Sunday 25/04/2021 - Shiplate Open - Hawthorns and Westpool

Firstly, paid the pools to John Hawkins the Fishery Manager (pictured right), who I must say is doing a great job, but needs to keep his weigh scales glass cleaner. 

Went for my usual walk with Glenn Bailey along Hawthorne's the Canal we all wanted to draw due to Westpool still suffering from an influx of fresh water. The pegs 1 to 6 looked favourite as it was catching some wind off the Mendips.

I was delighted when John pulled me peg 9 Hawthorne's, however, Glenn was faced with peg 1 Westpool - will it fish? For company I found Chris Fox (brother Blogger) on peg 10 and Steve Seager on peg 7, both good company. But will take my swear box for Foxy next time.

Against common belief there are lots of Silvers in both Canals, however, they are hard to catch due to the head of disruptive Carp. My peg was flat calm with plenty of Carp visible on the surface. I decided to fish four hours for the Silvers and the last two for Carp in the margins. However, plumbing up the margins both sides were almost vertical from the bank edge to the bottom so couldn't find any shallow water except within my platform cut back area, so wasn't optimistic.

Tried setting up a 4x13 MR white top only to find I had half-hitched it when I made it up and broke the line trying to move the float - bugger. So had to settle for a 4x14 Winter Titan yellow top for top-set plus two barrels in front. The paste rig was a 0.3 gram.

Fed two balls of GB and with single DR on a 18 - 808 went out and was soon playing a fit Carp followed by another. It settled and I had a nice run of Skimmers from 4oz to 2 lb, really enjoying it. Refed which was followed by another two accidental Carp, they seem to like the GB falling through then a few more Skimmers would follow. As expected the Skimmers gradually petered out over the four hours. With nine accidental Carp in the sack I tried the margin as it's easy to add 100 lb an hour on this venue if they are having it. The weren't only adding one small Carp on the paste.

I weighed a total of 65lb 7 oz with my Silvers going for 17lb 2oz for first in the Silvers. Very enjoyable day.

Hawthorne's and the match was won by the affable Matt Culpin (pictured with his catch) with 191lb 1oz from peg 3. Matt caught down the track using banded caster over copious amounts of caster loose feed.

Tom Thick (pictured below with the Hawthorner's - me between to big boy's) won Westpool with 85lb 2oz from peg 13. looks like the Canal is improving - needs some warm rain me thinks.

And finally I saw these hand made floats in the Shiplate shop and marveled at the workmanship, with each floats having a bird feather varnished in. On close inspection they would unlikely be suitable for fishing with.

Result:

1st overall p3H

Matt Culpin

191lb 01oz

2nd overall p6H

Lewis Walker

131lb 04oz

3rd overall p4H Tony Rixon 121lb 08oz

4th overall p15

Mark Wenn

103lb 08oz

1st westpool p13

Thomas Thick

85lb 02oz

2nd westpool p3

Tich Williams

56lb 04oz

1st silvers hawthorns p9

Mike Nicholls

17lb 07oz

1st silvers westpool p9 Julian Pinkett 9lb 02oz

Weigh Sheets: