Sedges, Brick Lake, 22 September (19 pegs)

Unfortunately for most of us today it was a tale of two halves as other than Rich Jones on peg 5 who started the match like a pro from peg 8 on the pellet wag, the left bank that's shared with Tile lake was a bit of a struggle.  There was no wind on the lake at all today to push the fish around so maybe it was down to the extra activity on that bank with pleasure anglers walking (and cycling) up and down or just the quality of the anglers, who knows!

At the start around half the field went out on the wag and the rest were out on the long pole but nobody was setting the world on fire other than Rich Jones who had 3 quick fish on the waggler. 

Matt Taynton on peg 18, after a fruitless 30 minutes out at 14m on the deck dropped back onto his short line with worm and caster and started catching a few carp and skimmers and I could see elastic coming out further up the lake from what looked like Darren North on 16

As it turned out Matt never really looked back and caught steady all day on the short line and despite loosing a fair number of foul-hookers he won the match comfortably with 172-2 which is a new record for Brick lake and not a bad days fishing for the cost of a pint of caster and KFC for his kids. Apparently he was digging his garden on Saturday and told his  2 daughters that if they wanted chicken with their chips they had to spend all day collecting worms!

Matt is pictured below "sword-fencing" with 5 sections of pole and an angry carp.

Runner up was Darren North on 16 with 97-9 also caught on the short line but on meat.
Chris Szakacs was third from peg 13 with 83-5. Chris had struggled for most of the match but had a really good last hour catching fish to over 14lbs on worm over groundbait in the margins.
Silvers went the way of Alan Healy with 30-5 of mostly skimmers caught on soft pellet over groundbait from peg 4.
Matt Taynton was second with 26-10 which meant Matt Challenger took the second Silvers money by default with 23-12 from peg 14.
(2 Silvers payouts today as Kev Jefferies wasn't with us)!
As for me, I drew peg 19 which is a peg I've won off before so I was happy and despite the flat calm conditions I was still expecting to catch on the wag (and straight lead) out towards the cable that powers the aerators that runs down the middle of the lake.
I also set up a shallow rig and a rig for down the margin at the bottom of the shelf.  I set up a duplicate rig for that line but it was too short but I kept it anyway as it would do to push up the shelf.
On the all-in I fed the margin line with a couple of cups of groundbait with dead maggots and micros (properly dead this week) and went out on the lead while feeding a barrage of 8mm's which was expected to get the fish queueing up  for the pellet wag.
After 15 minutes the tip hadn't moved an inch and thrashing about on the wag was equally unsuccessful but I had noticed a few fish were cruising about in pole range so I switched to the shallow rig at 14m with an 8mm on the band and feeding 6s .... nothing!
I then had an indication which was missed but the pellet was gone (and the band with it) so rather than set up a new rig I stuck a piece of meat on and hooked a carp straight away followed by a skimmer around 1½ lbs  but they weren't staying and I was waiting ages between fish.
By mid-day a few fish were crashing about on the wag line but despite my best efforts they didn't want to know that and I wasn't happy with reeling the waggler through the pole line so I scrapped it and stuck with the long wait on the 14m line.
I had a look down the edge with a bunch of maggots on the hook but that was only good for micro-skimmers but eventually a decent carp took it followed by more "milk-bottle tops" so I stuck a piece of corn on which produced a double-figure orange and black koi.
The next fish tore off at 100mph and made it almost to the centre of the lake before breeching like a whale and snapping my line just above the hook.
One more decent fish followed before the all out and the end result was 56-6 which was a decent weight on the day but a proper battering from Matt next door.

But on the upside I got a pound back off Alan Healy which was still warm from last week.

Full Result:

1. Matt Taynton (peg 18) ....... 172-2
2. Darren North* (16) .......... 97-9
3. Chris Szakacs (13) ........... 83-5
4. Brian Shanks ................... 77-5
5. Rich Jones** (8) .............. 71-5
6. Matt Challenger (14) ........ 67-8
7. Steve Burgess (19) .......... 56-6
8. Mark Radford (2) ............. 54-7
9. Adam Caswell (9) ............ 54-11
10. Alan Healy (4) ................. 39-5
11. Mike Wilson (11) ............. 35-3
12. Derek Lucas (10) ............. 29-14
13. Ryan Radford (15) ........... 19-12
14. (not so) Rocket Ron Hardiman (7) .... 15-6
15. and a few dnw's

*golden peg
**silver peg

Silvers:

1. Alan Healy (4) ........... 30-5
2. Matt Taynton (18) ...... 26-10
3. Matt Challenger (14) ... 23-12
4. Mark Radford (2) ....... 10-1
5. Ron Hardiman (7) ...... 10-0
6. Chris Szakacs (13) ..... 8-8
7. Mike Wilson (8) ......... 8-7
8. Darren North (16) ..... 6-6
9. Adam Caswell (9) ..... 5-5
10. Steve Burgess (19) ... 4-4
11. Rich Jones (8) .......... 4-0
12. Ryan Radford (15) .... 3-6
13. Brian Shanks (12) .... 2-12
14. Derek Lucas (10) ...... 2-5

Next week is at Shiplate and we have the whole venue with Fry's so there is plenty of room at the moment and it's fishing well with Sunday's open being won with 100-10 from peg 6 on Westpool and 2nd was 84-9 from peg 6 on Hawthorn.