Thursday 16/03/2018 - Bathampton AA Open - Dave Crookes Fishery - Withy Pool

The following message received from Dave Bruton (Terry’s Son) please circulate to all Coffin Dodgers new and old:

Hi Mike
Hope you are good? Just wanted to give you an update on my dad!
The last couple of weeks he has not been good and keeps falling over and now had his license taken away! I don’t think he will ever be able to fish again! I would also like to thank you and the lads at Hunstrete for looking out for him over the years and making it so he could fish! Please can you let the lads know and thank them from me for all what they have done
Cheers
Dave

Back on Withy again!! Nineteen booked in so we could be more selective on which pegs to put in. However, it’s such a hard venue to peg.

“Just in time” Chris Orris – some say he’s either been to the Happy Eater or has auditioned for Hi-Di-Hi. Later his new acquisition was to blow off in the wind to reveal what some thought was a scull cap!!

We were all hoping for peg 57 where the better Silvers fish appear to have been corralled by the “Black Death”.  The fish are also shoaled up on  the now defunct peg 50.

Into the draw bag and out came a peg which I recorded with the scribes noting I was next to Dave Poole. Two minutes later I had forgotten which peg it was, but seen Dave Poole heading off so followed him. Luckily he had the weigh sheet so peg 59 it was – thought it had a 9 in it!!

Opposite on peg 49 was Dave Gillard (view from my peg) who did invite me to cast over to the old peg 50. However, even though the visibility was much better there I would stick to the bounds of my peg.

Not the peg I would have chosen simply due to the wind once again being in my face combine that with the tree line and sun I couldn’t see any sort of coloured float top – I tried them all settling on a red top waggler with a dash of white on the top. As for the pole I had to fish 11.5 metres round at 10-o'clock to reach an area giving some sort of visibility.  My expectations weren’t high as the peg hasn’t fish that well so far this term. My thinking was to fish for Ronnie’s until the last hour then up the feed in the anticipation of a Carp or two.

I set up the 11.5 metres of pole with a 4x16 and fed two large balls of GB laced with maggot but started on the waggler and started as expected catching small Ronnie’s on maggot over maggot. The presentation was good but I would say for 25% of the time I couldn’t see my float. Feeding was equally as difficult due to the gusting veering wind. I’ve had enough of the winds through this winter. I kept plugging away on the waggler for a couple of hours until it slowed then switched to the pole where I could get a bite every put in from tiny ½ oz Ronnie’s, most of which were coming off shipping back – very frustrating. Decided to put a lot of caster over this line and revert back to the waggler.  The fish had returned so kept on with this until I had another go with the pole with a single caster and caught/lost more small Ronnie’s and one 4oz Perch. The small fish certainly like the ground bait, but guess this size of fish is not the preferred fodder of Cormorants. I could see Carp starting to show over between the ropes to the left of old peg 50, so time to up the feed. The Ronnie’s switched off which I was hoping was due to Carp, if it was I didn’t catch one. My loose feeding was awful spreading far too far which wasn’t conducive to focusing a Carp on my hook bait.

I weighed 7lb 12oz for third Silvers and picked up second by default. I wish I could have used the pole properly, next time I will definitely employ a corn and micro line.

More ribbing followed back at the pub from Dave “last gasp” Gillard who hooked his usual last 10 minute Carp.

The match and Silvers was won by Tony Rixon from flyer peg 57 with 47lb 14oz which included 27lb 1oz of Silvers (27lb of quality of silvers pictured right - If only these were in every peg!). For how Tony caught see his blog…

Overall the Pool fish terrible with some swims nearly devoid of catchable fish.

Result:

1. Tony Rixon 47-14-0 peg 57
2. Dave Gillard 16-0-0 peg 49
3. Martin McMahon 13-11-0 peg 47

Silvers:

1. Tony Rixon 27-01-0 peg 57
2. Mike Jones 9-03-0 peg 63
3. Mike Nicholls 7-12-0 peg 59

Weigh Sheets: