This was my first over 55s match for 8 months, one of the problems of owning a tackle shop is that when the weather is good your too busy to fish very often, so I was really looking forward to this match, 30 anglers turned up for this match, not bad for a mid weeker. This match was on Bridge Pool, a venue that has been kind to me in the past, and with a silverfish league on the venue which starts after christmas, it was a good opportunity to practice. Carp were counting today, but I decided to fish for 'silvers' with tackle that would give me a chance of landing any carp that I might hook, size 18 middy 6313 and 0.10 Daiwa rig line.

I drew peg 27, which is to the left of a point, and peg 26 is to the right of the point, these pegs are very close together. I had Mike Nicholls for company on 26, now Mike has fished these matches for a long time and knows the venue well and has been very successful, so I was expecting a good battle.

At th start of the match, I cupped in 3 large balls of ground bait with dead red maggots and pinkies in them, I also fed some casters at top 5 for roach, I was expecting a slow start after a very cold morning and a sharp frost the day before, so I was surprised when the first drop in on the 11m line, I caught a small roach followed by another and then a hand size skimmer. The bites were very shy, to be expected I suppose in the cold clear water, by shooting the float to a dimple it definitely improved things.

Mike Nicholls at the next peg had a similar start to me but his skimmers were bigger than mine. For the first couple of hours I caught skimmers and the odd roach fairly regularly, Mike was catching regularly but his skimmers seem to disappear and he was now catching roach regularly.

Half way through the match my swim went very quiet and i couldn't get a bite, then I noticed a single bubble pop up in the peg and it wasn't long before I was attached to the first carp of the day, 10 minutes later I slipped the net under a 7lb carp, had it have been the summer I would have been very lucky to have landed the fish but the cold water had really slowed the fish down.

As soon as the carp was in the keep net, next cast I was back catching skimmers again, regular top ups of ground bait and dead reds kept the bites coming until the next carp was hooked. the pattern of the swim going quiet followed by hooking a carp happened 4 times during the match and about an hour from the end I layed the rig in and it didn't settle, when I struck a common carp of about 10lb kept out of the water twice before the hook pulled, Ive seen skimmers do this but never double figure carp.

 

My last carp was landed about 10 minutes after the final whistle but not before it had gone through Mikes swim and into the peg past him, I had to hold 11.5m of pole in the air above Mikes head while the carp explored the 2 pegs to my right, a lot of the pegs are fairly close together and when you hook a carp on light tackle its hard to keep them in your peg, both my neighbours were 'excellent' when my 4 carp went out of my peg, well done chaps.

At the weigh in my 4 carp went 31lb+ and the silvers went 18lb+, nearly 50lb, a great days fishing and top spot on the day. Bob 'medium sliced' Price was second with 4 carp for 43lb and Mike Nicholls was second in the silvers with 9lb 6oz.

Mike writes a very good blog and he's never short of a controversial comment or two, check it out at Silverfox Blogspot