Thursday 07/03/2019 - Bathampton AA - Club Match - Sections Only - Bridge Pool

With Geoff working I was on my own today, so home cooking today - porridge. Arrived and had a look at the Pool and which still had a tinge of brown in it. The wind was fairly strong and was forecast to get stronger - and it did - gale force in fact. Only a few pegs out of the wind - 14, 21, 24 and 26. The pegs that would be most affected would be pegs 15, 18, 28,29 and 30 so hoping to miss these.

I was in the all-so-ran knockout final with Hughie Evans who had drawn peg 24. So I fancied his chances as the wind was not so bad on this peg.

Into the draw bag and out comes peg 28. There was a shout of redraw, due to not enough pegs in the bag, however, no drew necessary as it was sorted. This peg is probably one of the better Skimmers pegs, but today would be affected by the high winds. For company I had Enigma on peg 29. Peg 26 was occupied by Dave Wride.

I set up the waggler for the open water as a back-up to the 4x16 winter Titan. I had planned to try fishing expander over GB at top-set plus three. So started on this and had a great twenty minutes catching four Skimmers and an F1. Subsequently the peg completely died, which I suspects was due to a number of reasons, but primarily the wind had got up so bad I couldn't hold the pole rendering the presentation awful. I had a go on the waggler over the pole line which was a relief from fighting the wind with the pole. The presentation wasn't too bad either. I had four small fish on this. A gust of wind then took all my bait tubs and GB bowl over behind me. I did recover the GB bowl but could not find all my bait tubs!! It was now a question of picking up my bait from the ground! Throughout the day I spent quite some time collecting and fishing out various bits of fishing kit. I mixed up some more GB and switched to maggot at top-set plus two. As the wind was driving in at me from a 11 o'clock direction making things very difficult. I did hook my biggest Skimmer of about 2 lb on this line but it proved to be a question on losing my pole or the fish, no contest - pole safe. I had two small fish and one 10 oz Skimmer before the welcome all out was called.

My Silvers weighed 5 lb 5 oz with my total weight being 6 lb 5 oz. Second in the section Silvers but more important I beat Hughie by 2 oz. I'm getting tired of my matches being plagued by the wind. This is the fourth match that I've had to fight with the wind which has seriously affected my weights. Hope this changes soon - climate change. It was a seriously tough match fir me today.

The match was won by John Fry (pictured right) with 21 lb 6 oz from peg 8. John caught mostly Skimmers at top-set plus two slightly down wind to his left using expander hook bait over micro. well done to him.

Result:

A Section - 1 - Tony Rixon - 18-15-0 peg 3
A section - 2 - Dave Gillard - 4-06-0 peg 7

B Section - 1 - John Fry - 21-06-0 peg 8
B Section - 2 - Allan Oram 24-06-0 peg 11

C Section - 1 - Paul Barnfield 9-07-0 peg 16
C Section - 2 - Hughie Evans 14-11-0 peg 24

D Section - 1 - Steve Dawson 7-04-0 peg 29
D Section - 2 - Dave Wride 17-14-0 peg 26

Weigh Sheets: