You can tell winter is drawing to a close and spring is on it's way .... the mornings are lighter, the birds are up and about their business, dead badgers line the sides of the roads and the likes of Rich Jones and Chris Szakacs start turning up at matches after their winter hibernation. It won't be long before we will be having the pleasure of Trigger's company in his shorts and flip-flops!
Due to the lack of dining establishments en route to that jewel of the Cotswolds that is Burley Fields, I had managed to convince the owners of the Bell Inn at Shurdington to forgo their Sunday lie-in in order to feed thirteen hungry blokes from Bristol which they were more than happy to do. Unfortunately the chef was either hungover or suffering from Alzheimers and it could hardly have been described as either cheap or nice but the landlady was pleasant enough and I guess you can't win em all!
I should have read the signs there and then when she questioned whether we had phoned Pam and Steve to let them know we were coming over as it can sometimes get busy on weekends.
Anyway, bear with me here, but over the years you can easily become accustomed to fishing at well organised and well run fisheries such as Viaduct, Sedges and Trinity to name just three. So it makes a refreshing change every once in a while to fish somewhere where disorganised chaos reigns supreme and topping the list of such venues is Burley Fields!
So having phoned the owner three days previous and asked him to put a sign up to say the match lake was booked it came as no surprise to find seven anglers already on the lake and setting up for a match of their own.
On further investigation it turned out that they had phoned to confirm their match on the previous evening! So without the benefit of Dean Malin to threaten to throw then all in the lake if they didn't pack up and move (as was the case on a previous occasion) it was off to wake the owner's boyfriend / fishery manager / pig farmer / village idiot to come down and sort the mess out.
So the outcome of it was that we, that is Chris 'don't worry I've fished this lake before' Gay, managed to slot in 13 pegs on the carp lake in between the bivvies and rodpods for our silvers match where any carp caught count as 1lb and which was pole-only (despite the expanse of water) due to most of us having not brought rods!
But to his credit Mr pig farmer / fishery manager / village idiot generously only charged us the peg fees instead of the usual £100 , bless him!
Fortunately the quality of the fishing saved the day with roach and skimmers feeding well all over the lake.
Psv newcomer Kev Jefferies made the best of a good draw, peg 1, which was the first peg to the left of the bridge that separates the main lake from the double-booked match lake. Kev spent most of the match fishing straight in front at 11m with soft pellet over micros and caught good sized skimmers to over 2lbs plus quality roach for a convincing winning total of 46lbs 6oz.
He would most probably have had a fair bit more had he not been hampered by the awkward bank and fence that meant he had to break his pole down section by section to ship in.
Second place went to Chris Szakacs on peg 4 with 33lbs 6oz of skimmers and roach taken at 14m on maggot over micros followed by Darren North in amongst the bivvies on peg 13 with 30lbs 4oz.
Despite only one carp being caught, Rich Britton's 9lb fish landed on a 6m whip and 1.5lb hooklength, only two anglers weighed in less than twenty pounds which shows the quality of the silvers fishing.
Full Result:
Due to the lack of dining establishments en route to that jewel of the Cotswolds that is Burley Fields, I had managed to convince the owners of the Bell Inn at Shurdington to forgo their Sunday lie-in in order to feed thirteen hungry blokes from Bristol which they were more than happy to do. Unfortunately the chef was either hungover or suffering from Alzheimers and it could hardly have been described as either cheap or nice but the landlady was pleasant enough and I guess you can't win em all!
I should have read the signs there and then when she questioned whether we had phoned Pam and Steve to let them know we were coming over as it can sometimes get busy on weekends.
Anyway, bear with me here, but over the years you can easily become accustomed to fishing at well organised and well run fisheries such as Viaduct, Sedges and Trinity to name just three. So it makes a refreshing change every once in a while to fish somewhere where disorganised chaos reigns supreme and topping the list of such venues is Burley Fields!
So having phoned the owner three days previous and asked him to put a sign up to say the match lake was booked it came as no surprise to find seven anglers already on the lake and setting up for a match of their own.
On further investigation it turned out that they had phoned to confirm their match on the previous evening! So without the benefit of Dean Malin to threaten to throw then all in the lake if they didn't pack up and move (as was the case on a previous occasion) it was off to wake the owner's boyfriend / fishery manager / pig farmer / village idiot to come down and sort the mess out.
So the outcome of it was that we, that is Chris 'don't worry I've fished this lake before' Gay, managed to slot in 13 pegs on the carp lake in between the bivvies and rodpods for our silvers match where any carp caught count as 1lb and which was pole-only (despite the expanse of water) due to most of us having not brought rods!
But to his credit Mr pig farmer / fishery manager / village idiot generously only charged us the peg fees instead of the usual £100 , bless him!
Fortunately the quality of the fishing saved the day with roach and skimmers feeding well all over the lake.
Psv newcomer Kev Jefferies made the best of a good draw, peg 1, which was the first peg to the left of the bridge that separates the main lake from the double-booked match lake. Kev spent most of the match fishing straight in front at 11m with soft pellet over micros and caught good sized skimmers to over 2lbs plus quality roach for a convincing winning total of 46lbs 6oz.
He would most probably have had a fair bit more had he not been hampered by the awkward bank and fence that meant he had to break his pole down section by section to ship in.
Second place went to Chris Szakacs on peg 4 with 33lbs 6oz of skimmers and roach taken at 14m on maggot over micros followed by Darren North in amongst the bivvies on peg 13 with 30lbs 4oz.
Despite only one carp being caught, Rich Britton's 9lb fish landed on a 6m whip and 1.5lb hooklength, only two anglers weighed in less than twenty pounds which shows the quality of the silvers fishing.
Full Result:
- Kev Jefferies ... peg1 ... 46-6
- Chris Szakacs .... 4 ..... 33-6
- Darren North ....13 ..... 30-4
- Keith Ray .......... 7 ..... 29-3
- Brian Shanks ..... 11 .... 28-8
- Simon Belcham .. 12 ... 26-15
- Rich Jones .......... 8 .... 26-14
- Steve Wynne ....... 3 ... 26-10
- Chris Gay ........... 6 .... 25-4
- Rich Britton ........ 10 ... 22-10
- Steve Burgess* ... 9 .... 20-13
- Derek Lucas ........ 5 .... 19-13
- Colin Butler ......... 2 .... 9-4
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