Sunday 30/03/2014 - Avon Angling Float Only Open - Chiltern Trinity - Woodlands

After a heavy night at our friend Kath’s 60^th party, plus losing an hour sleep due to the clocks going forward I was lucky to be picked up by matey Glenn Bailey who obviously also had a good night out. And what a beautiful warm morning that greeted us. It was down the M5 and conveniently breakfast in Hilltops café.

We arrived at Woodlands in time for a walk along the Lake where I met up with “Little” Joe McMahon. Joe is doing a Fishery Management course at Bridgewater Technical College. Joe said there was a Cormorant on the Lake and pointed out the Bird pictured right. Either the course isn’t going too well or he hasn’t done the module on migratory Birds!! This Grebe was a bloody nuisance through out my Match continually diving over my feed coming up with the occasional small Ronnie.

Definitely the start of Spring today with light winds and temperatures reaching 17 degrees, plus Primroses (pictured right) decorating the Lakeside.

Into the draw box and out comes peg 17 which is at the far end of the Lake and in the opposite directions of the prevailing winds. After every one had settled in their swims I was gald to see I had plenty of room. I plumbed up the LH margin and found 4 foot of water as close to the bank as I could get. A tad too deep for my liking as it may be prone to fouling.

I set up three rigs the usual Ronnie rig, a Silverfox PC 0.3 paste float and a 4x16 Jolly to be fished at 5 metres out in front. However, because the Lake is carrying an extra foot or so of extra water plus the fact this peg is one of the deepest on the venue I had to at some extra line. Because of the depth I didn't think it would produce. However, I intended this swim to be my meat line and although I fed the line with 8mm meat I really didn't fish it.

I did see a couple of Carp swirling in the margin so I decided to start on the Ronnie rig with caster over lose fed caster, just off bottom and foul hooked a Carp which broke my hook length. Out again and I hook one straight off and landed a six pounder. I followed this up with another Carp and then another foul hooker ending up with just a huge scale which was big enough to go in the keepnet!! In the first three hours I landed six Carp, losing two foul hookers and pulled out of two. In between I was catching some decent Ronnie’s and Perch, but the chances of a Silvers pool pick up was gradually dissolving with Martin Rayett catching Skimmers and Phil Harding having two big Tench. However, the Carp were conspicuous by their absence, so I decided to up the feed to concentrate on the Carp and was rewarded with three more Carp. With an hour and a half of the match remaining the swim went quite (except for Mr Grebe). So I switched to feeding hard 4’s over my paste rig which resulted in hooking a big Tench which slipped the hook as I picked up the landing net. The Tench agonisingly hung on top of the water for a second or two but was out of range for a scoop – Bugger. I went in to feeling sorry for my self as I thought this fish would improve my overall and the Silvers position. I had one more Carp on the paste near the end.

My Silvers weighed 9lb 12oz and my Carp 55lb 8oz for a total of 65lb 4oz putting me in third overall position and 5^th in the Silvers. As I thought the Tench did me out of second spot. Plus one more Carp and I might had won the match – then there was the damage (if any) the Grebe done.

The match was by Tom “The sty” Mangnall (pictured right giving us a wink with some of his catch) with 73lb 8oz from peg 29. Tom caught long at full depth using hard banded pellet over lose fed hard 6’s.

The Silvers was won by Martin Rayett (pictured lower right with Silvers runner up) with 18lb 14oz of Skimmers from peg 11. Martin caught on 6mm soft pellet fished over lose fed hard 6’s and 14.5 metres.

Full Result:

1. Tom Mangnall 73-08-0 peg 29
2. Paul Elmes  69-08-0 peg 2
3. Mike Nicholls 65-04-0 peg 17
4. Leon Hubbard 58-12-0 peg 6
5. Craig Edmonds 46-09-0 peg 25
6. Martin McMahon 46-03-0 peg 28

Top Silvers:

1. Martin Rayett 18-14-0 peg 11
2. Phil Harding 15-0-0 peg 20

Weigh Sheet: In Misha's fair hand: