Author: Simon

Cold Morning at the Lake

Round 3 of the winter league and Neil Riddy returns to fish and brings the ice with him, just like last year. Thanks Neil 😀

The weather at the lake at 9am was quite nice, not to cold and the sun was shining. John got the draw underway early today to allow people extra time to break the ice on thier pegs. Peg 32, 30, and 28 were free of ice as the wind had cleared it coming off the car park. Everyone had a cup of coffee except Derek who had his Redbull still wearing his slippers 😀

With the draw done people made their way round the lake to get their pegs to break the ice. On average it was between 1.5 inches to 2.5 inches. Malc had drawn peg 32 , Liam on peg 30 and Frank on peg 28 so they had no ice to break but went and helped their teams mates break their swims out… Fair play 🙂

The Big Lake

Looking towards the little lake

The all in was called by Malc at 11am and todays match was going to be 4 and a half hours. Derek Hammond on peg 34 had a carp right away while the rest of the little lake looked on with envy.

Derek Hammond on peg 34

The rest of us were not quite so lucky and were staring at a motionless floats for the start of the match. A few screams went out round the lake when people caught their first fish, myself included 😀 I had a perch from the swim in front of me promptly followed by another. But that was it for another hour. I did manage to catch 18 in total through the rest of the match though.

Paul gave me the keys to his peg, Peg 10

I then watched Phil on peg 9 catching what I think were fish but were not much bigger that my toenail 😀 Malc was impressed with the size of them and shouts across with some encouragement. Phil then slipped his net under a 2lb+ perch and wiped the smiles off our faces 😛

Phil Powell on peg 9

Malc over on peg 32

Geoff to my left on peg 13 was having a nightmare struggling to get a bite along with Steve on peg 14. I might as well say everyone was struggling for a bite really. Pat over on peg 26 was catching some bits, Liam on peg 30 was having some ‘netter’ silvers so he was doing ok. Frank on peg 28 had hooked 2 carp and lost them but hooked in to another and got it in. John was catching some valuable bits over on peg 21 too but failed to find where the carp had gone from last match.

Geoff on peg 13. No bites

But plenty of ice

Steve on peg 14. Another without a bite but still smiling

Fresh back from his honeymoon to catch one perch, Neil Riddy on peg 16

Clive on peg 18, Also one perch but it was bigger than Neils. In fact Double the size

John on peg 21, no wonder he is smiling.

Marcus on peg 23. Another without a bite but still had a warm head thanks to that lovely hat

Sorry Earnie, you picture came out all burred as you was moving that fast 😀

Pat on peg 26 finding a few bits, enough to win C Section. Well done.

Frank on peg 28. His carp was enough to win the match and B Section along with some silvers. Well done.

Liam on peg 30

Down in the little lake there was a bit of a commotion on peg 7 as Paul attempted to play a foul hooked carp on the rod. Malc shouted his normal encouragement across….. “You better hurry up and land that or your rod eyes will freeze up” 😀 He eventually got it in and it was enough to give him the A section win.

Dai and Steve on pegs 2 and 4 were dry while Steve and Pete on pegs 6 and 37 had both managed 1 fish, Mick Lane on peg 40 had caught slightly more. Derek on peg 34 had got some silvers to back up his carp but it was just short of Paul’s weight. Ian McCulloch was filling in for Gary Haisman today on peg 8 and was also fishless until 15 minutes from the end when he managed two perch.

Pete was happy he had one fish on peg 37

Mick 'Lurker' Lane on peg 40

Dai on peg 2. No bites today.

Steve won the last match but never caught from peg 4 in this match

Steve on peg 6, one perch 5 mins from the end gave him valuable points

Jammy bugger Paul Jay on peg 7. Least he was allowed to put his 12lb'er in the net today 😀 Well Done.

Ian on peg 8, 2 late fish got him some points for his team

In the last hour and half freezing fog had moved on to the lake and was freezing my swim back up, I had to keep breaking it with my cupping kit. The fog was quite bad and you could hardly see across the other side of the lake. The temperature also plummeted as the fog was wetting everything and then freezing.

The fog before it got worse taken by Malc, thanks.

3.30 and Malc called the all out much to everyone’s relief. Everyone was soon packed up and round to the hut for a hot drink. With not much been caught and a army of weigher inners the weigh in was soon done. Back round to the hut where John has prepared some hot tomato soup for everyone, Thanks John. It burnt the roof of my mouth off but warmed me up 😀

On to the Results.

OVERALL LEADERBOARD

Well done to all the winners today, well deserved on a rock hard day.

Frank Hardie won the carp pool with his single carp that went 14lb.

Derek Hammond won the Silver fish pool with 4lb.

RTG have edged in to the lead but are still within reach of 2nd and 3rd place. 3 Matches left and as we saw today a lot can happen. 5 Blanks 😯

The next Match is on the 19th December. Draw time will be announced when John see what the weather is doing closer to the time. Please remember to bring a bottle wine or spirit for the xmas match too.

Thanks for reading, Eddie and Simon.

Caption Contest Anyone ??

???? What comes to mind ?????