Well 2016 quickly came around and our 1^st match of the season and what a cracking turnout for a cold sunny spring morning with 22 turning up. Very Pleasing in conditions only Carl “Forest” Harper happily skipping round Bluewater, and Gaz the Spod still has an 1/8^th of an inch clearance  to the ceiling from his beak so his mattress still needs firming up with another base layer of £50 notes. 🙂

Welcome to our new members Mick “the Fish” and as people know I’m a fan of nicknames this time it’s an easy one for our other new member Neil Butterworth AKA “Lurpak” LOL 🙂

It was also good to see Gary Hampshire back in the club after illness with his father in 2015.

It was good to see everyone again prior to the draw in readiness for this years battle and a bit of banter had started in earnest at draw Worms Ivison presenting a hand cut ¾ pint measuring mug  to Poncey Paul who cant do half pints of maggots and 1 pint is just to MASSSSEEEEEVE LOL.

A 20p coin was seen falling to the ground but fear not it hit the back of his head, well before it had time to reach terra firma.

Overall I expected it to fish a bit better than it did but the influx of cold water that had gone in in the week before had really took its toll and it’s fair to say bites were generally very hard to come by…. Even Jennys lake there were 2 x 50lb winning weights but they have fish to 7-9lb each but the backing weights dropped off and some were down as low as 8lb so peggy at best.

Ben Taylor says he is going for it a bit more this season on his fishing and he duly did the business from peg 15 finishing just in front with 23lb dead on the pole. However ¾ through the match he came to realise that aluminium legs and carbon are not natural ying and yang……….

The photo is NOT a revolutionary new method yet to be discovered for F1 the POLE SWINGTIP!

So a healthy £46 first place payout means he’s now looking at replacing and upgrading his pole

In JOINT second place was a tie with “End Peg” Roy Ravenhill Peg 16 dobbing corn around his swim and Neil “LURPAK” Butterworth on peg 18 with 22.25lbs for his debut as a joined up member – WELL DONE Lurpakl!!

Grinners are Winners

4^th place Mick “Rumbold” Edwards on corner peg 22 with 20lb dead and this it has to be said was a bit of a sickener as every time I shipped back he’s there either gurning at me or blowing me a kiss……

It also blew my timings out the water as usually I know when it’s about 1.30-2pm as a silent electric MERC driven by Mick is usually rushing off home for some Yorky Puds after another barren draw 🙂 However he slid Denny out the frame by ounces so my KARMA was good

The 1^st section of 11 by quadruple default (hows yer luck) was myself with 13lb hehehehe I couldn’t catch a carrot down the track and the fish were obviously tight across in upper levels but I had 4-5 x F1s plus 5-6 x barbel and some blades/roach for a not very good match.

I’ve no idea what I would do differently if I fished in same conditions as I couldn’t find shallower than 3.25 feet even against reeds, but I think the fish were in even shallower water due to my barbel etc

The 2^nd section of 11 was won by Denny “THE CHIMP” 19lb catching tight across in 2 feet of water and nearly all his fish were F1s but it’s also worth noting he lost at least 2 x fish OUCH for 4^th place 😉 Don’t think I didn’t see em off the hook either……

The latter half of the match there were strange groans going on and I looked up and Daz “Semi Pro” Mills was into a right good fish looking at his pole and the amount of elastic streaming out! I looked around another 5 minutes later and hes still playing it must be a good un…..

It was it had 368 BHP and some fair weight behind it a TBF Merc, luckily Rumbold in between catching two fish a chuck all day helped unhook it. I don’t know whether it was deep hooked?

Lastly it has to be said Alan “THE DON” of Team Hopwas was lost and never went to the pub without his henchmen scared of the onslaught he was walking into, so he was last seen skulking home with tail between his saddle sore cheeks hehehehehehe 🙂

Onwards and upwards to the next match at Barston Lakes on Sunday 10^th April