Match Report

Following the successful matches last year at Passies and the annual committee and bailiffs match at Bernies, I decided to run a commercial water series this year, fishing Bernies, Passies Main Lake and Passies Match Lake for the Presidents Cup. This was the first match in the series and started in wet conditions, which allowed me to christen my new umbrella, but ended in bright, dry and warm conditions.

The match turned out to be a success with over three hundred pounds of fish caught by the 13 anglers who attended. Carp were the main fish caught with very few silverfish. However, when I was speaking to Bernie he said that there was a good head of skimmers, big perch and silverfish in the lake but everyone tended to fish for carp – hence I may try to organise a silverfish match at Bernies (with say every carp counting for 0.5 or 1 pound in weight).

The thirteen who fished were split as follows: Pegs 1-7 on the car park side and pegs 8-13 on the other side. The end pegs did not fish as well as normal and the top weights came from the middle of each side.

Phil Tubb attended his first match of the season and despite suffering from a bad back broke habits of a lifetime by having packed up by the time the scales came round to him.In first place, continuing his superb run of success, was Mike Kitchener who had a mainly carp bag of 61 – 12 – 8. He estimated he had about thirty pounds of fish in the first hour on the feeder using dead maggots as bait. He also caught fish on the long pole andwas fishing in the middle of the car park.

Paul Ward was fishing on the opposite side to Kitch and used the same tactics – catching fish on the feeder and also on the long pole using paste as bait.His catch weighed 59 – 9 – 0.

Kitch and Paul both showing part of their first and second place catches

In third place fishing next to Paul was Matt Foster who used the long pole and meat and flavoured sweetcorn as bait to catch 48 – 11 – 4 of carp.

The next leg of this series is the first match of next year and is on Passies Match Lake where a slightly different format will be used. There will be a silverfish and a carp match within this match with the points from each being added together to determine the winner.

After 10 matches Kitch is leading in the Clubman (109 points), Matchman (793 points) and Weight (176-1-0) competitions from Keith Hughes with 87 points (Clubman) and Vince 432 points (Matchman) and 93-3-8 (weight) respectively.