Thursday 13/04/2023 - Over 55's - Westerleigh Fishery - Taylor's Pool and Shipp's Canal

Good turn out of twenty with three on the reserve list. I hate turning people away. Paying top two and one silver on each pool/canal.

We borrowed the silk draw bag and counters provided for Windmill by Kev Winstone. A story of the draw bag is emerging. The bag was given to Kev by Leyton Palmer and couldn't help noticing yesterday that the bag has a monogram on it - Umm - a converted item of silk under clothing?

As custodian of the draw I couldn't draw my own flyer so wanted either Tony Rixon or Paul Barnfield to draw for me, both refused, worried John Smith was going to step forward but was beaten to it by Pete Greenslade, giving me peg 10 on Shipp's. Truthfully not really worried where I drew. There was too much foraging in the bag for my liking.

Got to the peg and found Aiolos (the God of wind) was favouring me again directing it at 2 o clock as he has done for sometime - obviously not a fan of waggler fishing.

For company on peg 11 Marks "three counters" Tanner. After the match asked him what he had on his counters - "didn't use them today" was the reply!! Opposite on peg 4 would be the Canal winner - the side to be on today. 

Because of poor visibility set up a 4x14 wire Roob for top set plus two and a 0.3 gram RJ slim for the downwind margin and a waggler in case the wind dropped - it didn't. After plumbing relised that these rigs were wrong and couldn't be assed to changed them to a 4x13 MR and a Speedy for the margin - theses floats are 60% better in the wind. With the canal winner already identified and some other better pegs to contend with decide to initially focus on the silvers.

Fed the margin with some LR's and micro and the other line with a nugget of GB and Pinkie. Started on this line with triple Pinkie and had 5 F1's, three Crucians and three skimmers before the less eager fish for food to be fooled by my presentation the rig going with the wind and difficult to hold back - thought about changing the rig, instead picked up the waggler. Very difficult to feed had a dozen or so casts - one Ronnie and two foul hooked carp due to dragging too much line along the bottom to stay on station longer. Tried the long line again and it was hopeless with the wind - thought about changing the rig, instead went in the margin with single maggot over loose fed same. Caught micro Perch one a bung with the odd decent Ronnie. As the wind was mostly on my back decided to see the match out here. After catching two big F1's the carnage started with the carp moving in and some foul hooking following. The issue was the carp wanted the feed falling through the water but could not get them to munch on the bottom. So came up 6 inches to 3 foot and once the float settled cast again. Had a run of decent carp to 8 lb loosing a 15 lb fish which came straight the to surface and hung there, started the "walking the dog" and really thought it was a banker but it was just shy of the landing net when it woke up - hook pulled - bugger. Too many lost carp today but apparently so did most anglers so can't really claim a higher position than third on the canal.

Silvers weighed 5 lb 11 oz for canal silvers win, total weight 37-01-0. So a decent days fishing but back to the fine fibre tips in future - why oh why did I not change.

The canal was was won as expected by Tony Rixon (pictured with a lovey quality net of carp) with 70 lb 3 oz from peg 4. Tony caught on banded pellet long on various lines - see his blog for the finer details. 

Tony "smiler" Ponting (pictured) won Taylor's with 42 lb from peg 23.

Thanks to Mark Taylor for the use of his beautiful fishery.

Result:

Taylor's Pool:

1. Tony Ponting 42-00 peg 23

2. Glenn Bailey 37-07-0 peg 26

Silver: Shay Gillman 6-02-0 peg 16

Shipp's Canal:

1. Tony Rixon 70-03-0 peg 4

2. Kev Winstone 42-03-0 peg 8

Silvers: Mike Nicholls 5-11-0 peg 10

Weigh Sheets: