Following a month of Arctic hell and, for many of us, no fishing since the end of November it only seemed fair that after a week of reasonable(ish) temperatures Saturday night saw the return of the gritters and sure enough Sunday morning greeted us with a substantial frost and part-frozen lakes.
Although 10 booked in for the match that number was reduced to only seven as the Spitfire Pilot was waylaid with manflu, the Pheasant Beater was out with torn ligaments (can someone please tell Alan Healy that football is not for grown men in their forties) and Mark Radford had to ferry young Ryan to his football match (never have children with a women that can't drive)!
Fortunately though this was a bonus as with half the lake frozen it meant there was plenty of room for the remaining seven to spread out on the ice-free pegs.
But, being a bit rusty from the long lay-off and Saturday night alcohol consumption, our Match Secretary still managed to peg the wrong half which resulted in the first "redraw" of 2011.
Anyway, after that small hiccup , the match was underway by 10:30 and by 11:30 nobody had even had a sniff of a bite! That was until, predictably, Steve Burgess on peg 49 managed to convince Viaduct's most stupid skimmer to eat his maggot and caster cocktail bait (sorry Bob) which signalled the start of an impressive run of two fish (an equally stupid perch taken on maggot at 14m followed 45 minutes later).
After a quiet spell of an hour or so, Paul Reed (yes, you read that correctly) on peg 47 managed to snare a skimmer on caster to his miscast feeder setup and finally over on peg 40, Ade "creepy" Crawley (yes, you read that correctly too) finally managed to convert one of his many bites into something solid in the shape of a skimmer on the groundbait feeder with pinkie on the hook.
And that was it, four fish .... but still four more fish than at the last match on Spring lake, although it later turned out that there had been a knock-up on the lake the day before and nobody had weighed under 20lbs but I will blame that on the overnight frost and calm, bright conditions and not the fact that we are all completely crap anglers!
It may be of value to note that apart from Steve Burgess' 2 fish haul the only pegs to produce anything were the end pegs which makes me think that any fish with sense backed off to the safety of the iced over side of the lake to escape capture.
And also, Tony Rixon, there's no such thing as a "healthy options" fry-up so there was no need to have a hissy fit in the cafe at Shipham!
Full Result:
- Steve Burgess ..... peg 49 .... 2lbs 4oz
- Ade Crawley ........ peg 40 .... 1lb 7oz
- Paul Reed ............ peg 47 .... 1lb 5oz
Average Weight = 11.4oz
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