It was another of Chris Fox’s opens on Saturday and I was really looking forward to as there’s been a stocking of decent ide since the last match I fished. Always well attended, there were 26 anglers fishing today and when Chris announced the draw, I delved in and when I looked I was on 33, not the best but certainly not the worst. Nick was on 27 which isn’t great and then for company I had Paul Faiers to my right on 31 and Gareth Boycott the other side of the bridge with a certain Mr Des Shipp next to him on 36.
It was shaping up to be a lovely day and even the sun was threatening to put in an appearance
I set up a couple of Preston Innovations F1 Maggots to fish two lines at 10 metres and top two plus one and a little 0.2 gram rig with strung shot to fish through the water. Lots of maggots and Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark groundbait were on the menu for today.
We got underway and I fed one line at 10 metres straight out with groundbait and just potted in some maggots on the other two swims. I started on the gb line with pinkie on the hook but it was quite slow and it took a while to get my first indication, which of course I missed! No more bites so I picked up the strung out rig and went 11.5 metres across, a decent ide on the drop got me up and running and I thought I’d start getting a few fish but it wasn’t really happening.
The next fish turned out to be a foul hooked 2lb carp and then I was into what I thought was another carp only for a 3lb+ skimmer to surface and that wasn’t hooked in the mouth either! Gareth had landed several carp while Paul was getting some ide although it sounded like Gary on 29 and Nick were struggling.
I could get odd bites by being patient but was by no means bagging and hooking another carp which I had on for ages before it snapped me didn’t help matters either! After an hour I had a look on the right hand line down the middle but it took ages to get a bite and I was going nowhere fast. Gareth was getting some lovely ide fishing across tight to the boards and then had a brilliant spell catching shallow down the middle.
Rotating round the longer lines I started toss potting in some maggots and had a really good run of ide along with a decent skimmer and some quality roach. My Boycott provided the mid-match entertainment when he hooked a pound plus ide and as he was shipping back, a seagull swooped down and grabbed it! The trouble was, Sammy (the seagull) had bitten off more than it could chew and was struggling to take off, a tense but brief tug of war followed before the bird shook the fish free of the hook and flew off into the sunset.
My longer lines began to fade so with around half an hour remaining I’ve come in on the the top three line where I’d been feeding maggots since the start. First put in, a positive bite after five minutes resulted in a 12oz ide, a pound plus skimmer was next and then after a little wait, a proper one of 2.5lb which was my last fish of the day. I ended up with 42 fish (ide, roach and skimmers) plus that single carp.
When the scales got round to us, Chad had the top weight so far with 40lb 4oz on peg 5 followed by John ‘Average Angler’ Mills with 39lb 8oz which included a fantastic 38lb of ide. Des was next and went into the lead with 62lb 7oz but it was short lived as Gareth had 71lb 5oz and was still cursing Sammy the seagull. My single carp was 2lb 1oz and the silvers added 25lb 8oz, Paul had 18lb 9oz, Gary weighed 21lb 2oz and Nick’s fish went 16lb 8oz. Photo credits – Des Shipp* and Gareth Boycott**
Des was third with 62lb 7oz on peg 36*
Gareth was second with 71lb 5oz but did lose 1-0 to Sammy the seagull!**
Back at the results and Mark Williams had done brilliantly on peg 16 to win with 103lb 14oz and then as Gareth and Des were second and third, I won the section money by double default which was a nice surprise.
1 – Mark Williams (Acorn) – 103lb 14oz
2 – Gareth Boycott (Acorn) – 71lb 5oz
3 – Des Shipp (Preston Innovations) – 62lb 7oz
Sections
A – Chris Fox (Acorn) – 41lb 2oz
B – Darren Duffield (Ilminster) – 53lb 10oz
C – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 27lb 9oz
Silvers
1 – John Mills (Acorn) – 38lb
I picked up £45 for the section and it had been a lovely day and even the sun put in an appearance, the fishing wasn’t bad either and the silvers weights could be amazing as the weather gets warmer.
£2 each from Nick P and me took the Nugget-O-Meter total to £149.
There’s still a great offer running if you fancy treating yourself to some new fishing gear, use the exclusive discount code AgainstMenandFish10 to get 10% off when you shop online at Somerset Angling
Also I still have copies of my book available from eBay here or Amazon here
And if you could spare five minutes to leave a nice review on Amazon, it would be very much appreciated.
Next up – Summerhayes
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
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