and I needed a section win to make sure of the overall title. I was also in the knock out final against John Smith, plus there was an outside chance of a full sweep if the pairs came up trumps – second in the pairs was more realistic, after all I had Chris Rolfe to carry!

 

So with the car packed I was ready for the off but the car wasn’t – flat battery. So I rang the AA who wanted an additional £101 because I was park outside my house – something called home start. I told them they were taking the piss as when I was broken down outside the local shop they came without issue.

 

So I called Ray Bazeley who arranged for that nice man Paul Haines to pick me up. It was a bit of a panic transferring the fishing gear, which lead me to leave my camera in the car – bugger. Still I had my camera phone that was until I got home to find the SD card wasn’t working! Although Ray Bazeley leant me his camera I couldn’t down load to my laptop – double bugger – so no immediate pictures today.

 

I must admit I was a tad concerned with travelling with Paul as last match Ray didn’t shut the back doors of the van properly before travelling home from the Dando Arms and Ray’s Boss box fell out of the back of the van. The funny thing was that a following driver accused them of fly tipping!! Anyway I was thankful for the lift.

 

Arriving at the draw Mike Jones announced that he had to take out a peg from each section because of four no shows. So we were in redraw territory. So into the draw bag and out comes peg 69 – blanked last match – but hey, it was redraw again time – lucky me – next, out comes peg 70 – oh no – also blanked last match. John Smith initially drew peg 53 behind the island and was devastated. That was until I told him that he also had to draw again, with only peg 54 and 61 left, John pulls peg 61 – a flyer in comparison. I was expecting John to beat me in the knockout, which is OK for me as John has done his angling Apprenticeship on the local rivers and Canals and has been one of the few anglers that have successfully transferred to the Dark Side (Commercials).

 

After the very short walk to me peg I was delighted to find that the shipping container behind me was sheltering me from the biting easterly wind which was gusting at times. So with flat calmish water in front of me I would be able to present the bait quite well.

 

After a few phone calls, one of which was to the Avon Angling Auto Electrician Tim Clark who as usual was on my battery case. I was now running late so only had time for the ne 4x16 Jolly rig – the same rig as last match at Huntstrete, but I needed to reduce the rig by two feet. Similarly the bait tray consisted of GB, Pinkies and four week dead reds.

On the all in I fed a small ball of GB laced with a few Pinkies at 10 metres. I took 15 minutes to get my first bite a 2lb Skimmer. There appeared to be no small fish around so it was a waiting game. I caught very steady for the first four hours landing eight Skimmers (three pictured right) to 3 ½ lb when the bites dried up, adding only four 2oz Ronnie’s and a similarly sized bottle top.

 

I must say I didn’t expect to catch as well as I did weighing 19lb 8oz for first overall (my first match win in this series). So with the section win I won the overall and with John Struggling off his flyer I also won the knockout. I think we would have won the pairs if Rolfey hadn’t spent most of the match in the margins trying to beat Mike Jones in the Accidental Carp pool!

 

Mike Jones (pictured lower right with the match winner) once again won the Accidental Carp pool with the one Carp weighing 10lb 13oz. Mike caught it on his elasticated whip with maggot hook bait – amazing really.

 

Overall it was a well run and successful league with high double figure weights required to win each match. Now looking forward to the 2014 league

 

Full Result:

 

1.      Mike Nicholls 19-8-0 peg 70

2.      Dave Bacon 12-01-0 peg 48

3.      Paul Staite 10-15-0 peg 49

4.      Dave Wride 8-09-0 peg 66

5.      Rich Coles  8-08-0 peg 59

6.      Mike Jones 7-08-0 peg 43

 

Accidental Carp:

 

1.      Mike Jones 10-13-0 peg 43

2.      Chris Rolfe 7-04-0 peg 62

 

Overall League Results (Top Six pictured below):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weigh Sheets on the day: