Bristol PSV AC

BOYD VALLEY LAKE
Fished: Sunday February 12 - 2012

Alan Healey scraped home by just 3oz from team-mate Simon Belcham.

Although a slow thaw set-in and swims remained clear for the duration, the water was far below a fish bagging temperature and weights fell well below expectations.

As expected, the lake’s huge head of carp had no interest in feeding. Only two were hooked during the six hour match and both were lost to the sharp edges of floating or subsurface ice.

Small roach and skimmers supplied most of the day’s sport but with ‘20 fish to the pound’ a decent result meant hours of cold, hard work.

Alan’s winning catch came from the hotly favoured peg 4 and fell to red and white maggot poled at either 5 metres centre of at 7 metres into a clear water gap situated between a marginal reed bed and an inch thick layer of ice.

He said: “I fed both swims at the start but it took me more than an hour to catch my first skimmer.

“In the meantime Simon Belcham was taking a fish a chuck and must have had a good 7lb of fish in his keepnet by the time I started.

“I fed carefully and when the swim died switched to my inside line. I caught a 12oz skimmer with my first put-in to the narrow gap and started catching a better quality of fish up until the start of the last hour when the sun came out.

“I immediately reverted to plan A and continued to catch although, at a slower rate. Nothing I did improved my catch rate or size of fish and at the all-out shout I knew it would take the scales to decide the winner.”

Simon Belcham poured hundreds of tiny fish into the weighing net at Golden Peg 2 and was left cursing lost fish when his 12-2-0 total catch was compared with the winner’s 12-5-0.

Simon said: “For the first couple of hours I just couldn’t go wrong. I fed and fished at 5 metres in front of me and by the time the swim petered-out I was well ahead.

“I switched tack to the reed bed in my right hand margins and eventually started catching again but by the time the fish came on to feed regularly two hours of catching nothing had passed and Alan had started to catch a better quality of fish.

“At the weigh-in we both knew the result was going to be close - and it was”

The third man was the consistent Bob Warren who poled caster both centre and into the lakeside margins of peg 12 to tempt a creditable 7-4-0 of roach.

Dave Tippett followed in fourth place with 6-1-0 of the same taken at 3 metres centre off peg 9 with caster and maggot.

Fifth was Press officer Steve Burgess who hoped to improve on his 5-15-0 catch of skimmers and roach when a last cast carp slurped in his white maggot hook-bait.

However, as soon as the fish realised it was hooked it sought sanctuary beneath the line cutting ice and when the scalesman did his rounds Steve still had only 5-15-0 of skimmers and roach to weigh-in.

Result: 1, Alan Healey 12-6-0, TOP PEG 4; 2, Simon Belcham 12-2-0, peg 2; 3, Bob Warren 7-4-0, peg 12; 4, Dave Tippett 6-1-0, peg 9; 5, Steve Burgess 5-15-0, peg 8; 6, Darren North 5-9-0, peg 5; 7, Keith Ray 4-6-0, peg 1.

BOYD VALLEY LAKE
Fished: Sunday January 8

Result. 1, Simon Belcham 13-6-0, Top Peg 4; 2, Mark Radford 12-11-0, peg 9; 3, Steve Burgess 11-5-0, peg 10; 4, Rich Britton 8-8-0, peg 11; 5, Bob Warren 8-0-0, peg 8; 6, Kev Jeffries 7-1-0, peg 2; 7, Chris Gay 5-9-0, peg 5.