Daiwa / Orchill Over 50s Series Match 1 29/4/18 Snake Lake.

Result of the Daiwa / Orchill Over 50s Series 2018 Matchday 1 on Sunday 29th April 2018 on Snake Lake.

Match Report:

Sunday 29th April saw the start of the Daiwa / Orchill Over 50s Series. This as a Series where those who have reached the grand old age of 50 years old and have been fishing friends for many years like to take part in fishing together.

The banter was flowing as the pensioners assembled for the match. There was one prat namely myself that joined the queue on the motorway to run the Stirling Marathon. The way I fished I would have been better running the marathon. It was ten minutes in the queue before I realised what a prat I had been as I could see the exit road and the traffic which I was swearing at for queue hoping was heading right on towards Perth.

I got to Orchill for 8am and I announced that some would be late. When all arrived they said they had read the signs. I blame MacDonalds for it and their breakfast wraps which I was watching that I didn't drip brown sauce onto my T-shirt.
The Sections selected by the organisers for the 25 who turned out to fish were as follows.

Section A - 0,2,4,6 and 8
Section B - 11,13,15,18 and 20
Section C - 22,24,26,28,30
Section D - 32,36,38,40,42
Section E - 44,46,48,50 and 52

The Orchill Draw system was adopted and the Pegs were counted into the bag by Ronnie Ogilvie and Andrew drew for John Perella and Tony Ball. Anglers drew in the order that they paid their money.

It's funny wherever you fish people keep pulling out the same pegs and areas. Margaret Hamilton was the first to do so again at the draw drawing her Peg where her mail is delivered to Peg Number 52. As a Rod Angler Margaret loves that Peg which is one of the better feeder pegs on the Snake Lake.
I drew Peg 32 and John Perella immediately said that's a good end peg for you Tommy. There was me thinking it was one where the Major weights were coming off. I said is it a good one. John's reply was ' Yes for you Tommy you can park your car right behind that one. That was in relation to me wanting assistance to get to my peg if I drew any on the 36 to 53 stretch. He wasn't all bad as when I got to my peg I wondered why I hadn't been given Peg 34 and Tony explained that in a few matches recently the anglers on pegs 33 and 34 blanked.

For company I had Tony Ball to my right so I switched my hearing aids off so as I didn't have the sound of scissors cutting all day long. Bill Hamilton was next to Tony so there would be hearty laughing throughout the match as they both competed for the lucky pound bet.

Section D

The match was fished from 11am till 4pm. I never watch anglers in my section as I always have trouble turning my head left and right. On this occasion my four opponents were opposite from me on the Far Bank of the Lake so here was my chance to watch. It was a very quiet start to the match with nobody catching. After failing to get any action on my float on the far shelf I went straight to my roach line that I fed at the start. My plan was to put together a few roach till I saw the others in my section catch. The plan went well for an hour as I had a roach in my net with the rest of my section blanking. In fact I was also blanking in my search for Roach number 2. Chopper Ball to my right was catching roach on a regular basis.

At that time Alan Colon hooked into a carp and he played it for ten minutes prior to him putting it in his net. Bang went my silver approach. Alan got a second and just after that Mark Gleave got in on the act. That left me mid section. It was that bad I tried for roach again in case the blankers in my section caught a roach. Jim Gallagher hooked into a lump and lost it. It wasn't long before Jimmy Hillhouse had his pole in the air trying to control what turned out to be a 6Lb-9oz Carp. Jim landed it but bigger fish and disaster was to befall Jim. The next big lump saw his pole in the air and he ended up losing it after a struggle. This was to happen on a further two occasions. The carp were that big the decided where they were going and not Jimmy. They say things happen in three's there was 3 for Jim. Another things happen in three's further on in the report.

Jim did catch a few smaller carp between rig building stints. Poor Jim Gallagher never got another bite in the match. Myself during the last hour reverted to an old trick of mine fishing the margins. I had only one feature to fish to so that kept it simple. I didn't get to see my second bite of the day as I had been watching all round me. My pole was dragged under the water and I was set up for big fish. I thought I had caught a monster but when it came to the surface it was only just over 1.5Lbs.

Where I was I never seen much of the action and felt I had did real bad and following the weigh in there were other disasters.

Section A
The weigh in started from Peg 0 in Section A and on that peg was the Fed Coach Martin McLaren. Now McLarens are renowned for being fast. Not our Martin as it was reported to me me he was 2 hours late in responding to the all in call. Well can I say that he didn't hang about when fishing with his feeder rod. He caught his best match weight of 32Lbs-9oz. Well done auld guy.

Next to weigh was Colin Burgess on Peg 2 who was the talk of the steamie to win the section. Colin weighed 54Lbs-11ozs and again it was the second angler with a personal best match weight again all caugh on rod, can you see where I'm going with this. Next to weigh was Don of the McLeans who was tired from his journey home from whiteacres and only managed 16Lbs-11ozs. Next was Dave Minard who never lets himself down in any match. Dave weighed 45Lbs-4ozs alll long line on pole. Poor Jim Craig had to sit all day without a bite watching all others catch. He was not to be alone.

Section B

This was a Section where one angler destroyed all others by trebling all others combined weights. Yes it was the tallest angler on the circuit Nigel Foulds who weighed in 25Lbs from Peg 20. Poor Mr Davies had to sit biteless watching Nigel showboating. Mr Davies didn't take maggots to the bank with him. John Perella said that if he knew he would have brought him along some as that was allowed in the Series. John was second with 4Lbs-8ozs with two big bream and some silvers. Dougie the Tip Campbell also had two big skimmers but no silvers to back the up so he had to settle for 3rd place.

Section C

Nobody had a clue who had won as they all had one carp other than Tony of The Balls. It turned out that the Orchill Chopper had taken the section win with 4Lb-13ozs of silvers. Ian Sloss got second place with 4Lbs-2ozs mostly silvers. Tony had to be calmed down after his victory, I thought he was going to swim along to collect his £1 from Bill Hamilton which meant so much to him.

Section D

My section was explained earlier on in the blog. Jimmy HIllhouse won with 10Lbs-1oz to Alan Colons 7Lbs-13ozs. Jim Gallagher got the third blank of the day. But that does not come in my series of three's
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Section E

Saw a tight battle for the overall victory with a lot of Big Fish Caught and again a poor angler on the end peg sat watching whilst people were bagging. The angler in this section was Ricki Pentland. On Peg 48 Jimmy Jones weighed in and he had 58Lbs-3ozs to take the lead and that included a 7Lb-15oz Carp which took the lead in the heaviest fish sweep. Jimmy was unsure if he had won as he knew that Brian Docherty Jnr had matched him fish for fish and he knew Margaret Hamilton had caught well. Brian on Peg 50 weighed 55Lbs-10ozs which put him into second place. That just left Margaret to weigh in and the scales showed 46Lbs-7ozs a PB Match weight for Margaret and 4th place. There you have in 3 anglers with PB match weights. Jimmy Jones could then celebrate.

Well done to all who took part especially the framers. Turned out to be a good match with just 12Lbs separating the top 5 anglers and only 3.5 Lbs separating the top 3. Fishing like that is welcomed anywhere.
Tommy Lauriston.