Sunday 15/05/2016 - Tony Rixon's Short Pole Match - Chiltern Trinity - Woodland Match Lake

Bela and I started in Hillview café which is closing in October 2016. Shame, there is chance that they may open another café closer to Bridgwater.

First match in Tony’s short pole match (top-set plus three). Twenty five fishing today, one more the usual. Into the draw box and out comes peg 17. This peg is probably the deepest on the Lake. I was initially happy with this I have won the section from the peg in a previous match. You need to catch Carp to stand any chance of winning this league of which I was hoping to improve on my second overall last year, especially as Trigger wasn’t fishing this year! Arriving at the peg where the chilly wind was blowing into I noticed that the RH margin where I had caught previously had overgrown too much for me to clear plumbing up I had five foot in the margin so I decided to ignore this side, instead to concentrate on the LH side, which still needed some clearing to get closer to the bank, that said there was loads of snags from the bank side shrubs and trees, which was to trash four rigs!

I set up the usual Ronnie rig – caster over caster and a 0.4 paste float over hard 4’s both for the LH margin. Starting on the Ronnie rig I caught small versions from the off – Skimmers, Ronnie’s, Rudd, Hybrids. I decided to stay on this until either neighbour – Martyn Rayett or Adrian Jeffery’s started to catch Carp, which in Adrian’s case wasn’t too long. So in I went with the paste only for it to get nibbled to death in quick time. It took a while to hook and land two decent Carp; meanwhile the four pegs to my right were bagging on Carp and with the Skimmers not showing I decided to go back after the Ronnie’s. However, they were very small. I decide to put one more section on the pole where I found a ledge that was six inches shallower than the top-set line. First put in with the paste and I landed another decent Carp – got it sorted then – not - as I only had one more Carp from this line on paste. I was miles behind for any Carp coin so decided to fish the last two hours for some Silvers coin. Luckily I did have a 2lb Tench and two 8oz Perch to help things along.

I finished the match with the four Carp weighing 22lb 4oz and my Silvers weighed in at 13lb 12oz for a second in the Silvers pick-up and a total of 36lb. Not what I was anticipating.

The match was won by Joe McMahon (pictured upper right with some of his catch) with 145lb 11oz from peg 33. Joe explains how he caught in the short video below.

The Silvers was won by Joe’s Dad Martin (pictured lower right with son Joe – double first for the family today) with 16lb 8oz from peg 24. Martin caught short on caster.

Tony Rixon had an off day having forty six pound in one net and a disqualifying net of 95lb in the other. I think there must have been some distraction close by!!

Full Result:

Weigh Sheet: