Emerald Pool Silvers Match

Another chance to have a crack at the silvers population today and with no let up in the weather we were all hoping the wind would ease up from the gales last night, A nice breky at hilltops before arriving in order to do the pegging out I spread them around the whole lake giving us as much room as possible and I fancied the far bank with the wind behind us slightly to make for an easier day presentation wise. Darren(Big Bird) drew for me today and handed me peg 5 which was one up from the far side end under the willows which I had to do a bit magic with folding some branches over themselves so I didn't catch them whilst hopefully bagging"

I was hoping to catch on at around 5mts were I could feed caster easily feed by hand but planed to leave it for a while to settle and catch out at 11mts over groundbait and caster, My inside line was shallower than the last match with about Three and a half feet and a quick look on the 11mt line only showed it to be inches deeper so a rig to fish on the deck with a 0.3g PB3 with a bulk 6inches from the hook and a lighter 4x12 chanti strung out for searching the depth both on 0.11-0.10 and a 18 63-13, and a 3x10 chanti for fishing shallow if they came up high in the water,

For company today I had Glyn Wickham on peg 5 and Sedges Regular Eric  Foracre on end peg 6 my bank who both enjoy there silvers so I new I had a challenge on the keep them in my sights, I started the match by feeding my short swim with a good amount of casters and some chopped worm via a big cup and my long line with three cups of wetted loose groundbait containing some casters  starting with single caster at 11mts I was expecting to catch straight away but I had to work the rig to get any indications and the stamp of fish were small, after 30mins I had around 3lb and new I had to get amongst the better fish so I topped the line up with a firm ball and switched to my short line where I had upped the feed to 20 or so casters every minute as I was already playing catch up with the pegs either side who were catching shorter.

Starting with caster on the hook I was soon into some better hybrids and roach over a 1lb by feeding the swim before laying the lighter chanti rig most of my bites were coming as soon as the float settled or by repeating the process of feeding again, I did notice a pattern was beginning to appear the for know reason bites would dry up but it did appear the carp were a lot more active today as many were caught as well as myself ending the day landing five and losing one at the net with the rig ending up in the willows overhead not to be used again" so I kept to same pattern and fed some more chopped worm and small nuggets combined on the same line when the smaller stamp of fish appear of after a carp had unsettled the peg.

I stayed on the same line for the rest of the match as for what I could see I was keeping up with the rest of the field and by working up and down through the water I had some nice wiser Hybrids and big roach at various depths to keep the pressure on the rest and taking advantage of the wind dropping I managed to end the day catching 18inches deep on 3x10 rig to finished with what I thought would be around 55lb although its so hard to tell so I was happy to finish up with 67lb odd and enough for 2nd on the day.

some of my catch.

                First on the day went to Nigel Garrett with a cracking weight of 85lb mainly catching short on casters and corn,

 |Nigel Garrett with part of his catch.

Overall there was over 430lb of silvers weighed in today and considering the weather we all had a good day with plenty of bites to work at.

 I had to add this picture of Eric next to me as he went off like a train and I was so convinced he had more than me I had a tenner side bet with him and despite just missing out on the overall frame he went home with the tenner off me hence the smile!

Overall results -

1st Nigel Garrett (Summerhayes) peg 2, 85lb 5oz

2nd Dom Sullivan (Maver/ Cabury Angling) peg 5, 67lb 6oz

3rd Glyn Wickham (Summerhayes) peg 4, 49lb 4oz

4th Eric Foracre (The Sedges) peg 6, 47lb 2oz

5th Barry fitchew (Pole repairs) peg 11, 37lb 12oz