Sunday 22/04/2017 - Windmill Open - Match Lake

Well done to Craig Edmonds on winning the Frenzee Whiteacres Festival. Some luck is always welcome, but the most important ingredient is having served the Apprenticeship in match angling which Trigger has done joining our Avon Angling team when he had hair and wearing short trousers often mentored by Tony Rixon et al. More to come me thinks.

After the poor attendance at Windmill last match I opted to try and get the attendance up through Face Book. This appeared to work with 18 fishing this week. I can’t help thinking that this is the job of the fishery management.

Back travelling with NOT BELLA meeting up with the usual suspects in Wetherspoons - Staple Hill. Please everyone save me form more ear ache by calling him BELA, BERT or TREV.

With the water temperature increasing rapidly I suspected the Carp would provide most sport. Into the draw box and out comes peg 24. Not the right end I was thinking as its 9 foot deep, the other end being half this so the water temperatures would reflect this. Dave Willmott passed by and cheered me up by saying it was the worse Silvers peg on the Lake and I wouldn’t win from it! For company I had Two Pots on peg 25. The peg has won previously with Carp by fishing the feeder/lead over to the island – Life’s too sort for this. There are some large Carp which can be caught down the margins at this end.

I set up the Ronnie rig but had to shorten it due to the left hand rope being so close. A 4x16 set up to fish down the inside shelf in 9 foot, but from recent experience didn’t expect to catch on it; and finally a 4x12 Yoof to fish down the RH margin for later in the match.

I fed the margin with micro and dog meat in gravy. Fed a ball of GB laced with DR’s. I started on the Ronnie rig to see if there were any willing to snaffle my live single red. Luckily they did, but they were small, missing loads if bites. The wind was blowing from the SW which made presentation difficult. The Ronnie’s slowed so thought I would set up the waggler to see if I could catch some Carp groupies over to the island. The wind giving crap presentation but I did have an 8 oz Skimmer and bounced a few more Ronnie’s across the water. Then I cast and the middle section of the waggler rod snapped clean in half for no apparent reason! Everyone at our end was struggling as we watched Carp being caught down the far end. I decided the margin wasn’t going to be of any use coin wise especially as Two Pots had been trying it in and off. Having tried the deep rig with double DR’s and as expected not one indication, so I spent the most of the rest of the match on the Ronnie rig. In the last ten minutes I thought I would give the Dog meat a try in the margin and had two bites which probably were liners but still don’t know if this meat is going to make a come back.

My small Ronnie’s weighed 7lb 14oz for first Silvers. This surprised me as I did expect to get well beaten by big Skimmer either fished for or Accidentals.

The match was won by Shaun Townsend (pictured right with the Silvers winner) with 189 lb 9 oz from peg 11. Shaun caught most of his Carp fish shallow/slapping long with 6mm pellet fished over the same lose fed.

Bela Came third so it was a case of a van double bubble and double trouble because Bela also had a smashing time breaking his 13 metre butt section carrying out his enthusiastic slapping. This forced Bela into his margin where he started to bag giving Shaun a short scare.

A few of us went back to the Jolly Cobbler for a pint with Podge to end another memorable day.

 Result:

Shaun Townsend 189-09-0 peg 11

Martin Mc Mahon 136-02-0 peg 9

Bela Bakos 113-01-0 peg 10

Brain Shanks 99-04-0 peg 4

Joe McMahon 86-00-0 peg 22

Stuart Barnett 66-06-0 peg 7

Silvers:

Mike Nicholls 7-14-0 peg 24

Dave Willmott 5-12-0 peg 19

Bob Warren 4-13-0 peg 12

Weigh Sheet: