Sunday 03/04/2022 - Westerleigh Winter League - Final Round 8 - Taylor's Pool and Shipp's Canal

Leaving home it was -1 degree, arriving back 12 degrees! Last match of the series, which I have thoroughly enjoyed, the fishing is difficult most of the time which adds something for me. Only 10 minutes from home so plenty of time for some after match socialising with great company. What's not to like?

My turn of Shipp's Canal. I was a bit disappointed to find we would have two missing anglers on our pool which leaves empty pegs giving anglers an advantage - hopefully me!

Currently standing in first pace overall and first in the pairs with John W by 5 lb. All 8 matches count so no droppers or stand-ins. Total pairs weight wins.

Into the car boot draw selecting the nearest disc to find peg 9. It's a strange peg with good anglers blanking on it and anglers winning the pool from it this series. Iv'e drawn it a few times in the past and found it difficult to sort out with just too many options. I was told peg 7 occupied by John C had started to fish and with Brian Shanks sat on peg 4 with pegs 2, 3 and 5 empty felt I was fishing for third which would just about do. John had drawn peg 15 on Taylor's which is the worse peg on the pool so our chances of the pairs were all but gone. We did well to get this far with John missing two matches.

Set up the waggler to fish the gap with maggot, a 4x13 MR to fish at top set plus two barrels and a 4 x12 Winter Titan set to 3 foot to fish around to my left hand margin with expander over micro. 

Fed a small ball of GB on the pole line and pulted a few LR's into the gap. I had a great start catching five small F1's and some Ronnie and a small Tench in the first 30 minutes. I fed another small ball of GB and for some reason the line died, so tried the waggler and caught Ronnie's and one small Crucian. Felt I was already on a struggle. Added another barrel and started a new line with the MR rig at 10 o clock again with GB and caught more Ronnie's and a some very small Skimmers. Now wondering whether I should have been more patient with the first line. Time to try the margin and had two missed bites before adding another small F1 and a small Mirror carp. I kept trying the this line but didn't have another bite from it. The upshot was I tried three line with the waggler and five other lines with the pole with up to six barrels! All lines produced Ronnie's and the odd small skimmer which really told me that there wasn't many F1's around. One line I did,t try was down towards peg 10 only because the wind was blowing up from the direction. At least I knew I would win the pool silvers from the peg even though they were nearly accidentals!!

Silvers weighed 5 lb 10 oz and my few Carp 7 lb 7 oz totalling 13 lb 1 oz. This left me with a lowly 5 points. I had won the pool silvers but found myself relegated to third overall. Another 1 lb 8 oz (one or two F1's) would have got me the 3 points I needed to win. Kicking myself for not trying down to peg 10 where I had caught a few late F1's in the past. As predicted we lost out in the pairs by a good few pounds.

The match was won by Bri Shanks (pictured with the silvers winner) with 44 lb 2 oz from peg 4. Bri caught on 6 mm banded hard pellet initially fishing 1 metre from the island and later having to chase them in tight.

The silvers was won by Hughie Evans with 7 lb 15 oz from peg 22. Hughie caught at 13 metres using GB and maggot hook bait.

The top four overall league winners pictured which was close run. Below full league results at bottom. Well done to all the winners and participants.

Thanks to Bri Shanks for running the league and Mark Taylor for great fishery management (and waggler retriever). Looking forward to next year when Bri expects some additions to the league.

Back to the pub with the usual suspects for the payout - more importantly a well earned pint.

Result:

Taylor's Pool:

1. Martin McMahon 30-02-0 peg 25

2. Ricky Mills 18-05-0 peg 17

Silvers: Hughie Evans 7-15-0 peg 22

Shipp's Canal:

1. Brian Shanks 44-02-0 peg 4

2. John C 29-06-0 peg 7

Silvers: Mike Nicholls 5-10-0 peg 9

Weigh Sheet:

Overall League Final Result: