Thursday 18/10/2018 - Windmill Open - Cost Cutter

On my own again due to Geoff still settling in to knob hill. I must say I feel sorry for those that have to commute to work by car, the roads are at saturation point. Is there no plan to limit the number of cars per mile of road?

It was good to see nineteen fishing today, plus the weather forecast was reasonable with light winds. The only downside the fish tend to switch off at this venue without the wind creating the tow they love to feed in.

Into the draw bag and out comes bottle top 4. Now this peg has a history of being blackballed and not usually pegged hence the first time I have drawn it. I was willing to give the peg the benefit of the doubt. For company I had mumbler Paul Haines (apparently it's singing) on peg 3 and deaf aid Martin Alexander on peg 5. No point in talking to Martin as his response is always the same "The time is...".

Vince and Bullseye Shipp (pictured right) drew fyler peg 22. I think it's nearing the time for Vince to ride on the trolley and Bullseye to fish!!

A Indian guy fished today and drew peg 2. I went and had a chat with him and noticed he didn't have any keepnets. However, he was still happy to fish even though I would get his money back. One I should beat then!

The Carp on this peg tend to hug the far bank. So I decided to fish for Silvers. However, when the Cormorants return the Silvers disappear and there were three sitting on the transmission towers. I set up the Ronnie rig, a 4x14 F1 Titan and optimistically a margin paste rig. I started with putting a ball of GB laced with some DR's over the Ronnie rig line and was disappointed that after 15 minutes I hadnt had a bite except for one very tiny lonely Perch. Umm. So out at top-set plus two with the 4x14 in 5 foot of water. This time kindering small amount of GB with some loose LRM's. I started to get the odd Ronnie on the drop. I did lose a decent Skimmer which i think I foul hooked on the drop. However, I was dropping too many Ronnies so switched to a very light elastic and as fate would have it I hooked a Carp luckily it was one of the new 3 lb Arrivals. The upshot was I kept on this line until the last 45 minutes adding the occasional small Carp and Small Ronnie's, switching to the margin with triple maggot over maggot and caught a 8 lb Carp. Tried the paste and hooked a right bottom hugger. I couldn't get it up and once again right on the death of the match lost a fish that would cost be coin.

My six Carp weighed exactly 23 lb which matched my estimate and my Silvers weighed a megre 4 lb 14 oz for a total of 27 lb 14 oz. For no coin today. Except for two weights it was a tight match, a Carp or two helping most to coin. So my current thinking is that peg 4 can compete with Carp but not sure about the Silvers though with the near bank still being best place to be pegged.

The match was won by Dave Willmott (pictured upper right) with 57 lb from peg 9. Dave caught on 6mm meat over meat. Dave fed about 1 1/2 tins.

The Silvers was won by Pete Turner (pictured right with his decent Skimmer catch) with 13 lb 9 oz from peg 20. Pete caught on maggot over GB laced with caster fished at 10 metres. Pete fed about 1 kg of GB. This was a remarkable catch considering Pete spends at least two hours on the phone running Mumbles Brewery. Great beers I hear.

Back to the Ring-o- Bells with the usual suspects to round off another great day out in the fresh air.

Result:

1. Dave Willmott 57-0-0 peg 9
2. Glenn Bailey 44- 08-0 peg 17
3. Martyn Rayet 34-12-0 peg 16

Silvers:

1. Pete Turner 13-09-0 peg 20
2. Steve Dawson 8-08-0 peg 8
3. Ken Morgan 6-09-0 peg 19

Weigh Sheet: