Thursday 15/09/2016 - Rays Rip Off - Just Turn up- Windmill Fishery - Match Lake

I wish every day could be like todays. A wonderful autumn day as confirmed by the expanse of Spider webs with their beads of dew (pictured right).

Hungry Horace was the first stop with Two Pots and the Downend Heavy weight Rayett went for the full Monty. Same breakfast as first served twenty odd years ago – excellent by today standards.

I choose Windmill over The Dave Crookes Fishery because once the Silvers retire after three hours you have the Carp to keep you going.

Considering it was the inaugural Rays Rip-off he had good support. Going to be popular as the fishing is terrific. Martyn Rayett sorted the pegs but forgot to put flyer peg 4 in the draw good job Dave Haines wasn’t there. I suggested to Terry he change peg 4 number to 3A! In to the draw box and out comes peg 22. Happy with this even though you now need to set up on the grass due to the Sedges taking over the peg. Get this sorted Terry!

The match payouts are 50/50 Silvers and overall – perfect I think.

I decided to fish half the match for Silvers and the final half for Carp in anticipation of a double bubble. So for starters the Ronnie rig was erects followed by the 4 x 14 Jolly to fish top-set plus one in five foot of water (probably ¾ depth). I started loose feeding caster on the Ronnie rig and potting the caster on the longer line. Caught Silvers right away on the longer line but they were mainly small Perch after 30 minutes I switched to the Ronnie rig and once again was catching Perch. So I pumped some 4mm expenders and went back to the car and got some Gabe GB. The GB was planted on the long line and as expected started to catch 4oz Skimmers. Swapping between to Ronnie and GB line I kept the Silvers coming. Trev “Bunk-off” Bakos put in appearance and watch me for a while. He went for a walk at half time so switched to the paste. And by time he got back I had netted ten decent Carp and playing the eleventh which I pinged out of. The swim went quite until Jinx Trev moved to the next unsuspecting angler. The last hour was frantic adding another ten Carp with the last one being about 14lb. Unfortunately for me I put it in the wrong Carp net.

My Silvers weighed 18lb which I thought was going to be enough for a Silvers win and my total went 157lb 7oz for a match win had I not put the last Carp in the wrong net as I had 89lb disqualified. First time for everything. As it happened I finished second in the Silvers to Dave Willmott who had 20lb of accidentals on meat. The match spoils went to “Two default Pots” who weighed 147lb (pictured right with the Silvers winner - lucky buggers).

With the lowest Carp weight being 126lb look forward to the next match in two weeks.

Full Result:

1. Mike Nicholls 157-07-0 peg 22 – Disqualified
2. Glenn Bailey 147-0-0 peg 26
3. Martyn Rayett 143-02-0 peg 18

Top Silvers:

1. Dave Willmott 20-04-0 peg 6
2. Mike Nicholls 18-02-0 peg 22
3. Ray Bazeley 15-06-0 peg 10