Bristol PSV Fishing Club: Cider Farm, 14 March 2010 (11 pegs)

Courtesy of Wikipedia:

Dabinett is a variety of apple, customarily used in Somerset for making cider. It bears green-yellow fruit with a distinctive bittersweet flavour, and is probably related to the Chisel Jersey apple. A number of cider manufacturers produce ciders made solely or primarily with Dabinett apples, including Thatchers and Sheppy's.

(Not a lot of people know that!!!)

PSV Match Secretary, Steve Burgess, was determined to improve upon his last visit to Dabinett back in July of last year when after taking a break from his holiday in Devon to fish the match, he drew peg 8 only to receive a complete battering from Craig Edmunds off the next peg and finish last with a dismal 6lbs 8oz (Trigger won the match with 65-10)! So, when the last peg in the bag was peg 21 and the golden peg, the pressure was on. Fortunately though, for Steve "pressure" is just a word beginning with "p".

Steve fished two lines, both kicked off with a small pot of damp micros and a few red maggots. One line at 14.5m straight out in open water and the other in the shallow water at 13m on the point of the reeds. On the "all-in" Steve was into a carp first put-in on the 14.5m line with double red maggot. Also quick off the mark was Alan Healy across on peg 6, again using maggot and micro pellet as well as Paul (The Reedinator) Reed on peg 7, who had chosen (oddly) to fish luncheon meat on the hook. Adam Caswell on peg 6 also started well but things soon returned to normal for him and a walk round the bank to skyline a few pegs was soon in order!

Meanwhile Steve Burgess was steadily catching carp to 4lbs alternating between maggot and 4.5mm soft pellet until a run of skimmers prompted a switch to the shallow swim. After taking a few small carp from the reeds on maggot, one particularly hyper fish chose to launch itself through the air and into the middle of the reeds, smashing his rig in the process. Swapping back to the open water line produced a couple more carp then more of the dreaded skimmers so a new shallow rig was made up and Steve managed to continue catching from the shallow line up to the end of the match.

Alan Healy had been matching Steve's catch rate for most of the match but had lost a lot of foul-hooked fish, Paul Reed reckoned Alan had hooked 150lbs of fish but, as they say, the only ones that count are the ones in the net! The bank-walking rumour mill (Adam Caswell and Mark Radford) were saying that Chris Zak on peg 16 had at least 30 carp, caught on paste and Ryan Jordan on peg 29 had also done well along with new member and CFL regular Mike Smith. However, Steve sealed a comfortable win and also secured the £22 golden peg putting over 77lbs onto the scales followed by Alan with 53-5 and Chris with 43-4.

Overall Result: