Well, after a longer few months away from the banks we received news on Wednesday that match fishing was again on the agenda. After a massive effort from Steve Warren the club managed to get necessasry equipment to carry out weing safely and approval from the fishery owners to get this party started.
A new format was put in place where the draw for the order of fisherman was put in place then followed the pegging, all carried out on face time between myself and Steve, so no cheating. Thankyou to those members who said they liked the draw this way, maybe its the way forward but it made it easier on the morning of the match?
16 Anglers were available this week and to be fair the draw went very well. With complete fairness in mind we decided that 8 anglers were to be on each bank with no empty pegs between anglers.
Reports that some good weights have been comming out from numbers 9 to 13 on the far bank and also from 22 - 16 so these were the pegs to be sat on. With the weather having been really warm and sunny for the past 10 weeks I was surprised to see the fish still spawning, maybe a few late commers.
On arrival veryone was doing there very best to comply with the Angling Trust and Government Guidelines for social distancing and having informed people prior to the match, people had there fees ready to avoid unessary handling. People would off load their equipment and make their way to the pegs that they had drawn the previous evening. It meant that the earlier the members arrived, the longer they would have to set up for the 10.00am all in.
It was quite commical in how the draw ended up with the noisey neighbours on the far bank and the calm collectives on the near side (except shane) and with Queenie, Mutant George and The Guru Tart all next to one another this was the battle of the loudest.
Some members must have saved some money over last few months with George and Danny sporting new margin poles and Sausage with his new Oculus 999. Rumour had it that George had got so fed up with Danny taking his pound off of him that giving carp fishing a bash and in order to to ensure that George didnt get the better of him Danny would match him and was also sportig a new margin pole as he was contemplating carp fishing. After such a long lay off The Guru Tart must have replenished his stock of Guru Floats and had now have a full tray of floats again. Tungsten Dave actually admitted to cleaning his equipment and actually this was his first outing since lockdown and it was nice to see Roger back on the bank again.
Queenie was on form with his banter towards the other members with George being his main source of comedy and Phil losing yet more floats and messing up the best swim on the lake yet again. I hink weve all missed George and his use of a few choice words ( Iam not small and am not illegitemate)
There were plenty of fish at the surface with large dark shaddows to be seen everywhere and for Roger and Brian they had to put up with the spawning fish in the margins. Im sure the method and thoughts would be to try and mug a few with hard pellet and slapping, whilst others would have a more traditional approach.
Draw
Golden Peg 31
6 - Roger Coombes
7 - John Wolstencroft
8 - Richard Coles
9 - Dave Allen
10 - Steve Warren
11 - George Fletcher
12 - Steve King
13 - Phil Beards
24 - Shane Western
25 - Paul Bowyer
26 - Danny Donnahay
27 - Stan Butt
28 - Tony Fry
29 - Nigel Coram
30 - Dave Tunstill
31 - Brian Chivers
Results
Silvers
1st - Rich Coles - 47lb - 05oz
2nd - George - 19lb - 11oz
3rd - Danny - 18lb - 07oz
Overall
1st - Dave Allen - 115lb - 13oz
2nd - Nigel Coram - 90lb - 11oz
3rd - John Woolenscroft - 73lb - 03oz
The great thing about fishing is what method do you choose on the day, do you fish long or short, deep or shallow, what bait do the fish want most, paste, hard pellett, corn, soft pellet, worm, castor or maggotts. Rich Coles got his method dead right but with the exception of Rich who had a brilliant day on the silvers the match was close with only a few pounds between 5 anglers and some nice large bream were caught and Stan catching an eel about 2lb which had Queenie backing away from the weigh net.
Dave Allen who smashed his paste rig up with about 45mins to go and reverted to the feeder, then caught late to snatch the overall weight.
All fishermen caught and we all lost fish aswell, but the main thing was that we were out on the bank, having a great day basking in the sunshine and enjoing one anothers company even if it was at distance.
Thanks for Steve Warren in getting the match on at such late notice, to Danny making his adapted weigh machine (which is just going throught he patent process) and to Steve King who had the labouious job of the weigh in which took a bit of time.
Next Sunday we are at the Sedges on the canal lake. To enter you must contact Steve Warren by 7pm by Thursday evening at the latest, there will not be anyone accepted after this time. The draw will be done again via facebook on the Saturday evening. Please ensure that you bring the correct money again.
The club would like to pass its sympathy and thoughts to Tony Newell and family, following the passing of former member John Newell who passed away last Friday evening.
