Monday, 28 July 2014

Sunday 27/07/2014 - Avon Angling Open - Chiltern Trinity - Woodlands

Coming up to the final week of the house refurbishment with just the rendering/sparing left which Rich “Rog” Lacey (pictured right with Bristol’s finest Roofer Bela “The Cat” Bakos) is doing with matey Ricky.

With Bela otherwise engaged sleeping off a night out with Stella I travelled down with Tim Ford. After breakfast at Hill Tops it was off to the draw where I was surprised to find only 13 booked in, it’s usually a sell out on the excellent venue. It might have been because Tony was otherwise engaged at his eldest sons wedding. Tim Ford showed me Tony’s picture dressed up in full dress tails. I still haven’t stopped laughing. It appears that the hire company only caters for one large size – marquee. Apparently the picture is on Assbook.

The advantage of low turn out is that everyone plenty of room. I drew peg 18 and had the entire end bank to myself. Unfortunately the platform is very high and even though my left shoulder is gradually improving it was going to help me landing Carp with is the species I decided to target.

I plumbed up with the paste float in the margin and was disappointed to find that the shallowest area was 3 ½ foot deep. To make matters worse I had a strong wind blowing directly in to me. So it was a 0.3 gram paste float on the top set and a Ronnie rig just in case, which I started on with caster as a tester. It didn’t last long as the swim was full of ½ ounce Ronnie’s with the hook bait not even reaching bottom. So that went up the bank not to be used again.

On to the paste fished over hard 4’s in to the RH margin and I had a Carp first put in. The same happened next put in except the Carp found a snag high up in the water which broke the line just below the float!! New identical rig (if that is possible) and I had a good first hour catching as soon as the paste hit bottom. It then slowed, finding that the tow away from the bank was a real problem as the bank was very steep and soon dragging the float way in to deeper water that combined with the Ronnie’s playing footy with it became a nightmare having to re-bait in less than a minute. Holding the float back help a tad but wasn’t the whole answer. I did keep a few fish coming but was also foul hooking a lot due to the depth of the margin.

For the first time I fan out of paste before the last hour and luckily matey Paul Lock came to the rescue giving me some of his.

The last hour was a dower affair with the wind picking up I got cold and had to put a jumper on whilst everyone else basked in the warmth.

The venue fished extremely well I was just glad I didn't have to weigh in as those pictured right!!

My 15 Carp weighed 81lb 3oz and by few Perch up to 2lb (mostly foul hooked) went 5lb 12oz for a total of 86lb 15oz.

Because of the low turn out there was big weights however, there was a close finish for the section by double default between me, Tom Mangnel and Adrian Jefferies with Tom just nicking it.

The match was won by Tim Ford (pictured right with the Silvers winner) with a massive 222lb 15oz from peg 32. Tim caught on 10mm pellet …see his blog for further details. Thanks for the larger.

The Silvers was won by Bridgwater’s finest Paul Lock with 48lb 8oz of Skimmers from peg 15. Paul caught t 11.5 metres fishing paste over micro. Paul fed about 2 pints of micro with some paste included. Nice to watch.

Finally I must mention Leon Hubbard who estimated his catch at just over 100lb only 90lb out then!!

Full Result:

  1. Tim Ford 222-15-0 peg 32
  2. Leon Hubbard 191-13-0 peg 24
  3. Rod Wotton 174-04-0 peg 9
  4. Ray Cooper 121-12-0 peg 13
  5. Paul Lock 92-0-0 peg 15
  6. Tom Mangnel 98-11-0 peg 30
Top Silvers:

  1. Paul Lock 48-08-0 peg 15
  2. John Bradford 39-06-0 peg 26

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