Sedges, Tile Lake, 23 Sept (17 pegs)

A pity really as I was confident on getting this blog out before Tony Rixon's following his unkind remarks about the frequency of my updates but it seems he must have got up early as he has beaten me to it but never mind.
17 fishing this one which was a great turnout for us although we were full up at one point and I had reserves so please bear this in mind for next week at Acorn which, at the moment is also full with a reserve list and if anyone can't make it let me know as soon as possible please so someone else can fill the space.
Anyway, as forecast it was a wet and miserable day from start to finish but luckily the wind wasn't as bad as was expected so that was a small blessing.
But despite the weather Rich Britton on peg 31 was still in summer mode and left his pole in the holdall (I think he owns a pole) and fished the pellet waggler across to the aereator in front of him with 8mm pellet and the same feed  catching carp all day for a total winning weight of 116lbs 14oz.
On the next peg (32) Mark Radford, another "one trick pony" gave him a good run for his money fishing, unsurprisingly,  paste for 108lbs exactly.
Possibly the fact that these two pegs were the only pegs on the lake that had shelter from the Easterly wind would explain why there were so many fish up in that corner of the lake but who knows.
Back in the real world the contest for third and fourth places was a next-peg battle between Keith Ray on 39 and myself on corner peg 40.  (End-peg Eddie and Mugger Shanks weren't fishing today which meant anyone had a reasonable chance of drawing in a corner)!  As it turned out Keith just sneaked into third with 47-4  ahead of myself with 45-8.   Keith caught short on paste and meat after mucking about with a feeder to the island which produced nothing despite the fish that were swirling and boshing about where his feeder was landing!
As for myself, I caught very little for five hours until the fish suddenly turned up in the last hour giving themselves up readily to meat over meat feed on the deck at 8m (first out of  the frame for the second week running).
This week's "expensive day" award went to Keith who snapped his landing net handle whilst attempting to land a fish under the confines of his umbrella but at least he managed to keep his hair and designer fishing jacket looking pristine which is what matters I suppose.
The "hero to zero" award went to Mr Inconsistent ,Darren North, who after last week's stunning performance managed this week to produce a big fat DNW despite having an end peg and an empty corner peg next to him. But at least he had a good view of Richard and Mark opposite him emptying the lake!
Thanks to Mike Welling for assuming the role of weigh-man albeit rather quietly.


Overall Result:

1. Richard Britton (31) .. 116-14
2. Mark Radford (32) ........... 108-0
3. Keith Ray (39) ................. 47-4
4. Steve Burgess (40) ........... 45-8
5. Lionel Legge (27) ............ 43-5
6. Simon Belcham (36) ........ 40-7
7. Steve Tanner (24) ............ 31-15
8. Stewart Riddle (22) ......... 30-8
9. Chris Szakacs (35) .......... 29-8
10. Steve Wynne (26) ............ 24-6
11. Paul Reed (37)* ............... 21-5
12. Rich Jones (28) ............... 19-14
13. Mike Welling (21) ........... 19-12
14. Bob Warren (33) ............. 17-10
15. Ryan Radford (23) .......... 16-0
16. Mike Smith (38)** .......... 13-0
17. Darren North (29) ..... DNW

* golden peg
** silver peg
(both of these were saved today by dismal performances)!





Silvers:

1. Mark Radford ...... 37-8
2. Bob Warren .......... 15-6
3. Stewart Riddle ..... 15-0
4. Steve Wynne ........ 13-6
5. Mike Smith .......... 11-8

Just in case anyone wanted to check the results are genuine!

 

Trinity, Woodlands Lake, 16 Sept (13 pegs)

Apparently Brian Shanks's wife uses his tip rod to prop up her washing line at home and seeing as he doesn't have a plummet he has no idea that Woodlands lake at Trinity is actually 7 feet deep.
There's also a rumour circulating that Andy Seary is naming his new lodge at Stafford Moor "Mugger's Retreat" after him.
And apparently there's an unsubstantiated story doing the rounds that he is the only person ever to do a ton at Windmill (but that's getting into the realms of fantasy)!
So as you have probably already worked out, Westerleigh's greatest export, Brian Shanks took the honours today at Trinity although he did struggle as this time round he could only manage 135-9 which was over 90lbs short of the match record (set by ........ Brian Shanks).
Drawn on peg 14 Brian caught shallow at 14 & 5m on 8mm pellet.
Second and third place was a next-peg battle on the opposite bank with Alan Healy on peg 27 edging it from Chris Gay by ounces with 74-7 caught on paste over pellet at 8m.
Chris weighed in 73-3 from peg 25 fishing pellet shallow at 14m and paste on the deck over the same line.
Fourth place went to Darren North with 62-8 from peg 10 caught mostly shallow at 5m.
Top silvers went to Brian's traveling partner, Ron Hardiman with 11-8 of skimmers plus a tench and a suspicious looking fan-tail / f1 thing. 

Overall Result:

1. Mugger Shanks (peg 14) ... 135-9
2. Alan Healy (27) ................. 74-7
3. Chris Gay (25) ................... 73-3
4. Darren North (10) .............. 62-8
5. Mark Radford (23) ............. 56-2
6. Steve Burgess* (8) ............. 53-8
7. Rich Jones (12) .................. 47-8
8. Ryan Radford (17) ............. 32-5
9. Ron Hardiman (31) ........... 20-6
10. Mike Smith (6) .................. 19-5
11. Paul Reed (33) ................... 16-8
12. Adam Caswell / Lionel Legge .... dnw

Silvers:

1. Ron Hardiman ....... 11-8
2. Rich Jones ........... 5-0

*golden peg curse

Shiplate Farm, Hawthorns, 9 Sept (9 pegs)

Another disappointing turnout due, I guess, to a few regulars being away on holiday and weekends away at least meant there was plenty of room for all to enjoy the late summer sunshine and catch a few fish.
A steady breeze blowing down the lake towards peg 1 and a strong right to left tow meant presentation on the far bank was difficult for most so as a result most of the action today came from the margins and with a few colder nights of late the normal pellet tactics had given way to maggot in recent results and pretty much everyone adopted the same approach.
With his impressive form at Shiplate it was no surprise that Alan Healy on peg 11 headed the field .
Alan started the match long across with limited success but soon found plenty of fish in close.
Fishing at 4m down his left margin with maggot Alan caught steadily throughout the six hours, feeding 5 pints of other people's maggots to weigh in 96lbs 13oz which included a couple of hard-fighting "proper skimmers" around the 5lb mark.  With an hour to go Alan was forced to scrounge a keepnet and more maggots from his neighbour (me) which cost him his £1 side-bet (unlucky)!
In hindsight I should have made him do the walk of shame back to his car to get his own keepnet seeing as after scrounging maggots off me with an hour left, he then filled in his margin with the maggots he already had (which must have been a pint at least) and used mine to finish the match.
The morale of that little tale I suppose is never to trust a shifty-looking Knowle-Wester although anyone who has witnessed Alan's weight estimations will know this already!
Anyway, getting back to the important stuff, Chris Szakacs (fresh back from anger management classes) managed to remain composed long enough on peg 6 to take second place with 72-0.
Chris caught on maggot in close and also on paste down the track and included a skimmer of around 8lb in his catch.
Most psv matches somebody manages to break a pole section or two, this week was Chris's turn to go home with his Connoisseur G8 in more bits than it should have been!
Third on the day went to myself with 69-12 from peg 12 caught on maggot across and in the right margin and fourth place went to Eddie (end-peg) Wynne on peg 1 with 65-9.
Eddie caught on maggot and also on pellet. Had his fish been a similar size to everyone elses he would have won the match easily but for some reason he seemed to have had rather a lot of pasties which, I suppose, is the story of his life!

Overall Result:

1. Alan Healy (peg 11) ..... 96-13
2. Chris Szakacs (6) ................ 72-0
3. Steve Burgess (12) .............. 69-12
4. Eddie Wynne (1) ................. 65-9
5. Adam Caswell (15) ............. 62-0
6. Mark Radford (8) ................ 55-10
7. Derel Lucas (9) ................... 31-10
8. Will Dearlove (3) ................ 27-12
9. Ryan Radford (4) ................ 22-1

Filling in the gaps!

A few technical issues (my 12 year-old iMac has gone off to Apple heaven)  and a canalboat holiday have lead to a slight backlog of postings on here so I'll sum up the highs and lows of the last few weeks in one go.

Trinity, Woodlands, 19 August (19 pegs)

It's refreshing to know that when I'm not there it's still possible for the draw to go badly wrong resulting in tears and tantrums (mostly from Adam Caswell who wasn't happy about putting his flier back in the draw-bag).
And it was nice to see, after much abuse from his staff at Fairview Engineering, Brian Shanks finally making it into the elite Psv 200+ club with 228lbs 8oz which is a new record weight for Trinity.
Brian (I'll hazard a guess) fished pellet shallow at 13m or in the margins (or both) from peg 17 although he did have the choice of four empty pegs around him with the wind blowing in.
As I was on Sunday roast duty I never fished this one hence the results were a bit sketchy.

1. Mugger Shanks (17) ... 228-8
2. Darren North (peg ?) ... 94-10
3. Chris Gay (peg 7) ...... 65-2
4. Matt Tainton (peg 2) .... 60-13
5. Mike Smith  (peg ?) ..... 57-15

Silvers: Simon Belcham  (peg ?) .... 25-0


Staunton Court, 26 August (11 pegs)

Most of the members of the elite Psv 200+ club have gained their claim to stardom at Staunton Court but the ranks of the 200+ club weren't swelled today as it was a bit of an off-day by Staunton standards.
With eleven fishing there were three pegs on the concrete, two on the top bank which had the wind blowing in and were the most fancied pegs, five on the long grass bank and one in nomansland on the bottom bank.
Alan Healy made the best of it with 95-2 from peg 2 which was in the middle of the concrete bank.
Alan caught strongly down the edge for the latter half of the match on a large helping of bullshit (as usual)!  Lionel Legge was a close second with 89-14 from peg 3 on the concrete.  Lionel is usually seen thrashing shallow pole rigs about but today caught mainly on paste in close. A man of many talents!
Will Dearlove was third from peg 1 with 88-7 making it a clean sweep from the pegs on the concrete bank.  Will caught close in with corn (I think) or maybe paste!
Fourth place went to Simon Belcham with 79-11 from peg 7 catching mostly on tares on the deck at 8m.
Strangely, the pegs on the top bank didn't fish as well as expected and neither did the legendary "bin" peg (10) occupied by Adam Caswell although, in fairness, it was the golden peg which usually spells the kiss of death!
No tremendous weights today but a close match.  Next year's Staunton matches are winter matches which means the huge weights of carp should give way to the big skimmers that don't get a look-in on the summer matches but are present in good numbers, should be interesting.

Full Result:

1. Alan Healy (peg 2) ....... 95-2
2. Lionel Legge (peg 3) .... 89-14
3. Will Dearlove  (peg 1) ... 88-7
4. Simon Belcham (peg 7) .... 79-11
5. Mugger Shanks (peg 4) .... 64-12
6. Adam Caswell (peg 10) .... 62-2
7. Richard Britton (peg 9) .... 61-0
8. Steve Burgess (peg 8) ..... 52-0
9. Darren North (5) ........... 47-10
10. Ron Hardiman (11) ....... 47-8
11. Chris Gay (6) ................ 45-10

Landsend Match Lake, 2 September (11 pegs)

Another day and another venue that didn't want to fish to it's full potential.
Rich Jones cruised through this one though with 96-9 from peg 17 fishing corn.  Next best was one of psv's new superstars, in-form Will Dearlove with 58-5 from peg 1.  Will caught long down the edge and to his right margin into the tackle-smashing bush on paste.
Chris Gay was third from peg 15 with 49-4.  Chris had an eventful day getting bitten by red ants and snapping his pole resulting in a trip out in HMS Duckett to retrieve it.  Maybe not a wise idea to play an angry foul-hooked Wedmore carp with six sections up in the air!

Chris Gay flexing his pecs on the way to third place .........

.... and retrieving his top set aboard HMS Duckett!

 Full Result:

1. Rich Jones (peg 17) ....... 96-9
2. Will Dearlove  (1) ........... 58-5
3. Chris Gay (15) ................ 49-4
4. Alan Healy (13) .............. 44-8
5. Simon Belcham (21) ....... 37-11
6. Ed (corner peg) Wynne (24) .... 37-11
7. Adam (foul-hooker) Caswell (5) .. 33-7
8. Keith Ray (9) ................... 26-14
9. Bob Warren (19) .............. 24-7
10. Lionel Legge (7) & Steve Burgess (11) ... dnw

Silvers: Simon Belcham ....  23-6


As you've probably worked out, today wasn't one of my most memorable matches with my two skimmers and one perch going an estimated 14oz had they made it to the scales which they never!
Perhaps I should stick to canal fishing.