Thursday 14/02/2019 - Plantation - Tony Rixon and Paul Faiers Silvers only - Main Lake

We were promised a bright sunny and warm Valentines day and that's exactly what we got. Anyone not convinced of global warming would have been today with how hot the sun felt.

First stop for Geoff and me, the Bridge Inn for breakfast. This in't one of my favourite places to eat. The black tea was OK.

A quick walk around the Lake with Geoff which revealed nothing. Tony limited the match to weight chasing 16, whereas I think 19 to 20 would acceptable. Into the draw box and out comes peg 1. This happened to be permanent peg 1, which would have been one of the last three of choices. At least a short walk, but it is outside the toilets and the entrance to the fishery which meant plenty of visitors for me today. For company I had the affable Paul Barnfield, who managed to get through the match without too much moaning. The other side on peg 16 was someone new to me and spent most of the time on his mobile.

Out of sympathy Tony said my peg was black with Roach - Yea right. Still with this in mind I set up the Ronnie rig, but was concerned that the Ronnies might not come in close enough, so as backup I set up the 4 metre whip with a home made small waggler. Both to fish six inches off bottom. Final rig was a 4x12 Winter Titan to fish at 10 metres at full depth which meant my pole went across the toilet path, so eyes and ears open in case.

Set up so had a walk up to Two Pots peg and noticed something interesting on his bait tray.  asked him what it was (pictured right) "Dead Maggots" Hum, you decided. Apparently Tim Ford gave them to him - what are friends for! Like to see him feed these in a catapult.

To get in coin from this peg  thought I would have to catch Ronnies short. But first I tested the peg at 10 metres by feeding GB laced with maggot. With single on the hook I had a Ronnies straight away and kept this up for half hour but realising it was far too slow I went on the Ronnie rig with caster - nothing so switch to loose fed maggot and caught two 3 oz Ronnies the longer line was more productive, so abandoned this and after feeding a ball of GB on the whip line fished this for an hour or so catching Ronnies much quicker. The swim slowed but was rewarded with a 2 lb Skimmer. After 10 minutes without a bite made the decision to fish the match out on the 10m metre line with the hope of more Skimmers. I was finding the fish had moved up in the water so shallowed up. I then chose to feed a mix of loose maggot and GB with a hard ball so feeding all areas. I found that the fish would only take a moving bait (I was now wishing I set up the waggler). I lost a bit of time working this one out but started to catch a mix of Hybrids, Ronnies and Skimmers to 1 lb regularly and was enjoying the fishing and sunshine. Unfortunately I lost 4 to 5 of these pounders without reason. I thought the match was ending at 16:15 so half hour before the all out I re-fed only to hear the all out at 15:45!! Duh.

I weighed 20 lb nearly exactly just missing out on a pick up by a pound or so. As seen by the weigh sheet it was a very close affair. No point on dwelling on the lost fish which probably cost be first or second. The Silvers are in excellent condition which is more than I can say about the one Carp caught - My guess angers using barbed hooks.

The match was won by Dave Wride with 24 lb 8 oz from peg 10. Dave caught on the pole in the water using his favoured soft pellet and micro/hard 4's approach.

Runner up was Paul Faiers (pictured right) with 22 lb 9 oz from next peg 12.

Geoff and I decided to stop on the way home for food, so choose the motorway route unfortunately there had been a fatal accident in the ring road rendering all of North east Bristol gridlocked. Anyway we managed to circumnavigate most of it arriving at our Curry House dead on opening time. Geoff got me off a four months waggon with a pint of draft  Cobra - my favourite - Geoff Valentine pictured right. Excellent curry.

Result:

1. Dave Wride 24-08-0 peg 10
2. Paul Faiers 22-09-0 peg 12
3. Andy Gard 21-13-0 peg 5
4. Mike Jones 21-05-0 peg 15
4. Shawn Kitteridge 21-05-0 peg 8
6. Mike Nicholls 20-0-0 peg 1

Weigh Sheet: