Shiplate, Main Lake, 18 Jan (13 pegs)

Prior to this match I did receive some cheery news courtesy of Pete Sivell who I came across in Scotts on Saturday morning.

Apparently, during the Thursday evening Docks match Alan Healey somehow managed to jettison his seat box and everything attached to it into the water.

Luckily for him he managed to hang on to it long enough for someone younger and fitter to turn up to drag it all back out.

That would have been one match where I would really have liked to have been pegged next to him!

Anyway 13 fishing today on a very soggy Shiplate main lake and with cold bright conditions and a gentle breeze putting a bit of ripple on the lake I was hoping that even if the carp weren't playing ball the silvers might, and especially the big bream that inhabit this lake.

And with all of Psv's silvers specialists present (except Lee Williams who has an identity crisis) I was expecting an interesting match.

So with this in mind we settled for top 3 overall and 2 silvers payouts.

And put 7 on the sheltered far bank and 6 on the underwater bank.

(Guess who never brought waterproof boots)!

Peg 5 for me then, and for company I had Adam Caswell on 6, who for some strange reason was keen to lose a pound, and to my right, on peg 4, was Lee Waller who would be fishing for silvers as he doesn't own a topkit with anything over 4 elastic.

Opposite I had Simon Belcham on 12, also likely to be sprat bashing, and he was sandwiched between Alan and Matt Challenger (another silvers expert).

The hot peg (15) was occupied by Mark Radford so first place looked pretty much sewn up but he did have Derek Lucas next to him on 14B so he would be pressured!
Brian Shanks was on peg 1 and I had been reliably informed by one of the resident experts that peg 1 will fish well when peg 15 doesn't (and vice versa) so that would be interesting.

Strangely then, on the all-in shout Mr Belcham went out on the feeder and before I had finished potting in a few micros, casters and stunned maggots on my pole lines he was playing and landing his first carp ....

And not long after that Matt Challenger was fiddling with the scales to weigh a 4lb9oz grass carp .... So much for my pre-match assessment then.

I had started the match with the intention of fishing the waggler with corn and a couple of pole lines with stunned maggot / caster or corn for bait.

Normally I would have mixed up some groundbait the previous night but having got in at 3:30 Sunday morning I hadn't and I didn't fancy mixing any before the match as the water was too cold!

So I made do with some soaked micros.

As per my plan I started on the wag with corn and after an hour that had only produced just one dip on the float that came out of the blue and I missed it. 

Various combinations of numbers and colours of maggot had only given weightless roachlets and by that time the wind had got a bit stronger and was blowing at me and to my left which was dragging the float along a bit so, with the three anglers opposite having all caught carp on the tip (Alan had also hooked a carp but fortunately lost it) I gave in to temptation and dug out a lead rod with a pellet feeder attached.

This was plopped out with a couple of stunned maggots on the hook.

After 15 minutes an 8oz hybrid saved the blank (always a relief) and another 15 minutes later the tip went round again and something was on that was shaking it's head but not really pulling back very hard.

I was hoping it was one of the big bream and wound it in very gingerly but as it got nearer the bank it started to wake up a bit and turned into a carp that needed a bit of juggling to fit into the landing net which was a bonus!

Trying the pole lines with maggot over micros was slow going but a couple of small skimmers kept me interested.

Especially as nobody else seemed to be catching much.

Adam meanwhile had gone for another wander to leave his bait mountain to settle and revealed that Mark on 15 had, as expected, caught a few carp.

Shanksy was struggling on peg 1, Darren North on peg 3 was admitting to at least one carp, a tench and a few skimmers.

And Lee next door was playing around with micro roach although I did see him land a carp that he was vastly understating as "a small one".

Adam was on ounces until the last half hour at which point he snared a 5lb bream that had taken a liking to the bait mountain.

I spent the rest of the match swapping around without much success until 10 minutes from the end when I hooked a carp on the pole line on a single caster.

Once netted there were just a couple of minutes left so there would be no injury time fished today as I knew I had a decent weight!

Mark weighed in first and his four carp (caught on 8mm pellet) were, as expected, good enough to win with 21lbs 7½oz.

Next best on that bank was Matt Challenger who added 4-9 of silvers to his grass carp for a total of 10-8.

Me Healey could only manage 7-5, Adam's "slab" boosted his weight to 5-9 which was good enough to win the silvers and I was pleasantly surprised to find my 2 carp and 2-14 of silvers totalled 20-6 and was good enough for 2nd.

Lee's 5-4 of bits was good enough for 2nd in the silvers and Darren managed a total of 16-14 which was good enough for 3rd.

Full Result:

1. Mark Radford (peg 15) ....... 21-7½
2. Steve Burgess (5) ........... 20-6
3. Darren North (3) ............ 16-14
4. Lee Waller* (4) .............. 14-14
5. Matt Challenger (13) ...... 10-8
6. Simon Belcham (12) ....... 8-7
7. Alan Healey (11) ............ 7-5
8. Ryan Radford (14) .......... 6-7
9. Adam Caswell (6) ........... 5-9
10. Keith (7) .................. 1-1
11. and 3 dnw's (including peg 1)

*golden peg

 

 

Silvers: 

1. Adam (1 fish) Caswell ..... 5-9
2. Lee (lots of fish) Waller .... 5-4
3. Matt Challenger ........... 4-9
4. Darren North ............... 4-4
5. Alan Healey ................ 2-15
6. Steve Burgess ............ 2-14
7. Simon Belcham .......... 2-7
8. Keith ................ 1-1
9. Ryan Radford ..... 0-13
10. Mark Radford ..... 0-1½

Oh, and if anyone's wondering what Mark Radford's ½oz is all about ....

Adam volunteered to take charge of the weigh-in (a thankless task), and Mark wasn't overly happy that his solitary roach was called at 1oz so I gave him an extra ½ to shut him up, even though he had clearly won the match ... no pleasing some people!