Thursday 2 March 2017

Thursday 02/03/2017 - Bathampton AA - Silvers League - Round Five - Bridge Pool

I had breakfast in the Hanham Café with the usual suspects, more Gas talk than fishing.

It was our turn in the dreaded A Section. The boss peg has been peg 32 with peg 3 close behind everything else has been crap, especially peg 2, I don’t think Jesus Christ could win the section from here.

First into the draw and out comes peg pictured right. Not what I was hoping for there has been a few disasters on the peg Blanks and DNW’s from some excellent anglers. The best two pegs went to Chris Rolfe (who still can’t tell the time) and Rich Coles peg 3. The Jesus peg 2 went to Glenn “16 metre” Bailey. It was good to see the Gas Heads sticking together – Bailey, Smith Peg 34 and Greenslade peg 33 – as expected all to struggle.

Like would like to record that I caught on the edge rig and the GB feeder I set up but can’t. So it was the yellow top 4x16 F1 Winter that was to serve me well once again today. As forecast the wind was strong and gusting coming in from the West. The crap pegs were relatively sheltered, but this wouldn’t help them, so decided initially to start short at top-set plus three.  After plumbing deadish depth (never absolutely sure the depth is perfect for many reasons) and running the float through at 2 –o-clock I found the tow was aggressive against the wind - left to right. I like a bit of tow but because of the gusting wind I couldn’t hold it back as I would have liked. We were already to do the initial potting only to find the organisers watch was slow by five minutes, duh.

In went my first knub of GB laced with a few dead Pinkies not really knowing exactly where it would settle the fish. So with single DR on the hook I started to run it through, the pace was harder than Newbridge in summer. I was soon settled with a micro Ronnie. Over the next two hours I caught surprisingly well including a 2 ½ lb Tench (thinking of renaming by Skimmer GB to Tench GB). After which the wind died the sun came out and the tow stopped and my struggle to get a bite started. I started a pellet line at 10 metres and a new GB line at 11.5 metres again at 2-o-clock. The upshot was I caught one 1 ½ lb Skimmer on triple DR’s over the pellet losing a 2 pounder foul hooked in the anus. I had three more 8oz Skimmers over the long GB line, but it was a long remaining four hours. Rich Coles had a great middle of the match catching decent Skimmers regularly, but I was hoping I might pip him because of my Tench. This wasn’t to be because all the Tench I have caught during this league has shown signs of significant weight loss.

I finished the match with 9lb 10 oz – 15oz behind Rich Coles. Well done matey. This put me in section second and fourth overall. Certainly would have settled with that before the all in!

The match was won my Paul Barnfield (pictured right) with 16lb 1oz from peg 28. Paul caught on the waggler at 20 metres with triple Pinkie over lose fed maggot and catapulted GB. Paul also fished the feeder over the same line and later when the wind died caught at 11 metres catching 15 decent Skimmers throughout the match with all methods adding to his over all weight.

Full Result:

A Section: Rich Coles 10-09-0 peg 3
A Section: Mike Nicholls 9-10-0 peg 4
B Section: Steve Dawson 13-06-0 peg 7
B Section: Dave Wride 6-02-0 peg 11
C Section: Jim Norris 6-0-0 peg 19
C Section: Dave Willmott 5-08-0 peg 17
D Section: Paul Barnfield 16-01-0 peg 28
D Section: Steve Tanner 8-12-0 peg 24

Weigh Sheets:





















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