Thursday 27/09/2018 - Bathampton AA - Over 55's - Bridge Pool

After a cool breakfast at Wetherspoons Geoff had to fight through the school traffic. Still we arrived in plenty of time for the usual banter and welcomed our new member Allan Oram. We were all appreciating the wonderful autumn morning with wall to wall sunshine forecast - but not for those in pegs 29 to 32. After the usual headmaster's assembly with Chris Rolfe it was time to feel for a lucky disc in the draw bag. This time peg 10. Pegs 10 and 11 are always fancied because they are both popular for the pleasure anglers - easy access. For company I had Gas Head John Smith on peg 8 and Ken Morgan on 10. I can confirm John Smith is not a Methodist because after a few casts was in the top of a tree after a reset-up cracked off at the bail arm!! Method feeder binned!! Good job otherwise he wouldn't have caught what he did.

I set up the Ronnie rig, a 4x16 F1, a margin and deep paste rigs for the same plan of Silvers first half and Carp second half. I had a nagging doubt as to whether the Skimmers would feed due to the clear water, bright sunshine and little to no wind. With this in mind I decided on a neat GB approach to feeding so I could scratch around with various baits over it. I started at top-set plus one which is as deep as anywhere in my swim using 4 mm expander and had immediate interest from some Roach and small Skimmers. However, ever improving Ken Morgan was fishing 10 metres and catching bigger and more Skimmers than me. So I put on two more barrels and repeated the feeding. However, I remained biteless for sometime whilst Ken was still catching well. There was a fair amount of feeding fish over the GB but fancied they were munching the fine particles up in the water so now thinking GB might not had been the right way. I then hooked and just managed to land an 8 lb Common. I refed GB and again there was plenty of evidence of feeding fish. So put out the deep paste rig and had a couple of big Skimmers and another Carp. This slowed so decided to come in close again but changed to maggot over maggot and had a little run of 1 lb Skimmers on double live red plus a small Carp of about 3 lb. With half time approaching I re-fed the short line, abandoned the long line and fed the RH margin. My three Carp weighed 19 lb 3 oz. I reckon I had 10 lb of Silvers yet to be confirmed. So not going to plan with a mix of Carp and Slivers. I was laying second behind Dave Wride by 2 lb.

I had a very quick try with the Ronnie rig with maggot, and as suspected it was far too bright and clear for it to work. Needed some cover.

Started the second half on the short line with double maggot and had four quick Skimmers before I hooked and landed another 8 lb Carp. I wondered if it was one I had just out back? I couldn't wait to try the margin with paste. So in  I go and had a 10 lb Carp first put in. So was anticipating some Carp hauling. However, the water was so clear I was only getting one fish in the margin at one time, so by swapping between the deep paste rig over the maggot and margin over hard 4's I kept adding the occasional Carp to my net. It was never frantic.

I thought Ken (pictured upper right with his Silvers catch) had  much more Silvers than me but my 16 lb 4 oz just pipped him and put me second in the Silvers my total Carp weight was 56 lb 9 oz for a second overall weight of 72 lb 13 oz, with Dave Wride keeping his first half advantage of 2 lb to win the match.

Dave drew peg 21 and caught on the pole in the water!!

The Silvers was won by Curly Jones (pictured right) with 20 lb 10 oz from unfancied peg 32 (but not by him). Mike caught fishing 3 foot deep using caster over caster catching all species including some big Perch. A decent weight considering the conditions but was one of the anglers that didn't see the sun all day.

Back to the pub with the usual suspects for a decent pint of Doombar to which Geoff Francis has switched.

Result:

1. Dave Wride 74-13-0 peg 20
2. Mike Nicholls 72-13-0 peg 10
3. John Smith 48-03-0 peg 8
4. Tony Rixon 44-03-0 peg 6

Silvers:

1. Mike Jones 20-10-0 peg 32
2. Mike Nicholls 16-04-0 peg 10
3. Tony Rixon 16-02-0 peg 6
4. Ken Morgan 15-03-0 peg 11

Weigh Sheets: