Thursday 05/02/2026 - Over 55's Silvers League - Round Four - Bitterwell Lake

"Kites fly highest against the wind, not with it". Winstone Churchill - relevant for me today sat in the bloody freezing wind.

Bristol traffic is ridiculous and to think they want to build thousands of more house in South Gloucester and Bristol - nuts.

A few stand-ins today it was nice to see Jeff Surmon (pictured) standing in for Kev Winstone. We go back a long way and travelled together a few times - real gentleman and a very good angler who arrived next to me on peg 5.

We all knew we were in for a hard match. More rain and with higher winds than of late greeted us. As I was in A section knew I could be on the road bank where the wind was hitting it from 2 o clock. Hoping for pegs 8 through to 15 where the wind was least. Not to be peg 7 for me.

Set up the usual - large waggler to help beat the wind, 4x14 Winter to fish four barrels for Skimmers and expecting it to be really hard on this peg and with a bit of colour down the edge set up a 4x12 Winter to fish on the top set to target the Perch, which are plentiful in this lake. However, a bit of a quandary, knowing Perch tend to feed well for the first hour, will I miss out on any early skimmers. As the presentation on the long line was awful went for the early Perch with single Pinkie over kinder Pinkie. 

Had a great start catching small Perch for an hour. Switched the long line which I had fed with loose GB and Pinkie - had no idea where the feed was ending up. Had two bites a small Perch and a Ronnie. Had a go on the waggler with single white maggot, but as with the long line it was poor presentation, but had another small Perch and a Ronnie. Kept trying all the lines, but decided to spent most of the time catching Perch and did get a 10 ouncer for my efforts. Had a walk along the section and a few anglers had some early Skimmers - but not many. So seen the match out for the Perch.

My 40 fished weighed 3 lb 6 oz for three points. Think the right decision made to target the early Perch, my mistake was not sticking with it all match as I was only 4 oz from a pick up. Well done to my partner keeping us in contention.

The match was won by Andy Greenham (pictured with his catch) with 11 lb 12 oz from favoured peg 23. Andy caught at 11 metres fishing single Pinkie over Pinkie. Andy had a very lucky day as he also won guess the weight with the exact amount he caught. 

Weigh Sheets:

League to date after Four rounds:

Note: Now we are starting to use more than one substitute, need to clarify the following: Second Substitutes points will not count, however their section positions and weight will. Non points counting subs shown in red. NB: only one sub points only count.