Woodlands trinity Waters
| Position | Date |
| 4/14 | 06/06/2015 |
| 7/12 | 08/04/2017 |
| 13/13 | 03/06/2017 |
| 9/10 | 07/04/2018 |
| 11/12 | 02/06/2018 |
| 12/14 | 06/04/2019 |
| 7/13 | 01/06/2019 |
The above table shows my abysmal results at Woodlands lake Trinity Waters. Now hand on heart it does not make good reading I admit. In the about me page of this blog I put down that I was Mr average when it comes to angling. Well looking at the above table you might well think I need to replace the word average. But on reflection and no disrespect to the venue I have renamed it my Spoons venue.
A few years ago I was talking one of the security guards at work called Ted, he was a tall bloke and always had time for a few words. It was one of these friendly encounters when Ted told me a funny story which has always stuck with me. When Ted was in the Royal Marines they used to play a game with the recruits new to the unit called spoons.
The game is played with two people sitting opposite each other at a table both with a spoon in their mouth. When the game begins one of the guys looks down at the table and closes his eyes while the other whacks him on the head with the spoon which still in his mouth. Each take in turns with this said action. The object is to get the other to submit. But unknown to the new recruit there is some one standing behind him with a soup ladle. Well you can guess the rest, the new recruit instead of getting hit with a spoon gets whacked with a what ?
The connection between this game of spoons and yours truly fishing this venue is that I feel that I have something in common with the poor recruit. That is I am in a competition and don’t have a cat in hell chance of winning.
Right that’s the whinging out the way Dare I say it here is the report.
First and foremost the match was well attended by 11 hardly souls. It was nice to see a few faces from the past such as Dave Gartenfeld and Ian Townsend. The weather was 99% dry but the wind was somewhat blustery. As a testimony to this, whilst setting up, my fishing trolley was swept of it 4 wheels and promptly deposited in to the lake. Luckily with the help of Tony Rchards who was in the next peg we managed to retrieve it. What a great start.
Well some anglers done alright considering the wintry conditions and some anglers didn’t. Now with the information in the above table and the law of statistics have a guess which group of anglers I ended up in.
First on the day was the ever friendly, the ever jovial, Mr happy go lucky, the one and only Paul Smith with a very creditable weight of 17lb 12oz. Paul fished 13 meters with maggot and caster, This Watchet veteran had a nice size golden tench which was tempted on maggot. Well done Paul.
In 2nd was “I am always in the money” Rob Dodd with 14lb 4oz., Rob tempted all his fish on double red maggot out on 12 -13 meters.
3rd place was Mr Birmingham City FC Dave Gartenfeld. Who amassed a reasonable weight of 9lb 6oz, Dave started out on the tip but to no avail, So swapped to the pole and caught at about 8 meters using 3 casters on a size 16 hook. Dave also had a tench which he caught on corn.
4th was Mr secret agent Eric Searle. Mr 007 had 7lb 6oz from peg 29 Eric fished mostly the pole at 12meters for all his fish but when asked what bait he had used, he replied with the code word coconut, which in GCHQ terms means maggot. Eric also caught a nice Crucian.
Paul with his winning weight. 
Rob who was 2nd. 
Dave G who was 3rd in smug mode. 
Eric’s Crucian carp which helped him to 4th.
5th place was match secretary Alan Bland. Alan put 5lb 4oz on the scales, he fished 9-10 meters out and caught all his fish on red maggot.
6th was Mr Dave the cash Nash who for the first few hours uncharacteristically fished the small feeder, but could only scrape together a smattering of small bits. In the last hour he went on to one of his favourite methods the waggler and ended up with a total catch of 4lb 1oz.
7th place was “I am moving to Bristol but don’t know when” Dave Colley, This jolly chap caught a catch of 2lb 2oz, all on the pole and maggot.
8th was Mr bee man Tony “ I help save your trolley” Richards. Tony struggled in the peg next to me and caught 1lb 10oz of bits. Alternating between short pole and waggler. Main bait maggot.
9th was yours truly. Well I had to come somewhere. I managed to catch and put on the scales a meagre 10oz Well I don’t like breaking with tradition. I tried feeder for the first 3 hours and went on the waggler for the last 2 but you can see 10 oz just tells the story.
Ian Townsend and Phil Dodd decided not to bother with the scales hence DNW.
| Position | Name | Weight | peg |
| 1st | Paul Smith | 17lb 12oz | 31 |
| 2nd | Rob Dodd | 14lb 4oz | 23 |
| 3rd | Dave Gartenfeld | 9lb 6oz | 25 |
| 4th | Eric Searle | 7lb 6oz | 29 |
| 5th | Alan Bland | 5lb 4oz | 22 |
| 6th | Dave Nash | 4lb 1oz | 26 |
| 7th | Dave Colley | 2lb 2oz | 32 |
| 8th | Tony Richards | 1lb 10oz | 27 |
| 9th | Pete Curnow | 10oz | 28 |
|
| Phil Dodd | DNW | 24 |
|
| Ian Townsend | DNW | 21 |
I like to put forward an idea for the match fishing fraternity and that is to offer a new prize. The prize should awarded at the end of each match season and should be called The Abingdon Town FC award. This award should be given to the person who packs up the most times before the end of the match. Why Abingdon Town FC. Well Abingdon Town who play in the 10th tier of the football league were playing rivals Abingdon United in a local derby in front of a crowd of over 160 in December last year. Well at half time Abingdon Town were losing 8-nil. So at the interval the players went in the dressing room got dressed, packed up and went home. There you have it.
The next match in this winter league series will be on the River Tone. But if the river is in flood the reserve venue will be the Bridgwater and Taunton canal. Right I normally do crap on the Tone and reasonably well on the canal, so to spare my blushes for the next match can you all do me a big favour, every day for the next 2 weeks can you all please clean your windows.
Many thanks.