Instead I'd offered to pick up "Little Les" aka Adam Caswell but this did mean travelling into deepest, darkest Knowle and as I had no idea where I was going around the backstreets of Beirut it was a case of lock the doors, don't stop for anything and pray the Satnav doesn't let me down.
Fortunately it didn't (almost) and as a result we were around the first arrivals at Lilypool cafe in Shipham which is a new one for me.
Arriving at Viaduct, on time for once, it was also good to discover that the immaculately turned out Will Daiwalove, who had been given a day pass by his wife (seriously), had pretty much sorted everything out for me and for my penance I was given the choice of the two last tickets.
I chose 125 and Will ended up with 129 so both good pegs and mine had won the match the day before so no complaints were forthcoming.
A trip to Viaduct HQ with the weigh sheet revealed The Gimp boiling a dozen maggots to death to provide 6hrs-worth of hookbaits - I prefer to freeze mine humanely but I guess either way is fairly unpleasant if you're a maggot - but anyway, Paul advised I concentrate on chucking a lead or full-depth wag out into the centre of the lake, slightly to the left, where the fish would be queuing up to be caught.
I was happy with that as they were the only rods I had made-up anyway.
So on arriving at my peg I stuck those two rods together and set up a rig for 6m to use up the tin of meat I'd bought.
For company I had the comedy partnership of Steve O Toole and Lee Waller on 126 and 128 and up in 123 was Ryan Radford which was today's Golden Peg and therefore safe because, as everyone knows, this peg is stuffed full of big fat skimmers and tench!
Across from me Keith Ray had occupied 119 with Rich Jones next to him on 118.
And next down was another comedy partnership of Rocket Ron Hardiman (116) and Brian Shanks (115) who had disguised himself as Clint Elliot.
The start was on time as I'd only had to set up one rig and after feeding the meat line I started off on the tip with an 11mm pellet in the band and gave it the obligatory pellet barrage.
After a short wait the rod bent double and a good sized fish was soon in the net to start the ball rolling.
I wasn't alone though, as Ryan had somehow managed to avoid the skimmers and tench and was on his second carp. And a few others had early fish as well including Rich Jones and also Stevie Wynne down on 112.
Chris Szakacs, who hadn't been too happy with drawing 110 again was also catching.
Meanwhile i was finding it slow going and with 45 minutes gone had only added another fish to my nets.
So the tip rod was dumped and teplaced by the full-depth wag rod but it didn't improve my catch rate and by now Ryan was leaving me standing and I was just about holding my own elsewhere.
I was also finding it tricky to get the wag out to where I'd been sending the pellet artillery and it wasn't until the end of the second hour and a few more fish later that I discovered the problem which was that the line was wrapped around the tip between the tip eye and the next one down, which was most likely due to setting the rods up last night in the kitchen whilst being distracted by The X-Factor and bottles of Stella.
That was duly sorted and after that the float cast out a whole lot better but it still never really made much of a difference to my catch rate which was slow but consistent.
Ryan meanwhile was getting one-a-chuck on 8mm banded pellet at 13m and by the half-way stage Brian Shanks had gotten his act together after going through various methods (I'm sure I even saw a lead plop out at one stage) and was catching steadily on the pole on the deck I think.
Halfway through the match and even Steve O Toole was getting carp next down to me on the pole line, although he was having a bit of drama getting them in, all the same I had a look on the pole line with meat on the hook and had two fish straight away but lost the second one which killed it so I was soon back out on the wag / tip.
By now the fish were swirling on the feed so, not having had a pellet wag set up, I shallowed up the waggler rig and tried that which resulted in no fish and a couple of foulers that broke the hooklengths, back on the tip then while I re-made the waggler rod.
The last hour was my best hour and I even managed a couple that snatched the hookbait as it landed including the best fish of the day.
Brian also was having a late charge catching regular fish from his margins and it was looking like he was going to give Ryan a run for his money as Ryan was struggling by then but it turned out he had done enough, uncomfortably winning with 161-0 which resulted in a good earner with £60 winnings and £48 for the Golden peg.
I say "uncomfortably winning" as his first net went 79-12 and so was 4oz away from being disqualified.
Brian managed second with 134-12 and sneaking into 3rd was Will Daiwalove with 125-8 ahead of myself with 113-13.
The Silvers pool was won by Lee Waller with 18-2 from 127 just ahead of his neighbour Colin Butler who weighed in 15-2
Full Result:
Ryan meanwhile was getting one-a-chuck on 8mm banded pellet at 13m and by the half-way stage Brian Shanks had gotten his act together after going through various methods (I'm sure I even saw a lead plop out at one stage) and was catching steadily on the pole on the deck I think.
Halfway through the match and even Steve O Toole was getting carp next down to me on the pole line, although he was having a bit of drama getting them in, all the same I had a look on the pole line with meat on the hook and had two fish straight away but lost the second one which killed it so I was soon back out on the wag / tip.
By now the fish were swirling on the feed so, not having had a pellet wag set up, I shallowed up the waggler rig and tried that which resulted in no fish and a couple of foulers that broke the hooklengths, back on the tip then while I re-made the waggler rod.
The last hour was my best hour and I even managed a couple that snatched the hookbait as it landed including the best fish of the day.
Brian also was having a late charge catching regular fish from his margins and it was looking like he was going to give Ryan a run for his money as Ryan was struggling by then but it turned out he had done enough, uncomfortably winning with 161-0 which resulted in a good earner with £60 winnings and £48 for the Golden peg.
I say "uncomfortably winning" as his first net went 79-12 and so was 4oz away from being disqualified.
Brian managed second with 134-12 and sneaking into 3rd was Will Daiwalove with 125-8 ahead of myself with 113-13.
The Silvers pool was won by Lee Waller with 18-2 from 127 just ahead of his neighbour Colin Butler who weighed in 15-2
 |
| Ryan Radford |
Full Result:
- Ryan Radford (peg 123)* ..... 161-0
- Brian Shanks (115) ........... 134-12
- Will Daiwalove (129) ......... 125-8
- Steve Burgess (125) ......... 113-13
- Ron Hardiman (116) ......... 106-8
- Richard Jones (118) .......... 105-10
- Chris Szakacs (110) .......... 104-12
- Steve Wynne (112) ........... 90-2
- Steve O Toole (126) .......... 89-1
- Keith Ray (119) ................ 78-4
- Lee Waller (127) ............... 54-14
- Mark Radford (111) ........... 34-10
- Adam Caswell (132) .......... 30-2
- Colin Butler (128) ............. 15-2
- John Bradford (114) .......... 10-12
- and one dnw read all about it here!
*golden peg
Silvers:
There was a bit of controversy today but fortunately not in our match.
Next door on Cary another club was fishing a match and I guess they weren't regular visitors as there seemed to be a bit of a misunderstanding over the net limits.
One guy went over the 70lbs limit and as a result missed out on winning the match and didn't take it to well.
Apparently he reckoned that their match secretary hadn't explained the rules properly and had given the impression that a couple of pounds over the "70" wouldn't matter as long as it was under 80lbs
He then decided that the match organiser, the club and the fishery were all a bunch of ***** and stormed off after resigning from the club!
And on a lighter note ... please note that Psv members wanting to fish the Christmas match at Bitterwell (Sunday 07 December) will need to get their £15 pools to Mike Wilson or myself by, or at, the November meeting which is on Tuesday 04 November at The Midland Spinner, Warmley.
Silvers:
- Lee Waller (127) ..... 18-2
- Colin Butler (128) .... 15-2
- Mark Radford (111) ... 13-10
- John Bradford (114) ... 10-12
- Will Daiwalove (129) ... 10-6
There was a bit of controversy today but fortunately not in our match.
Next door on Cary another club was fishing a match and I guess they weren't regular visitors as there seemed to be a bit of a misunderstanding over the net limits.
One guy went over the 70lbs limit and as a result missed out on winning the match and didn't take it to well.
Apparently he reckoned that their match secretary hadn't explained the rules properly and had given the impression that a couple of pounds over the "70" wouldn't matter as long as it was under 80lbs
He then decided that the match organiser, the club and the fishery were all a bunch of ***** and stormed off after resigning from the club!
And on a lighter note ... please note that Psv members wanting to fish the Christmas match at Bitterwell (Sunday 07 December) will need to get their £15 pools to Mike Wilson or myself by, or at, the November meeting which is on Tuesday 04 November at The Midland Spinner, Warmley.
Well done Ryan , did dad mark win on the bingo Saturday night then,
ReplyDeleteLoving my new name steve i might have to trade mark it, until the next pass. Will
ReplyDeleteI was proud of that Will
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