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Eggy Ferry Weekend Away 2016

This year 17 of Eggy Ferry’s finest (plus Nicky Harrop) made their way down to the midlands for one day on Barston’s main lake and two days at the Midlands Mecca known as Tunnel Barn Farm.

Day One – Friday 9^th September - Barston  

Arrangements had been made to meet at the Toby Carvery in Knowle (about 5 miles from Barston) at 8am to start the weekend with an ‘All You Can Eat’ (they hadn’t met Pato!) breakfast for a fiver.  Surprisingly all the members who agreed to meet there actually turned up on time if not a little early. We were eagerly waiting for the doors to open when a member of staff came out and appologised profusely as breakfast wouldn’t be served until half an hour later than usual at 8.30am. Blind panic amongst the ranks followed until Tony Wilson (one of our few compos-mentis members) suggested having breakfast in the Club House at Barston instead. OK it might be a bit more expensive than the Carvery   but what the hell, these trips are only once a year.  The aforementioned Harrop volunteered to lead the party there as he had Barston dialled in on his Satnav.  Foolishly some of the party followed him all the way into Solihull, which was odd given that Solihull is 10 miles north of Knowle but Barston is 5 miles east! The final straw came when his Satnav directed him to a disabled parking space in the local Solihull Morrison’s (I always thought that disabled spaces were for physically rather than mentally disabled people!) We eventually found ourselves driving back past the Carvery about 10 minutes after the 8.30 breakfast had started!!!!!!! If only we’d just waited in the car park.

Finally arriving at Barston a quick but filling breakfast was followed by the day one draw.  Format for the weekend was 3 sections of 6 each day with top 3 in section getting paid out.  So 50% of the crew picked up dosh each day.

The weather won day one with a howling gale blowing across the lake. Presentation on the pole was terrible but some still caught whilst others stuck to the feeder or bomb.  First on the day was Gary Brislen with a brilliant 99lb of mainly F1s at 25m on the bomb and big pellet. Second was Tony Wilson with an equally impressive 90lb of carp and big skimmers on paste short.  Third was Colin Cook with 80lb including some right munters on worm in the margin.

(All weights are rounded up or down to the nearest pound)

Sections        

A             1^st           Tony Wilson       80lb

                2^nd          Dennis Jones      48lb

                3^rd           Chris Rowe         46lb

B             1^st           Gary Brislen        99lb

                2^nd          Colin Cook           80lb

                3^rd           Andy Lawton      66lb

C             1^st           Lee Pickup           55lb

                2^nd          Jamie Pickup      47lb

                3^rd           Kenny Pickup     35lb   (a Pickup Whitewash that one!!)

The hotel was the excellent Holiday Inn in Kenilworth and the evening entertainment involved a rather good Indian meal across the road. Even the regulars quickly realised what a prick Nick Harrop can be and they started pounding him with left over Naan breads. Unfortunately none of them hit him hard enough to knock any sense into him.  

‘Who threw that fucking Naan bread?’

Neil Patterson displays the dining manners learned at the Lucy

Clayton Finishing School for Young Ladies.

Day 2 – Saturday 10^th September – Tunnel Barn, Jenny’s

A mahoosive breakfast in Tunnel’s new conservatory dining room was followed by the draw, pegging being kindly sorted for us by Les in the tackle shop.  Many suffered a slow start as the lake didn’t respond to the usual corn and hemp on the deck tactics and the refusal of the massive head of F1s to feed shallow on caster or maggot.  Eventually people started to sort it out and fish started getting caught all over. Unusually for him Tony Wilson was struggling and in a hissy fit went back to his car to ring his wife for advice. She told him to man-up and not to ring again when she was busy paying the milkman. Due to the slow start weights were not up to Jenny’s usual high standards but when a load of hungover idiots like us turn up, what do you expect?  Pato was on speed dial to the Samaritans after 3 hours and still trying to tie a noose of 0.25mm line between his neck and the nearest (very strong) tree at the weigh in.  The soft shite came third in section, picked up some coin, and cheered up a bit.   

Sections         

A             1^st           Colin Cook           96lb

                2^nd          Dennis Jones      58lb

                3^rd           Neil Patterson   43lb

B             1^st           Nicky Harrop      83lb (Jesus wept.)

                2^nd          John Edwards    75lb

                3^rd           Andy Lawton      49lb

C             1^st           Chris Rowe          80lb

                2^nd          Jamie Pickup      71lb

                3^rd           Derek Warren    51lb  

Entertainment that night consisted of a meal in a local Chinese. Again great quality and washed down with lashings of Tsingchau lager.

Day 3 – Sunday 11^th September – Tunnel Barn, Canal

Yet another good breakfast at the fishery was followed by the draw with Les again kindly pegging the lake for us.  Well what can I say? Personally I’ve fished this lake 6 or 7 times and never done less than 60lb even when I’ve totally fucked it up (which is quite often). This year the lake was well out of sorts compared to it’s usual brilliant form and everybody struggled including the 4 or 5 of us who (sort of) knew the lake. Top weight on the day was day was 45lb which normally you’d have chucked back after 3 hours because you’re  50lb behind and gone home. We blamed it on the Match Fishing Subscriber Classic mob who had been on it the day before....’cos no way was it down our incompetence.....            

Sections        

A             1^st           Tony Wilson       25lb

                2^nd          Eric Hayes           20lb

                3^rd           Derek Warren    17lb

B             1^st           Lee Pickup           21lb

                2^nd          Kenny Pickup     16lb

                3^rd           Dave Lynch         13lb

C             1^st           Jamie Pickup      80lb

                2^nd          Gary Brislen        71lb

                3^rd           Les Thompson   20lb  

Sadly Missed

This year saw the inaugural competition for the Ian ‘Yozza‘ Hughes memorial trophy.  Ian tragically died on the bank at the Garbolino Club Angler of the Year Qualifier earlier this year at Lindholme Lakes. Many of you northwest anglers who read this blog but are not club members will remember Ian.  He was a brilliant angler who didn’t suffer fools gladly. You either loved him or hated him (usually ‘cos he beat you using just a top two kit!) Most people, including me, loved him. He’d more often than not beat most people with his usual half pint of stale pellets and pint of half dead maggots/black casters  while they had 4 pints of fresh casters and a kilo of worm.

The format for the weekend was 1 point for a section win, 2 for second, etc etc.   

Well done to Jamie Pickup as the first of many future winners of this esteemed trophy.   Jamie won with 5 points (1 first and 2 seconds ) with a tie for second between Colin Cook and Tony Wilson on 6 points each, nail biting stuff indeed.     

Yozza . RIP mate.