Thursday 16 February 2017

Thursday 16/02/2017 - Bathampton AA - Silver League - Round Four - Dave Crookes Fishery - Bridge pool

I had a reasonable breakfast with good company, John Smith and Pete Greenslade in Hanham, arriving at the draw in plenty of time to find out that Callum Dicks couldn’t make it today so sent stand-in Des Shipp.

Before the draw Mike Jones apparently tried to have a pee but found an obstacle in the way. He said he had put his trousers on back to front; however, some say it was left over’s from Valentines Day and still had his wives knickers on!!

I was in Section D today which was peg 21 to 30. I didn’t mind where I was so when I drew peg 26 again there was no emotion. It was good to see Rich Coles back fishing, but sorry Jim Norris wouldn’t be standing in for him. Apparently Jim has replaced the three sections of pole blown in last match.

I set up two 4x16 F1 winter floats, one yellow top and the other black to fish the latter at top-set plus three and the yellow as it happened all over the swim! The word was that it would fish very hard, which I had no reason to doubt especially as the water was extremely clear. I started by feeding a knub of my GB laced with a few frozen Pinkies and with double on the hook on the black top float I was amazed to catch a 12oz Skimmer first try. For the next 1 hour and 45 minutes I caught well putting 11lb in the net which included a 2 ½ lb Tench. Subsequently the swim completely died. Over the next 3 ¾ hours all I could add was another 14 ounces. I tried all sorts, but the swim doesn’t have a decent up the shelf swim that I could reach, so couldn’t get the caster going. However, I was winning the section until the last five minutes when Chris Rolfe on peg 28 landed a 1 ½ lb Skimmer. No comment on the early whistle.

I finished the match with 11lb 14oz for section second and 7th overall. The upside to my frustrating 3 ¾ hours is that I am 90% certain I know why it happened.

The match was won by John Fuidge (pictured right) with 22lb 7oz from peg 8. John caught switching between 13 and 14.5 metres using dead red hook bait over small balls of micro. His catch included some decent Skimmers to 4lb.

A nice finish to the day with a pint of Doombar in the Compton Dando Arms with the usual suspects.

Full Result:

A Section: Steve Dawson 18-0-0 peg 32
A Section: Dave Wride 15-15-0 peg 3
B Section: John Fuidge 22-07-0 peg 8
B Section: Des Shipp 13-05-0 peg 10
C Section: Tony Rixon 14-0-0 peg 15
C Section: Steve Tanner 4-0-0 peg 16
D Section: Chris Rolfe 12-14-0 peg 28
D Section: Mike Nicholls 11-14-0 peg 26

Weigh Sheets:




1 comment:

Mike Jones said...

You will be hearing from my lawyer, it was not trousers but a thermal under suit with elasticated waist. An easy mistake to make whilst getting dressed in the dark!!