Thursday 06/04/2023 - Ray's Rip Off - Windmill Fishery - Match Lake

First stop Hungry Horace's followed by a bumpy ride down rocky road. Geoff and me had a quick look at the lake to see a few Ronnie's topping.

Kev Winstone was standing in for Ray today as his wife was coming home from hospital - good news. Kev had got some bingo balls for the draw. Unfortunately the balls were from a kids game and with most of us having to look at our wives at arms length we had a job to see our peg numbers.

Into a new silk draw bag with bigger disc's and found myself on peg 5. No that enthused. For company of peg 6 was Hubert (aka Handle bars).

Decided to fish for silvers and claim the £100 bounty on the 50 lb of silvers - Umm. I also have made up new design of Ronnie rig and wanted to try it out. Waggler set up with a 7" Drake. A 4x14 Winter to fish top set plus thee barrels and would be my skimmer line fishing worm over chopped worm/caster/DP's in GB. Finally my new Ronnie rig.

Fed a large ball of the skimmer mix and a small ball of GB laced with Pinkie on the short Ronnie line. Didn't bother feeding the waggler once again because of the bloody wind. It took a few put-ins to get use to the new rig due to the sensitivity could see indications before they actually took the single LR and striking too early. Had a good run and must say I was impressed with the rig and will be tying some more. The line slowed so topped up and tried the long line where initially the worm was being pestered by small Perch. Had a decent skimmer before it died, thought there might be carp about - alas not. Back on the Ronnie rig and kept a few coming and a bonus skimmer. The wind dropped so tried the wag and mag and did expect to catch some carp and skimmers, alas again not just a few Rudd. Very surprised not to even foul hook a carp on this peg. The skimmers are following the carp at the moment and knew that the chances of catching any numbers of skimmers was unlikely today. Stayed on the Ronnie rig to see the match out. Had managed to stay dry until the all out called and the havens opened - bugger - soaking again.

My silvers weighed 11 lb 8 oz 5th in the silvers and 38 lb 8 oz short of the bounty.

The match was won by Paul Barnfield (pictured with the silvers runner up) with 52 lb 8 oz from peg 11. Paul also won the silvers with 21 lb 1 oz. Paul no doubt used his favored micro, GB  and Micro approach. Well done matey - double bubbler.

Result:

1. Paul Barnfield 52-08-0 peg 11

2. Glenn Bailey 44-11-0 peg 1 (paste is back!!!)

3. John Smith 44-07-0 peg 10

4. Hayden Withers 42-03-0 peg 9

5. John Osborne 35-02-0 peg 3

6. Pete Greenslade 33-08-0 peg 23 (3 carp)

Silvers:

1. Paul Barnfield 21-01-0 peg 11

2. Hughie Evans 17-06-0 peg 6

3, Kev Winstone 13-02-0 peg 18

Weigh Sheets: