Bristol PSV Fishing Club: Psv vs Frys, Shiplate (Hawthorn & Westpool), 14 July

Unusually there was a bit of a mix-up this week as we were due to have the whole complex, I had booked up the 2 canals and Frys had booked the main lake (hence the inter-club) but for some unknown reason owner Steve had his summer series on the main lake and this only came to light by chance when I phoned on Saturday afternoon just to check.

So there followed a flurry of phone calls and texts as I was worried everyone would turn up geared up to fish the main lake or worse still we would not have enough pegs.

As it turned out a couple of our lot cancelled as they didn't fancy fishing the canals and we were left with 24 fishing which was nice as it gave us four sections of six.

That wasn't the end of our woes as after the draw John Macey found himself pegged on Hawthorns 16 (Merv organised the pegging) which by my reckoning put him on the stock pond behind Hawthorns or possibly somewhere on the River Axe!

Luckily that one was easily sorted and everyone was reasonably happy.

Apparently the Frys boys are used to this sort of thing on a Sunday morning but it was a bit of a new one on me as we are used to our matches running like clockwork!

I do like these matches even if they are a tad disorganised as you get to see some old faces and it's nice to have someone different next door to wind up.

For my sins, on Hawthorns 11, I was sandwiched between Shane Caswell and Rod Wooton so I had plenty of opportunity for a bit of nonsense.

The only downside was that I was still within earshot of Pete Sivell on H9 but then again so was everyone else!
Hawthorns was the favoured destination although an end peg on either lake was what most fancied. As it turned out both lakes fished ok, no huge weights but a fair match that could have produced a winner from anywhere (except maybe the first half on Westpool which was a bit grim).
Winner on the day, who tried to play down his catch rate and failed miserably, was Pete Sivell on Hawthorns 9. Pete took advantage of an empty peg 8 and fished down the track with paste for a total of 68-6.
Second, was Jason Bird (pictured below) who made the best of a gift of a peg (Hawthorns 1) to weigh in 53-6. Take note Chris Fox!
Third place went the way of Matt Challenger with 50-2 from Westpool 11 and top silvers was Mike Fergusson on Hawthorns 3 with 8-0.
As for me, I had a few fish across early on caster but gave it up as although there were a few fish over on the far shelf they didn't seem to want to settle on the feed presumably down to the bright conditions and shallow water.
I spent the rest of the day fannying around with caster shallow out in front and with corn in the margins for a total of not a great deal but slightly more than Alan Healy so I managed to put another dent in his pound coin collection even if I did have to hand it straight back to Pete Sivell who, I might add, was more than a bit pleased with taking that off me as I think I was 2-0 up on him until then and he (like Alan) doesn't take to kindly to batterings!
I'm guessing that Rod Wooton next door on 10 had been picking up tips from my exploits at Landsend as he spent the day across amongst the sedges on the far bank where he hooked and lost about 5 times as much as he landed, including a very disgruntled duck which was probably the only thing he caught all day that actually took his bait properly in the mouth.

Pictured above is Jason Bird with part of his catch.

Jason's rather smug-looking grin actually has nothing to do with his days fishing but stems back to one of our matches a few weeks back at Rood Ashton where, when he was weighed in, I may have mentioned that he should stick to fishing down the Docks where he would have done alright. It turns out that he was a bit taken aback by that and was only too happy to shove that back down my throat (bless him).

Full Result: