Mallory Park Fisheries - Snide Rumours & Dirty Lies

Winter league report provided by Kev Russell:

Conditions were not good for the final round of our epic winter league, snow had fallen overnight and there was an icy north wind blowing across the Glebe. 26 anglers had turned up to fish and most were questioning their sanity at the draw.

Chris Needham - winner on pool 5

Domonic Lanni had already won the league but the runners up were still to be decided. Bob Eaton had drawn me out peg 70 on pool 4, a peg with good form and he also informed me that he had practised on the peg earlier in the week and had caught a few. Rob 'the eel' had a slight miscalculation with the number of anglers fishing and I had been gifted with a smaller than planned section of just four anglers, I needed to catch a fish though. I had not studied the scores leading up to this final match too deeply but Bob informed me that I needed a maximum score to beat him into second place. As I got to my peg Bob was giving Dom, on peg 73, a prep talk and allegedly money changed hands to ensure that Dom did his best to win the section.

It was a slow start to the match, we were fortunate that we had the freezing wind slightly off our backs and were able to shelter from it. Dom was the first to get a fish, a carp of around 5lb, I soon followed with a smaller sample of around 2lb, quickly followed by an almost identical fish - these were the fully scaled mirror carp that had been stocked in January and they are certainly growing. The middle part of the match seemed to plod on with not a lot happening apart from the antics on pool 5. Roy had decided not to fish, instead he had decided to give Mr Ward some coaching on peg 84. Mr Ward, as usual, had been around to the far bank, this week he even made a trip before the match had started!!! His second visit was soon to be followed by Ringo who had obviously learned the tactic from Mr Ward. After drinking all of Dagga's coffee Roy said he could no longer witness such antics and went to sit with an angler instead of a 'muppet', Rob Bowser's words not mine. I managed to catch three more good sized carp in the last couple of hours, despite all the ramblings going on across on pool 5, and looked good for a section win.

Meet the muppets

The weather had been really cruel up on pool 1, despite this it had been a good fishing match. The first section was like a 'nasties' day-out but apparently they had all cancelled each other out and had some good banter. In first place was ACE Chris Downs, second place went to 'end peg' Andy Kind only ounces behind on peg 1. Jarred had to settle for third, which was good for my league points position, two of the other anglers in the frame for league positions were in this section, Gordon Parker had really struggled in a poor area and came in forth from peg 14 and Steve Conway suffered even more on peg 12 and failed to weigh.

My only other danger was 'over practice' Bob on pool 5, but the word was that even his pal Ringo had pushed him down the points. Chris Needham had been let out after a short break and made no mistakes taking a brilliant catch of 100lb 12oz from the narrow end of pool 5. In second place was Mr Ward, with 73lb from peg 84, he actually fished peg 85 as he was finding it impossible to feed the far bank once 'Robber' was sat watching him. Third place went to Rob Bowser who claimed he would have won easily if he had been on Dagga's peg. Bob was last in the points as his mate Ringo showed no mercy, he assured me that I had beaten him into second place, with a weight advantage if I had won pool 4.

As we weighed pool 4 it was soon evident that Dom had let Bob down, Big Trev Slater had battered him from the next peg and really rubbed it in. I was just out in front though and took the win, my 'drawing hand' Bob was the first to congratulate me, adding that he had 'drawn me a flier' thanks Bob, well done. Pool 7 proved to be very hard with Andy Towers taking the win with 24lb. Andy has been away plundering the pools at another venue but had been told his usual match was cancelled due to the snow!! Carl Redman was in second with Bob Conway in third.

Results:

Pool 1

Section 1
Chris Downs - 66lb 8oz - peg 3
Andy Kind - 66lb 3oz - peg 1
Jarrad Smith - 41lb - peg 5

Section 2
Bill Pryce - 85lb - peg 20
Jim Chessman - 65lb - peg 26
Chris Allen - 41lb - peg 16

Pool 4
Kev Russell - 29lb - peg 70
Trev Slater - 17lb 13oz - peg 71
Dom Lanni - 17lb 5oz - peg 73

Pool 5
Chris Needham - 100lb - peg 78
David Ward - 73lb - pegs 84 & 85
Rob Bowser - 23lb - peg 83

Pool 7
Andy Towers - 24lb - peg 100
Carl Redman - 16lb - peg 105
Bob Conway - 12lb - peg 103

The final league positions were as follows:

Dom Lanni - 145 points - 790lb
Kev Russell - 130 points - 685lb
Bob Eaton - 130 points - 552lb
Jarrad Smith - 128 points - 555lb
Gordon Parker - 127 points - 500lb
Steve Conway - 126 points - 694lb

Well done Domonic, a tremendous performance, averaging 40lb over the 20 counting matches and well done to all the competitors who have helped make this league a success, a special thanks to Rob 'the eel' for match admin and Mr Ward for counting the money each week, and everyone for assisting with the weighing in, it is not an easy job.

And Finally with two days to report on your webmaster has had to limit the words in this report. Mr Ward was up to his usual tricks on Sunday when he sat on a shedful and skilfully caught 74lb. That's what Rob Bowser said on the next peg. We now have conclusive evidence that Mr Ward deliberately catches the far bank so that he can slyly feed his peg when he releases his tackle. No one can possibly cast that bad said Rob Bowser, I have seen a lot of muppets fishing in my time but Dagga is worse than a muppet.

The well-deserved nasty trophy was presented to Jarrad who had a battering off in-form ACE Downs on Sunday. ACE said, 'it was like having an empty peg next to me'. Sweet revenge from the battering Jarrad gave ACE the other week. During a blizzard Jarrad asked Robber Marlow to bring his camera to take a picture of ACE, Jarrad said ' bring your wide angle lens and take a picture of the Giant Snowman next to me' - we can all see why Jarrad won the trophy.

My winning catch

The committee is concerned that our man ACE is taking so much stick from his so-called mates. Over practice Bob and Ringo commented that they had both caught a load of Chris Downs in their recent big weight catches, now girls, talk like that must stop.

Happy and Grumpy have had a little tiff. (Chris Allen's Happy, you get one guess who Grumpy is). Grumpy had a flat tyre and Chris got out the pump, 'I will have to put at least 50lb of pressure in this tire as it is on Grump's side,' Grumpy was not amused.

The other Pie Eater was missing over the last two matches, we understand from Mr Bates that Scott could not purchase enough pies for two day's fishing due to the limited production on bank holidays. Paul also let it slip that Scott was preparing Sunday lunch for a special friend, we will confirm this when we know more as we cannot comment on rumour.

'Robber' Marlow did not fish on Sunday, as he does not like the cold, however he watched several anglers freezing to death in the icy wind. He confided in 'Ruthless' Russell and was heard to say, 'most of this lot need putting away for their own safety, they are raving mad, do you think we could just put up their subscriptions as their brains are huddled and they won't know anyway.' Ruthless agreed.

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