Sheppard’s delight over triumph at Port Talbot
TWO good bream backed up with roach and all caught using a long pole with worms and maggots as bait gave Chris Sheppard, from Tredegar, a winning 16lb 15oz in the final round of the Port Talbot Docks Winter League.
Caerphilly competitor Scott Thomas worked hard with whip and maggots for a catch of small roach that weighed a second best 16lb 1oz and that was also the way Peter Williams fished to come third with 13llb 14oz.
Cardiff angler Gary Martin, a member of Glamorgan Rebels, was winner of the series with 16 penalty points followed by Peter Williams with 17 and Scott Thomas with 20 points.
Water coming in from the flooded River Severn coloured up the Gloucester Canal and cut catches in the annual Gloucester Angling Centre Christmas Open.
In a close finish, the winner and runner up were on adjacent pegs on the Netheridge section.
Gary Townsend carried off the largest selection of Christmas goodies after his pole tactics put 9lb 15oz of roach and bream in his keepnet while next peg neighbour Mark Brush weighed in 9lb 12oz and Geoff Mortimer nine pegs away was third with just one ounce less.
Ice breaking was needed before the first match in the Newport Winter Series could go ahead at School Pool.
Jeff Parfitt, from Risca, ended the shivering encounter as winner when he caught 13lb 6oz fishing a pole at peg 32 while straight across the pool was Cwmbran angler Martin Challenger who poled his way to 12lb 15oz and second place.
That area fished best because pegs alongside provided Jonathan Thomas with the third best weight of 11lb 12oz and Darrell Barnes’s 10lb 8oz for fourth.
The other section was won by Duane Boyall with 10lb.
The second match in the series is at Woodstock Pond on Sunday, January 7, then it’s School Pool on January 14; Woodstock Pond on January 28; School Pool on February 4 and the final match at Woodstock on February 18.
The cold conditions certainly put the fish off the feed for the over 50s Wednesday match at Cefn Mably Lakes and with bites hard to come by, Cardiff angler Gary Charles did well to coax out a winning 30lb of carp.
Well behind in second place, with 9lb 6oz, was the fishery’s angling coach Bob Mitchell and in third place with 8lb 13oz was Sean Wilson, from Trethomas.
Things were just as bad at White Springs in the Wednesday Open on the Pleasure Lake where Brian Prothero, from Merthyr, was the winner with 27lb 8oz of roach and carp and Alan Godrich, who has been winning regularly, settled for second place with 18lb 15oz.
The weights then dropped to the 8lb 10oz weighed in by another Merthyr competitor Paddy Payne. Redhill Fishery also gave the mid week line up a hard time but Mike Yandle, from Tredegar, added to his collection of first places with an unbeatable 26lb 6oz of carp. Duane Boyall and Ian Sutton followed with