Monday 02/05/2016 - Harescombe Open - Match Lake

Rumor has it that the weather is due for a change to the better this week, lets hope so as it's been a long winter.

Travelled to Harescombe with matey pictured right. Because it was bank holiday we travelled via the Bristol Ring Road, M32, M4 and M5 which took 40 minutes so plenty of time for a large breakfast and a chat.

Andy Price had limited the match to twenty with nine on the waiting list, which shows how popular this venue is. I wish we had two similar Lakes in the Bristol area.

Peg 25 and 24 was in the bag and who ever drew peg 25 would only have half a peg, luckily this peg was picked by Ralph Hilliar who did well off it considering. In to the draw bag and out comes peg 8 (peg wished on me by Ralph), which is in the middle of the car park bank. No emotions. For company I had float entrepreneur Stewart Graham on peg 6 and Mark Thorne on peg 9. Unfortunately Mark wasn’t well and had to leave with an hour or so to go – hope you got home OK matey.

I set up the two rigs a 4x12 Malman F1 float to fish short out in front and a Malman 4x10 Yoof for the margin and over at 13 metres. All with semi-hard hook pellet over 2mm feed pellets.

Started short on the F1 rig and caught Skimmers straight away followed by some F1’s. I am very impressed with these floats, won't suit everyone but perfect for my was of fishing. I had a decent first hour, before I fed the fish up in the water resulting in liners and not much else, so decided to rest it and try over at 13 metres where I had potted some 2mm pellet. First try I hooked a Carp but because of the gusting wind I pulled out this happened to the next fish I did land the third but the wind was so bad I had to throw the towel in. To make sure I wasn’t tempted to use it again I packed it away to concentrate on the short line and margin. I kept fish coming throughout the match by switching between these two lines. I did have three proper Carp to 3lb.

My Skimmers weighed 15lb 4oz and my Carp/F1’s  weighed 70lb 9oz for a total of 85lb 13oz for second overall. After my weigh-in I found another 1lb in the Silvers net!!

The match was won by Andy Burns (pictured right) with 89lb 7oz from peg 18. Andy caught top-set plus one using meat over loose fed meat. Andy fed one small tin throughout the match with the peg dying in the last ¾ hour.

It fished really well with a tight result throughout the weigh sheet.

Full Result:

1. Andy Burns 89-07-0 peg 18
2. Mike Nicholls 85-13-0 peg 8
3. Rob Kerslae 70-08-0 17
4. Tom Driver 66-08-0 peg 15
5. Andy Powell 64-03-0 peg 5
6. Steve Brown 63-11-0 peg 3

Weigh Sheet: