Second in our series of three Spring League matches, today at Bradshaw Hall Fisheries near Bolton. Twenty anglers arrived bright and early for breakfast followed by the draw at 8.30am and the match was to take place between 10.00am until 3.00pm which is of course our usual five hour match.
We welcomed a new match angler today John Osborne along with his friend Mark Davies who fished his first match with us a couple of weeks ago at Lloyd's Meadow. Mark also had the pressure of Golden Peg today as his number was pulled out of the bag following the draw, so no pressure there then! As we all have come to know, the Golden Peg is cursed.
The weather today was reasonable with patches of blue sky, however the air temperature was at about 7-8 degree's following a night which there had been a frost, so how would that affect the fishing?
Before the match started we had a comedy of errors with some members forgetting rods and reels, some losing tackle in the pool before the off and some with dodgy equipment, that's before we even got started!! No names but Jim, Frank and Colin spring to mind!
Eventually all in was at 10.00am and most were on method feeder or waggler with a few on the pole. Bait varied from pellet, meat, worm, maggot and sweetcorn.
Pegs 6-14 were shaded and had a pleasant climate, those fishing particularly between 18-28 had the sun but a stiff sometimes blustery cold wind cutting across which wasn't pleasant for five hours.
All anglers caught and the results you can see below (Colin chose not to weigh-in).
Congratulations to everyone, hard luck to Mark who as history dictates had the curse of the Golden Peg, well done to John O in his first match finishing in a creditable 8th place, and of course our top three of Alan, John M and Paul.
Finally your editor would like to thank Jim Morris for falling gracefully off his chair halfway through the afternoon, it was quite entertaining and more importantly no harm came to anyone (apart from Jim's dignity).
Thanks also to Damian, Noel and the team at Bradshaw Hall for their hospitality and the free T-Shirts.
Hope to see you all on the next match at Hampton Springs on 19th May.

That's it for now,

See you all soon......Tightlines.....