First stop for Geoff and me – Hungry Horace’s. Two freshly
cooked Speedwell’s soon devoured.
A biting Easterly wind and a ground frost greeted us at
Withy Pool. First visit here for Geoff, so waked him round pointing out the
pegs to avoid and the ones not. I told him I fancied peg 57 which surprised
Geoff as it is a narrow channel between bank and island. I have only fished it
the once and had my best days Roach fishing on this Pool weighing 26lb of
quality.
We all said our farewells to fellow Coffin Dodger – Charlie
Barnes with a minute’s silence. Gone but will be talked about for years to
come, most of the South West Match Anglers has a story or two about him.
Into the draw bag and out comes peg 45, and Geoff peg 57!!!
I was happy with my peg even though it’s in open water there was some cover
from the wind which would have been better if it was off my back instead of in
my face as it was freezing. For company I had Gas Head Peter Greenslade on the
left and on the other side Shit Head (pictured upper right).
This peg is one of the deepest on the Pool so set up a 4x16
to fish at 10 metres just keeping the black top in the white water. At last I
could fish the waggler properly – yippy. Because of the wind and the depth I
clipped on a 10 inch loaded bodied waggler to fish as far as the catty and wind
would permit.
I fed the pole line with GB laced with dead Pinkies and fed
the waggler line with live maggot, but found I couldn’t get the distance I
wanted. I had a couple of casts with the waggler and found presentation very
good holding station well. On to the pole to have a quick look with single
maggot and found I was getting tiny indications which I thought was tiny
Ronnie’s, which proved correct landing two and a small Skimmer. Meanwhile Mike
Jones opposite had been playing a Carp for ten minutes. I felt the pole and GB
wasn’t going to produce today so picked up the waggler with intentions to fish
it all match. Meanwhile I would loose feed the pole line – can’t help myself
sometimes! The up shot was I had a really enjoyable waggling day catching
Ronnie’s to 3oz and hand size Skimmers and Hybrids. I did try the pole line and
found the fishing exactly the same as with both the GB and loose feed. The
Skimmers certainly wouldn’t come in close. I fed about ¼ pint of liveish reds
all through the match. I was very pleased I was beating Shit Head until ten
minutes to go when he caught and landed a large Carp (pictured right). More
humble pie to eat at the pub. WELL DONE MATEY.
I finished the match with 12lb 10oz of Silvers and not one
sign of a Carp. This was good enough for a Silvers win and fourth overall (pictured upper right).
The match was won by my “back in the day” angling hero Mike
Jones (pictured right with the Silvers winner) with 37lb 4oz from peg 69. Mike
caught five Carp landing three on his favourite waggler and maggot approach.
Geoff fished caster and had a great first hour, but
unfortunately struggled for the remainder of the match.
Back to the pub with the usual suspects to round off another
great day out with like minded people (pictured right).
Full Result:
- Mike Jones 37-04-0 peg 69
- Dave Gillard 19-14-0 peg 43
- Ray Bazeley 14-0-0 peg 40
Top Silvers:
- Mike Nicholls 12-10-0 peg 45
- John Fry 6-12-0 peg 67
- Martin McMahon 6-03-0 peg 73
Weigh Sheets:
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