Wednesday 06/11/2013 - Avon Angling Open - Plantation - Match Lake

I was told that Bitterwell Lake would be open Monday so took a drive over to have a look see. However, I found all the gates locked and no sigh of fishery men nor workmen. The fishing platforms are still to be installed. That said the fishery has been really tidied up as picture upper right.

 

After an average breakfast in the cafe I had plenty of time to have a walk round and found that the fishery seems to have gone mad with signs (see picture right I counted 15 signs in the picture)!

 

In to the draw landing net and out come peg 19. This peg is at the far end on a point with a shortish island chuck. I have not drawn this peg before but always fancied it for the Silvers. I was hoping the Ronnie’s would feed today so set up the usual Ronnie rig and a 4 metre whip with a tiny waggler, both rigs to fish caster over caster. I also set up a Skimmer rig to be fished at 7 metres. Finally I set up a paste rig for the LH margin – this was a mistake and should have used another caster rig for the marginal Perch.

 

I started by cupping in a walnut size of my Skimmer GB with six dead reds. I started on the Ronnie rig and after five minutes knew that they weren’t going to be active missing two bites and net one. Disappointingly I switched to the Skimmer rig and caught a few more Ronnie’s before landing five Skimmers. Just when you think you got it cracked things change, as my next fish was a small Common Carp. This appeared to up set the swim so after re-feeding I had a go on the whip catching the odd Ronnie on single caster. Back out on the Skimmer line only to find it had really slowed down. So I put in a few wetted micros and with 3mm expander on the hook had another Skimmer, a Tench and another bloody Carp. So after feeding I tried the margin with paste over the 4 mm hard pellet I had been loose feeding and landed two quick Carp and that was it from this line. I spent the rest of the match scratching around for the odd Ronnie catching a foul hooked Perch in the process. My Carp weighed 18lb 4oz and my Silvers 12lb 7oz for a total of 30lb 11oz. This scraped me in to 2^nd Silvers by default - thanks to the "Fish on" - "All Out"!! Rixon.

 

The match was won by Nick Collier (pictured right with the Silvers winner) with 92lb 10oz from peg 31. Nick caught most of his carp from his LH margin using caster over caster. Nick fed 4 pints throughout.

 

The Silvers was won by Steve Kedge with 17lb 8oz from peg 27. Steve mainly Ronnie’s fishing caster over caster fishing short to his Left.

 

Full Result:

 

1. Nick Collier 92-10-0 peg 31
2. An-Ton Page 85-02-0 peg 35
3. Tony Rixon 81-9-0 peg 4
4. Rod Wotton 71-07-0 peg 7
5. Tim Clark 67-09-0 peg 8
6. Chris Fox 40-01-0 peg 26

Top Silvers:

 

1. Steve Kedge 17-08-0 peg 27
2. Tony Rixon 13-0-0 peg 4
3. Mike Nicholls 12-06-0 peg 19

Weigh Sheet: