Rd-4-2025-Summer League - 24th May- Springvale – Gold 2

[Leo Martin]

Rd-4-2025-Summer League - 24th May- Springvale – Gold 2

15 Bashers entered Jaspers wheel of wonder alongside Woolfy and Kris Rodgers who is recapping his fishing knowledge and enjoying his outings with us. Pegs 21 to 45 on Gold 2 for us which turns out to be the full lake. The fishery always gets a good turn out on the promise of being busy with lots of bites and fish hopefully caught. There is also the dilemma of fishing either the carp or silvers route as the lakes hold a big stock of Ide, skimmers roach etc. It is also immaculate, great quality road to each lake and peg as well as park behind every peg. All nets supplied as well, another bonus.

Cloudy, overcast, possible showers and potentially some sunshine was the forecast weather for match day. Gold lake rectangular in shape with pegs on all 4 sides, 2 or 3 pegs on shorter ends and others along each of the longer sides of the lake.  Peg 21 in corner backing onto Newcastle lake  then working anticlockwise around the lake. A couple of narrow long islands in middle which are a good 30m+ chuck to , similar chuck from ends of lake.  Shallow margins ( on 22 it was 8 inch in the side, sloping down to 18 inch 4 feet from bank then it drops off. 2 + 3 it was 3 feet, and 2 + 5 3 feet 6 inch). Some areas much deeper.

John Lanelly, Andy Waite and myself up in the hours of darkness to travel back from an enjoyable and interesting week at Docklow Pools. On arrival we find quite a few of Bashers around the lake and setting up, keen to get going. Whistle tooted by our new timekeeper John (Gino) Lanelly ( got to have been in Docklow to know the story) and away we go. Some chose feeder and some straight on the pole. Peg 22 offers feeder chuck to end of island, open water and if 21 is not in, a chuck to the corner and along the side of lake where an aerator is also located and natural hold up for the fish ( at least that was my hope).
Tackle and set up was method and bomb rods, pole line 2+3 for maggot and pellet ( although pellet not tried), shallow rig and margin rig 2+2 to some sedges in water and also 21 platform 11m if required.
Set off on method, fishery micros and wafter and tip went first chuck for first fish of the match. Sort of "wobbly bite" resulted in an Ide. Next few bites also resulted in Ide and after 30 minutes a small carp bent the rod round, then more Ide. I switched to 2+3 pole line which I had primed and more Ide, small carp and more Ide. The stamp of Ide were 6 inch, not great but plentiful however after looking around I decided to change back onto rods and pursue carp as they simply weigh much more and Mark Radford was catching carp. Feeding 8mm pellets to the aerator with catty slowly I started to catch stockie carp. The stamp was 8 to 12 inch in l with a few chucks of methoength but these weigh more than the Ide and I was hoping larger ones would turn up, never happened. Carp also moved on around 1pm and time gaps  between bites was growing. Tried bomb with 8mm pellet to try for bigger fish, one bite so back on method and eventually back on pole line whilst margin was fed with groundbait. Moved into margin around 3pm as swirls was spotted but these it seems were form larger Ide, around 8 inch in length. Stayed on this line with a few chucks on method in between to end of match. Hooked a carp in margin at 3:45 but he just sailed off into centre of lake. 25.3 for my efforts but after last week at Docklow it was nice to be busy catching a few fish again. Hindsight, which is wondeful, should have possibly stayed on pole line and used pellet instead of maggots. Gambled on larger carp on feeder but it didn't work

Peg 22 Leo Martin 25. 3
Peg 23 Kris Rodgers 38.10. fished for silvers on pole and pellet all match and caught steadily throughout. Well done mate
Peg 24 Mark Radford 62,1   section win    Great match fished to achieve a section win. Started on method mid way to island then dropped on pole. Pellet also bait used. Over 40 carp in his net topped up with Ide. Realy surprised they didn't weigh more.
Peg 25 John Utting  38.5
Peg 26 Andy Waite 41.1
Peg 27 Indian 45.13             2nd in section

Section 2
Peg 30 Jasper 47.13
Peg 31 John Lanelly 55.7       2nd in section  Caught out in front and each margin, groundbait, pellets and worm well done Gino.
Peg 32 Keith Smith 54.3     Neck and neck with John next door, again majority of fish from margin, groundbait, pellets and worm. Both guys taking advantage of the cool wind blowing in to them
Peg 34 Tracey Benson 28.4
Peg 35 Steve Curtis 76.3               Section win        Mr consistent  fishing method again to his advantage, wind too strong for his other favoured past approach 
Peg 36 Paul Atton 26.3

Section 3
Peg 37 Steve Guy 18.1
Peg 39 Paul Whitehouse 98.0                        Match win     well done Paul on match win from method to island. Rod fishing becoming his go to method of late and framing of it more and more
Peg 41Scott Barker 31.10                couple of larger carp taken from long pole margin line towards corner in Scott net.
Peg 43 Woolfy    38.9                                         2nd in section practise fish midweek set up Andy however today was a different day, different peg and fishing differently. Andy did get  his head around things and also spent a large section of time "coaching and encouraging" Joe next door who was separated by some distance from his usual coach Scott.
Peg 44 Joe "corner peg" Martin     81.9         section win  Fished a great match, first few hors on pole silver bashing then moved over onto method to continue catching. margins did not produce as Joe would have liked but he still managed a section win (trend here) and also second highest weight in match. Maggots on pole, pellets on method I think was used. Well done mate.

Everyone caught a few and certainly had bites all match which is a good result for the organisers.  The weather changed throughout the match and it was very windy on Duke/ dichess side bank than the Newcastle side bank. Good thing was it stayed dry all day.
 
Next Big Bash Matches are for our Legends weekend at Lindholme, very poignant this year in particular with the loss of 3 of our friends. Saturday  7th June,  Legends cup on Strip and Sunday 8th Mystery pairs on Bonsai. Please book on early to help admin, guest places also available both days. Also there is a knock up being arranged on Friday 6th, places available for this also, lake tbc.