Silverfox Match Angling: Sunday 29/06/2014 - Avon Angling Float Only - Shiplate Farm

Sunday, 29 June 2014

Sunday 29/06/2014 - Avon Angling Float Only - Shiplate Farm - Hawthorne, Specimen Lake and West Pool

Today was to be another typical June Summers day without rain. Arriving at Shipham café it was very busy full with few anglers going to two other matches and some very tired looking festival goers from Glastonbury Shipham café was very busy. Bela thoroughly enjoyed his BIG breakie.

On to the draw with virgin (venue) Dave Haines following. I was hoping for any peg except one on the Specimen Lake. What do I draw – Specimen Lake peg 14A. I did a poor impersonation of Chris Fox throwing my peg at Tony. I did have plenty of room on the peg with Eddy Wynne on end peg 15 and Bathampton’s finest Shaun Townsend on peg 13.

I have drawn round here before and found that I caught a few fish early only to struggle for the rest of the match so I had this in mind.

Whilst setting the tackle box near level I noticed some Carp in the LH margin which gave me a lot of false hope.

I had matey Bela in the Knock out who happened to be behind me on West Pool 14. I really fancied his chances from his peg. That said I think I would have fancied his chances more had we swapped pegs, the fishing on the Specimen Lake just doesn’t suit my style.

I set up two paste rigs one for the LH margin in 30 inches, the other for 9 metres (short enough not to ship over West Pool behind me Steve Tuckers peg) I don’t like breaking down whilst playing fish) and a 4x14 Jolly for any other bait and fish also at 9 metres.

On the all in I fed the two lines with a pot of hard 4’s. Over the next hour I had three Carp averaging 6lb. For the next 30 minutes I caught Skimmers. For the next 4 ½ hours I caught absolutely nothing. It was all a bit strange for me I found I was getting Carp blowing away from my feed where I would drop the paste over only for the blow to stop and to reappear elsewhere I would again drop the paste in expecting the float to shoot under only for the blow to move away. None of this blowing was over the bait. Your guess is as good as mine, but I think it was the odd fish feeding with not enough to compete for my bait as they were for the early minutes.

Having tried the margin a number of times without a bite and various baits including caster on the Ronnie rig I couldn’t add to my weight I was really glad to hear the all out.

My three Cap weighed 19lb 2oz and my few Silvers 5lb 14oz for a total 25lb – all caught in the first 90 minutes! However all was not lost as I picked up the section by double default as Eddy and Shaun (helped by a beautiful 13lb Grass Carp pictured right - caught shallow at 16 metres) framed.

As I expected Bela beat me in the knockout by a good margin with 43lb 10oz fishing a tidy match and also wining his section, well done matey, so the Van went home happy with us sharing the cost of the Pinky Ponk.

The match was won by Tom Mangnall (pictured right with some of his catch) who was opposite me on peg 1 weighing 101lb 9oz. Tom initially caught on the shallow waggler out to the end of the opposite island and later on catch at 6 metres over meat which was his most productive period.

The Silvers was won by Rich Lacey (pictured lower right with a very close match runner up) with 10lb 14oz of small fish.

The man of the match was Pete Notton (pictured bottom right with a blush on, definitely not sun burn) whom picked up his section by triple default with 4lb 10oz!!