Kev Perry Series, Round Five, 16th May 2010

I am in a fortunate position to reveal that a dynamic new tackle designer is ready to launch his first product. Local Bream and Cider expert, Kev Perry has been working tirelessly to produce a new pole mounted pot, one that can really deliver when the fish need plenty of feed to keep them in the swim.



Kev has personally committed to emptying and recycling the contents of the Natch bottles, although he has approached me to help him, should the volume of orders become too much. I look forward to joining Kev in this new venture, items in the pipe line are the 'Thatchers' five gallon polypin pellet container and the Blackthorn 9 or 11 gallon aluminium barrel seat box, all of which will be lovingly emptied before being crafted into quality tackle products.

Yesterdays fifth round of the Kev Perry series was met with the weather still cold for the time of year, although the water temp was up 2°C from last weeks 10°C, at the start and a positively tropical 15°C at the end of the match. It was my turn to fish the Match Lake, thankfully, after last weeks poor showing on Rushcombe. I arrived around 07.30 and for once didn't have to chuck any pleasure anglers off, in fact they were fairly conspicuous by their absence. I pegged out Rushcombe and headed into the cafe for breakfast.

As my results this series have been pretty dire, I decided that I'd have to get get Dave 'Golden Arm' Wride to draw for me, he handed me A1 (ML8), the back bank isn't my favourite area, but the wind was blowing in there and it had more colour than the main part of the lake. Fellow organiser Paul Faiers was on peg 10 and fairly convinced that he'd have a good day on the silvers, Kev Perry on 12 and Glen opposite on 27, at least if the fishing was poor we had a good 'social' crowd.

I know that those who tend to be consistent at Bullock Farm, catching good weights of Crucians, feed very little, I must admit I find this difficult, restraint is obviously not in my nature. I yearn for the days on the river when a gallon of maggots would barely last five hours, so feeding a teacup full of micropellet in 6 hours hardly fills me with excitement. Given that I had no chance of any pick up in the overall league or silvers, I had a plan of fishing caster for the silvers and paste for carp, with a back up of hard 6mm pellet.

I set up a 4x10 rig to fish caster, 0.13 to a 0.11 hooklength and a 18 6313, this matched with doubled up No8 elastic. A similar rig, to fish 6mm banded pellet, this on 0.15/0.13 and a 18PR36 and two paste rigs, one a Big H float on 0.15 with a mustad paste hook 16 and a blob on 0.17 with a mustad paste hook 12.

At the all in I fed a line about 5m at 11 o'clock with caster and another line over on the tip of the island with dampened 4mm, the RH margin looked inviting, but I was determind to leave it well alone for at least three hours. First drop in on the caster and the float buried and a couple of minutes later a 3lb mirror was the first keepnet resident. I took a few Crucians and fantails from this line, but it wasn't fast and furious sport, a look over to the island with a 4mm expander saw a couple more Crucians landed, but the enevitable missed bite syndrome started. A switch to banded 6mm pellet saw 5 goldfish landed in 5 put ins. I switched back to the caster line and tried maggot over it, another couple of Crucians, some decent skimmers and then it went quiet.

I carried on feeding caster, but tried a 4mm expander over it and had a decent spell of crucians, skimmer and an eel which was over 1lb, although I didn't get to weigh it, todays shallow pan landing nets aren't designed for containing eels and I must be out of practise in dealing with them, as he managed to squirm out of the net, off my leg and the pallet and back into the lake...... Shortly after I had a carp around 7 or 8lb over the caster on 4mm pellet and with 1¾ hours to go, I had a look at the inviting margin, I had either a bite or a liner most put ins and caught carp in the 3-5lb bracket until the all out.

Thankfully it had been enough to win both the match and keeping on the caster line for that length of time, also saw met take the silvers money. A decent pick up at last in this series. Sadly I had to work Sunday night, so the money stayed in my pocket, the local pub and Indian restaurant will have to wait for their share!!

Rushcombe had fished somewhat better, with 3 of the top six coming from there.

1) Chris Fox 35.150KG ML8
2) Sean Kitteridge 25.300KG Rush C2
3) Dave Roper 24.300KG ML22
4) Mark Walsh 23.850KG ML18
5) Nick Harvey 22.700KG Rush C3
6) Mark Bromsgrove 21.800KG Rush C1

Silvers

1) Chris Fox 10.950KG ML8
2) Andy Hembrow 10.500KG ML21
3) Paul Faiers 9.150KG ML10
3) Dave Wride 8.500KG Rush D1

Overall Table
1) Dave Wride 28P 87.060KG
2) Lewis Jones 28P 74.180KG
3) Sean Kitteridge 27P 70.620KG
4) Andy Hockin 25P 79.170KG
5) Bob Gullick 25P 69.670KG
6) Mike Owens 25P 64.880KG

Silvers Table
1) Dave Wride 34P 53.870KG
2) Tom Thick 33P 39.200KG
3) Bob Gullick 29P 29.250
4) Nick Collins 28P 36.050KG
5) Andy Hembrow 27P 24.280KG
6) Lweis Jones 26P 25.980KG