I’ve been dying to get back down to Revels but with the bitterly cold weather recently, the silvers fishing has been really tricky with just 2oz winning last Tuesday! The temperature warmed up a bit during the week so I booked a day off work and began praying to the fishing gods for a nice silvers peg. I met Parker ‘The Pole’ for brekkie before heading to the venue, only 12 of us fishing today and we were on Main and Middle lakes.
Draw time arrived and I was hoping to be on the latter as it normally produces some decent silvers weights and I couldn’t see Main competing with it. I was around halfway down the list and a couple of the pegs I didn’t fancy went and then Steve P got a good one in the shape of 54 on Middle. When it was my turn, Dean pulled a ball from the bucket and when he looked and grimaced, it’s never a good sign and Main peg 11 really isn’t where you want to be if you like silvers! Looking at recent results, it’s not even weighed in the last two matches!
Not the view I was hoping to see Tuesday morning!
When I got to the swim, I wasn’t feeling inspired at all, the lake was flat calm with nothing moving and I felt my best chance of a result was to fish for carp dobbing along the end back. The problem with this masterplan was that I didn’t have any bread with me! Thankfully, Hugh on peg 9 came to the rescue and let me have a slice of his, not all heroes wear capes, cheers mate!
I set up a 0.2 gram Colmic Elsa to fish two lines at 13 metres and a 0.3 gram Drennan Crystal Margin for dobbing bread. The side tray contained lots of maggots, disco pinkies, some Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark and a slice of Hugh’s bread!
On the whistle, I fed the two lines (negative and positive) straight out and angled to the left before kicking off dobbing bread at around 11.5 metres. An indication first chuck before the float sailed away and I was into a 4lb carp which was a great start. Next put in I had a six pounder and two more followed to put me on around 14-15lb with only 45 mins gone and I was getting quite a few indications.
Things were going brilliantly but then a bloke (not an angler fishing the match I hasten to add!) walked along the far side, up the end bank and I’ve gone from a bite a chuck to nothing! Over the next three quarters of an hour I’ve only caught two gudgeon and was thinking I needed to try something else. Just as I was about to have a look on the groundbait lines the float flew under and I was into a big fish, which gave a great account of itself before I netted a 9-10lb common. I did manage my sixth carp but despite trying further along the bank, I could only get bites from one spot and it was fading.
The only anglers I could see were Jon Bass on 12 and Hugh on 9 and they looked to be struggling. Roy ‘The Bomb’ Worth was on fancied peg 16 but as he was behind me, I had no clue how he was doing although Adrian Hayes on 7 reckoned I was winning the match! With three and a half hours gone, all of a sudden from seeing no fish activity at all, quite a few small started topping and as I was still on six carp and with nobody else catching, I decided to have a look on the lines in open water.
After a couple of minutes, I had a chunky little perch on pinkie and started getting regular bites from more perch and some small roach. Although I wasn’t bagging I thought I might as well put something in the net. Then a positive bite resulted in solid resistance before a carp moved off and I wasn’t holding out any hope of landing it with really light kit on and so it proved although the hook pulled out rather than it breaking me.
A couple more small fish followed before I was into another carp and after a lengthy battle I landed a three pounder which was a bit of a bonus. When I hooked another one which straightened the hook, I was thinking I’d have been better off big potting maggots and fishing heavier. We were now heading into the last hour or so and when Hugh had two carp quite quickly fishing up the edge and Jon hooked a couple, I was wasting my time and needed to catch carp.
I plumbed up a new line in the margins to my left and fed half a pot of maggots before going back dobbing bread to the right, the rest had done it some good and I had three carp in just over half an hour. With 15 mins remaining, I couldn’t resist a look on the inside line with a bunch of maggots on the hook but despite quite a few bites, I only managed two greedy little perch before the all out.
It didn’t take long for the scales to reach us and Bob C had done well catching 7lb 3oz of silvers on Middle peg 57 with Parker ‘The Pole’ weighing 5lb 1oz for second in the silvers and Big Al not far behind with 4lb 7oz from peg 60. The two Terrys (Lenny and Dell) on pegs 2 and 22 weighed nearly the same with just an ounce separating them (13lb 15oz and 13lb 14oz respectively). Jamie B had the best silvers weight on Main with 3lb 6oz from peg 4. Photos courtesy of Revels*
Bob had the top silvers weight with 7lb 3oz from peg 57 on Middle*
Steve P was second in the silvers with 5lb 1oz*
Mike chucked back on 6, Adie Hayes weighed 13lb 7oz and Hugh had 7lb 10oz. My 20 silvers went 1lb 6oz and then my 10 carp added 36lb 2oz, Roy said he didn’t have that which immediately made me think it would be closer than he was letting on. Jon B weighed 11lb 3oz and when the scales got to Woy, I heard him give a little cheer so knew he’d done me.
A rare trip to the dark side and second place for me
Roy notched up yet another win, this time with 38lb 15oz from peg 16*
Back at the results and it had been really close with ‘The Bomb’ pipping me by just 1lb 7oz and I was left regretting fishing the gb lines for an hour and messing about up the edge when I should have just dobbed bread from start to finish but of course that’s with the benefit of hindsight.
1 – Roy Worth (Yeovil) – 38lb 15oz
2 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 37lb 8oz
Silvers
1 – Bob Crispe (Revels) – 7lb 3oz
2 – Steve Parker (Ilton) – 5lb 1oz
I picked up £20 for second place and had quite enjoyed doing a bit of dobbing but hopefully I won’t be making a habit of it!
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 – Todber Manor
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
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