Thursday 12/05/2022 - Bathampton AA Over 55's and Short Walks - Withy Pool

Passed Bridge Pool with the water looking a strange colour. The feed back from pleasure anglers is only F1's being caught which is a shame.

The days of the Willow fluff is here - pictured looking towards my peg at the end of play.

A better number for pegging of twenty. A newbie today in the shape of old Avon Angling team mate Shay Gillman - welcome matey sure you will enjoy it.

Hoping for a short walk but ended up with the longest one - peg 50 again for me. For company I had Dave "Three Gulps" Gillard on peg 51. Dave started off with a spell of Tourette's trying to level up his tackle box due to peg 51 being in a dreadful state of repair. He finally got settled in and catching decent Roach to 1 lb. Things got worse though Dave started to sing Cliff Richards songs.

Learning from last match - forget carp and focus on Silvers. Set up the waggler for late on if things got hard towards the end. The long Ronnie rig and a 4x13 MR to fish top set plus one or two barrels. Fed the Ronnie line with GB laced with Pinkie starting on this with a single LR and had two Ronnie's straight away it then went iffy so put on double Pinkie and didn't look back for the next three hours caught a variety of silvers mainly skimmers from 1 oz to 3 1/2 lb. It was a case if going from full depth at 5 foot and half depth to keep them coming including a 2 1/2 lb Hybrid. It slowed so switched to the MR at three barrels to the right again with GB and Pinkie to keep the skimmers and Ronnie's coming. Last hour I was plagued with Willow fluff so non sensibly picked up the waggler to fish in to open water and four cast later  hooked a carp on double LR's over loose fed same only for the fluff to jam the top eye so I couldn't wind in so just point the rod at it fro the inevitable brake. Waggler abandoned. Back on the MR which was slow due to between fish fluff picking.

My silvers weighed 28 lb 2 oz for a silvers win and 4 the overall. Very enjoyable day except for being fluffed out at the end.

The match was won by Mike Gale (pictured with the silvers winner) with 72 lb 10 oz from peg 45. Mike caught down his RH margin initially with worm settling foef8 mm banded pellet in 4 foot of water (deep margins). Mike's catch comprised mainly of 7 decent carp. Well done matey.

Result:

1. Mike Gale 72-10-0 peg 45

2. Paul Barnfield 43-10-0 peg 55

3. Rod Dufferty 29-0-0 peg 42

4. Mike Nicholls 28-02-0 peg 50

5. Chris Ollis 25-05-0 peg 54

6. Shay Gillman 25-02-0 peg 60

Silvers:

1. Mike Nicholls 28-02-0 peg 50

2. Shay Gillman 17-02-0 peg 60

2. Hughie Evans 17-02-0 peg 58

Weigh Sheets: