Sunday 29th January Bristol Post Office club match Rushcombe Lake Bullocks Farm

The Bristol PO Angling Club hold one match a year at Bullocks Farm in January and have always booked Rushcombe Lake as you can usually get a few few bites this time of year due to the high numbers of small fish. The previous two years have seen us having to break the ice but not so today although it was not far off being frozen, some of the puddles in the car park were frozen over. Driving over to Bullocks which only takes me 15 - 20 minutes tops the temperature outside according to the car was 0.5c. I was looking forward to a breakfast in the cafe to set me up for the day. The draw was at 09:00 so leaving home just before 08:00 gave me plenty of time. On arrival and to my horror the cafe was not open! I drove around to the Rushcombe car park and most of the usual faces were already there, the legend that is Andy aka 'the turtle' or the tucksmaster' was in charge of proceedings, Andy said the cafe would be open at 10:00 so we would fish 10:15 - 16:15 which gave us a chance to grab a bacon buttie before fishing although not sure about the 6 hour duration for the match. 13 turned up in the end and we handed over £15 each, Andy said he would pay the top 3 and 2 sections, all the pegs were shifted from the straight over to the island as the word was this was the better area, Ben the owners son allowed us to use every other peg as there were only a few anglers around on the whole complex.
I was third to draw and out comes permanent peg 44, talk prior to the draw favoured peg 40 so initially I was fairly pleased. A lot of work appeared to have been carried out on the banks and the majority of pegs had little or no far bank cover which was not good given that the deepest part of this lake is only 3 feet.
I set up 3 rigs, one for the usual 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock lines at the bottom of the far shelf a 4 x 10 to 0.11 main line to a 0.09 hook length with a drennan 18 pellet hook, one for down the track and just short of out in front of the 2 empty pegs either side of me, again a 4 x 10 as there was no wind at all with 0.10 straight through to an 18 drennan pellet hook and finally a margin rig to fish about 6 meters to my left and a similar set up to the down the track rig. On the bait tray was liquidised bread, 4 and 6 mm expander, dead reds, wetted mirco and some corn.
The whistle went as I was returning from the cafe scoffing a large bacon and sausage bap, I just sat on my box and finished it. I cupped in a small amount of micro feed on each line and went over to the 2 o'clock far bank line first with a small piece of bread, after about 2 minutes the float sailed away and the result was the fish below.

There used to be loads of these in Rushcombe, commonly known as 'carrots' but talk is the cormorants have had a feast on them as they tend to swim around in big shoals near the surface so are easy prey. I won a winter match once with over 18lb of them, this one was about 6 ounces. Well at least it looked as if there would be a few bites today, the previous weeks match was only won with 4lb. I then went over the 10 o'clock far bank line and had a couple of dips but no proper bite. The time was 10:30 ish and that would be my last indication for the duration of the match. To my left 2 pegs away was Paul Pitts who  caught small carp steady all day feeding nothing and presenting to a far bank bush that had been spared the harsh pruning, branches were in the water so I guess they were all shoaled up tight in this refuge area. Looking around no one was really catching at all and there were a few walkers. Andy came around at 15:30 and suggested we finished the match at 15:45 instead of 16:15 there were no objections.
Weighing in first was Ian Swanborough, he was not going to bother but glad he did as his 3 oz gave him a section by default!!! Andy Bryant also won his section with 7lb 8oz, he had a good peg (52) by the bridge, before he weighed in he gave the on lookers a run down of his peg and his match performance, the picture is taken with his back to me as it's more complimentary (sorry Andy), for once he was 'fishing in the right place'.

The match was won from the other side of the bridge to Andy by Dave Evans who again had a few features that had not been pruned back, Dave had slightly better fish than Paul to my left.
Overall it was a hard day, only half the field weighed in but as usual the company and banter was good.

1st  Dave Evans 27lb
2nd Paul Pitts 21lb 13oz
3rd Mouse 8lb

Next Sunday there is a Clevedon Club Match on Woodlands Lake which is part of the Trinity Waters Complex just outside Bridgwater.