Eighteen anglers attended the annual Spring Open event here at Woodside. The event, which has now entered its seventh year, once again produced some excellent sport on the day with over 80lbs needed to finish in the main frame.
Despite a cool start with a touch of ground frost overnight, conditions for this year's event were relatively kind with extended periods of bright sunshine helping to warm things up as the day progressed.
In the days leading up to the event, it was Island pool that had produced the best of the weights with a number of anglers taking the time to practice before Saturday's match. However, it was anyone's guess on the day which of the two pools was going to offer the better sport.
Given the number of anglers that attended this year's event, an overall top three prize was awarded over both pools as opposed to each individual lake as in previous years.
It was a steady start to the day for most with a large proportion of the field resorting to fishing shallow or tight to the islands before those ever reliable margin munters began to show themselves during the final throws of the match.
Overall winner on the day was local angler, Warren Jennings (Bag 'Em Baits). Warren drew peg 10 on the point of the larger of the two islands on Island pool and opted to fish the majority of his match up in the water. Offering pellet long at 16m to far side cover, Warren found good quality carp, managing to maintain a steady catch rate throughout, to end proceedings with ???
Finishing in second place was Lee Payne from fancied peg 1, also on Island pool. Lee fished the first half of the match on the long pole before looking down his left hand edge late on to find some real lumps. Lee offered 97-05-00 to the scales at the end of the five hours.
Hasbury AC rod, Martin Dunn, rounded off the top three with 80-13-00 from peg 9 on Woodside pool. The majority of Martin's weight came from down his edge - a method he has somewhat perfected at Woodside - with fish up to 10lbs on paste gracing his net before the 'all out'.
Overall Result
POS ANGLER PEG WEIGHT
1st Warren Jennings 10 (Island) 128-09-00
2nd Lee Payne 1 (Island) 97-05-00
3rd Martin Dunn 9 (Woodside) 80-13-00
4th Ricky Hudson ?? (Woodside) 52-10-00 SECTION
5th Ash Fisher 16 (Island) 48-00-00 SECTION
Back row: (left to right): Lee Payne (2nd overall), Warren Jennings (1st overall) & Martin Dunn (3rd overall)
Front row: (left to right): Ricky Hudson (section winner, Woodside) & Ash Fisher (section winner, Island)
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the anglers that took part in this year's event. We are sad to say that the 2017 Spring Open event is the last in what has been a great series over the last seven years. We've seen some big names compete and some fantastic fishing with over 100lbs needed to win over the last three events.
Despite the Woodside Spring Opens coming to an end, be sure to look out for a new event later in the year in 2018. Details coming soon!
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