With work and a new puppy arriving on 22nd December, this was likely to be my last match of 2017, Clevedon FWAC a club I had a long and happy association with, but just don't seem to get to their matches anymore, so it was good to get along and support the 2017 Xmas match. Tony (Rixon) was also coming along, but as I was on-call, I had too travel down by myself, just in case I had to pack up and deal with any issues at work.
The draw was in the Bridge Inn at Yatton, that pub brings back some memories of Clevedon Veals team meetings, that inevitably turned into full on drinking sessions, given the members at the time and our proclivity to enjoy the genial atmosphere of public houses and partake in regular 'lock-in's'.....
Enough of the memories, even if some of them are a little hazy, all I know is that I could not go fishing now, after some the sessions we used to have and still turn up and fish!!
I drew peg 11, I was fairly indifferent to it, as I haven't been to Acorn for a while, the one thing I thought might not work in my favour (or Mark's) was that Viaduct winter league team mate Mark Broomsgrove drew 12 and with both pegs in you are fishing to the same corner point of the island. At least having Mark on there meant we both had an idea of the etiquette required, so kept a respectable distance away from the apex of the islands corner.
I had put a method rod in the van, but decided that it could stay there, so 4 topkits onto the roost, one set up to fish the shallow water tight across, more in hope than expectation, given the temperature, which saw the lake covered with cat ice at the start, although it was melting whilst we set up. Another to fish down on the second shelf, I spent ages plumbing up and it was virtually impossible to find a level, flat area to fish on, so I would have to rely on dragging the bait onto the shelf.
A rig for full depth which would do for short and across and finally a rig for down the LH edge, which at over 2' I did think I would catch there at some stage. Bait tray was live and dead maggots, and a few pellets, as well as a couple of slices of bread, no need to complicate things.
Starting on bread, tried dobbing it at various depths, both across and down the edge, but not so much as a twitch on the float. Mark on 12 had lost a couple, so I fed a few maggots and went out onto the 3rd shelf, I had a couple of tiny indications on the float, but it took until nearly 12:00 to get a carp in the net, that was about 4lb, 30 minutes later I had another, a bit bigger, I was now expecting to get a few more, but it took until 15:10 to get another, this was a decent fish and put up a spirited fight on 0.12 and a 18 Guru F1 hook. A shade over a double I guessed.
Well come the way in, it transpired that my section was the second worst for weights and I missed out on the section money by 2lb, as the shameless :) Tony Rixon won the section with 23lb which was 5 carp and a skimmer, 2 of the carp he gleefully admitted were foulers..... My 3 carp went 21lb.
It was back to the Bridge Inn for results, raffle and prizes, good to catch up with some old friends, especially Kev Perry who was having an operation on his back a couple of days before Xmas, hope it went well mate.
Well done to reluctant commercial attendee Ivan Currie for winning the match with 70lb or so.
Roll on better fishing weather and I hope all my angling friends have a good Xmas and New Year, see you in 2018.
No comments:
Post a Comment