Wednesday 17/06/2015 - Silverfox Short Pole Open - Campbell Lake

With Mark Tanner away this year watching the Le-mans 24 hour race apparently with his eyes closed for most of the time we didn’t have a breakfast Chef but was hoping the new attendee Geoff “Pill Box” Francis would fit the bill. Unfortunately not, as he spent most of the time eating, drinking draught cider and sleeping (pictured right) – some similarities to Mark there. So I arranged for the Savannah Cafe in Somerton to open at 8 o clock for us to breakfast for the remaining three days. So the oven didn’t even get near to warm.

I had booked Campbell for the Silverfox Short Pole Open (Top-set plus three sections of pole). This match proves popular as it’s a close affair match for the top spots, with plenty of fish caught. The Drennan Margin Pole is idea for this sort of match.

Having qualified for the all winners final for overall weight the aim now was to try and qualify for the Silvers. Into the draw tin and out comes peg 128 one above the spit. Not really a current Silvers peg but I still made them my target as you never know in this game.

I decided to fish at the full six metres with hard banded 6mm pellet over GB using a 4x12 Jolly. I also set up two paste rigs in case, one to fish in the brambles and the other as close to the spit as I could get.

First put in over the GB I had a 3lb Tench, good start. After catching a couple of small Tench it went quite with no signs of fizzing or Skimmers. I tried the Brambles with paste where I had been feeding hard 4’s and had a run of Tench from 8oz to 3lb. I then hooked a Carp which really wanted to get in the brambles but my Drennan margin pole stopped that nonsense especially with a 25 elastic to help me. So out to the spit where I had some more Tench taking the tally to ten. I then tried the GB again adding just one Skimmer. I walked up to Dan White who was catching plenty of Skimmers. So I decided to abandon chasing Silvers and up the feed down to the spit with paste and spent the last two hours battling Carp in the brambles finishing with fifteen only losing two to the brambles and another snapping my well brambled worn 0.2 G-Line in open water.

I finished with 15 Carp for 87lb 12oz and the Tench catch of 19lb 13oz taking the tally to just over the ton 107lb 9oz. Needless to say I didn’t qualify for the Silvers. That was left to Dan White. Very enjoyable though, always a good days fishing at this venue.

The Match was won by Two Pots (pictured right with some of his catch) with 193lb 10oz from peg 124. Glenn caught on paste at 6 metres feeding 10 pints of 4’s throughout the match.

Dan White won the Silvers (pictured right with his catch) with 37lb 13oz from peg 125. Dan caught at 6 metres fishing hair rigged hard 6mm pellet over loose fed 4’s fishing a 4x10 float catching most of his Skimmers on the drop.

The fishing didn’t disappoint with half the entrants catching over 100lb. I am running two short pole matches next year, in addition to the Wednesday match I will also be running one on Saturday.

Full Result:

1. Glenn Bailey 193-10-0 peg 124
2. Steve Tucker 169-07-0 peg 123
3. Dan White 160-13-0 peg 125
4. Tim Ford 123-12-0 peg 119
5. N Docherty 120-02-0 peg 130
6. Mike West 113-11-0 peg 114

Top Silvers:

1. Dan White 37-13-0 peg 125
2. Steve Tucker 32-12-0 peg 123

Weigh Sheets: