Bristol PSV Fishing Club: Leech pool 8/05/16

Couple of firsts today, first time the club had visited Leech pool and the first time that newly appointed assistant match secretary Adam Caswell was in charge of proceedings....what could possibly go wrong!!

Leech pool is basically a farm pond near melksham backing onto the owners farm house and out buildings, it is also stuffed solid with lots of carp of all sizes but mainly in the 12oz to 2lb range with the odd lump amongst them, you are usually guaranteed plenty of bites and it can turn into abit of a fish race. With that in mind it was abit strange why we could only muster eight anglers turning it into abit of a knock up although with the lake only taking twelve it did give the guys abit of room.

To be fair to Adam he did run everything fine even letting venue expert Chris Gay take care of the pegging and sorted monies and payouts with no fuss, we will see how he gets on with bigger venues with over twenty fishing but hes got off to a good start so all credit to him. Draw wise i dont think anyone was to fussed where they ended up but with the wind blowing strongly into the carpark bank that end did seem very favourable.

Into the drawbag and out popped peg 8 for me which was the bottom corner in alittle bay and end peg next to the farm house.

I had mixed reservations about the peg, having fished the lake before i knew it could throw up a weight but today it was a mill pond with the wind howling up the top end of the lake and what was more alarming was the clarity of the water being able to see the bottom up to four metres out! Pegs one to four had a strong wind blowing into them and were occupied by Alan Healy, Mark Radford, Ryan Radford and Chris Gay repectively and i fully expected these guys to be the ones to beat.

Simple plan of attack today start shallow at 11metres on hard 6mm pellet and just see what happens, after 45mins and only one 6oz carp in the net i was beginning to think id got it badly wrong again. Then the wind strength increased and adding a couple of sections and fishing on the edge of the ripple i started to string a few together although they were the smaller stamp fish

Elsewhere people were having varying levels of success, Rich Britton next door on peg seven started really well catching three or four on as many put ins but it was short lived as his swim just died a death and never recovered till the last hour, over on six Matt Challenger was catching in fits and starts on the paste and down on four Chris Gay seemed to be getting a few long down to the corner on corn. Alot of the action seemed to be taking place on pegs one and two next to the farm house with Alan and Mark going fish for fish for most of the match, unfortunatly for Alan his peg died in the last hour letting Mark forge ahead.

Over half way through and i decided on a change of tactics to try and increase my catch rate dumping in a big pot of 6mms on my thirteen metre line and fishing on the deck with a banded 8mm on the hook, this had an immediate effect as instead of the 6-12oz fish i was catching shallow i was now catching 2-4lbers it was never fast and furious but nice and steady even managing to snare a lovely ghostie of 7-8lbs and come the end no one was sure who'd won.

lucky for me the bigger stamp fish seem to make a difference enabling me to take first place on the day with 91lb 10oz

second place with his mainly shallow caught fish was Mark Radford with 82lb

followed closely by Alan Healy with 62lb 12oz

just behind was Matt Challenger with 61lb 14oz, i didnt get a pic of matt as he tipped back before i got the chance but did get one of fifth place and venue expert Chris Gay with his 52lb 4oz