Rood Ashton, 28 March 2010 (16 pegs)

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As there was a "no show" after the lake had been pegged out it was decided that rather than endure the hassle of choosing a peg to take out it would be easier to carry on with the draw and leave the spare peg in the bag. Unfortunately however, sod's law intervened and the spare peg turned out to be peg 17, the last peg on the back bank and the best peg on the lake!
In hindsight it would probably have been better to have taken peg 8 (blanker's corner) out of the draw but we live and learn. Without resorting to naming and shaming, let's say that "The Worminator" owes his mate, Yan a big drink as the flying Dutchman never had a bite for six hours and I hope the offending article blanked at Golden Valley!
In future it would be nice if members that have booked in would let me know if they can't make a match, preferably sometime before the draw. [rant over]

Top spot on the day went to the highly talented Neil Mercer on peg 4.
Neil (fishing without his silly hat) fished at 12m into open water with pellet and weighed in an impressive 97-14. On the other side of the lake at peg 15, and sporting a healthy tan from his recent holday in Tenerife, Bob Warren fished paste at 11m to take second place with 74-7 while around the corner on peg 12, Stu Riddle made his mark fishing hair-rigged corn on the method feeder to take third position with 66-14.
Close behind, pheasant beater Alan Healy on flier peg 6 boosted his collection of pound coins by weighing in 64-15 on soft pellet just "ouncing out" Craig "trigger" Edmunds' pellet-caught 64-9 from peg 9.

Just out of the money was everyone's favourite carpet fitter and Psv's number 1 scalesman, Adam Woodland who could only manage 58-8 from the awesome peg 1!
In the league standings, match secretary Steve Burgess could only manage to scrape a meagre 15-8 from an absolutely dire craphole of a peg resulting in his nemesis, Alan Healy edging him out of the top spot by 3 points.
No doubt that will change next week as Alan is crap at Staunton Court apart from the one time last year when every fish in the lake was queued up in front of him and he managed to flook out 224lbs
Meanwhile, Adam Woodland climbs up to third spot ahead of Stevie Wynne and Chris Zaks while Paul "The Reedinator" Reed (somehow) sneaks into fifth place.

Overall Result:

1. Neil Mercer ...... peg 4 ..... 97-14
2. Bob Warren ............ 15 ........ 74-7
3. Stuart Riddle .......... 12 ........ 66-14
4. Alan Healy .............. 6 ......... 64-15
5. Craig Edmunds ....... 9 ......... 64-9
6. Adam Woodland ..... 1 .......... 58-8
7. Rich Jones .............. 13 ........ 52-3
8. Mike Wilson ........... 3 .......... 43-14
9. Adam Caswell ......... 16 ........ 43-0
10. Mark Radford ......... 14 ........ 32-3
11. Paul Reed ............... 5 .......... 23-2
12. Steve Wynne .......... 7 ........... 21-4
13. Mike Smith ............ 2 ........... 19-4
14. Derek Lucas* ......... 11 .......... 19-3
15. Steve Burgess ............ 10 ......... 15-8
16. Yan / Jan / Colin ...... DNW

*golden peg

Cider Farm, 14 March 2010 (11 pegs)

Courtesy of Wikipedia:

Dabinett is a variety of apple, customarily used in Somerset for making cider. It bears green-yellow fruit with a distinctive bittersweet flavour, and is probably related to the Chisel Jersey apple. A number of cider manufacturers produce ciders made solely or primarily with Dabinett apples, including Thatchers and Sheppy's.

(Not a lot of people know that!!!)

PSV Match Secretary, Steve Burgess, was determined to improve upon his last visit to Dabinett back in July of last year when after taking a break from his holiday in Devon to fish the match, he drew peg 8 only to receive a complete battering from Craig Edmunds off the next peg and finish last with a dismal 6lbs 8oz (Trigger won the match with 65-10)! So, when the last peg in the bag was peg 21 and the golden peg, the pressure was on. Fortunately though, for Steve "pressure" is just a word beginning with "p".

Steve fished two lines, both kicked off with a small pot of damp micros and a few red maggots. One line at 14.5m straight out in open water and the other in the shallow water at 13m on the point of the reeds. On the "all-in" Steve was into a carp first put-in on the 14.5m line with double red maggot. Also quick off the mark was Alan Healy across on peg 6, again using maggot and micro pellet as well as Paul (The Reedinator) Reed on peg 7, who had chosen (oddly) to fish luncheon meat on the hook. Adam Caswell on peg 6 also started well but things soon returned to normal for him and a walk round the bank to skyline a few pegs was soon in order!

Meanwhile Steve Burgess was steadily catching carp to 4lbs alternating between maggot and 4.5mm soft pellet until a run of skimmers prompted a switch to the shallow swim. After taking a few small carp from the reeds on maggot, one particularly hyper fish chose to launch itself through the air and into the middle of the reeds, smashing his rig in the process. Swapping back to the open water line produced a couple more carp then more of the dreaded skimmers so a new shallow rig was made up and Steve managed to continue catching from the shallow line up to the end of the match.

Alan Healy had been matching Steve's catch rate for most of the match but had lost a lot of foul-hooked fish, Paul Reed reckoned Alan had hooked 150lbs of fish but, as they say, the only ones that count are the ones in the net! The bank-walking rumour mill (Adam Caswell and Mark Radford) were saying that Chris Zak on peg 16 had at least 30 carp, caught on paste and Ryan Jordan on peg 29 had also done well along with new member and CFL regular Mike Smith. However, Steve sealed a comfortable win and also secured the £22 golden peg putting over 77lbs onto the scales followed by Alan with 53-5 and Chris with 43-4.

Overall Result:

1. Steve Burgess* .. peg 21 ... 77-6
2. Alan Healy .......... 6 .......... 53-5
3. Chris Szakacs ...... 16 ........ 43-4
4. Paul Reed ............ 7 .......... 38-15
5. Ryan Jordan ........ 29 ....... 37-8
6. Mike Smith .......... 19 ....... 32-9
7. Adam Woodland .. 25 ...... 16-10
8. Steve Wynne ......... 12 ...... 15-6
   
9. Stuart Ashton ........ 20 ..... 9-0
10. Adam Caswell ....... 8 ...... DNW
11. Mark Radford ....... 17 ..... DNW

* golden peg


Year Totals (after 2 matches):

1. Steve Burgess ... 37pts ... 96-14
2. Alan Healy ............ 29 ........ 64-8
3. Chris Szakacs ........ 29 ....... 60-14
4. Steve Wynne ......... 25 ....... 33-15
5. Adam Woodland ... 24 ....... 30-9
6. Paul Reed .............. 21 ........ 44-9
7. Derek Lucas .......... 20 ........ 21-9
8. Ryan Jordan ......... 13 ......... 37-8
9. Mike Smith ........... 12 ......... 32-9
10. Rich Jones ............ 11 ......... 11-1
11. Adam Caswell ....... 10 ........ 10-9
12. Stuart Ashton ....... 9 .......... 9-0
13. Stuart Riddle ........ 9 .......... 8-15
14. Mark Radford ....... 8 ......... 8-0
    

Staunton Court, Pole only, 7 March (11 pegs)

Despite a hard overnight frost and temperatures down to -5, fortunately the lake was free of ice but it was unlikely that the Staunton carp would be on the feed so the main target for the day was the lake's neglected population of skimmers.
The carp still had an influence on the final outcome though, as four out of the top six weights included a bonus fish.
Fair-weather angler Rich Jones, pegged on the concrete at the start of the metal pilings, had a good start with a bonus carp early into the match but his neighbour in the corner peg, former Spitfire pilot and serial fish-avoider, Derek Lucas was the man to beat.
After snaring a good sized carp in the tail early on Derek went on to capitalize with a run of good sized skimmers on soft pellet over micros at 14m.
Derek said after the match: "I started on maggot (donated by Rich Jones) but was getting only small stuff until changing to soft pellet (donated by Steve Burgess) which sorted out the decent skimmers"
Steve Burgess, pegged on the bottom bank with the icy wind in his face fished two lines at 13m, one fed with groundbait and the other with 3mm pellet. Fishing double red maggot and alternating between the two lines, Steve caught at a steady pace from start to finish and included a near 8lb foul-hooked carp in his 19lbs 8oz total.
Most of his fish which included some good skimmers up to the 2lb mark were caught over the pellet feed.
This meant that Steve was able to claw back a pound coin off the Knowle West pheasant beater bringing the 2010 score back to a more bearable 3-2 to Alan.
With Steve and Derek van sharing it was rumoured that Curry Kings would be getting a good seeing-to later on!
Third spot went to Southmead veteran Stevie Wynne with an impressive all-skimmer net of 18lbs 9oz caught on maggot over micro pellet feed. Steve could easily have won the match had he landed the "proper" bream that managed to snap his power kit before making it's getaway.
It is rumoured that Stevie Wynne's pole now contains more gaffer tape than carbon!
The final frame place went to silvers specialist Chris Zak pegged next to the wooden pontoon with a total of 17lbs 10oz. Chris started on the chopped worm but struggled until switching to his long line where he fished soft pellet over micro and was able to put together a good run of skimmers until, unfortunately, a lost carp unsettled his peg and left him virtually biteless for over an hour.
And on a final note, matchwinner Derek Lucas never managed to turn up for work on Monday so it seems his new found success got the better of him (or the Natch did)!


Overall Results:

1. Derek Lucas ..... peg 5 ..... 21-9
2. Steve Burgess ........ 11 ..... 19-8
3. Steve Wynne .......... 8 ...... 18-9
4. Chris Zak ............... 1 ....... 17-10
5. Adam Woodland* . 10 ..... 13-15
6. Alan Healy ............. 6 ...... 11-3
7. Rich Jones ............. 4 ...... 11-1
8. Adam Caswell ........ 9 ...... 10-9
9. Stuart Riddle ......... 3 ....... 8-15
10. Mark Radford ........ 7 ....... 8-0
11. Paul Reed ............... 2 ....... 5-10

*golden peg