VERULAM ANGLING CLUB

MATCH RESULT

DATE:            3rd July 2008

VENUE:         Smallford      

TROPHY:      Evening League #3

Commentary: Unbelievable! 26 turning up to fish a three hour sprint at Smallford. It was certainly a struggle to fit everyone in as many pegs are now rather overgrown for us match boys. But we all managed to get a peg in the end and Roger Smith was lucky enough to pull out 37 - one of the flyers, especially on evening matches. The fact that a member had been carp fishing there for over a week also meant that plenty of bait had been going in (BTW, the carp guy reported plenty of carp to 18lb, tench to 10lb and numerous bream).

The start of the match was signalled with thunder and heavy rain which, in turn, triggered all the bream in Smallford to start head-n-shouldering. Oh yes, and they were all in front of Roger !!

After one hour my token efforts to punch a feeder and hair-rigged pellet to a gravel bar 50yds off of peg 32 (with trees, brolly and grebes in the way) were abandoned and a wander up to Roger revelled that his method feeder with hair-rigged corn was catching well with 15lb or so in the net already and he'd also been broken by a lump.

So I scuttled back to spend the last two hours plucking out roach etc. and let Roger focus on his obvious win. On the whistle the scales showed that he had a very clear win with 52lb and it wasn't until we got to Dave McGrath (2nd and 3rd on the previous two rounds) did we find another double figure weight. His 19.4.0 of skimmers from peg 5 was easy enough to give yet another cash pickup and more points. But, with three more to go and only the best four scores to count, the league isn't yet sown-up.

Peg 8, which won with 62lb on Sunday, produced just one three pounder, for Ivan. His only bite in three hours. 

Footnote: The Smallford 3hr match record is held by Kev Marslin with 57lb from peg 23