Silverfox Match Angling: Saturday 08/08/2015 - Bathampton AA - Charity Open - Bridge Pool

Saturday, 8 August 2015

Saturday 08/08/2015 - Bathampton AA - Charity Open - Bridge Pool - Slivers Only

After a busy fishing week I hadn’t planned to fish today, however, Son Steve wanted to fish but didn’t have his car so I elected to take him to the Bathampton Charity Open Match (see web site for details) which was on Bridge Pool.

After breakfast in Hungry Horace’s we arrived at the fishery in plenty of time to have a walk around the Pool. I must say I didn’t fancy fishing the bottom end.

Les “Chub” Williams was in the car park but decided not to fish because he understood it to be both a Carp and Silver Match and as he didn’t have the necessary bait went home. Fair play to Les he did put in his tenner for the Charity. No fault of Les as the match as advertised wasn’t specific in terms of Silvers only, I only found out by accident.

First into the draw bag and out comes peg 2, hang on this was left out of the draw, the draw continued and more pegs that were left out started to appear. The draw was stopped and a re-draw followed. I don’t think it was entirely Mike Jones fault, but I blamed him anyway. First in again and out comes peg 27. That’s better. Steve drew peg 18 a pity Carp didn’t count!!

It was easy setting up just the one 4x16 Jolly which suited the depth of both swims I elected to fish at 9 metres. The 11 o clock swim was for CW&C and the 1 o clock swim for semi-hard 4’s over wetted micro.

I fed half a cup of CW&C followed by half a cup of micros into the other swim. I started on the worm and had two 8oz Skimmers’ straight away. It then went quiet so I re-fed a similar amount and went on the pellet line which now was fizzing. I had a run of Skimmers to 1lb after which I foul hooked a Carp which gave the elastic a fair stretch, luckily the hook pulled and after a hook inspection I went back on the pellet line but couldn’t get a bite and after 1 ½ hours I was wondering what was going on as I was still getting fizzing over the now kindered micro.

A school boy error – no I rephrase this as this expression belongs to Tony Rixon – A Pensioners error had occurred. When I lost the Carp the float must have been pushed down the line by the hydraulics reaction by 6 inch which I discovered after re-plumbing – bugger – I missed a purple patch because as soon as I went back in with pellet I started catching again. Subsequently I started to hook Carp which buggered the swim up for the remaining 2 hours of the match. I did set up the Ronnie rig to try and get some bites on caster which again after just a few decent Ronnie’s ended in hooking Carp.

I finished the match with 17lb 2oz for 8^th and a set of Guru DVD’s. I managed to pip Steve again who weighed 15lb 3oz. Anyway I got his Christmas Present sorted.

The Match was won by Paul Barnfield (pictured below centre with the biggest Tench and Bream winners) with 50lb 6oz from peg 8. Paul caught on corn over corn.