Avon Angling Open, Sunday 21st August 2011. Shiplate Farm.

After the last match on this venue, I was hoping to draw on Westpool again, as this lake has a bigger head of silvers. I wasn’t disappointed as peg 9 on Westpool stuck to my hand when I delved through the tangle of arms in the draw tin.

I had an idea that maggot would be the best method of attack, so had brought 4 pints, this was to be my main plan for silvers or carp. I also had caster and worm, as well as plenty of groundbait. As a back up, I had a couple of tins of corn and some 6 & 8mm pellet.

I set up 4 topkits, a 4x12 Carpa Chimp on 0.14/0.12 to a Drennan Carp Match 18 hook. This was on middy purple elastic and the line set at full length of topkit to fish, topkit to hand. A 4x14 Carpa Chimp on 0.16/0.14 with a 16 63.13, to fish at the bottom of the far shelf. A MW F1 float to fish down the middle with worm, that was on 0.16/0.14 and a 16 Drennan Carp Match hook. Lastly was a MW mini diamond, again on 0.16/0.14 to a 18B911, to fish up the shelf.

I also took along a trusty Normark Titan set up with a 2½AAA waggler, mainly because I enjoy waggler fishing, rather than me thinking it would be a successful method. I did catch one skimmer on this, but the overhanging willows and drooping far bank grasses made casting difficult and after catching them twice, gave it up as a bad job.

On the all-in, I cupped in 4 jaffa’s down the middle, this contained chopped worm, caster & a couple of red maggots. Maggots were loose fed by hand at 2m and by catty to the far shelf. I also fed a couple of small balls of groundbait at 2m. Starting on the far shelf rig, just to give the groundbaited swims a rest, didn’t result in any bites, so I soon switched to the short line, topkit to hand and started to catch decent skimmers.

This died off and I had a look down the middle and had just one lightening quick bite – that I missed – on the worm, no more to say about the middle line, I didn’t catch a single fish from it. The far shelf was as unproductive, I tried it several times during the day and had a solitary 1oz roach from it.

Back on the near line and the bites had slowed, the bright sun and total lack of ripple didn’t help, that doesn’t make for ideal skimmer/bream fishing conditions. I started to up the amount of groundbait and stopped feeding everything, except maggot, this and the sun going behind a cloud for a spell seemed to spark the skimmers and a couple of proper 6lb’ers into feeding, all caught on the topkit. I did have a look back over the far side, at the bottom of the shelf, to rest the near line, this produced a couple of fish, but wasn’t as productive in numbers or size, as the near line.

Peg 10 had been catching carp on paste and I thought that he’d beaten me, but it seems that my decent spell and the couple of big black boys gave me enough to win the silvers, the lake and take 3rd overall. 52lb 04 oz (all silvers) was the result of a nice days fishing, not a carp in sight, I even caught 3 gudgeon, which was nice, it seems a long time since I’ve caught one.

Obviously I drew on a few fish, I think the groundbait and maggot approach was the right one, but perhaps the real reason for a bit of good luck was my new Avon Angling baseball cap, a free gift from Tony, first time I'd worn it - I reckon I’ll wear it again. I really enjoyed today, it was nice to catch skimmers without carp coming in and wrecking the peg.

I had to shoot off before the results were announced, so hopefully Tony has my ebay tokens stashed safely and I've plaigerised the results from Mike Nicholl's blog, so I hope he wrote them down properly.

1. Tony Rixon 99-12-0 peg 15 Hawthorn
2. Bela Bakos 53-08-0 peg 4 Hawthorn
3. Chris Fox 52-04-0 peg 9 Westpool
4. Dean Malin 44-04-0 peg 14 Hawthorn
5. Richard Heatley 42-10-0 peg 10 Westpool
6. Andy Bryant 41-04-0 peg 13 Hawthorn

Top Silvers:
(All Westpool)
1. Chris Fox 52-04-0 peg 9
2. Chris Davis 27-0-0 peg 2
3. Adrian Jefferies 25-04-0 peg 5