Saturday Open. 4th Sept 2010

Today 11 anglers turned up for the open match, a few people had dropped out last minute so this was more of a knock up match. At the draw John Bennett drew first for a change and held the peg in his hand until everyone else had drawn. Me and Marcus had drawn pegs 6 and 7 but also kept them in our hands. As everyone gave there peg numbers to Paul, John thought he was to be on either pegs 6 or 7 but was quite upset to find he actually had endpeg 26 in his hand 😀

Fishing today was from 1-45pm to 6-45pm. On the whistle Dave Whiteman on peg 8 was right in to a fish, his bait had not even his the bottom and the float buried. Chris Lovelock fishing from peg 32 had a bit of a nightmare breaking his topkit. He hooked a fish behind the bush which broke his pole, unknown to him his topkit had wedged under the platform on peg 33. He went round and picked it up and the fish was still on, as he lifted it up it broke again and he lost the fish 🙁

Endpegs 4 and 26 were producing a steady run of fish for Jeff on peg 4 and John on peg 26 but John on peg 16 who was fishing the grass to his right was flying along making regular visits to the weigh station. Marcus on peg 6 had been putting a few fish in the net also fishing over by peg 5 platform and Paul Jay on 30 was having a few fishing at 8 meters.

Poor Justin fishing on peg 9 was having a right nightmare with fish regularly taking him in the bush, having just lost a rig in the bush he tied a new rig and dropped it in only to have that one go in the bush too. Mark on peg 18 was fishing to the newly trimmed bush, Paul Jay and John had been round doing a bit of bush maintenance before the match.

I had a nice time fishing on peg 7 for the first time ever. Fishing was hard with lots of liners and foul hooked fish on the feeder and only a skimmer and one carp coming from the 6 meter line. I did manage to snare a 17lb 12oz carp from the margin to my right. Both me and Dave we getting lots of liners fishing across to the opposite bank.

Paul Blew the whistle and news came round the lake that John Hague had 202lb on the board but was it good enough to win today.

Results.

Position Name Peg Weight
1 John Hague 16 238-12
2 Jeff Edwards 4 232-4
3 John Bennett 26 217-8
4 Paul Jay 30 136-0
5 Justin Watkins 9 130-0
5 Marcus Burgess 6 130-0
7 Mark Orchard 18 106-0
8 Dave Whiteman 8 98-8
9 Simon Mound 7 77-4
10 Chris Lovelock 32 46-4
11 Bill 10 DNW

Yes it was, Well done John. Another big weight 🙂 It was a close match for the top 3 in the end, Only one fish separated Jeff Edwards and John Hague.

Todays Winner, John Hague.

Thanks for reading, Si and Eddie….

Bank holiday Monday 30th August 2010.

The battle between The Minx and Simon Mound.

On arriving at the lake today i was greeted by a near full lake of anglers already into their second hours fishing in todays Bank holiday Mondays open. I was not fishing today having just arrived back from holiday in Spain the evening before so i was pretty tired but not that tired to stop giving the regulars their normal helping of banter. As a prank directed at me their were a few anglers sporting the new in head gear created by me of the bandana cap which was being modelled by a few anglers today { thanks John , Paul and Niel }.

Crew members Paul and Neil.

Around the lake the usual suspect were catching fish with Chris Lovelock on peg 16 catching regular on a long line out fished on the deck, Hugh Crawford was on 8 , John Bennett on end peg 18 and Trevor Stanley on form peg 6. Elsewhere the other anglers were struggling to catch fish with Pat Pritchard on 23 having lots of fish up in the water but was struggling to get them in any numbers, Geoff Edwards on peg 26 was giving me a great demonstration of brilliant bites on paste but no fish in return.

On peg 30 my web partner Simon was claiming to a few fish on all methods so was quite happy also because his girlfriend Gemma { aka Mrs Mound } had not caught anything as there was no usual scream to be heard when she caught her first carp so there was no minxing to be had for him, and Paul Jay was doing his usual catch one fish lose the next three so at least he was keeping busy.

After about another hour i left Geoff to see a few guys around the lake and take a few photo’s and ended up at Gemma’s peg which was peg 4 and now she had caught two small roach but was struggling to catch any carp, a bit of advice on coming a little bit shorter in at about 5 metres seemed to sort this out as on her first put in had a carp of 13lb then lost one and then started to get more bites. I left Gemma having caught 5 carp and went around to watch Geoff for the last hour and passed Simon on the way around who was now sweating as he knew Gemma was catching him up and the chance of a minxing was deffinitley on so i have never seen Simon concentrate so much to add to his catch.

On arriving at Geoff peg he was now bagging as was Chris on 16 ,Paul on 10 Pat on 23 and John on 18 so it was going to be a good finish to the match as everyone seemed to into fish as the match reached the last few minutes, and as time was called it was difficult to workout who had actually won as Trevor on peg 6 had also had a good days fishing.

In first place today was eventually Geoff Edwards who after missing all those bites had managed to get the fish lined up by fishing the bush to his right and by using paste managed to get the bigger carp to 19lb to feed and after 5 hours caught 208-14 for another win { well done Geoff }.

In the battle for second place was three anglers Neil on 32 ,Trevor on 6, Pat on 23 and in the end only one fish seperated the three of them and after the weigh-in Trevor on 6 got the decision with 188-08 with Neil second having 185-00 and in fourth was Pat with 179-06.

As for the battle between Simon and Gemma this was also close with Gemma eventually having 6 carp and two roach for 61-06 and Simon then having to sweat for thirty minutes whilst everyone else got weighed in and when the scales arrived after two weigh-ins weighed 75-08 and this meant more to him than winning the match as he went off to do his victory dance { who said there is no love in fishing }.

Results.

Place Angler Peg Weight
1st Geoff Edwards 26 208-14 Reading Angling Centre
2nd Trevor Stanley 6 188-08 Tumbley Bay A.C
3rd Neil Riddy 32 185–00 Jinx League
4th Pat Pritchard 23 179-06 Rolfslake
5th Paul Jay 10 168-12 Rolfslake
6th Chris Lovelock 16 152-08 Rolfslake
7th John Bennett 18 141-00 Rolfslake
8th Hugh Crawford 8 136-04 Rolfslake
9th Justin Watkins 29 123-12 Rolfslake
10th Dave Whiteman 34 102-00 Hydro 2000
11th Liam Barry 7 92-12 Rolfslake
12th Simon Mound 30 75-08 Jinx League
13th Bill 2 68-00 Rolfslake
14th Gemma Doyle { aka Mrs Mound } 4 61-06 Jinx League
15th Nick W-P 27 48-08 Jinx League
16th Lynas Neil 39 40-14 Rolfslake
17th Dai Thomas 36 15-00 Jinx League
1 6 7 8 9 10 21