chilly chilton

a quick call to sue on tuesday to see how thick the top coat was, she told me it was about an inch thick tops , so it was game on for weds. as expected it wasnt going to be busy as there was only 11 booked and with leyton(sicknote)palmer not showing(i hope he aint ill. we decided to stop at hilltop cafe for a liver brekkie. i know now why i dont go there any more, the breakfast was dear and crap and the staff hadnt cheered up so it will be a while again till i visit it . a quick walk round with the breakers(of which we lost a couple)broke out 10 swims to 4 or 5 mtrs with the far bank ice only being half an inch i would have liked a draw on that side, but no i let plip plop draw for me and he handed me 31 which is just over the bridge and to the left. i had alan(stalker)oram on my left and bridgwater,s very own 2012 powerlifting hope none other than the mighty steve kedge on my right. at the start i cupped in 1 ball of dark g bait on the right hand side of my ice channel and a few casters and maggots on the left. i had a 1grm rig with an 18 6313 on .10. i put on a single red and went over the g bait but never had a bite , and to be honest i only had a few small roach over it all day, so i think the g bait was like the kiss of death today, i pulled the rig over the caster line and on the 30 minute mark i had my first bite which resulted in a 3lb common being safely netted, by now the gimp and the shrimp had both had a carp each plus some small silvers. it was turning into a lake of 2 halves as i had pete sivell opposite me and all we could catch were small roach and rudd with the occasional small skimmer , while the anglers to my right and pete,s left were getting some better silvers and odd carp with both the gimp and the shrimp ending up with 4 carp each but the shrimp was always going to win as he was getting some skimmers and a bonus 3lb bream, mat tomes did spend a lot of time on the phone today so i can only assume he was on a pole fishing helpline and that the expert on the other end was telling him what to do and it must have been good advice as he managed a comfortable win on a hard day with 24.13 which also included the top silvers weight on the day of 9.10 all taken on maggot over micro,s on peg 11
2nd went the way of john (the gimp)bradford on 14 with 17.3
3rd steve kedge 12.14 peg 29
4th tony rixon 10.8 peg 31
5th nick(plip plop)davidson 6.3 peg 17
6th pete sivell 5.14 peg 9