Sedges, Tile Lake, 26 Feb (9 pegs)

After the chaos that ensued last week at Burley Fields "fishery" (their description not mine), turning up at The Sedges this week couldn't have been more different.
Keepnets and landing nets supplied ready and waiting, scales and weigh-sling on the bank, kettle boiled, sign up on the wall displaying who's fishing where and owner Denise on hand to welcome her customers ... proper job!
We had been assigned the roadside bank of Tile (pegs 21 to 30) which, apparently, had been fishing better recently and with only nine fishing, all ten pegs went into the hat so it was sod's law that the golden peg (29) was the peg that was left in the bag so yes, I should have drawn two golden pegs out just in case but never mind!
Our newest member (who is so new I haven't thought up an abusive name for him yet), Lionel Legge was fortunate enough to draw the flier peg , 21,  in the car park corner and promptly cruised to victory with an impressive weight of 42lbs 13oz.
Lionel's catch consisted mostly of carp caught down the edge of the car park bank at 14m on pellet over pellet feed and some taken on the lead further out along the edge.
Second place, for the second week running, went to Chris Szakacs who was pegged next to the winner on peg 22.  Chris had three carp early on the straight lead with bread fished up to the island before switching to a "banjo" feeder with micro and hard banded pellet hookbait for 30lbs 9oz.
Just five ounces behind was Psv's most senior member, Bob I don't fish for silvers Warren, with 30lbs 4oz consisting mostly of skimmers caught on 4mm soft pellet over micros at 11m.
Bob commented after the match that if he hadn't have wasted 25 seconds fishing the tip (for carp) at the start of the match he would have got 2nd ... comical but true!

Full Result:

1. Lionel Legge .... peg 21 ..... 42-13
2. Chris Szakacs ........ 22 ...... 30-9
3. Bob Warren ............ 27 ...... 30-5
4. Steve Burgess ......... 28 ..... 16-10
5. Stewart Riddle ........ 25 ...... 14-2
6. Alan Healy .............. 30 ..... 11-15
7. Kev Jefferies ........... 24 ...... 6-8
8. Colin Butler ............ 23 ...... 3-10
9. Mark Radford ......... 26 ....... dnw

Silvers:

1. Bob Warren .......... 26-5
2. Stewart Riddle ...... 12-9
3. Steve Burgess ........ 10-10 

• There is one space available for Boyd this weekend, first person to get me to answer my phone can have it!  Now Full
  

Burley Fields, 19 February (13 pegs)

You can tell winter is drawing to a close and spring is on it's way .... the mornings are lighter, the birds are up and about their business, dead badgers line the sides of the roads and the likes of Rich Jones and Chris Szakacs start turning up at matches after their winter hibernation. It won't be long before we will be having the pleasure of Trigger's company in his shorts and flip-flops!

Due to the lack of dining establishments en route to that jewel of the Cotswolds that is Burley Fields, I had managed to convince the owners of the Bell Inn at Shurdington to forgo their Sunday lie-in in order to feed thirteen hungry blokes from Bristol which they were more than happy to do.  Unfortunately the chef was either hungover or suffering from Alzheimers and it could hardly have been described as either cheap or nice but the landlady was pleasant enough and I guess you can't win em all!
I should have read the signs there and then when she questioned whether  we had phoned Pam and Steve to let them know we were coming over as it can sometimes get busy on weekends.
Anyway, bear with me here, but over the years you can  easily become accustomed to fishing at well organised and well run fisheries such as Viaduct, Sedges and Trinity to name just three. So it makes a refreshing change every once in a while to fish somewhere where disorganised chaos reigns supreme and topping the list of such venues is Burley Fields!
So having phoned the owner three days previous and asked him to put a sign up to say the match lake was booked it came as no surprise to find seven anglers already on the lake and setting up for a match of their own.
On further investigation it turned out that they had phoned to confirm their match on the previous evening!  So without the benefit of Dean Malin to threaten to throw then all in the lake if they didn't pack up and move (as was the case on a previous occasion) it was off to wake the owner's boyfriend / fishery manager / pig farmer / village idiot to come down and sort the mess out.
So the outcome of it was that we, that is Chris 'don't worry I've fished this lake before' Gay, managed to slot in 13 pegs on the carp lake in between the bivvies and rodpods for our silvers match where any carp caught count as 1lb and which was pole-only (despite the expanse of water) due to most of us having not brought rods!
But to his credit Mr pig farmer / fishery manager / village idiot generously only charged us the peg fees instead of the usual £100 , bless him!
Fortunately the quality of the fishing saved the day with roach and skimmers feeding well all over the lake.
Psv newcomer Kev Jefferies made the best of a good draw, peg 1, which was the first peg to the left of the bridge that separates the main lake from the double-booked match lake.  Kev spent most of the match fishing straight in front at 11m with soft pellet over micros and caught good sized skimmers to over 2lbs plus quality roach for a convincing winning total of 46lbs 6oz.
He would most probably have had a fair bit more had he not been hampered by the awkward bank and fence that meant he had to break his pole down section by section to ship in.
Second place went to Chris Szakacs on peg 4 with 33lbs 6oz of skimmers and roach taken at 14m on  maggot over micros followed by Darren North in amongst the bivvies on peg 13 with 30lbs 4oz.
Despite only one carp being caught, Rich Britton's 9lb fish landed on a 6m whip and 1.5lb hooklength, only two anglers weighed in less than twenty pounds which shows the quality of the silvers fishing.


Full Result:

1. Kev Jefferies ... peg1 ... 46-6
2. Chris Szakacs .... 4 ..... 33-6
3. Darren North ....13 ..... 30-4
4. Keith Ray .......... 7 ..... 29-3
5. Brian Shanks ..... 11 .... 28-8
6. Simon Belcham .. 12 ... 26-15
7. Rich Jones .......... 8 .... 26-14
8. Steve Wynne ....... 3 ... 26-10
9. Chris Gay ........... 6 .... 25-4
10. Rich Britton ........ 10 ... 22-10
11. Steve Burgess* ... 9 .... 20-13
12. Derek Lucas ........ 5 .... 19-13
13. Colin Butler ......... 2 .... 9-4

Boyd, 12 February 2012 (icebreakers at dawn)

A heavy overnight frost meant that the ice which had thinned out considerably (much like Alan Healy's hair) over recent days had returned with a vengeance.  However, half an hour of demolition with various ice-breaking implements soon put paid to that problem.
Unusually, following the ice-breaking barage, the fish were slow to switch on and some were saying after the match that they never had a bite for over 2 hours.
This wasn't the case though for Boyd supremo and one rig expert, Simon Belcham who was catching well from the off on the golden peg, peg 2, with red maggot on the hook and feeding next to nothing.


Over on peg 4 however, in form Alan Healy opted for a more positive approach fishing white maggot and feeding heavily which resulted in a narrow win with 12lbs 6oz of good quality roach which was enough to push Simon into second by just 4oz.

• Pictures courtesy of Roy Garland 

Full result: 

1. Alan Healy ......... peg 4 .... 12-6
2. Simon Belcham* ...... 2 ..... 12-2
3. Bob Warren .............. 12 ... 7-4
4. Dave Tippet .............. 9 ..... 6-1
5. Steve Burgess ........... 8 ..... 5-15
6. Darren North ............ 5 ..... 5-9
7. Keith Ray ................. 1 ..... 4-6
8. Mike Wilson ............. 7 ..... 3-14
9. Steve Wynne ............. 3 .....3-9
10. Kev Jefferies ............ 10 ... 3-12
11. Steve Wynne ............ 3 ...... 3-9
12. Chris Gay ................. 6 ...... 3-6

*golden peg

Addition to the match calendar

As yesterday's match at Viaduct was cancelled due to the weather and there wasn't anything booked for next week I have now booked Boyd for this coming Sunday. Will take bookings at this Tuesday's meeting so see you there!
Draw at 8.30 to allow a bit more time for ice bashing!
Now fully booked