Thursday 01/04/2021 - Shiplate Cost Cutter - Main Lake

The South West angling fraternity lost a good friend recently with the sad passing of Roy Garland - Sports Journalist. When Roy started for the Bristol Evening Post the Angling column was half a column - more of a paragraph. Roy soon built this up to two full pages becoming popular not only with anglers but also non anglers/friends and family of anglers. Roy helped me a lot with taking adequate no fuss angling photos. I am 99% sure that this picture of him is the only one ever taken, it took a lot of persuasion to get it. RIP matey - you left a great legacy.

First match since 03/01/2021 and no finer fishery to start. Really keen to get out again and was expecting some nice weather - wrong. Glenn Bailey, Junior and me arrived early to a freezing bitterly NNE wind ripping down the lake to peg 9 and 10. A walk around confirmed these pegs would not be where you would want to be for any comfort.

Got back for the draw to find some anglers have coped with lock down better than others. Some have been preparing for acting roles - meet the new Uncle Albert - right.

John did the draw and to my relief called Gary peg 10. Short lived I was on peg 9! Glenn drew the current best Silvers peg 6 - paste it would be then. Entering the peg noticed this sign - hope it wasn't an omen? The wind was hammering into it. The wind is normally in the opposite direction rendering the peg flat calm and don't seem to produce very often. So the wind might be a positive. Spoke to Tony Rixon for recommendations for a hard pole case, he did say some Silvers were caught on the on the peg Monday. That's it then soon got tackled up with a 4x13 MR wire in 4 foot of water - heavier than the depth required but needed for the wind. I plumbed around and found it the same depth at top-set plus two barrels as one

barrel, so settled for the shorter distance. The float was moving towards me due to the wind and to the right with the tow/wind, but decided the main tow must be away from me so fed one ball of GB with loose wetted micro shorter and started on either 4 or 6 mm expander hook bait. I was surprised to get an immediate response and had a decent first hour catching Skimmers from 4 to 6 oz. It slowed and thought a Carp might had wondered in but couldn't tell because of the wind cover. So switched to maggot hook bait and after a short wait started to catch more Skimmers. Decided to switch to just GB and maggot and by topping up regularly didn't look back, only to be slowed by the occasional intrusion of Carp. I did foul hook three Carp landing one 7 lb all in 30 minutes during which time most anglers had started to catch the odd Carp - you can see most anglers from this peg. The arrival of these Carp also brought their groupies -  some better Skimmers to 2 1/2 lb. Few high gusts brought some expletive's which luckily were lost to the wind. Come the end I was shivering. 

My one Carp weighed 7 lb and my net of Skimmers weighed 34 lb for a Silvers win. Where are the Ronnie's at the moment no sign whatsoever?

The match was won by Paul Lasson (pictured below centre with the Silvers winner) from peg 14B with 83 lb 1 oz. Paul chose the long chuck with the method feeder to the island with wetted micro feed and 6 mm hard banded pellet - well done for beating Gary Flinders on always fancied peg 15!

Result:

1. Paul Lasson 83-01-0 peg 14B

2. Gary Flinders 74-07-0 peg 15

3. Glenn Bailey 68-12-0 peg 6 (Did well to fish paste in the conditions)

Silvers:

1. Mike Nicholls 34 lb peg 9

2. Ron Stark 22-06-0 peg 11

Weigh Sheet: