It was the usual messing around with the clocks Saturday night
where we lost an hour, its time to stop this nonsense. The girls in Shipham
café got it right delaying opening by an hour. This meant Geoff and I had to
find somewhere else for breakfast and decided to lash out on a £12.50 Holiday
Inn breakfast. There is only so much you can eat.
Only nine of us booked into the Westpool open being run by
Glynn Wickham. This Canal is the least of all fished on the complex so Geoff
and I were looking forward to it. We had the draw next to the Canal where there
was plenty of fish showing. First draw put me on peg 7; however, there were
only eight swim cards in the hat, so redraw. This time peg 13. None if this
numbers meant anything to me or Geoff who was on peg 11. Dom Sullivan was on
peg 10 and wasn’t happy because he was the only one with someone each side. Dave
Willmott was giving the impression that he was hung-over, his head wasn’t with
us for sure. Dave drew end peg 1 and wasn’t that pleased with it. Got to my peg
and found it well constructed with pea gravel and close to the water, no
fishing from a high piers with drop nets on this fishery.
The fishery was paying two overall and one Silvers. Because
of this I wanted to keep my options open for as long as I could. I had heard
that someone had caught 26lb of Chub off one of the pegs, so decided to set up
the waggler for across even though it was only 14.5 metres wide for maggot over
maggot, a 4x12 to fish at top-set plus four out in front with 4mm expander over
micro, The Ronnie rig and a 4x10 for the margin. During the set-up I noticed
that there were some very large Carp toping so changed up some of my elastics.
After feeding the micro line and the margin with some micro
and maggot I started on the Ronnie rig with caster over caster. Second cast I
foul hooked a decent Carp during the tussle I noticed that my landing net was
out of reach sat behind me with my keepnets. Not to worry I lost it anyway. In
went the nets and started again. It was soon a replay with another foul hooker
spending the rest of its match in the Canal instead of my net. As per
Thursday’s match I soon realised the Ronnie’s didn’t want the caster so
switched to the long line with the 4mm expander. No sign of a fish although
there were plenty of Carp showing on the surface. Picked up the waggler and
with single red over loose fed reds I had a 5lb Carp first cast, followed by a
1 ½ lb Chub. Another fouled Carp on the waggler which was only on for a Nano
second even if it was hooked at all. The Ronnie’s then moved in and it was one
a cast, however, it was much too slow on the waggler so switched back to the
Ronnie rig this time maggot over maggot and had a couple of hours catching
small Ronnie’s and occasionally I was caught by Carp adding two between 5 and
7lb. Time for a Banana walk. Geoff had been struggling but had started to catch
Carp in his margin. Dom said he had 30lb of Carp, but both Geoff and I thought
he had more. The rest were struggling. So I had to make the final decision Carp
or Silvers and as I had 20lb of Carp and was laying second thought I would try
the margin for a while. This produced three decent Carp on double maggot over
loose fed maggot. However, the water beneath had some hidden snags which I did
finally teach myself how to avoid, the lesson costing me three Carp. In the
last hour I started to worry about loosing my second place to Geoff who was
catching well in his margins even thought like me had a few fights with the
marginal reeds. I just about kept even with Geoff on the Carp front knowing my
Ronnie’s would make the difference.
My Silvers weigh 11lb 3oz for joint second Silvers and my
Carp weighed 42lb 14oz just 4oz more than Geoff. My total weight took me to
second weight overall with 54lb 1oz. Both Geoff and I was surprised that Dom
only weighed 61lb this was due to his fish being half the size of the ones we
caught.
The match was won by Dom Sullivan (pictured with the two things he loves most – his misses and a net full
of Carp). See Dom’s blog for more details on how he caught. I’m not sure
“Caught Short” applied to him today!!
The Silvers was won by Dad Wickham (pictured right with the
winner - Dad on the left) with 14lb 7oz catch of Skimmers from peg 3. Dad caught on either single
red or double Pinkie over GB supplied by his Son’s.
Excellent small venue stuffed with quality Carp. For future
reference the Chub swim is apparently peg 1.
Full Result:
- Dom Sullivan 61-04-0 peg 10
- Mike Nicholls 54-01-0 peg 13
- Geoff Francis 43-13-0 peg 11
Top Silvers:
- Ray “Dad” Wickham 14-07-0 peg 3
- Mike Nicholls and Mark 11-03-0 pegs 13 and 5
Weigh Sheet:
1 comment:
Nice comment Mike , Thanks from the pair of us, Dom & Von
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