Friday 18 May 2018

Thursday 17/05/2018 - Shiplate Fishery - Cost Cutter - Main Lake


With the Ring Road to and from Hicks Gate down to single lane and Traffic lights at County Bridge in Keynsham we East of Bristol have to expect a miserable time getting across the river Avon. BNES council must be bonkers allowing both these works to be implemented simultaneously. So Geoff choose to drive via Chew Magna where it was a tight squeeze loosing a coat of paint.

Breakfast El fresco at the fishery cooked by Mark Jones complete with real plates and knives and forks. Because Marks food is so scrummy I went for the large breakfast and ate too much – excellent.

In to the Game Keepers lodge to pay my pools to Goldie Locks who had just finished a small bowl of porridge, whilst the game Keeper was eating a large sausage roll.

Bright sunshine but was a bit nipply due to the NE wind. I was hoping to be on the near bank to avoid both wind and sun. In to the draw tub and out comes peg 6, happy with that. The pegs are so far apart you don’t really have company on next pegs, but thought peg 7 was empty, which it was until 15 minutes to all in when Gary Flinders arrived.

Not sure what to expect because the fishing has slowed on most fisheries. Thought the Ronnie rig might work so that was set up, then a 4x14 F1 a 4x12 would have been more suitable if it wasn’t for the wind. I Set the depth at top-set plus three and found this depth the same from top-set out. Luckily the float was going against the wind. I had a feel around the margin and found stones out to full depth so didn’t bother with a specific margin rig as I could use the 4x14.

Time to use up some GB I have frozen four times now or waste it. Caster, DR’s, 4 and 6mm Sonubaits expander, wetted micro and hard 4’s on the table. Fed a ball of GB laced with DR’s on the top-set line, some micro and hard 4’s out at top-set plus three and started to loose fed caster on the Ronnie rig. Started on the Ronnie with caster and had a 12 oz Skimmer first thrash and that was it, no Ronnie’s. There was a huge Buzzer hatch going on so thought caster wouldn’t compete with theses for the Ronnie’s so abandon the rig. Tried the 4x14 on the top-set and had a 1 ½ lb Perch and a beautiful Crucian about 1 lb. Again that was it for this line. I spent the rest of the match on the long line with either 4 or 6 mm expander on the hook and during the first 30 minutes put about 8lb of Skimmers in the keep net. I thought I was going to empty it. My experience from fishing next peg 7 told me to expect some serious Carp disruption and that’s what subsequently happened with the swim completely dying. It wasn’t long before the beast arrived. The Carp were fooling me into thinking they were initially decent Skimmers only to go mental on the top-set. One Carp was so big I couldn’t get it to move off bottom that was until the hook straightened! I did eventually get three Carp in the Keep net loosing five. Surely some must have been foul hooked?

My Silvers weighed 17 lb 14 oz and my three Carp 28 lb 10 oz for a total of 46 lb 8 oz for third Silvers and third overall – no double bubble payout though.

The match was won by Mark Jones (pictured upper right with some munter) from peg 1 with 100 lb 4 oz. Mark caught on various methods to keep the carp coming in pairs from all over the peg.

The Silver was won by Dave Wride with 28 lb 4 oz from peg 10.

We stopped on the way back for a pint and dinner in the New Inn – Expensive and the food not that great.

Result:

  1. Mark Jones 100-04-0 peg 1
  2. Ash Saunders 87-0-0 peg 15
  3. Mike Nicholls 46-08-0 peg 6
Silvers:

  1. Dave Wride 28-04-0 peg 10
  2. Nigel Wickham 18-02-0 peg 8
  3. Mike Nicholls 17-14-0 peg 6
Weigh Sheet:



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