17th October Eisteddfa

Well despite being a long way for most, the day was glorious, T-shirt and sunglasses for those in the sun and plenty of bites....albeit mainly silvers at one end. With an average of over 23lb per man and everyone over 10lb this is a good little water.....just a pity its so far for the majority.

With Billy Gore and Andy Thompson on the Golden Pegs, this had all the makings of two Golden Pegs gone in a fortnight after Jeff Grantham's win last week. Andy being the venue local drew well and Billy also had a good feeder peg........and he worked it well, dropping pellet feeder and method within inches of the island reed bed saw a succession of small carp coming to the net from the off. Billy would have gone on to win but a quiet spell and the sun came to our rescue making it difficult for him to see were to cast in the second half!! Billy ended with 40.7lb and a good days sport with very little on the pole.

Ian Simpson also started on the feeder but with no reeds to go at was 8 - 2 down in the small carp race to Billy in the first 45 mins so the feeder got lashed. The favoured and winning method last time, 13m pellet over micro was also very slow and it wasn't until a move to 6m over a maggot fed line with pellet and meat that Ian latched into two lumps in two casts, with an 8lb and 6lb fish in the net. Now back in the race with Billy it was a case of switching between 13m catching very little and dropping back to 6m for the rest of the match with the better carp seeming to travel in twos, catch two...rest it....catch two rest it. Ian ended up with 46.0lb of mainly better carp for the win.

Andy Thompson secured third with a mainly silver 26.8lb net taken at 10m and 5m but was unable to find the bigger carp to make the difference.

Keith had a bit of an early scare when he hooked a better carp virtually first put in and then tried to net it with just his landing net pole!!!! Needless to say the carp snapped him....its hard enough playing carp whilst putting your landing head on the pole with two arms free, nice to see even an England International can get it wrong!! Talking of getting it wrong, Rick "The Coach" Keeley snared a 6lb+ carp in the tail, it saved his blushes and he cracked double figures, otherwise he was on course for last place!

Result

1st - Ian Simpson - 46.0lb (Peg 11)
2nd - Billy Gore - 40.7lb (Peg 16)
3rd - Andy Thompson - 26.9lb (Peg 9)