Thursday 30/03/2017 - Bathampton AA - Over 55's and Early Draws - Withy Pool

For some reason organiser Mike Jones was expecting up to 28 anglers as it happened we only had 18! Not sure what this was all about especially as Mike turned away anglers who called to book in.

Arrived in plenty of time and had a walk around. There seemed to be some colour in the water and at last the winds had abated, plus the temperature had increased some what. But there were no signs of Silvers.

Withy Pool is very difficult to peg especially as the club is always messing about with the stocking. After some debate the pegs were decided. Unusually I was last in to the draw bag and out comes peg 72. This peg proved to a “Billy No Mates” peg as I was I had two empty pegs to my right and seven pegs to my left. That said it was a peg which I had won the Silvers from it before. I didn’t expect to catch Carp in any numbers nor Skimmers, but did expect some Roach.

I set up the Ronnie rig and the Malman 4x14 F1 to fish in 5 foot of water at top-set plus three and was suitable to fish longer as the depth didn’t vary much. I always believe in starting on the same method as the previous match so it was to be 4mm expander over GB at three sections. It wasn’t long before I had bites from Ronnie’s, but it was a bit frustrating as they were nicking the pellet. So I quickly switched to the Ronnie rig with single caster over hand fed caster. After just one fish I felt they didn’t want caster so fed GB on the same line and with single maggot caught Ronnie’s and small Hybrids regularly for two hours by which time I reckon I had 10 lb. I then hit the wall and just couldn’t get bites. The upshot was that over the next 4 hours I could only add 3 mores pounds by fishing various longer lines!!

I finished the match with 13lb 5oz and first in the Silvers (pictured right) – there does seem a definite lack of Silvers on this pool. Even Barney couldn’t moan fish on today and by God he tried hard moaning for the full six hours.

The match was won by John Smith (pictured upper right with his best fish which weighed 15lb 8oz) with 150lb 15oz from peg 58. John caught at 13 metres over to the island (John right pointing out where he fished) initially fishing hard pellet over loose fed pellet and later switching to meat.

The four usually suspects in the pub picked up today.

Full Result:

1. John Smith 150-15-0 peg 58
2. Chris Rolfe 58-01-0 peg 59
3. Pete Greenslade 52-15-0 peg 57

Silvers:

1. Mike Nicholls 13-05-0 peg 72
2. Dave Gillard 9-04-0 peg 54
3. Hughie Evans 8-10-0 peg 53

Weigh Sheet (with my weight missing!)