Shiplate Farm, Hawthorn. 22 January 2012 (15 pegs)

There is a vicious rumour circulating the match angling fraternity that this blog only ever gets updated when the Match Secretary has a good day .... so this should well and truly put that to rest with absolutely no bitterness involved whatsoever!
And so with all fifteen pegs filled it meant the pegging wouldn't be too much of a problem and having counted out the pegs twice over, there was little chance of there being a redraw, and there wasn't fortunately, which meant that the biggest problem would be down to the blustery wind.  And fortunately again that was straight off our backs so there was no real problem there either .... so far so good!

Chris Gay with "25lbs" which miraculously turned into 54lbs!

As far as the match itself went it was pretty much business as usual with Chris  Gay (left) being closest on hand to draw the golden peg (peg 1) and then proceeding to "innocently" draw it for himself (strangely) and then win it!
And with Alan spawny bollox Healy using some kind of Jedi powers to cement second place ahead of up-and-coming superstar, Will Dearlove, closely followed by the "gruesome twosome" of Simon Belcham and Darren North in fourth and fifth respectively.

Will doing his best impression of Freddie Mercury!

For the record, Chris Gay spent half the first half of the match fishing up to the rope barrier on the left bank of peg one fishing maggot over micro with a few maggots catapulted over the top and caught just off the deck by regularly lifting and dropping.  He spent the remaining part of the match at 13m across to the far bank using the exact same tactics as before and cruised to victory with 54lbs 11oz.
Alan, on peg 11, fished on top of the far shelf at 13m with maggot for 28lbs exactly and Will (pictured above) had one carp across and the rest down the inside edge from a slight depression in the bottom, again on maggot / micro for 20lbs 4oz.

Stevie Wynne contemplating life after 5hrs pegged next to Mike Wilson

It was a first visit for many of us to Shiplate and it must be said that this looks like rapidly becoming one of the top venues locally thanks to the top quality facilities and warm welcome from owners Steve and Carol.
More info for Shiplate can be found here or alternatively look for the Shiplate Farm page on Facebook.

Overall result:

1. Chris Gay* .... peg 1 ... 54-11
2. Alan Healy ...........11 ... 28-0
3. Will Dearlove ....... 4 .... 20-4
4. Simon Belcham ... 10 ... 17-4
5. Darren North ....... 12 ... 14-15
6. Keith Ray ............ 13 ... 14-8
7. Mike Welling ........ 8 ..... 12-5
8. Bob Warren ......... 9 ..... 8-4
9. Mike Wilson ......... 6 ..... 7-12
10. Rich Britton ......... 3 ..... 7-2
11. Paul Reed ............ 15 .... 6-4
12. Kev Jefferies ........ 14 .... 6-4
13. Stevie Wynne ....... 5 ..... 5-1
14. Derek Lucas ......... 2 ... dnw
15. Steve Burgess ...... 7 ... dnw

*yep, golden peg!