Match Report

This match was originally scheduled to be fished on the Hurston Match Pond and was planned as a silverfish only match as it had been stocked with a good number of bream and other silverfish when the fixtures were drawn up. However the bream that were stocked appeared to congregate in two areas of the lake and only 4 out of the 14 pegs would have had a reasonable chance of winning particularly as the smaller silverfish have been decimated by the cormorants during the period the fishery was closed.

Hence the match was transferred to Passies Match Lake and was fished as silverfish only (i.e non carp). The pegs were set out with 5 to the left of the bridge with the rest spread out along the bunker straight up to the corner. The main challenge with having a silverfish only match is avoiding the F1s which Keith Hughes failed to do. He fished the end corner peg and caught 42 of them. No one else had the same level of ‘problem’ as Keith but he still had an enjoyable day once he realised that the F1s would take the bait before the silverfish.

The match turned out to be a great success for the 12 anglers who turned up with 130lb+ of silverfish being caught including two 2lb+ perch. The fish caught were mainly roach, skimmers and the odd bigger bream and perch. The weather again started out wet and cold but the sun did come out for the last couple of hours. However the wet weather of the previous few days has caused the level to rise in the lake and put several of the platforms under water, with the level coming up further during the match.

Steve Simmonds did not provide the entertainment in this match, as he had at the previous match at Passies, sticking with his trusty whip this time, which he even managed to land a carp on. New member Trevor Moore though did have problems as he thought he would have to shell out for a new number 4 pole section after it fell into the water at the beginning of the match. However he managed to recover it using a weed cutter attachment on his landing net at the end of the match and caught a good weight of fish using rod and line during the match.

In first place, fishing to the left of the bridge was Paul Ward who had a mainly skimmer catch of 25-1-8. These were caught on the pole using double caster fished over groundbait.

Vince Herringshaw, fishing to the right of the bridge had a catch 17-6-0. This consisted of roach caught on the maggot on the whip plus skimmers caught on pellet fished over groundbait on the long pole.

In third place was Phil Tubb who was fishing two pegs from the far end of the bunker straight and weighed in 15-13-4 of roach (caught on maggot ) and skimmers (caught on pellet) fishing the long pole.