Wednesday the 20th of April was a nice sunny day with just a tad of a breeze this was an lovely way to be introduced to a match fishing group and to fish one of their matches. The 37 club which has their origins from the ROF social club in Puriton has in it’s ranks a fishing club with a very fine asset. The club has the rights to fish what is known as the R.O.F ponds situated on the outskirts of Woolavington. These ponds are old school and by that I mean they contain no carp. These 3 ponds are very secluded, sheltered and private. They are approached by going down a very long track turning right at the very end and going through a gate which is padlocked with a combination lock to enhance security. The ponds themselves are not endowed with pallets but good old fashion bank. The water is slightly clear and dotted throughout by isolated clumps of lily pads. Wilderness with practicability that what I say.
The match itself was as predicted a struggle, this type of venue is burden with that 64,000 dollar question, that of do I go hell for leather for small fish and hope to build a reasonable weight or do I just chance it and wait for the bream and tench. Well I went for the former and ended up with 3 lb of bits which gave me a middling result of 4th out of 7, not bad for yours truly. I found the members who fished the match very friendly, very approachable and very cheerful. Added to the fact these guys like to fish old style you can rest assured that I will be paying these fella’s a visit again.
Sporting competitions have a habit of throwing up giant killing acts and the bait tech cup 1st round on Saturday 23rd April was no exception. Watchet Black and Watchet Red team were drawn away against the angling might of Exeter AC. The venue for this historic turn up for the books was Kia Ora lakes at Cullumpton. There are two lakes the Silvers lake and the Main lake. The main lake was lake of choice for Exeter. This is a carp oriented fishery and can be very finicky when a fair numbers of anglers line the banks. So come Saturday just gone, 18 anglers (which count as a fair number) plying their trade did affect one chances of bagging.
From a personal perspective my peg had limitations in that the amount of area that was fishable. I just had a back end of an island to fish at 7 meters. This type of peg could be a hit or a miss affair and up to the last 45 minutes it was certainly a miss, for up to then I just had one small perch. A change of tactics brought on by desperation ensued, a change to an 18 hook and a much lighter hook length. Well in the last 45 minutes I managed to bag 2 carp and the only eel of the match. For a weight (which earned me a 4th place) of 11lb 4 oz. The match itself failed to live up to expectations. As 3 people in the match blanked and most of the weights were measly. Here is an explanation of how the match scoring works.
3 teams of 6 Exeter, Watchet Black and Watchet red, there are 6 sections of 3 anglers 1 from each team
A section win gains 1 point
2nd section gets 2 points
3rd section gets 3 points
A dry net gets 4 points
The team with the least number of points wins
If there is a draw on points then the total team weight of fish is compared. The team with highest weight of course you guest it wins.
The results
Watchet Red 12 points
Watchet Black 13 points
Exeter 14 points
Thus Watchet Red go through to the next round.
Next match for Watchet club is the specimen lake at Lands end this Saturday 30th of April until then Tight lines
Pete C