Shiplate Farm Open (Hawthorns & Westpool).

Fishing on my doorstep today for a change which gave me chance to walk the dog whilst the lovely wife prepared a bacon sarnie before I left, Their were 15 of us fishing so owner Steve Oliver put ten pegs on the hawthorns & just five on Westpool paying the main monies out to three section winners & top silvers on each lake. It had been very cold overnight which I was sure to put pay to any decent weights, Into the draw & I ended up with peg 10 on Westpool, With only five of us on here I still felt the end pegs would fair a bit better? I was in the middle of us all but at least we all had a bit of room.

First up I set up a 0.2 float for dobbing bread along the far bank on 0.13 & an 16 808 hook, Set a 0.3g AS2 up on 0.13-0.10 & an 18 F1 pellet hook to fish close to 15mts a couple of feet off the far bank in the deeper water around just over 3ft, a 0.3g pencil on 0.11-0.09 & an 20 f1 maggot hook to fish at 8mts down the track in the hope of some silvers & finally a 4x10 chanti on a long line to fish on my top-kit for some roach if need be.

I had Bristol City's Hardest fan's' Either side of me, Pete Sivell on peg 8 & his Travelling partner Jay on peg 12, I did threaten to make out I was a Rovers fan for the day but even I couldn't lower myself that much". At the start I potted two balls of G/bait on the 8mt line with some pinkees & a few casters in, fed a nugget of micros the same distance off to my left & choose not to feed the longer line so just started the day dobbing along the far bank with bread to try & locate some early fish. Nope" Not a good sign as I gave it 40mins without a sniff.

I switched to the far side deeper water with maggot on the hook cad potting a few micros over the top, After two blip roach I switched to 4mm expander on the hook, after ten minutes I had a skimmer about 10oz soon followed by a tench pushing a 1lb" then nothing, I had a go on my top kit but it only produced a few small roach & I had the same result down the track what ever I seemed to put on the hook. Back across & I had a couple more 8oz skimmers but had also bumped a couple as I wasn't fishing to light an elastic, I would get a couple of indications then nothing so decided to feed another line at the same distance off to my right which if fed with a small nugget of micro & left it to settle. Back down the track I had a couple of 8-10oz skimmers on pinkie before the small roach returned, I couldn't get a bite over the micro line at 8mts to the right & it seemed most of my indications were across on the long pole, I was getting the odd skimmer but was losing more than I was netting' I was just about to swap to a silvers elastic when I hooked & landed a 3lb carp, This is pretty much how I spent the rest of the day, swapping between the long far lines picking off the odd skimmer but was losing just as many, I didn't have another skimmer down the track but did hook another tench on my top kit line which I managed to lose at the last second, I would of been better off fishing a silver elastic across as I pulled out of a dozen or so skimmers & never hooked another carp all day, It was going to be a low weight affair on are lake at the finish, Andy France on end peg 14 won the lake with 22lb odd taking a few carp across to the far bank earlier in the day, Jay ended up with 3lb odd of silvers , I didn't weigh the carp but finished up with 7lb 4oz of silvers, Pete had called it a day before the end & didn't weigh before Julian Pinkett on the other end peg 6 won the silvers pool with just over 8lb. It turned out the cold snap had also effected hawthorns as the weights were down on here as well, Roy Ede did well to win the day from peg 9 with 42lb of carp, Catching down his deep margins on corn with a couple of back up weights in the 20's. A hard day for most all round but winter has certainly set in putting pay to the results, I'm sure I would of had double figures of silvers had I set out for them properly & swapped elastics but that's fishing, back to Viaduct for the fourth round of the silvers league next week which I also expect to be a real test.

Full Results -

1st Roy Ede (Shiplate Farm) peg 9 Hawthorns, 46lb 7oz.

2nd Russ Pecker (Thatchers Tackle) peg 6 Hawtorns, 29lb 10oz.

3rd Steve Howell (Shiplate Farm) peg 15 Hawthorns, 23lb 13oz.

4th John Hawkins (Wormheads) peg 4 |Hawthorns, 23lb 9oz.

Silvers - 1st Julian Pinkett (Wormheads) peg 6 Westpool, 8lb 14oz.