Thursday 23/11/2023 - Bathampton AA - Over 55's and Short Walks - Withy Pool

Surprising good turn out considering how bad Withy Pool is fishing. Suspect the Biomass is still too high 😄.

I walked up behind the island to check the leaf situation - pegs 47,48 and 49 were iffy so these were left out. Peg 50 would be OK if the leaves stayed put!! Didn't want to draw there again at the moment.

Chatting with Barny he was spot on with his prediction of only 7 lb needed to frame.

Into the draw bag and couldn't believe to see peg 50 staring back at me - bugger, just recovered from fishing peg 49 Saturday. For company I had Mick Gale the 0.08 specialist on peg 51 - one of my favourite pegs.

Peg 50 is a peg you really need to fish long but is hampered by the Otter fence - you either go over the fence, break down or as I did ship along the bank. Choose the latter because from experience Saturday expected to catch small fish the other options were more likely to cause pull- outs.

Did set up the waggler and on hindsight should have initially fished the feeder - expect another bollocking from Rich Coles - next time! By time we started the waggler line was leaved out. So spent the whole match on the 4x14 Winter switching between 0.1 with 22 - 808 and 0.08 and a 22 green GP04 Kamasan - the lighter rig made no difference to my catch rate. The wind did change pushing the leaves up and down my peg. Overcame this by having two lines left and right using the clearest line as and when, bit of a pain. Fished Pinkie and GB on both lines for about 30 Ronnie's. Hooked what initially behaved like a big Skimmer until lifting the top set and could see it was a big Perch at the same time it ran towards the bank and broke 0.1! There is a lot of snags close in, which probably helped cause the break. This was to cost me second section. Hooked just the one Carp. With 30 minutes to go a dew started falling making shipping the pole sticky. Think we were all glad to hear the all out. 

Weighed 3 lb 4 oz which was disappointing didn't have a sign of any Skimmers I caught Saturday. This was about halfway - it fished awful. Most of the framing weights came by early fishing of the feeder.

The match was won by Tony Ponting (pictured supping a well earned pint) with 7 lb 3 oz from peg 63. Tony had 50/50 feeder and pole, with his catch being bolstered by a 3 lb Bream. Mostly caught on maggot and GB. Well done matey.

Back to the Compton with a full house of suspects.

Weigh Sheets: