Thursday 10/01/2019 Bathampton AA - Club Match - Sections Only - Bridge Pool

Today was the start on the BAA post Christmas matches being run by Dave Gillard (pictured right - someone put a thumb mark on my camera lens hence the poor quality)

The matches are based on 4 sections of 5 with two payouts - First coin goes to the highest Silvers section weight and second to the highest combined weight Defaulted - interestingly different.

First Geoff and I stopped at Hungry Horaces, we both agreed it was a good-un. It appears that it's the time of year when the temporary traffic lights are brought out of storage. Keynsham and surrounding roads are littered with the dam things.

Dave did the draw for the knockout and I drew Steve Tanner. Into the draw bag and out comes peg 24. Not one of my winter favourites. However, there are many worse pegs. My five peg section was 16, 18,19, 21 and 24. Peg 16 would have been my Silvers choice and 21 for Carp.

I set up a 4x16 Titan to fish at top-set and four barrels at 10 o'clock for Skimmers/Ronnies over GB and maggot. A 4x12 to fish over to the Island and down the RH margin in the hope of catching Perch that are sometimes caught on this peg. As I had time I set up the waggler to fish out in the open water, I now regret not giving it a try.

On the all-in I fed just the GB line and with a big live red maggot on the hook tipped with a flouro Pinkie it took a while to catch my first Ronnie. After re-feeding I had a run of small Skimmers, this lead me to think I was going to have a good day. Unfortunately, after a couple of re-feeds the swim completely died. I tried switching the same rig etc...round to 2 o'clock never had any indications from here. So back on the previous line and after a long wait I foul hooked a decent Skimmer which came off - bugger. A few small Ronnies followed, ony for the swim to completely die again. So thought I would try the Perch rig, first over to the island, which is very shallow, add the gin clear water the line was soon abandoned. So now down the right side but this time I fished close to full depth with maggot over kindered maggot. I started to get indications which I thought was Perch. After missing some indications I hooked a 5 lb Carp which I was glad to finally net - it's amazing watching them fight in the clear water. I added two F1's on this line but no Perch. I tried the original line again to no avail. So I spent the last half hour down the right and with 5 minutes to go I was getting indications and struck into fresh air twice. I was sure it was F1's having a play. Missed another indication on the whistle. Very frustrating as another F1 would have got me through the knockout which I lost by 14 oz to Steve - well done to him.

My Silvers weighed 5 lb 12 oz with my Carp taking me to 13 lb for highest section weight and a second section pick up.

The highest Silvers and overall weight went to Dave Wride (pictured upper right with his 31 lb of Skimmers) with 54 lb 4 oz from peg 28. Dave caught in the water using expander hook bait over pellet.

It was back to the pub with the usual suspects including "Cliff" (pictured right - incase anyone wondered)

Result:

A Section - Mike Jones - 10-12-0 peg 7 Silvers
A Section - Chris Rolfe - 1-08-0 peg 6 Combined

B Section - Tony Rixon - 20-04-0 peg 14 - Silvers
B Section - Dave Gillard - 0-02-0 peg 10 - Combined

C Section - Allan Oram - 8-08-0 peg 16 - Silvers
C Section - Mike Nicholls - 13-0-0 peg 14 - Combined

D Section - Dave Wride - 31-0-0 peg 28 - Silvers
D Section - Steve Tanner - 13-12-0 peg 26 - Combined

Top Weight on Day: Dave Wride - 53-04-0 peg 28

Weigh Sheets: