HAMPTON WILLOW, 13/11/11 ~ Gnome fends off the Welsh duo

A dry morning with a gentle breeze greeted us for the latest outing to Hampton Springs. Despite the fact that John H and Jamie had practiced in the week, and are now as much regulars at Hampton as The Gnome, one or two were describing this as a Yozzer benevolent match. Gary Chambers was one of the first to weigh and set the target with an excellent 40lb 06oz mixed bag of maggot n caster caught fish.
Next of note was John Heald, who had some proper carp (probably on meat), and the scales went 35lb 15oz. At last he's learning something during practice. Well done John, you'll make a goodun yet.
On to yozzer. He was adamant that he could only muster 30lb at best, but as always he only tells lies when his lips move, and he weighed in a level 42lb of carp, tench, skimmers, cruies and barbel, all caught at 3 metres on maggot and pellet.
Having looked like going home after 3 hours, John Edwards had only gone walk-about and sought advice from the gnome. He'd only had 3 fish up till then, but went back to his peg and ended up bringing 35lb to the scales for a well earned section prize. Confucius say " man who catches nothing must use brain". Nice one Sumo.
The other section went to another Hampton officionado, Jamie Pickup claiming the prize with a mixed bag which went 26lb. Sumo said something about double default, but I say Jamie did well ....off that flier.
Although not in the money this time, a brilliant piece of advice to all members from Tony Byers. When asked where he had caught, crafty cockney declared the immortal secret....."in the waw--er". Jeez, have we been facing the wrong way for all this time?