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:
- Chris Szakacs (peg 36) ..... 95-14
- Adam Smith (40) ............. 85-7
- Mark Radford (29) ........... 78-7
- Adam Caswell (21) .......... 71-9
- Matt Taynton (38) ............ 61-4
- Lionel Legge (32) ............ 59-15
- Ryan Radford (27) ........... 31-10
- Martin Smith (25) ............ 26-1
- Steve Burgess (23) .......... 25-10
- Gimp (34) ..... gave up!
Silvers:
- Martin Smith (25) ....... 10-3
- Mark Radford (29) ...... 6-9
- Matt Taynton (38) ....... 6-3
- 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:
- Alan Healey (15) ..... 97-6
- Steve Wynne (10) .... 33-13
- Mark Radford (1) ...... 27-0
- Ryan Radford (4) ...... 26-4
- Lionel Legge (14) ..... 25-2
- Chris Szakacs (8) ..... 21-14
- Lee Waller (11) ........ 16-6
- Steve Burgess (3) .... 15-8
- Mike Wilson (12) ...... 10-0
- Derek Lucas* (5) ...... 9-1
- Darren North (7) ...... 8-4
- Adam Caswell (13) ... 6-2
- and 2 dnw's
Silvers:
- Lionel Legge ... 18-0
- Lee Waller ...... 10-12
- Mike Wilson ..... 10-0
- Derek Lucas .... 9-1
- Darren North .... 8-4
- Alan Healey ...... 7-10
- Ryan Radford .... 7-2
- 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)
