Over 60's match 28th October 2020

On the 28^th October the Over 60s moved onto Avington for the first canal match of the 2020/21 series. 13 anglers turned out on a bright sunny day, and with the canal carrying some colour, expectations were high of a good day. There was some concern as tree work was being carried out on the opposite bank. With 15 minutes to go for the start whistle, a chain saw could be heard opposite of Richard Wiggins on peg 13 (you couldn’t make it up!), followed by a loud crack and a large tree falling. Although it fell along the line of the bank, many sizable branches hit the water. Richard was offered a move, but elected to stay put, a good decision as he was overall 4^th in the match.

Well, the match started reasonably Ok, with most catching a few small roach and gudgeon until a string of boats came through. After the boats (especially the Broad Beam) the match became a tale of two ends, with the six guys in the middle really struggling for bites (average weight for the six of them was 1lb 1oz).

The highlight of the day, had to be the half hour when the sky suddenly blackened and a roll of thunder, followed by high wind and heavy rain ripped along the canal, which had everybody scrambling for waterproofs and brollies, with the Match Sec doing a fair impression of Mary Poppins!

Who said fishing was boring!! The top weights were:

Dave Smith on end peg 15 found some skimmers and put 7lb 5oz in the net for the win.

 2^nd on peg 3, Wilf Squires with 3lb 13oz of mainly Perch.

 3^rd on peg 2, Chris Evans with a mixed bag small fish for 3lb 8oz.