Silverfox Match Angling: Thursday 21/04/2017 - Ray's Rip-Off

Friday 21 April 2017

Thursday 21/04/2017 - Ray's Rip-Off - Farleigh Woods

After a eight day lay-off from fishing due to family commitments I was really up for todays match.

Farleigh Woods today a new venue for most of the Coffin Dodgers including me and Geoff Francis. The venue came highly recommended by Chris Ollis. Apparently a venue difficult to find so ten of us we agreed to meet Dave “Satnav” Gillard at the Red Lion Sizzler at Combe Down for breakfast. The breakfast was strange being served on a slab of ceramic but more off putting was the ingredients were piled on top one another and on the bottom was fried onion – missed that on the menu – horrible repeating on me all day. The price was good though!

We all set off behind Satnav who on reaching the difficult part got lost. Luckily Geoff Francis satnav took over. What a strange place, definitely need to draw away from the venue to prevent a car parking nightmare. The lake looked really nice and natural with loads of Bankside cover. Having walked round there were only a couple of pegs I wouldn’t want.

Ray Bazeley having finally worked out that he had Alan Jones down twice the reason he had 21 anglers on his list and I had 20 on mine. I wonder if Alan paid twice. Into the draw hat and out came peg 13 – unlucky for some. After some good car parking attending by Dave Poole we all managed to get close enough to our pegs. For company I had Dave “Just Like That” Willmott on peg 12 and Pete Greenslade on peg 12. I was a bit concerned I was close to moaning corner with Paul Haines and Paul Barnfield in the next two pegs.

We were promised loads of Skimmers and later loads of Carp from the margins. I’ve heard it all before. With pleasure catches of 20 -30lb of Skimmers and Carp catches of 50lbs in match conditions you can half these weights and possibly reduce further if nearly all the pegs were in as they were today. So the target 10 -15lb Silvers and 25lb of Carp. So set up the Ronnie rig in case some showed – they didn’t. A PC margin paste rig to fish in 30 inches of water down under the tree to my left. A 4x12 Malman F1 was also set up for the Skimmers.

I was told the Skimmers were mainly small 2 to 12oz so for speed elected to fish top-set plus one in 4 foot of water out in front with 4mm expander over loose fed wetted micro. I started on this rig whilst loose feeding hard 4’s into the margin swim. I had a good twenty minutes catching tiny Skimmers not using the landing net once. After this the peg went weird I was getting indications and quick bites I couldn’t hit. When Dave Willmott said he was catching Crayfish on maggot the penny drop “The Crays” were nicking the expander. So time to try the margin with the paste, surprisingly it just sat there with no indications from small fish or The Crays. I put on another section and tried maggot over GB to catch a couple more bottle tops. The upshot I kept the odd fish coming by carfully feeding another micro and expander line at top-set plus three, history now tells me I spent too long trying to catch Carp and should have stuck to the Silvers. The only other species I landed was a 1oz Perch. I did foul hook a colourful Carp in the margin which bounced off my 25 elastic.

My silvers weighed 9lb 2 ½ oz for last in the Silvers money.

The Match was won by John Smith (pictured upper right) with 26lb 7oz from Jungle peg 5. John caught four Carp down his RH margin using meat over meat. John lost some Carp in the obstacle course.

The Silvers was won by Dave Willmott (pictured right with his catch - looking some what surprised) with 19lb 3oz from peg 12. Dave caught long using either maggot ot meat hook bait fished over loose fed meat and caster.

Rip-off followed Colin Goldings payout method which I think is very appropriate for these types of matches.

Ended the day in perfect fashion at the Globe drinking Doombar with the usual suspects.

Full Result: (all picking up £25)