For my fifth match in as many days it was down to Revels for the Tuesday open. I met Parker ‘The Pole’ in Yeovil and bought his breakfast as it was his 70th birthday (he’s had a hard paper round!). He bought donuts for everyone (three trays of them!) which we all enjoyed while waiting for the draw, photo credit – Bob Chrisp*
A load of donuts (and the cakes weren’t bad either!)*
We were on Main and Canal lakes today and I fancied the latter as I haven’t been on there for ages, alas when my name was called, peg 6 was home for the day and with the birthday boy next door on 7 we had to have nugget on it. It looked nice and there were quite a few fish topping so hopefully we’d get a few bites.
I set up a little 0.3 gram rig to fish top kit to hand down the edge plus a couple of Preston Innovations F1 Maggots for two lines at 11.5 metres. On the whistle I potted in a little nugget of groundbait and some pinkies down the edge and then fed the longer lines with tangerine size balls (oooh I say!).
It took a little while to get my first bite and then a little perch opened my account, I was getting regular bites from small perch along with a few gudgeon. Stevie P was catching quite well including a nice rudd of 5-6oz. After an hour I was up to 23 fish for a pound and a half or so, the second sixty minutes was similar and I added another 29 including my first roach. Andy Miller over on peg 4 was getting a few and then struck into a better fish which turned out to be a nice bonus chub.
Bites began to slow up on the top kit line and I also hooked and lost a carp which didn’t help matters. By the halfway point I’d struggled up to 61 fish and Steve said he had 48 so I was just ahead but he was still catching quite well whereas my short line had died a death. I went out to 11.5 metres and it was really hard going with just very occasional small perch. Andy was now fishing shallow and catching some nice roach and with Mr Parker still catching perch regularly, I was falling behind after doing okay for the first two hours.
I tried fishing up in the water but only managed a few tiny little roach and another look on the short line just resulted in a carp. Going into the last hour I tried the lighter rig on the longer lines and although not fast and furious, I started catching the odd net roach but as is normally the way, carp became a problem towards the end of the match and I landed a couple more. I finished up with 90 fish and Steve P said he had 88 so this was going to be close between us although I was sure Andy probably had more thanks to his chub.
The scales did Canal first and when they got down to us I went to see how it had fished, Mark Sheppard was leading with 32lb 13oz of carp and Jon Bass had the best silvers weight with 5lb 7oz from peg 69. Neil Saxby was first to weigh on Main and had 17lb 8oz, Andy was next and along with his chub, he’d sneaked in a nice tench and with some quality roach had a brilliant 10lb 9oz which would win easily. Photos courtesy of Revels*
Mark Sheppard had 32lb 13oz on Canal*
Jon Bass weighed 5lb 7oz of silvers*
Andy had a nice net of silvers including a tench, a chub and quality roach for 10lb 9oz*
My carp weighed 9lb 9oz and the silvers added 6lb 2oz, Steve pulled his net out and it was going to be really close, Dean called it at 5lb 6oz and I almost felt guilty taking a nugget off the birthday boy (almost!). Dave S had 14lb 7oz on peg 9 before Adrian Hayes went into pole position with 49lb 11oz on peg 11. Derek P weighed 12lb 10oz, Steve Crowford did well on 16 with 21lb 13oz and Terry Lenny had 8lb 13oz on 20.
I had 90 fish (perch, roach, gudgeon and rudd) for 6lb 2oz
The birthday boy had 5lb 6oz
Adrian had the top weight on the day with 49lb 11oz of carp*
Back at the results we all polished off more donuts (thanks Steve) and I think Revels answer to Homer Simpson (Dean) had six and that’s nowhere near his personal best!
1 – Adrian Hayes (Revels) – 49lb 11oz
2 – Mark Sheppard (Revels) – 32lb 13oz
Silvers
1 – Andy Miller (Ilton) – 10lb 4oz
2 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 6lb 2oz
I picked up £30 for second in the silvers and I always enjoy my Tuesday trips to Revels, a great bunch of lads and it’s always really close with just ounces making the difference (and the donuts weren’t bad either, Happy Birthday Parker ‘The Pole’).
A pound from Steve P took the Nugget-O-Meter to £231.
There’s still a great offer running if you fancy treating yourself to some new fishing gear, use the exclusive discount code AgainstMenandFish10 to get 10% off when you shop online at Somerset Angling
Also I still have copies of my book available from eBay here or Amazon here
And if you could spare five minutes to leave a nice review on Amazon, it would be very much appreciated.
Next up – Todber Manor
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
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