Report by Tom Scholey
With a heavy deluge of rain preceding this qualifier, the River Avon was once again carrying extra pace and a tinge of colour. Being the first of the bloodworm qualifiers, many anglers based their approach on balled in groundbait, bloodworm and joker and good nets of small fish were taken throughout.
Winner on the day was river legend Wayne Swinscoe. Drawn on peg 27, Wayne fished bloodworm and joker at 13 metres to take a succession of chunky roach, perch and dace. While he was catching these smaller fish, Wayne catapulted halibut pellets down the middle of the river, and as the last half hour of the match approached, he slipped one on to the hook and cast a bomb out in to the flow. Ten minutes later, and his gamble paid off, as a 7lb barbel intercepted his hook pellet. He finished with an 11-2-0 total.
In second spot was another Avon legend, Leigh Gardner. Leigh started his match on bloodworm, but after a disappointing first hour decided that targeting bigger fish on chopped worm and caster would be a better bet. He caught a few chunky perch on a short line fed with worms, before casting out his trademark chopped worm feeder. Several quality eels followed, and Lee finished with a 9-7-0 mixed net.
Milo ace Simon Willsmore also had to ring the changes in order to keep fish coming. Simon caught an initial run of roach over balled in joker at 13 metres, before switching to a shorter line where he enjoyed a really good spell catching quality perch. When bites dried up here, Simon targeted bleak, and added a further 3lb of these to his net in the last couple of hours of the match, to finish with a 9-7-0 total.
- Wayne Swinscoe (Maver Bait Tech) 11-2-0 (peg 27)
- Leigh Gardner (Shakespeare Superteam) 9-7-0 (peg 10)
- Simon Willsmore (Milo) 9-5-0 (peg 41)
- Nigel Davies (Shakespeare Superteam) 7-10-0 (peg 11)
- Steve Hemmingray (Drennan) 7-6-0 (peg 16)
=Matt Godfrey (Sensas) 7-6-0 (peg 79)
Qualifiers
Nigel Davies
Tim Kaye
Matt Godfrey
