Winter League RD3, Woodside Pool

Saturday 1st November saw the third round of the Woodside winter league series. The field was a couple of anglers short due to both Stan Taylor and Dave Bowyer both being unable to attend due to illness. That said, the midway stage of the league fished fairer than in the previous two rounds producing more consistant weights across the board. The sudden drop in temperatures seemed to spread the fish around the lake more with no one angler running away with it as in the previous two rounds.

A SECTION

(pegs 21, 20, 18 & 16)

Winner of A section, and getting his winter league campaign back on track after a difficult second round was Lawrence Connolly. Loz drew permanent peg 10 on the far point of the island and fished most of the day with maggot up in the water to find quality roach, rudd and skimmer bream. Later, Loz had a look down his edge with maggot over groundbait to enjoy a decent run of carp. Come the weigh in, Loz offered over 20lb of silvers and six carp to the scales ending the day with 39-10-00, a single point and an overall lake win.

Loz put on a silverfish fishing master class to weigh in this 21-15-00 catch, which helped him to overall victory on round 3

Second in A section was Ken Hayes from neighbouring peg 12. Ken opted for an all out pellet attack fishing expanders down his edge for most of the match to find fewer, but better stamp fish. Ken was confident of a section win, but his handful of proper carp went 30-12-00, which was good enough for two points on the day.

Finishing third in section A on the day was Jason Bird from end peg 8. Jason fished a simple but tidy match offering maggot short and down his edge to weigh in 22-13-00 of carp and silverfish in a peg that, at the moment, is much s hallower than normal due to the dry summer. Jason picked up three points for his efforts.

ANGLER	PEG	WEIGHT	METHOD	PTS
L. Connolly	10	39-10-00	Maggot shallow & in the margins	1
K. Hayes	12	30-12-00	Pellet in the margins	2
J. Bird	8	22-13-00	Maggot short & in the margins	3

B SECTION

(pegs 14, 12, 10 & 8)

Winner of B section on round three was Josh Gaunt. Josh drew peg 21 and started his match fishing caster short, but his short line didn't produce like he'd hoped. A switch to the long pole with maggot over groundbait, however, produced some better fishing with a few carp gracing his net among more silverfish giving Josh a final 19-10-00.

Josh Gaunt with part of his section-winning 19-10-00

Finishing runner-up in B section was John Latham from peg 16 on the dam wall. John noticed other anglers around the lake catching silverfish in numbers up in the water and decided to follow suit given that the dam wall has produced very few carp thus far in the league. John got his head down and managed 12-01-00 of small roach and skimmer plus a solitary small carp to secure another well-earned two point score.

Finishing in third place in B section was Chris Oakley, who drew peg 20. Chris started his match fishing maggot short before switching to expanders on his long line later on in the day to offer a final 6-10-00 to the scales.

ANGLER	PEG	WEIGHT	METHOD	PTS
J. Gaunt	21	19-10-00	Caster short & Maggot long	1
J. Latham	16	12-01-00	Maggot shallow	2
C. Oakley	20	06-10-00	Maggot short & Pellet long	3

OVERALL LEAGUE STANDINGS (AFTER RD3)

POSITION	ANGLER	POINTS	WEIGHT
1st	Josh Gaunt	3	122-13-00
2nd	John Latham	5	77-04-00
3rd	Lawrence Connolly	7	119-10-00
4th	Chris Oakley	8	42-03-00
5th	Ken Hayes	9	65-12-00
6th	Jason Bird	9	59-06-00
7th	Ryan Walker	12	22-10-00
8th	Stan Taylor	13	32-10-00
9th	Rachael Chebsey	13	24-02-00
10th	Dave Bowyer	13	23-15-00

At the midway stage of the competition Josh Gaunt still remains top of the league with a perfect three point score. However, the weight advantage he carried into round three has all but gone with a little over 3lbs separating him from the rest of the field when looking at Loz's efforts to date.

John Latham remains in second place thanks to another decent performance saw him bag a useful two points from what has been a notoriously difficult area so far, whilst Loz pulls himself up a place to leap frog Chris Oakley and remain inside the top three.

Other movers include Ryan Walker, who climbs from ninth place into seventh with both Stan Taylor and Dave Bowyer picking up penalty points and losing ground for not attending and failing to provide a stand-in.

HOWEVER, it is worth noting at this stage that the above league table does NOT take into account the result each competing angler is allowed to drop with only five rounds out of the six contributing towards final scores.

Congratulations to section winners Loz and Josh who each picked up £25. Congratulations also to Ken and John on finishing runner-up in their sections and picking up £15 each.

Well done to all other competitors. It's certainly shaping up to be quite a tight league overall with carp not featuring as much as in previous years. Round four will take place on Saturday November 15th.