Christmas Match details

The  draw for the Christmas Match this Sunday will be at the New Inn, Westerleigh.

They are open for breakfast at 8 and it's a rolling draw so roll-up, draw your peg, have breakfast or go straight to the lake (your choice).

The match will be pole only and fished from 10 til 3.

Payouts will be at the evening presentation / buffet at The Midland Spinner (smart dress only please)!!!

Sedges, Tile Lake 16 Nov / Shiplate, Main Lake 23 Nov

Two (old) updates for the price of one this week so no prizes then for guessing that neither of these matches went well for myself.

At the Sedges match I went well-prepared with a plan of action laid out that has served me well here in winter.

Unfortunately the conditions didn't suit my plans and I ended up fishing too negatively when the lake fished much better than I was expecting.

At the Shiplate match I drew a great peg, 3, which is the in-form silvers peg on the lake but is also good for a few carp.

But instead of concentrating on one or the other I played around at catching both and caught very little. 

Oh well, never mind, onwards and upwards!

Sedges, Tile Lake, 16 November (10 pegs):

Only 8 ended up booked in to this one but this was boosted to 10 with the help of a couple of guests who had got in touch via the Psv Facebook page.

Not too sure why the numbers are struggling so much lately but at least it meant we all had plenty of room with everyone having an empty peg each side except for the end pegs 21 & 40 which had the advantage of the breeze blowing down that end of the lake.

Those pegs were occupied by Adam Caswell and (guest) Adam Smith and both these pegs were expected to do well.

I was on 23 which meant I had Adam Caswell for company on 21 and the other Adam's dad, Martin on 25.

I'd had a look at the recent results on the Sedges website and the most recent matches had been won with 100lb ish weights but the back-up weights had been in the 60's and 50's.

But there didn't seem to be any pattern to where the weights were coming from.

The silvers weights had been a bit iffy though with the most recent silvers  match needing just 12lbs to win.

So anything could happen!

As it turned out the lake fished really well.

Top honours went to Chris Szakacs from peg 36 with 95-14.

Unfortunately due to poor lighting I didn't get a picture of Chris with his fish so I've had to make do (sorry) ....

Chris caught most of his fish on the pellet feeder plus a few on the pellet wag and rounded it all off with four lumps from down the edge on dead maggot.

Second was (guest) Adam Smith with 85-7 from peg 40. 

If I remember rightly Adam caught mainly on worm over micros and his weight was boosted quite dramatically with a fish of just under 20lbs caught in the last 20 minutes.

Mark Radford was third with 78-7 from peg 29.

Mark struggled early on catching a few fish on the pellet feeder but things improved  after a switch to the shallow wag and he later had some big fish down the edge towards peg 30 on corn.

The silvers went to Martin Smith with 10-3 caught on worm over micro.

Full Result:

1. Chris Szakacs (peg 36) ..... 95-14
2. Adam Smith (40) ............. 85-7
3. Mark Radford (29) ........... 78-7
4. Adam Caswell (21) .......... 71-9
5. Matt Taynton (38) ............ 61-4
6. Lionel Legge (32) ............ 59-15
7. Ryan Radford (27) ........... 31-10
8. Martin Smith (25) ............ 26-1
9. Steve Burgess (23) .......... 25-10
10. Gimp (34) ..... gave up!

Silvers:

1. Martin Smith (25) ....... 10-3
2. Mark Radford (29) ...... 6-9
3. Matt Taynton (38) ....... 6-3
4. etc

Shiplate, Main Lake, 23 November (14 pegs):

This match was a bit of a struggle for many but not for Alan Healey who drew peg 15 and was quite pleased with himself.

Alan caught steadily through the day and with the help of Mark Radford on peg 1 who was telling him where the fish were, went on to win the match comfortably with 97-6.

Coming in a close second was Stevie Wynne with 33-13 from peg 10 

And Mark Radford was 3rd with 27-0

Top silvers went to Lionel Legge with 18-0 from peg 14.

As I said earlier, my day didn't go too well and just to add insult to injury with minutes of the match left I hooked a fish on my silvers rig that pulled out yards of elastic and then launched itself out of the water like a scene from Free Willy fortunately shedding the hook in the process.

I say "fortunately" as if it had stayed connected I would probably have been still playing it now as it was the biggest fish I've ever seen! Anyway ....

Full Result:

1. Alan Healey (15) ..... 97-6
2. Steve Wynne (10) .... 33-13
3. Mark Radford (1) ...... 27-0
4. Ryan Radford (4) ...... 26-4
5. Lionel Legge (14) ..... 25-2
6. Chris Szakacs (8) ..... 21-14
7. Lee Waller (11) ........ 16-6
8. Steve Burgess (3) .... 15-8
9. Mike Wilson (12) ...... 10-0
10. Derek Lucas* (5) ...... 9-1
11. Darren North (7) ...... 8-4
12. Adam Caswell (13) ... 6-2
13. and 2 dnw's

Silvers:

1. Lionel Legge ... 18-0
2. Lee Waller ...... 10-12
3. Mike Wilson ..... 10-0
4. Derek Lucas .... 9-1
5. Darren North .... 8-4
6. Alan Healey ...... 7-10
7. Ryan Radford .... 7-2
8. etc

And finally, there is a meeting on Tuesday night (2 Dec) at The Midland Spinner and, as well as the usual stuff, we will be sorting out the details for Sunday's Christmas Match and collecting pools money from anyone who has yet to pay.
Next matches will be in the New Year at:
Sedges, Tile Lake (11 Jan)
Shiplate, Main Lake (18 Jan)
Emerald Pool (25 Jan)

Trinity Waters, Wildmarsh, 09 November (11 pegs)

Only eleven fishing today as Wildmarsh can be a bit "challenging" and a few had opted to fish elsewhere.

Personally I don't mind a tough venue, for me it's all about the competition and whether that's measured in pounds or hundreds of pounds makes no odds to me. 

Today every ounce was going to be important and the object was to make every bite count and hope for a bonus fish or two.

Things didn't start off too well though as we were due to have pegs 6~11 and 21~30 but on arrival, despite the notice at the entrance, there were encampments set up in pegs 7 and 8 and (as seems to be the way of the carp angler) their lines were spread out covering most of that end of the lake .... they like to get value for money from their   peg fees!

Anyway, it wasn't the end of the world as the roadside bank was free and there were signs of fish down there so rather than turf the carp anglers out of their camouflaged temporary accommodation we settled on 9 pegs along here and 4 on the end of the spit (26,28,29 & 30) which are usually good for a few fish.

A quick call to Misha and this was ok'd although under the circumstances I think she would have agreed to anything as she was nursing an hangover from the previous night due to celebrating her hen night ....

But anyway, on to the match, and after pulling out 62 on the road bank and dumping Derek off on the golden peg (26) I set up a 0.3g rig for silvers (hopefully big skimmers) which would  do for 2 spots at 14m (using Lee Williams and the Gimp as markers) and another at 11m plus a rig for roach on the edge of the lillys at 5m where there was a depth of about 3 feet.

And after a slightly delayed start of about 3 minutes I fed the long lines with combinations of groundbait, stunned red maggots and micros and fed the short line with caster.

Unfortunately though all this careful plan of attack was wasted as it took a good hour or more to get a bite of any description and despite rotating all three long lines with various baits this came from a 2oz roach on the inside caster line.

The long lines seemed to be completely devoid of fish and not just for me but all three anglers to my left were in the same boat.

The Gimp had gotten off to a much better start and was catching silvers at a reasonable rate on maggot over groundbait at 7/8m.

Lee next door was eventually doing similar, after a fruitless few chucks on the tip, but wasn't keeping up with Mr Bradford.

Next to me on 61, Adam Caswell was getting odd skimmers by fishing 3 maggots over huge amounts of groundbait (??) 

and the rumour mill was indicating that Brian Shanks was catching well on the end peg (58).

Elsewhere, Darren North was catching silvers on peg 30 but 2 hours in and  everyone else were struggling for bites.

In fact (misfiring) Rocket Ron Hardiman, on my left, had not had the merest tremble on anything and was moaning his way to a possible bl**k which is worrying for an angler of Ron's calibre!

Derek had also had nothing on the golden peg but he did manage a couple of roach later after scrounging some mags off Lee Williams.

Ron was not so fortunate and packed up after five hours with one bite (a tiny skimmer) to show for his efforts.

I did eventually manage a handful of skimmers plus a "bonus" skimmer of about a pound from the 14m line but Adam had well and truly done me from the next peg which cost me a pound.

As it turned out Brian Shanks came out clear winner with a total of 31-9 having caught the only two carp to make an appearance.

They didn't matter though as he also also topped the silvers with the help of some good crucians and a proper skimmer of a couple of pounds.
Brian caught on caster over micros.

The Gimp was second with 15-10 of mainly small skimmers caught on maggot over groundbait, boosted by a bonus tench and crucian so he was happy as he has struggled to catch anything of consequence here in previous matches.

Third and fourth places were separated by an ounce!

Darren edged it with a last gasp big skimmer taking his total to 11-12 ahead of Lee Williams' 11-11 click here

Full Result:

1. Brian Shanks (58) ......... 31-9 (24-2 Silvers)
2. John Bradford (29) ........ 15-10
3. Darren North (30) ......... 11-12
4. Lee Williams (28) .......... 11-11
5. Adam Caswell (61) ........ 5-8
6. Ryan Radford (59) ........ 4-12
7. Mark Radford (65) ........ 4-10
8. Steve Burgess (62) ....... 3-0
9. Alan Healey (64) .......... 2-9
10. and 2 dnw's

Landsend, Match Lake, 02 November (14 pegs)

A little late setting off this morning so breakfast at Shipham was reluctantly bypassed in favour of a sausage and bacon baguette from the Esso garage in Churchill which was still hot by the time I got to the fishery and was actually quite nice and also meant I was early for once.
Mad Mike Duckett was up and about and "on form" as usual and was offering advice based on the results from the Saturday open.
The advice mainly revolved around feeding loads of pellet as the carp were still very active and feeding in earnest.

14 fishing today so plenty of space for all.  I had decided on Saturday night that I would be happy with either peg 13 (sheltered from any wind and rain) or peg 19.
Alan Healey took charge of the draw and gave me the second last ping-pong ball which gave me ....

Uncanny!

Alan had the last ball which was 18 and the golden peg, but that had been won by Ryan Radford last week so was nothing to get too excited about.
Peg 13 went the way of John Bradford although he wasn't exactly over the moon about it, and six hours (and 14 returned carp) later he was even less over the moon about it!

For company this week, by some unfortunate quirk of fate, I had another dose of the two Ronnies aka Steve O Toole on 21 and Lee Waller on  22.
With Alan on 18 only having a couple of pints of maggots for bait plus a dozen soft hookers donated by me I was confident of not getting "chip-shopped"
(maybe a little too confident)

I set up a shallow rig for the far bank, and it was shallow as the levels were still down a foot or so from normal.
A rig for on the deck at 5m for meat and a rig for the bottom of the shelf across.
I won't go into massive detail as I completely cocked it up by fishing far too confidently which resulted in a nightmare of foul-hookers across and only managed to save myself from total embarrassment with a handful of good skimmers and a couple of rouge carp from the 5m line caught on corn / soft pellet plus one good fish from the margin on meat (hooked in the pelvic fin) for a massive total of 31-8 and a proper chip shop battering!

Meanwhile, back in the real world, Chris Gay had gotten off to a good start in peg 16 albeit a little unconventionally as he was catching on the tip using a "shotgun" feeder.
Darren North, next door on 15, was also getting a few using a more respectable pole approach.
And Psv's very own Clint Elliot impersonator, Brian Shanks on peg 5 was also catching across after ditching the catapult attack and switching to feeding 4mm's via a toss pot which eliminated the foul-hooking problem.
Chris Szakacs on the other hand on peg 6 had adopted a similar approach to myself and was also enjoying a lengthy catch and release program ...
He wasn't taking it too well!

Winner on the day then was Chris Gay who ended up catching mostly in the margins with worm over groundbait and dead maggots, or something like that, for a total of 129-6.
I did get a picture of Chris with his winning catch but it didn't come out too well.
I think the autofocus on my phone got a bit confused between Chris and the carp he was holding which is understandable!

Clint Shanks was second with 105-15

And his apprentice, Darren North was 3rd with a double-checked weight of 87-5.
Fourth place went to Lionel Legge who had an eventful day when he got "platformed" by a big fish which resulted in his topkit being reduced to a collection of chopsticks but he managed to get it in somehow and ended up with a respectable 79-3 from peg 3.

The Silvers pool went to Alan Healey with 22-14 followed by the Gimp who managed 17-7 of fry inbetween tackling the vermin (all 14 of them).

Full Result:

1. Chris Gay (peg 16) .... 129-6
2. Clint Shanks (5) ........ 105-15
3. Darren North (15) ...... 91-9
4. Lionel Legge (3) ......... 84-0
5. Ron Hardiman (7) ...... 83-15
6. Alan Healey* (18) ...... 56-4
7. Steve O Toole (21) ..... 50-12
8. Lee Williams (1) ........ 48-7
9. Lee Waller (22) ......... 39-0
10. Steve Burgess (19) .... 31-8
11. Steve Wynne (11) ...... 25-9
12. John Bradford (13) ..... 17-7
13. and 2 dnw's

 *golden peg


Silvers:

1. Alan Healey ..... 22-14
2. John Bradford ... 17-7
3. Lee Waller ........ 12-4
4. Steve Burgess ... 10-8
5. Steve O Toole .... 8-2
6. Ron Hardiman ... 7-15
7. etc ....

November Meeting Venue Change

Just a reminder that tomorrow's meeting is at The Midland Spinner (not The Horseshoe) and is your last chance to book into the Christmas Match so don't forget to bring your £15 pools if you haven't paid already.

And as a special treat, this year the club will be paying for the prizes and peg fees so your £15 will cover everything ... aren't we nice!

Matches to book into this month are:

09 November,  Wildmarsh 

16 November,  Sedges, Tile

23 November,   Shiplate, Main Lake

(no match on the 30th)

When I booked these matches up last year I was expecting it to be a bit colder than it has been and and the carp to have gone a bit quiet, so these venues were booked with Silvers in mind.

As Stevie Wynne once famously said ... "It's not all about catching f***ing carp"!  - wise words.

So why not show a bit of willing and scale your rigs down, put the power tops away and pit your wits against some silvers for a change ... go on Rodney, you know it makes sense!

Viaduct, Campbell, 26 October (16 pegs)

Up bright and early this morning as my normal travelling partner Derek wasn't fishing today as he has been having a bit of an identity crisis of late and now thinks he's a Secret Agent.

Instead I'd offered to pick up "Little Les" aka Adam Caswell but this did mean travelling into deepest, darkest Knowle and as I had no idea where I was going around the backstreets of Beirut it was a case of lock the doors, don't stop for anything and pray the Satnav doesn't let me down.

Fortunately it didn't (almost) and as a result we were around the first arrivals at Lilypool cafe in Shipham which is a new one for me.

Arriving at Viaduct, on time for once, it was also good to discover that the immaculately turned out Will Daiwalove, who had been given a day pass by his wife (seriously), had pretty much sorted everything out for me and for my penance I was given the choice of the two last tickets.

I chose 125 and Will ended up with 129 so both good pegs and mine had won the match the day before so no complaints were forthcoming.

A trip to Viaduct HQ with the weigh sheet revealed The Gimp boiling a dozen maggots to death to provide 6hrs-worth of hookbaits - I prefer to freeze mine humanely but I guess either way is fairly unpleasant if you're a maggot - but anyway, Paul advised I concentrate on chucking a lead or full-depth wag out into the centre of the lake, slightly to the left, where the fish would be queuing up to be caught.

I was happy with that as they were the only rods I had made-up anyway.

So on arriving at my peg I stuck those two rods together and set up a rig for 6m to use up the tin of meat I'd bought.

For company I had the comedy partnership of Steve O Toole and Lee Waller on 126 and 128 and up in 123 was Ryan Radford which was today's Golden Peg and therefore safe because, as everyone knows, this peg is stuffed full of big fat skimmers and tench!

Across from me Keith Ray had occupied 119 with Rich Jones next to him on 118.

And next down was another comedy partnership of Rocket Ron Hardiman (116) and Brian Shanks (115) who had disguised himself as Clint Elliot.

The start was on time as I'd only had to set up one rig and after feeding the meat line I started off on the tip with an 11mm pellet in the band and gave it the obligatory pellet barrage.

After a short wait the rod bent double and a good sized fish was soon in the net to start the ball rolling.

I wasn't alone though, as Ryan had somehow managed to avoid the skimmers and tench and was on his second carp. And a few others had early fish as well including Rich Jones and also Stevie Wynne down on 112.

Chris Szakacs, who hadn't been too happy with drawing 110 again was also catching.

Meanwhile i was finding it slow going and with 45 minutes gone had only added another fish to my nets.

So the tip rod was dumped and teplaced by the full-depth wag rod but it didn't improve my catch rate and by now Ryan was leaving me standing and I was just about holding my own elsewhere.

I was also finding it tricky to get the wag out to where I'd been sending the pellet artillery and it wasn't until the end of the second hour and a few more fish later that I discovered the problem which was that the line was wrapped around the tip between the tip eye and the next one down, which was most likely due to setting the rods up last night in the kitchen whilst being distracted by The X-Factor and bottles of Stella.

That was duly sorted and after that the float cast out a whole lot better but it still never really made much of a difference to my catch rate which was slow but consistent.
Ryan meanwhile was getting one-a-chuck on 8mm banded pellet at 13m and by the half-way stage Brian Shanks had gotten his act together after going through various methods (I'm sure I even saw a lead plop out at one stage) and was catching steadily on the pole on the deck I think.
Halfway through the match and even Steve O Toole was getting carp next down to me on the pole line, although he was having a bit of drama getting them in, all the same I had a look on the pole line with meat on the hook and had two fish straight away but lost the second one which killed it so I was soon back out on the wag / tip.
By now the fish were swirling on the feed so, not having had a pellet wag set up, I shallowed up the waggler rig and tried that which resulted in no fish and a couple of foulers that broke the hooklengths, back on the tip then while I re-made the waggler rod.

The last hour was my best hour and I even managed a couple that snatched the hookbait as it landed including the best fish of the day.
Brian also was having a late charge catching regular fish from his margins and it was looking like he was going to give Ryan a run for his money as Ryan was struggling by then but it turned out he had done enough, uncomfortably winning with 161-0 which resulted in a good earner with £60 winnings and £48 for the Golden peg.
I say "uncomfortably winning" as his first net went 79-12 and so was 4oz away from being disqualified.
Brian managed second with 134-12 and sneaking into 3rd was Will Daiwalove with 125-8 ahead of myself with 113-13.

The Silvers pool was won by Lee Waller with 18-2 from 127 just ahead of his neighbour Colin Butler who weighed in 15-2

Ryan Radford

 Full Result:

1. Ryan Radford (peg 123)* ..... 161-0
2. Brian Shanks (115) ........... 134-12
3. Will Daiwalove (129) ......... 125-8
4. Steve Burgess (125) ......... 113-13
5. Ron Hardiman (116) ......... 106-8
6. Richard Jones (118) .......... 105-10
7. Chris Szakacs (110) .......... 104-12
8. Steve Wynne (112) ........... 90-2
9. Steve O Toole (126) .......... 89-1
10. Keith Ray (119) ................ 78-4
11. Lee Waller (127) ............... 54-14
12. Mark Radford (111) ........... 34-10
13. Adam Caswell (132) .......... 30-2
14. Colin Butler (128) ............. 15-2
15. John Bradford (114) .......... 10-12
16. and one dnw read all about it here!

*golden peg


Silvers:

1. Lee Waller (127) ..... 18-2
2. Colin Butler (128) .... 15-2
3. Mark Radford (111) ... 13-10
4. John Bradford (114) ... 10-12
5. Will Daiwalove (129) ... 10-6

There was a bit of controversy today but fortunately not in our match.
Next door on Cary another club was fishing a match and I guess they weren't regular visitors as there seemed to be a bit of a misunderstanding over the net limits.
One guy went over the 70lbs limit and as a result missed out on winning the match and didn't take it to well.
Apparently he reckoned that their match secretary hadn't explained the rules properly and had given the impression that a couple of pounds over the "70" wouldn't matter as long as it was under 80lbs
He then decided that the match organiser, the club and the fishery were all a bunch of ***** and stormed off after resigning from the club!

And on a lighter note ... please note that Psv members wanting to fish the Christmas match at Bitterwell (Sunday 07 December) will need to get their £15 pools to Mike Wilson or myself by, or at, the November meeting which is on Tuesday 04 November at The Midland Spinner, Warmley.

2015 Match Calendar

Shiplate, Hawthorns, 19 Octtober (13 pegs)

A bit of a late start this morning as the cafe at Shipham seemed busier than usual and there were some unfamiliar faces in the kitchen and things didn't seem to be running quite as efficiently as usual ... A half hour wait for the wrong breakfast but never mind.

In addition I had made the classic match secretary's mistake of working out all the figures the night before and so with one no-show and one not going in the pools that was binned and another version hastily cobbled together which gave us a payout of 1st and 2nd overall, 1 silvers and 2 section payouts (sections of 6).

By some amazing coincidence Ryan Radford, who wasn't in the pools, drew peg 8 which put him in between the two sections.

I had the last ping-pong ball and that put me next to Ryan on 7.

I won't make a song and dance about it as it wasn't one of my most memorable of matches and my Shiplate jinx continues.

I set up a shallow rig to fish a 6mm pellet across to the far bank where I fed the ducks* with micros and maggots and caught chuff-all.

Cutting the band off and going over with maggot on the hook produced a roach plankton that never made the 14m journey back over and that rig was abandoned.

I set up a rig for 5m on the deck to fish maggot / 4mm expander over groundbait / micros for silvers to keep occupied while I waited for my inside line to kick in.

After an hour that line produced a roach-skimmer type thing followed by a carp that took me all around the peg on my new 5-8 "silvers" hollow elastic until it bottomed it out and unhooked itself on an underwater branch.

I had a rig set up to fish maggot over groundbait at the bottom of the inside shelf which was where I hoped to achieve glory but there were carp "tailing" in amongst the cut back reed stems tight into the bank so the abandoned shallow rig was re-deployed here to try to tempt these fish out of their reedy snag-pit.

The first one I hooked was buried in the undergrowth before the float tip had made it completely below the surface!

I eventually managed a couple of fish from the shallow water (in between fighting off the ducks)* and in the last hour, a few more on the deep rig.

Another go on the "silvers" gear produced some more plankton, followed by an half-tidy skimmer (sussed it)? 

And then another carp that did a couple of journeys up and down the far bank before depositing the hook in a tree somewhere down in Adam Csswell's peg  which was the end of another fancy (Nick Gilbert) handmade float and also the end of my pathetic attempt at fishing for silvers.

So the end result of this tale of woe was a massive 27-10 which included 3-4 of silvers (for absolutely nowhere) and I think next week at Viaduct I shall be spending an hour sat behind the Gimp to learn how to fish for plankton properly because I can't seem to get to grips with it.

But in the meantime, as I've already mentioned, my Shiplate jinx continues.

For the record the match was won by camera-shy Pete Sivell, pictured below after he had sobered up, with 74-9 from peg 2.

I've no idea how he caught but I would imagine he talked them out of the peg.

Second was Chris Gay with 70-4 from peg 1 and again, I've no idea, but rumour has it that he fished a method feeder with a banded expander on the hook.

I'm sure Chris will elaborate in the comments!

Mike Wilson (below with the silly hat) took third with 65-12 from peg 10.

He caught most of his fish on maggot over groundbait on his topkit.

In other news, Lee Williams made a sound move having chosen to fish the Pawlett club match on Westpool and the Main Lake he then went on to draw peg 15 on the Main Lake and win the match with 156-ish.
I'm sure you will be able to read all about it on Lee's blog http://woolavy.blogspot.co.uk/ just as soon as he's finished uploading another picture of his seatbox!

*and if you're wondering about the ducks ... They are a complete pain at this fishery.  As soon as you move your pole they are in there like a scavenging hoarde  and in shallow water will wipe out any feed you put in within seconds.

Pancakes and hoisin sauce springs to mind!

Full Result:

1. Pete Sivell (peg 2) ......... 74-9
2. Chris Gay (1) .................. 70-4
3. Mike Wilson (10) ............. 65-12
4. Mark Radford (3) ............ 53-14
5. Matt Taynton (15) ........... 52-3
6. Alan Healey* (9) .............. 47-10
7. Adam Caswell (6) ........... 46-13
8. Lionel Legge (11) ........... 30-8
9. Steve Burgess (7) .......... 27-10
10. Ryan Radford (8) ........... 23-12
11. Derek Lucas (13) ........... 18-3
12. Jason Bird (12) .............. 18-0
13. and 1 dnw

*golden peg

Silvers:

1. Matt Taynton .......  11-2
2. Mark Radford ....... 8-6
3. Alan Healey ......... 5-6
4. Mike Wilson ......... 5-2
5. Steve Burgess ...... 3-4

Harescombe Match Lake, 12 October (14 pegs)

It was a bit nippy out last night when I was loading the fishing bus up in my shorts late last night and I was fully expecting to be scraping ice off the windscreen this morning, which would not have been great for the prospective day's fishing, but as it turned out it wasn't too bad, 5-ish degrees and foggy so no wind and a dry day which is always a blessing up at Harescombe with it being so exposed to the elements.
The on-site cafe was busy as the locals were having a match on one of the other lakes but most of our lot had opted to visit Ronald MacDonald.
I'm not a big fan of MacD's "breakfasts" so I took my chances with a "Pricey" in the cafe.
I don't think the ironic naming of the "Pricey" breakfast was intentional but at £7.25 (once you've added a cup of diy instant coffee) it's a little, well ... pricey!
But it wasn't bad and it filled a hole which is more than can be said of a MacMuffin.

Anyway, fourteen on the list today and with no Silvers pool the payout was to be top two overall plus two sections of seven paying first and second (well it made sense to me)

No scrabbling about in the bag for me as I had the last peg which gave me peg 24, one of the landslide pegs and one that wins a lot here so I wasn't displeased.

It's a peg I've had here before and the last time I had it I started off well but ended up totally messing things up so I was keen to avoid doing that again.

For company I had Mike Wilson on my left and on the opposite side was my pound coin nemesis, Lee Williams who was sandwiched between Adam Caswell and Lee Waller. 

Alan Healey was next down from him so I could see whether or not my other pound coin was safe but I suspected it would be as there was no phonecall to Dean Malin for instructions.

I set up rigs for the bottom of the near shelf (topkit plus 2), to fish with soft pellet or maggot.  A rig for the margins which would also cover the far bank and finally a shallow banded pellet rig to fish 6mm pellet at 14m over to the right where the landslide goes into the lake.

This was where I expected to catch mainly as there were fish swirling there and mooching about in the shallow water against the mud.

At the kick off I fed the close lines and the far bank with micros and maggot and pinged out a few pellets over to the right edge.

By the time I'd done that a few fish had already been caught so I was guessing it would be a bit of a fish race.

I started (under advice from the guy in the cafe) on the short line down the shelf with a soft pellet on the hook and after a few missed bites eventually made contact with a small F1 to get the ball rolling.

It was slow though and a few were struggling to get anything.

I stuck with it, topping up with micros, and it was getting gradually better with a few more small F1's and junior skimmers surrendering.

A drop in with maggot on the hook only produced a roach fry so that was scrapped.

Elsewhere a few were catching. Word was that Mark Radford was doing well on the other side of the landslide (peg 29) as was his offspring Ryan on peg 2 who was denying catching and therefore must have been doing well.

Alan was quite pleased with himself as he had landed a 2lb chub and I heard Chris Szakacs was doing ok down in peg 14.

Adam however, after an hour of sitting over a golf ball of F1-resistant paste, decided to do a "Mark Britton" and marched off with his kit into the distance to the pleasure lake to find a pensioner in a deckchair who he could hopefully win a pound from.

Meanwhile, I was overcome by the urge to fish up to the landslide so I dumped a pot of micros on the short line and went over with the shallow pellet rig.

And it didn't take long to hook a "proper" carp of a couple of pounds followed by a second one foul-hooked in a fin.

By this time a steady stream of floating casters that had come from the bottom end of the lake had grabbed the attention of a few fish so, as I never had any caster (floating or otherwise), I catapulted out a couple of pouches of maggot and went over with a newly made up shallow rig with maggot on the hook.

To cut a long story short, apart from a couple of small F1's from the right margin and one from the far bank I spent the rest of the day with the shallow rig over to the landslide catching fairly steadily.

The last hour was a good spell with most drops ending up with a small F1 (8 to 12oz) along with odd chublets plus a few more bonus carp which were caught in the really shallow water against the bank just a few inches deep.

To get these was just a case of laying the rig in the shallow water and waiting for the big swirl and the elastic to come out.

Unfortunately this would spook the rest of the fish so I didn't spend too much time chasing them and stuck with the smaller fish in the deeper water.

I'm not comfortable fishing to my right side, especially long, and I couldn't feed while I was fishing as my bait tray and catty were behind me so I was feeding a couple of pouches of maggots and then going over it until I hooked one but it seemed to be working ok.

By the end of the match I had no idea what I had but I was guessing about 40lbs which hopefully would get me my section dependant on Chris Szakacs who I'd heard had done well.

Mark Radford was first to weigh and put 51-2 on the scales which included all six of the lake's barbel population.

Next up was Chris Gay who weighed 43-11 and a wet leg as he slid into the lake getting his nets out bless him. 

Ryan weighed 40-0 which was 8oz more than Alan and after a couple of 30's weights, Chris Szakacs' one net went 43-7 (his other net had been "moused").

I was last to weigh and my net of big stuff went 20-8 but my F1/silvers surprised me a bit going to 40-8 for a total of 61-0.

So a little bit out on my estimation but it's easy to lose track of these small fish.

Full Result:

1. Steve Burgess (peg 24) ...... 61-0
2. Mark Radford (29) ............. 51-2
3. Chris Gay (30) ................. 43-11
4. Chris Szakacs (14) ........... 43-7
5. Ryan Radford (2) ............. 40-0
6. Alan Healey (4) ............... 39-8
7. Rich Jones (11) ............... 36-0
8. Lee Williams (7) .............. 35-8
9. Mike Wilson (22) ............. 35-0
10. Stevie Wynne (17) .......... 25-15
11. Derek Lucas (12) ............ 10-7
12. and 3 Dnw's

Next week we are down at Shiplate on Hawthorns which should be interesting as at the moment it's the only place outside of an aquarium where Alan Healey has any chance of framing!

October Newsletter

Thought I'd try something a bit different and post up some of the highlights from last Tuesday's meeting for the benefit of those who were too busy with work or too ill to make it.

So matches this month are: Harescombe this Sunday for which there are plenty of spaces left for anyone who fancies a trip up North where everyone is guaranteed a few fish.

The following Sunday (19 Oct) we are at Shiplate on Hawthorns only and this one is now fully booked so if you want to fish that one you will have to go on the reserve list and I can phone you on the Sunday morning if anyone doesn't turn up!

After that is Viaduct on Campbell (26 Oct) for which there are still some spaces but not many

And then finally we are at Landsend (2 Nov), plenty of spaces for that one at the moment.

The leaderboard for the season so far is as follows:

Year Totals:

1. Mark Radford (477pts)  1,415lbs 13oz
2. Brian Shanks (439)  1,439lbs 10oz
3. Steve Burgess (354)  1,002lbs 3oz
4. Ryan Radford (354)  977lbs 11oz
5. Alan Healey (336)  843lbs 7oz
6. Ron Hardiman (331)  1,148lbs 10oz
7. Chris Szakacs (315)  954lbs 5oz
8. Adam caswell (284)  731lbs 12oz
9. Lee Williams (274)  883lbs 6oz
10. Chris Gay (273)  864lbs 5oz

Summer Series:

1. Mark Radford (214)  685lbs 0oz
2. Steve Burgess (166)  500lbs 3oz
3. Chris Szakacs (153)  504lbs 10oz
4. Chris Davis (147)  694lbs 15oz
5. Alan Healey (143)  382lbs 10oz
6. Ryan Radford (140)  405lbs 4oz
7. Lee Williams (139)  480lbs 1oz
8. Adam Caswell (139)  349lbs 8oz
9. Chris Gay (132)  541lbs 1oz
10. Ron Hardiman (118)  430lbs 10oz

Those of you that are good with figures may have noticed that these are slightly different from the figures quoted by myself at the meeting.
The reason being that I had missed a match out from my Excel spreadsheet from back in June which explains why I'm not an accountant or have never worked in a bank!

A few other points were raised at the meeting;

• Regarding the Christmas match at Bitterwell Lake on 7 Dec.

This year the club will be paying for the prizes and peg fees (and hopefully the buffet) so it was agreed that the pools on the day will be £15.
However (the important bit), this needs to be paid upfront at or before the November meeting.
The reason for this is to avoid a headache for whoever has the honour of sorting out the prizes.
The evening presentation and buffet will be conducted at The Midland Spinner in Warmley which  conveniently brings me on to the next point ....

• Change of Venue for the monthly meetings

A vote was taken and it was decided that we will be holding future meetings at The Midland Spinner which is now under new management and being run by a Michelin starred chef who will be happy to provide canapes etc.
There was 1 vote against the change of venue (wonder who that was)!

• It was also discussed about not having a meeting every month through the winter.

• And finally I have decided to resign my position as Match Secretary after this season and let someone else have a go.

Trinity, Woodlands, 28 Sept

Originally I had seventeen booked in for this match but by Thursday that number had dwindled down to 10 so I gave Misha a ring to let her know that we wouldn't want the whole lake. Come Sunday morning (after 1 more had booked out) I arrived at the lake, a little worse for wear, to find there were only five of us as four hadn't showed up!
At least three of those are usually reliable so I can only assume that somebody, possibly me, had got their wires crossed somewhere along the line but to be fair out of a membership of nearly 40 you would have thought we would have had an half decent turnout at a popular venue like Trinity and with a good weather forecast too!
And not good for the fishery's income either but Misha did have the last laugh by leaving the otter fence switched on which thankfully, Mark Radford discovered before me!
This only reinforced my thinking that perhaps it's time I hung up my match secretary boots and let someone else have a go who can possibly inject a bit more enthusiasm into the club.

Anyway, enough of my whinging and back to the "match" (5 peg knock-up).
Plenty of room then so we spread ourselves out between pegs 6 and 15.
Ron Hardiman was in 6 which was where I would have liked to have been or maybe 8 which was occupied by Mark Radford.
I landed up in 11 but with this much room it didn't really matter much.
I had planned to have a nice easy day, nothing complicated and no 16m section coming out of the holdall.
So, I set up 2 shallow rigs for 14m (one was set for a foot deep and the other at about 3 feet which would double up as a margin rig).
I also set up a rig for on the deck at 6m where it was about 8 feet deep and fortunately this was the same rig from the last day at Holgan farm and was identical in depth within a couple of inches which was handy.
These rigs were all for 6mm hard pellet plus I set up a rig to fish dead maggot over groundbait which seems to be the fashion these days in the right margin between an overhanging bush and a small submerged branch.

The groundbait I had was actually some old green fishmeal method mix but it's all the same to me and I didn't expect the carp to be too fussy either.

At the start I fed a pot of 6mm's at 6m, which erupted into a mass of fizzing almost instantly, and went out on the deeper shallow rig with a 6mm in the band.
That only gave some little dinks on the float that I guessed were roach but after changing to the shallower rig I soon had my first fish which was an F1 (a new one for me at Trinity).
Not much followed on the shallow rig and I was itching to come over the short line which was still fizzing like crazy.
First drop in over that produced a small carp that was shaped like a football, followed by a foul-hooker that made it to the middle of the lake before the hook pulled.
The next fish was a slow-moving dead weight that obviously didn't realise I was trying to pull it out of the lake as, despite my best efforts, it was still milling around on the bottom amongst the feed but when it finally did wake up it cruised straight into the margin where I had plumbed up and transfered the hook into the previously mentioned branch which turned out to be quite a lot bigger than I originally thought, a small tree would be a better description and that was the end of that rig's short life.
So a new rig went on and the next fish tore off at a rate of knots and broke that one at the knot where I'd added a foot of line ... won't be doing that again!
Rig number three on and the next fish was a big bugger that was hooked in the tail and took me an age to get in.  After much fretting, elastic pulling and platform leg trauma I eventually managed to get it in by hand-lining the elastic ... not something I would recommend but it did the job.
I wasn't the only one having problems though,  Matt Taynton next door was having big problems with the undergrowth and seemed to be spending more time putting new rigs on than fishing. 
So after all that commotion I gave the short line a rest and had another go on the shallow line but only got one fish off that.
Back on the 6m line and I had a "run" of 2 skimmers followed by odd carp, some hooked properly but I was loosing lots, probably mostly but not all foul-hooked.
Over to my left I got the impression that Ryan on peg 15 was putting a few fish together and Mr Taynton and myself were even Stevens.
I could hear lots of splashing coming from my right but I couldn't see down that end so I assumed both Ron and Mark were also doing well.
I'd had a look in the margins with four dead maggots on the hook but I had discovered a problem with this method.
It can be a bit problematic if your peg is solid with "eyes" and I reckoned that even if I had put 40 maggots on the hook I would have had the same problem.
Matt was doing something similar and was also getting "roached out" but he must have had better groundbait as he was snaring carp as well, including one that you could put a saddle on (his words) which was worrying.
As it turned out though my efforts had proved fruitful as Ryan weighed in 58-15 to Matt's 46-9 and my nets went 63-12 helped by a couple of late fish including my biggest fish which I had on the shallow rig over the 6m line.
Mark's paste attack let him down badly and Rocket Ron weighed in 56-5 so happy days but a close match and I had achieved my target of catching more today than I did over the three matches last weekend.

1. Steve Burgess (11) ...... 63-12
2. Ryan Radford (15) ...... 58-15
3. Rocket Ron (6) ............ 56-5
4. Matt Taynton (13) ....... 46-9
5. Mark Radford (8) ........ 40-15

Finally, I won't be around for Sedges on Sunday as I'm going to Perranporth for the weekend so next week's thrilling installment will be brought to you by Chris Szakacs (if he turns up)!

Holgan Farm 3-Day Festival

Ten of Psv's elite made the 2½ hour journey into deepest, darkest Wales for another go at Holgan Farm, the fishery owned and run by former World Champion Ian (Ronnie Corbett) Heaps.
8 of us were veterans from our last visit back in 2012 which was won by myself in case anyone needed reminding (see here) and the two Lee's, Williams and Waller were the Holgan virgins.
This time round we would all be staying at the fishery, which was a bit more practical than the last time round when we were spread around the Welsh countryside and, as before, the winner of the first match would get first shout on the choice of accommodation.
And this year we were fishing the Carp Lake on day one followed by the Tench / Crucian Lake and finishing off on the Match Lake which was unfortunate as the Match Lake usually produces provides the best fishing and it would have been nice to have been on there on day 1 or 2 when there was no hurry to get started or finished.


Day 1.  Carp Lake

The Carp Lake is the first lake you come across and has plenty of fish-holding  features including  islands, lilys plus some very inviting margins.
The official advice from Ronnie which seemed to apply to all the lakes, was to start down the edge on topkit plus one or two sections and get an early fish there and if you never caught a second fish in the time it takes to smoke a fag to try somewhere else but the important thing was to keep rotating swims after each fish.
The other important bit involved buying plenty of various coloured / sized pellet from the on-site shop (fishery pellet only here) but whatever the advice was, Alan Healey in peg 3 chose to ignore it completely and fished maggot to the island (lots of them) to win comfortably with 70-8.
The rest of us found it tough going, plenty of fish cruising around, plenty of foul-hookers and lost fish but real bites were hard to come by.
Lee Williams did well to sneak into 2nd with 45-4, just ahead of Mark Radford who managed 40-8 for 3rd place.
Despite my best efforts chucking a small waggler to (onto) the island in front of me I could only manage to winkle out four carp for 18-12 but that was good enough for 4th place so a reasonable start points-wise for me but way behind on weight.

1. Alan Healey (3) ....... 70-8
2. Lee Williams (19) ...... 45-4
3. Mark Radford (8) ...... 40-8
4. Steve Burgess (10) .... 18-12
5. Mike Welling (7) ....... 17-0
6. Ryan Radford (29) .... 16-9
7. Darren North (23) .... 15-2
8. **** ******* (21) ...... 12-14
9. Lee Waller (27) ........ 5-0
10. Derek (13) .... unlucky for some

The evening was spent in The Bush, which was where I'd spent most of my day!

Good food, a few bevvies and the usual nonsense involving pool tables, dartboards and much fishing related rubbish.

Alan spent most of the night on the phone to Dean Malin telling him how good he was!

Day 2. Tench / Crucian Lake

This lake has a bit of a misleading name as the tench are a bit scarce ... talking to one of the regulars beforehand revealed that we would be lucky if 2 tench would show up between all of us.

The crucians are the mainstay of this lake but we had been warned in advance that this lake was fishing really hard (it was crystal clear) and it was likely to be a tough match ... it was!

Ronnie Corbett forcasted 20lbs being a weight to be proud of today and advised the best method would be to fish paste on topkit plus 2 at the bottom of the near shelf.  Most ignored this and concentrated on the mass of lillies that fill the middle of the lake.

I drew peg 21 which put me on the far bank of the lake with Lee Williams for company in 25 which was the peg I was on last time round and was good for 2nd on that day.

My advice for the day was to fish a straight lead tight to the lillies but I didn't fancy that with my dodgy casting so I opted to fish 16m instead which got me within a foot or two to the lillies straight out and tight to them at the 10 o clock position.

My neighbour won the match with 15-8 but was run close by the other Lee (Waller) who weighed 15-2 but had a "torrid" day losing a lot of fish in the pads.

Mind you, he was cracking cans of Thatchers from 10 o clock so his bite reactions were probably hampered.

I started well hooking a big bream within 10 minutes of the start but after a few tentative minutes I lost it at the net .... not happy!

After that I struggled horrendously  and staved off the boredom by fishing caster shallow at 16m for blade roach and half-ounce skimmers.

I never had a sniff of a crucian and never even had the float wobble on the paste line.

My collection of fry gave me the grand total of 14oz and 8th on the day pretty much putting me out of the overall running unless I was to win the final match and Lee and Alan were to go home early.

Ryan Radford gave up early and took a lead rod over to the Match Lake and had 3  fish in about 10 minutes which promised good things for the final day.

After the match **** treated everybody to a lesson in paste fishing on the Carp Lake (see video).

1. Lee Williams (25) .......... 15-8
2. Lee Waller (5) ............... 15-2
3. Alan Healey (29) .......... 9-12
4. Mike Welling (4) ........... 8-0
5. Ryan Radford (14) ........ 5-2
6. Darren North (6) .......... 5-1
7. **** ******* (8) ............. 3-2
8. Steve Burgess (21) ........ 0-14
9. Mark Radford (17) ........ 0-9
10. Derek Lucas (11) .... oh dear!

The evening was spent on site, following an alcohol-run to the nearby town.

Ronnie Corbett kindly got the chef to do us a deconstructed steak & ale "pie" accompanied by jacket spuds and beans, yep, beans (as requested by **** *******)!!

In hindsight a pizza delivery might have been better and probably cheaper but you live and learn as they say.

The draw for the Match Lake was done in order to save time in the morning and we also did a draw for a pairs match which conveniently partnered me up with Lee Williams so there was some hope for a pickup after all.

Some bright sparks decided it would be a good idea to check out their pegs in the pitch dark and set their kit up while the rest of us spent the night in true "festival" tradition getting bolloxed into the early hours and looking forward to a few fish at last.

Except for Derek that is, who snuck off to bed to watch Match of the Day through his eyelids and **** who spent the evening with Ronnie Corbett and friends watching X-Factor in Ronnie's office / brandy cabinet.

Day 3. Match Lake

As I said the draw had been done the night before so following breakfast we were straight to our pegs and looking forward to a good day's fishing.

Unfortunately the fish had other plans and it was soon apparent that it wasn't going to be the fishfest we were all hoping for.

In fact it was dire.

Mike Welling on peg 28 had an early fish on the waggler fished on top of a sunken island the size of a dinner table that he was sharing with myself.  I could reach it with 16m of pole but Mike needed a hefty chuck to get to it but as I'm not a moaning type I won't dwell on that!

I also had one early down the edge but smoking a fag as slowly as I could I never had another down there.

A few others had their early fish too including Derek at long last, but after that initial flurry of activity it all went quiet. 

Mike had a few more down the edge but he also had one jump out of his keepnet which was to prove costly.

As it turned out, my pairs partner did the business again from peg 22 weighing in 43-8.

**** was second with 33-0, followed by Mark Radford whose 4 bites and 4 fish gave him 32-12.

Mike Welling weighed 31-12 putting him out of the money by 1lb so that lost fish would have got him second on the day ... but there was worse news to come as Mike and Alan ended up level on points for second in the series which meant Alan took the spoils by weight advantage.

That meant Mike's flying fish cost him £60 

There was some consolation though as Mike and Mark Radford won the pairs after tying on points with Lee and myself and scraping through by 2oz ... oh well!

No suprise then that the overall winner was Lee Williams with a near perfect 29 out of 30 points so well done that man.

And, as usual, you can read how he did it by clicking here

1. Lee Williams (22) ....... 43-8
2. **** ******* (2) ......... 33-0
3. Mark Radford (6) ...... 32-12
4. Mike Welling (28) ...... 31-12
5. Steve Burgess (3) ...... 20-14
6. Ryan Radford (17) ..... 14-2
7. Lee Waller (20) ......... 10-10
8. Derek Lucas (9) ........ 2-14
9. Alan Healey (24) ....... 2-0
10. Darren North (26) ..... dnw

Overall Result

1. Lee Williams (29 points) ... 104-4
2. Alan Healey (20) ........ 82-4
3. Mike Welling (20) ...... 56-12
4. Mark Radford (18) ..... 73-13
5. **** ******* (16) ........ 49-0
6. Steve Burgess (16) .... 40-8
7. Ryan Radford (16) ..... 35-13
8. Lee Waller (15) ......... 30-12
9. Darren North (10) ..... 20-3
10. Derek Lucas (5) ......... 2-14

Holgan Farm Weekend Details

Directions:

Holgan Farm,
Llawhaden
Narberth
Pembrokeshire
SA67 8DJ

Travelling on the A40 towards Haverfordwest take the third exit off the second roundabout (signposted Robeston Wathen). Follow the road and take the first left turn (signposted Llawhaden).

Take the 1st right turn towards Llawhaden Church and continue for approximately 3 ⁄4  of a mile. Bear left at the stone bridge – DO NOT CROSS IT. The Fishery is located approximately 200 yards past the church on your right hand side.

Accommodation:

There are three rooms in the farmhouse
Upstairs is a 3-bed room and a twin room and there is another twin bed room downstairs.
In the new accommodation there is a twin room upstairs and a single downstairs.
All bedding will be provided.

Pools:

Pools will be £10 per match and £10 for the overall result paying out
top 3 each match (£50, £30 & £20) and the overall series result paying out the top 2 (£60, £40).
The overall result will be worked out on a points basis
10 points for a win, 9 for second etc so that the maximum points would be 30.
And if the points are tied then it will be decided on overall weight.
This is the same points system as last time and it seemed to work ok as I won it!

Fishery Information:

Keepnets and Landing nets are provided.
Feed pellet must be Sensas pellet / groundbait (sold on site) but you can use any pellet or paste for hookbait.
Meat can be used but only on the hook
There are no restrictions on maggot / caster / worm or corn (I think)!

Day 1: Carp Lake

Breakfast has been organised for 8:30 for those that want it (not included in the package).
Fishing times to be decided on the day.
As before, the winner of this match will get the pick of the accommodation.

Day 2: Tench / Crucian Lake

Apparently this lake has been fishing quite hard recently and Ian has suggested bringing some maggot / caster or worm for this lake.

Day 3: Match Lake

Will probably be a 5 hour match but this lake is fishing really well so some good weights can be expected for the last day and will probably decide the overall result ... well not probably, it will!

Viaduct, Campbell, 07 September (18 pegs)

 

So after a well-deserved two week break in Ibiza spent mostly asleep in various places (according to my son) it was back down to Viaduct.

Mind you, I almost never went as I spent all day Saturday suffering from a severe dose of man-flu and after spending the evening in one of Staple Hill's finest Indian restaurants I booked myself out and phoned my travelling partner at 11pm to tell him I wouldn't be picking him up in the morning (which is normally severely frowned upon but I let myself off on this occasion).

However I woke up at 5am and thought sod it, threw my gear in the van and coughed and sneezed my way down to Shipham for breakfast .... In hindsight I might as well have stayed in bed as arriving at the fishery we were told by Steve Long that the Saturday open had been a struggle and had been won with just 101-12 from peg 128 and that anyone catching over 100lbs today would do well!

A bit of a shame then as Viaduct has been fishing it's nuts off all summer with most matches requiring 200-plus to frame but never mind, at least the sun was shining (and I'd forgotten my hat)!

It did occur to me that I did bump into Kev Dicks when I went in Scotts on Saturday to pick up a few bits and he asked if I had enough nets as I would need five at least ... kiss of death then!

On to the match then, and seeing as Will Dearlove had done all the hard work, bless him, I let him have the last peg (130) and I took the second last which gave me 127. I wasn't too bothered where I drew as there was almost no wind and there were fish active all over the lake.

For company I had Lee Waller on 128, yesterday's winning peg, and Rich Britton on 126 so a chip shop battering was looking extremely likely but at least it meant I wouldn't need to worry about running out of cigs.

Opposite on 115 was Alan Healey and the six-toed sprat-basher from Bridgwater was up on the top bank on 121 so I had a clear view of where my pound coins would be heading.

The corners were occupied by Chris Szakacs on 110, Ryan Radford on 132, Chris Davis on 119 and Kev Jefferies on 123 which would be interesting......

I didn't have much of a plan formulated as I hadn't looked at my kit for three weeks so it would be a simple day with just 8mm pellet for bait and feed at 9m, 13m (shallow and on the deck) and in the right margin plus a lead rod and a wag rod were looked at and abandoned as they were in an horrendous tangle in the rod case so it was to be "pole-only" for me today. 

After the almost on-time start, as predicted not a lot was happening.  Rich Britton had an early fish on the lead (which was worrying) as did a few others on various methods including myself getting one on the 13m "deep" rig first drop, but nobody seemed to be running away with it except for Derek, my ex travelling partner, on 135 who had five carp in the first hour which is probably the best hour's fishing he has had for about four years!

Lee next door was struggling to get a bite from anything as was Alan Healey and a few others.  And those that were getting fish were losing as many as they were netting.

Rich Britton was managing to put a few together by swapping between the lead and the shallow wag and I was getting odd fish on the pole but was missing loads of bites, some were sailaways maybe liners and the float was going under every couple of minutes but I wasn't connecting with hardly anything apart from the previously mentioned carp and a baby tench plus one good skimmer that thought it was a carp.

It didn't help much either that I couldn't see the yellow float tip against the glare from the sun and was relying on either Rich Britton telling my float had disappeared  or waiting for a load of elastic to come out of the end of the pole which is always a good indication that something has taken the bait!

At one point I struck at a bite and spooked a couple of shallow fish so I went out on the shallow rig and had one almost straight away but nothing followed and that was the only fish I had on that rig so no more on that as they say.

Back out on the deck rig and I hooked a fish that tore off like a foul-hooked train towards Colin Butler on 112 so I stuck the pole under the water and braced myself for the inevitable but it didn't happen and after much elastic pulling I got it within netting distance and realised that it wasn't foul-hooked at all but was a beast of a fish.  Despite having played it almost to a standstill, due to it's weight and there being too much give in the elastic I couldn't get it's head up so tried to net it under the water but it side-stepped the net and went for the platform leg in slow-motion resulting in the inevitable rig explosion and much abuse from all around the lake.

That was enough for me and my "pole-only" day.  I took a timeout and set up a wag rod.

Elsewhere Mark Radford was putting a weight together on 114, fishing long towards the redundant peg 113, Chris Davis was also getting a few fishing into the corner and Rich Britton was still steadily sneaking a few out.

Alan Healey however, had spent the best part of his day hunched over a motionless tip rod feeding the fish that were swirling on the top in front of him whilst rolling fags to keep himself busy (he did have a few breaks to loose fish on the pole line) and Derek was having a rest after his busy first hour and was topping up his suntan.

Lee next to me had started getting a few silvers in between loosing carp, six-toed Lee was getting a few lumps and Adam on 125 had "decided" to go for silvers (presumably as he had foul-hooked a couple of skimmers).

My pellet waggler efforts had produced one tiny carp plus several lost fish, plenty of frustration and a lost rig where the mainline strangely broke on the strike so I was soon back in "pole-only" mode which wasn't much more productive but a couple of 4oz skimmers maybe answered the mystery of the un-hitable bite problem I had earlier.

A look down in the right margin that I had been hand feeding with 8mm's all day gave nothing more than a few tiny dips on the float from the resident fry so that was abandoned and I spent the last hour back out on the pellet waggler.

This time the fish seemed to have gained a bit of confidence and bites were coming thick and fast but unfortunately, of the six fish I hooked in the last hour I only managed to land one.  The rest either pinged off or broke the hooklengths so that will be the last time I will be buying pre-tied banded hooklengths (laziness). Odd too that they were tied to 0.20 powerline when I usually tie my own to 0.16 powerline and don't get that many breakages (I got through the whole pack of 10 today)

Anyway, the 4 o' clock finish came (and went) but I couldn't manage another one in extra time so I called the "all out" and guestimated my weight at 50lbs.

Steve was soon round with the scales having started with Ryan Radford on 132 who had struggled for only 20ish pounds.

By the time the scales arrived Will Dearlove was leading with 74-11, my efforts went 50-6 which was 6oz over my guestimated weight (take note Lee / Alan).

Rich Britton then took over the top place with 89-6 and Adam's collection of foul-hooked skimmers and tench went to 16-7 and was looking safe in that department as Kev Jefferies had cocked up peg 123 and didn't weigh.

Six-toed Lee put 68-6 on the scales robbing me of a pound coin (read all about it here) and it was then round to Chris Davis on 119 who managed 104-1 of carp plus a few silvers for a total of 108-15.

Keith Ray managed 52-8 from 118, Lionel and Alan dnw'd which was unfortunate for Al but good for me as I got my pound back!

And then it was Mark Radford's turn and it was going to be close ....

105-14 of carp but only 2lbs of silvers meant a total of 107-14 so not quite enough but despite the lake fishing well below par it was a very tight result.

Next weekend we're at Avalon and there are plenty of spaces for that one so give me a call if you fancy it.

 

Full Result:

1. Chris Davis (119) ........... 108-15
2. Mark Radford (114) .......... 107-14
3. Rich Britton (126) ............ 89-6
4. Ron Hardiman (111) ......... 76-8
5. Will Dearlove (130) .......... 74-11
6. Lee Williams (121) ........... 68-6
7. Keith Ray (118) ............... 52-8
8. Steve Burgess (127) ........ 50-6
9. Derek Lucas (135) ........... 43-13
10. Rich Jones (129) ............. 41-13
11. Adam Caswell (125) ........ 37-0
12. Ryan Radford (132) ......... 20-2
13. Lee Waller (128) ............. 15-2
14. Colin Butler (112) ........... 13-2
15. and 4 Dnw's including Alan Healey

Silvers:

1. Adam Caswell ....... 16-7
2. Lee Waller ............ 15-2
3. Colin Butler .......... 13-2
4. Steve Burgess ...... 5-13
5. Rich Britton .......... 5-12

 

The Sedges 14 pegs

If Carlsberg done fisherys........

unlike last weeks bleak surroundings this week the club were at one of the finest fisherys In the southwest, not only is it easy on the eye but your always afforded a warm welcome by the owners with a free cuppa, and to cap it all the lakes offer some fantastic fishing!

Originally we had a full house of twenty but for whatever reason a few dropped out leaving fourteen so match organisor mr Healy decided on paying a top three plus two silvers places

On our last visit the skimmers fed really well with Chris Davis  catching nearly 70lbs of them unfourtunately today they didnt show in any numbers infact it was a slow day for most people. On peg 15 Adam Caswell started well with four decent carp in as many put ins on his favoured putty but thats as good as it got for him, elsewhere it was slow going with the odd carp and skimmer being caught.

My dip in to the bucket of balls gave me a short walk to corner peg one, i was not overly confident as there was no ripple at all so expected a tough match but being the corner you usually get a few fish turn up late on, i started on a pellet feeder along the bottom bank one pull round was all i had in the first hour but that came off halfway back. Dropping on my 5metre meat line my first bite was a 2lb skimmer next put in the float kept going and a ten pounder was soon in the net thats where my action stopped. Id been pinging pellet 16 metres along the bank at the only point I could really get tight, going Into the last hour i noticed activity so went out with a double dendra on the hook and had areally good last hour hooking 13 carp landing 10 with the fish litery ripping the elastic out. I finished with 87lb which was good enough for second on the day.

Winner for the second week running was Chris Gay who made the most of flyer peg 11 to weigh 98lb 5oz, Chris caught most of his fish long shallow against the reeds plus a few down the edge on worm over groundbait.Last in the frame was the master lead slinger Alan Healy with 68lb 14oz all caught on the lead and pva bag.

Top silvers was Colin Butler with 17lb 5oz of skimmers caught on soft pellet over grounbait with Mike Wilson coming second doing the same.

Main frame and silvers winners

FUll RESULTS....

1ST    Chris Gay              98lb 5oz       peg 11
2ND   Chris Szakacs       87lb                      1
3RD   Alan Healy             68lb 14oz             9
4TH   Lee Williams          59lb 9oz               12
5TH   Mike Wilson           58lb                      3
6TH   Adam Caswell       57lb 12oz             15
7TH   Rich Jones             51lb 5oz               18
8TH   Will Dearlove          45lb 2oz               6
9TH   Mark Radford         32lb 2oz               5
10TH Colin Butler             28lb 6oz               17
11TH Ryan Radford         22lb 14oz             10
And three DNW

SILVERS.....

1ST    Colin Butler             17lb 5oz
2nd    Mike Wilson             12lb 9oz