Match Report

Match:  Parfrement 1st Leg
Venue:  Petworth Park
Winner:  Keith Hughes
50 - 2 - 8
Runner Up:  Colin Bridger
15 - 14 - 0
Third:  Mick Greenway
11 - 12 - 4

 

The three days prior to this match were hot and sunny and these conditions do not bode well for fishing at Petworth Park. However match day turned out to be overcast with odd periods of sunshine. The wind picked up during the match and was straight onto those fishing on the roadside bank. This made holding the pole and float control difficult.

Again we were fortunate in that it remained dry apart from some odd drops of rain at the very end of the match. The majority of anglers were pegged along the roadside bank with only one between the islands. Small rudd, roach and perch were very noticeable and made getting a bait intact to the bottom difficult. This can be achieved by using a bulk of shot to rapidly get the bait to the bottom or the use of a more resistant bait such as meat or corn.

There was also another good sign in this match with a number of skimmers and small bream being caught which bodes well for the future.

Keith Hughes drew the Golden Peg which was the concrete slab on the roadside swim. Not surprising he won both the match and the Golden Peg. He used punched meat to avoid the small fish and caught 13 bream on the pole to weigh in 50-2-8.
Keith with part of his winning catch

Keith with part of his winning catch

In second place was Colin Bridger,fishing next to Keith on his right, who used sweet corn on the pole to catch 5 bream weighing 15-14-0. He also had several good sized roach on sweetcorn.
Colin with his second placed bag of Bream and Roach

Colin with his second placed bag of Bream and Roach

Mick Greenway was fishing on the far end of the roadside bank just past the big tree. He used dead maggots or worm fished on the pole over groundbait to catch 2 bream and 5 skimmers to weigh in 11-12-8.

You may wonder what happened on the peg between the islands that Keith won the last match from. Well Steve Simmonds was fishing on it and struggled until the last hour when he had 2 bream and a tench plus small fish on the feeder – in total weighing 10-9-12, so only just out of the placings.