Staunton Court, 18 November (16 pegs)

After a week of mild weather things were a little different on Sunday morning as clear skies overnight meant scraping the windscreen of the van outside and inside but Staunton is a deep lake (8 foot past the margins) and hopefully would not be too badly affected by the overnight frost.
As is the norm with Staunton matches breakfast was at the Watersmeet Hotel which is conveniently just a mile or so down the road from the fishery and provide a top quality breakfast accompanied by log fires and served up by a very attractive young waitress for six quid ... happy days!
On to the fishing and sixteen on the lake meant six on each of the long banks and two on each end which is just about as many as the lake can hold comfortably. 
Brian Shanks had the pleasure of drawing the golden peg (12) which is usually the kiss of death for most club members but not for the Westerleigh mugger who then went on to win the match with 93lbs 12oz.
Brian fished at 10m with corn on the hook over corn and pellet feed.
Next door on 13, Mike Smith also fished corn (over micros) at 6 & 14m for second with 80-2 followed by Will Dearlove on 15 who (you guessed it) fished with corn at 11m.  After a slow (hangover???) start, Alan Healy finally managed to get his act together on peg 7 and grabbed the last of the cash with 48-13 caught short on maggot.
Simon Des Belcham put his one rig to good use on peg 3 to take top silvers with an impressive 31-11 caught on maggot on the short pole line which included quality skimmers and a couple of bonus perch.
This week's Expensive Day award went to Ryan Jordan who unfortunately managed to get his no4 and 5 sections stuck together and after a lot of wiggling, tapping and pulling managed to create another two joints that weren't in the original pole.  Funnily enough he wasn't overjoyed when someone suggested he should have "hit it with an ironing board"!
Hero to Zero this week went to Jimmy Saville's love child, Adam Caswell who successfully managed to have the winner on one side of him as well as being battered from the other side by Ryan Radford, the club's only junior.
(Well I'm hardly going to nominate myself am I)

Full Result:

1. Brian Shanks* (peg 12) ...... 93-12
2. Mike Smith (13) ............ 80-2
3. Will Dearlove (15) ......... 52-9
4. Alan Healy (7) .............. 48-13
5. Mark Radford (2) .......... 48-5
6. Darren North (4) .......... 40-6
7. Paul Reed (6) ............... 34-14
8. Ryan Radford (10) ........ 33-4
9. Derek Lucas (1) ............ 32-0
10. Simon Belcham (3) ........ 31-1
11. Steve Burgess (5) ......... 26-12
12. Ryan Jordan (9) ............ 24-12
13. Steve Wynne (16) ......... 21-10
14. Adam Caswell (11) ........ 21-6
15. Eddie Wynne (16) .......... 14-0
16. Steve Tanner (14) .......... dnw

Silvers:

1. Simon Belcham ....... 31-1
2. Brian Shanks .......... 19-8
3. Darren North .......... 14-6
4. Eddie Wynne .......... 14-0 (of whitebait)!
5. Alan Healy ............. 13-4
6. Steve Wynne .......... 10-8

Christmas Match

A bit of a change this year as I have managed to grab a Sunday that wasn't booked by the coffin dodgers on Acorn's  Paddock Lake for December 16th.
The cost will be £20 up front to cover prizes plus pools on the day (to be decided).
The draw will be at 9 and fishing from 10 til 3.
Results, payouts and prizes will follow at the Midland Spinner accompanied by a buffet and raffle as normal.
Please be aware that the closing date for entry will be the December meeting to give me time to sort out the prizes etc

Stoneyard, Litton, 08 November (9 pegs)

This week's match was a bit of an unknown quantity as nobody actually knew anything about the venue or even where exactly in the wilds of Mendip bandit country it actually was!
Our collective pool of dodgy information suggested that the lake(s) were somewhere between Chewton Mendip and East Harptree and unfindable unless you knew where they were, contained only carp and crayfish, was 5' deep and was accessed via a heart-attack inducing hill and with an overnight frost forecast, was going to be rock-hard fishing!
In reality, it was reasonably easy to find, approximately 2 to 3 feet deep, nobody caught any crayfish and the fishing was good (if you had lilys in front of you) and the muddy, deeply rutted hill back to the car park was an experience to be treasured.
Chris Gay found himself in the most lily-pad (and carp) infested peg on the lake, peg 2 (a noted flyer) and caught from start to finish rotating between 16m to the island margins and various points around the edge of the lilys fishing with corn over caster / micro feed for an impressive weight of 84lbs 8oz which included a 15lb ghostie and a grass carp of nearish double-figures (pictured below).

Second in the running was Mark Radford on peg 6 which was on the opposite side of the same bed of lilys.  Mark (pictured below with his catchj) fished 16m to the edge of the lilys alternating corn and triple white maggot on the hook for a total of 52-1 

 

Third place went the way of Adam Caswell in peg 3 who also fished to the edge of the lily pads at 8m with soft pellet over pellet feed for 43lbs exactly.

This week's "Expensive Day" award belongs to matchwinner Chris Gay, who is fast becoming a regular for this award.  This time round Chris managed to snap a number 4 while playing an "absolutely monstrous" fish leaving 2½ sections of pole and it's attached zoo creature circling around his peg for several hours like a scene from Jaws.  Strangely though, when he eventually managed to rescue the broken sections and land the fish it must have gone on a crash diet as it turned into a fish of around five pounds!
And the "Hero to Zero" award goes to .... (been looking forward to this bit) .....
Alan Healy who spent the best part of his match moaning about anything and everything and showing a very bitter and twisted side of a person that doesn't like being battered from both (all) sides like the proverbial chip-shop sausage.

Overall Result:

1. Chris Gay (peg 2) .....  84-8
2. Mark Radford (6) ....... 59-1
3. Adam Caswell (3) ...... 43-0
4. Steve Burgess (4) ...... 38-15
5. Alan Healy (5) ........... 34-7
6. Ryan Radford (1) ....... 26-10 
7. Derek Lucas* (9) ....... 18-4
8.  Lionel Legge / Matt Taynton .... early baths

*golden peg

Boyd Valley, 04 November (12 pegs)

I didn't fish this one, fortunately, hence the sketchy results. I say fortunately as those that did turn up were greeted by snow and rain and a lack of peg numbers to do the draw with. I did consider, for a fleeting moment, jumping out of bed at 8am to make the short journey down to Boyd with the draw bag and numbers but after a quick look out of the window I soon jumped back into bed with a warm wife and a cup of coffee for company .... well ok, i never even bothered to get out of bed!
Anyway, the match was won convincingly by Simon Belcham  with an impressive display of method feeder fishing on the swingtip with corn on the hook for 67lbs 4oz. 
The club's youngest member, Ryan Radford, took second place with 26-8 also catching on corn. 
Unfortunately Ryan wasn't in the pools so second in the money and third overall was Matt Taynton with 24-12 (corn again).

Overall result:

1. Simon Belcham ...... 67-4
2. Ryan Radford ......... 26-8
3. Matt Taynton ......... 24-12
4. Brian Shanks ......... 14-12
5. Pete Uzzell ............ 14-7
6. Alan Healy ............. 14-4
7. Mark Radford ......... 13-0
8. Paul Reed .............. 5-0
9. Derek Lucas ........... 3-8
10. Darren North ...... early bath