Plantations, Coarse Lake, 15 Feb (17 pegs)

Seventeen were eventually booked in for this one which included some new faces and as a result I was fairly determined for there to be no draw cock-ups (not that we've had any for a while).

So, with my super-efficient head on I turned up armed with 4 variations of payout depending on wether or not we had any Larry Let-Downs.

Fortunately we never so it was version #2 which was top 4 overall and 2 silvers with 16 in the pools.

I did hear someone comment that Adam ought to pay Ryan's pools for him as he would win a lot more money that way but  to be honest I thought that was a bit harsh.

I was expecting some good silvers weights today as (and I know I seem to say the same thing every week)

there are plenty of good sized skimmers in this lake but, having said that, The Gimp was fishing today which usually puts a hex on the silvers' fishing.

I left the pegging in the capable hands of Pete Sivell and his manservant Jason Bird who had both fished the Frys match here the previous weekend and were keen to make amends for their dismal performances and both were keen to have a £ with me which makes me wonder what Alan Healey had been telling them!

I think they made a good job of the pegging by putting less pegs at the far end of the lake as this end fished crap last week and it did so again this week although Pete ended up down the "good" end and still struggled which speaks for itself really.

Back to the draw then and Lee Williams decided to upset my Karma and pulled out the last two balls and gave me the choice.

I picked 11 which left Lee with 29 which is a nice peg on the far bank with plenty of options.

My peg was a different kettle of fish (sorry) tucked away in a bay towards the end of the carpark bank.  It's saving grace was that Ryan Radford had won from it the last time we fished here, catching late down the left margin.

Self-confessed Plantations expert Chris Szakacs came over and reckoned it would be a case of fishing long into the open water for skimmers and then plunder the carp down the margins later in the match and this was backed up by the Plantations bailiff who recommended fishing long into the right margins.

For company today I had Mark Radford on 19 and Lee Waller over in the opposite corner on 23. 

I also had a squirrel, which ended up on Mark's side tray eating his pellets

And a very persistent duck that kept coming up and pecking my boots to get more food.
It was quite amusing for a bit but after a dozen or so visits and much boot tapping it did start to get a bit annoying, especially when it decided it was going to get in my groundbait bucket!

Back to the fishing and I kicked things off by putting a couple of balls of groundbait laced with maggots, casters and micros out to a couple of spots at 13m and started over that with various combinations of live and dead maggots etc which gave no indications.

After an hour of nothing I finally started to get a few small skimmers averaging about 6oz but it was slow going and the bites were extremely finicky and it was just as well the lake was quite calm as if there had have been any ripple I wouldn't have seen any of the bites.  But strangely most fish had taken the bait well down so maybe my rig wasn't set up quite right but never mind.

By halfway I guess I had about 4lbs of these but the grapevine reckoned the lower end of the lake was doing well with Chris Szakacs on peg 5 admitting to 10 or so carp. 

Ryan also had a few and Alan had 3 or 4 from peg 1.

Lee and Mark had both had hardly anything and I wasn't aware of anyone else catching much in the way of silvers.

So I had a bit of a dilemma as to whether to try for carp down the edge and play catch-up or to carry on with the skimmers and hope for some better ones to turn up.

After 30 minutes of mucking about in the margins for nothing I decided to give it up and go for the skimmers.

But that didn't really happen either and after heaping in maybe a bit too much bait I had a 6lb carp and the highlight of my day, an 8oz tench!

The total of my efforts was 8-8 of skimmers plus the one carp for a total of 14-4 which was unfortunate really as I had quite a few fish but no quality.

Elsewhere the proper skimmers showed with Darren North doing best with 15-12 of them followed by Lionel Legge with 12-5 and The Gimp with 11-9.

The match was won by Chris with 56-14 followed by Lee Williams with 40-11

Newbie Julian Nurse took 3rd place with 37-5 from peg 4.

All three pegs were located on or near the smaller of the two islands so it seemed the fish were concentrated in that area.

Although Pete Sivell on peg 3 managed somehow to avoid them!

 

Full Result:

1. Chris Szakacs (peg 5) ...... 56-14
2. Lee Williams (29) ............. 40-11
3. Julian Nurse (4) ............... 37-5
4. Ryan Radford (7) ............. 34-5
5. Darren North (31) ............ 28-8
6. Alan Healey (1) ............... 26-4
7. Jason Bird (26) ............... 20-14
8. Steve Sewell (39) ............ 15-6
9. Steve Burgess (11) .......... 14-4
10. Pete Sivell (3) ................. 12-6
11. Lionel Legge (38) ............ 12-5
12. Derek Lucas (8) .............. 12-3
13. John Bradford (27) .......... 11-9
14. Adam Caswell (25) .......... 10-11
15. Keith Meridith (28) ........... 10-1
16. and 2 dnw's 

Silvers:  

1. Darren North ..... 15-12
2. Lionel Legge ......... 12-5
3. John Bradford ....... 11-9
4. Julian Nurse .......... 10-15
5. Steve Sewell ......... 10-12
6. Keith Meridith ........ 10-1
7. Lee Williams .......... 8-10
8. Derek Lucas / Ryan Radford .... 8-9
9. Steve Burgess ........ 8-8
10. Alan Healey ........... 3-5
11. Pete Sivell ............. 1-15
12. Adam Caswell ........ 1-4

Year Totals and Winter League

For those that attended the meeting last week and were anxiously awaiting the latest league tables please accept my apologies!
If anyone would like to see the complete totals let me know (I won't hold my breath)!

Winter League:

1. Alan Healey,  158pts    293lbs 9oz
2. Lee Waller,       146   171-7
2. Steve Burgess, 146    116-4
4. Mark Radford,  140    202-14
5. Darren North,  105    151-1
6. Lee Williams,   104    154-6
6. Ryan Radford,  104    79-15
8. Chris Szakacs,  103   195-3
9. Adam Caswell,  85    93-1
10. Lionel Legge,  77    181-14
11. Brian Shanks, 75    156-13
12. Matt Taynton, 74    123-8

Year Totals:

1. Mark Radford,  678    1,758-5
2. Steve Burgess, 567      1,320-14
3. Brian Shanks, 541      1,731-3
4. Alan Healey,  532      1,224-2
5. Ryan Radford, 523     1,282-6
6. Chris Szakacs, 457    1,297-11
7. Adam Caswell, 401   901-12
8. Lee Williams,  395    1,073-4
9. Chris Gay,   375      1,155-0
10. Ron Hardiman, 371    1,339-1
11. Rich Jones,  299    932-4
12. Lee Waller,  292    606-11

Sedges, Tile Lake, 08 Feb

Following a week of frosts and the possibility of ice-breaking by Friday the numbers for this match were diminishing rapidly and I was considering cancelling but we had a couple of late book-ins and the weather forecast was promising a bit of a rise in temperature and no frost overnight.

In addition I'd phoned the fishery and both the main lakes were ice free unlike a lot of other Somerset venues so no need for my sledgehammer head to weigh down the brand new fishing bus!

Even better news was that Alan Healey was helping me christen the new bus which meant he was buying at the cafe and the icing on the cake would be to rob him of another pound coin but unfortunately that wasn't to be.

Predictably the weather forecast was completely off the mark and the skies had cleared overnight resulting in it being very cold and foggy (although that didn't hang about too long once the breeze got up).

So with just the seven fishing, pegging was a bit of a head-scratcher .... One bank, but which? Or spread out on both banks?

In the end we decided on the one bank, the bank shared with Brick lake, leaving out the corners (31 & 40).

No doubt it was the wrong choice as in this kind of situation you're never going to please everybody but never mind.

The match itself was fairly un-eventful for some, especially for Lee Williams on peg 39 who, despite his best efforts, gave up early after snaring just two very greedy (and very tiny) roachlets.

The serious action took place at the other end of the lake and was shared between Lee Waller on 32 and Alan on 33.

Lee fished soft pellet over micros long and found quality skimmers whereas Alan opted to sit it out on the tip with bread all day for four bites and four carp totalling 17-5 but it wasn't enough to beat Lee who's net of skimmers plus a bewildered carp went 19-5.

I had found myself on peg 36 sandwiched between Keith Ray on 35 and Matt Taynton (who seems to enjoy drawing next to me here) on 37.

36 is an open water peg but I spent the first hour chucking a method feeder with micros and 3 dead mags to an island I discovered accidentally (Keith insisted I mentioned that).

Regardless though of whose peg it ended up in it produced bugger all.

Dropping back on the pole at 13m with a single maggot over micros eventually produced a tiny skimmer which was a relief as I was starting to have ideas about a dreaded blank.

That one was followed soon after by its twin brother before the next bite produced something a lot more substantial which turned out to be a skimmer of about 1½ lbs.

Unfortunately though, despite the most delicate of shipping back, it nodded its head and shed the hook leaving me close to tears and wishing I had a seven metre landing net handle as it floundered around on the surface for ages like a jellyfish before it realised it was free and swam off to warn its mates.

Closer inspection revealed the maggot had flipped over the hook point ... bugger (as they say on the good blogs)!

So a quiet spell followed at which point I got bored and went back out on the tip for more biteless action (although I did have a liner).

In the meantime Keith had spent several hours fruitlessly bread-slinging  and Matt had been trotting a wind and tow assisted waggler past the island whilst muttering about being on the wrong bank. That had produced just one roachlet so I was doing ok in my 3 man section.

That was until Mat dropped onto his pole line after 3 hours and promptly had four skimmers in a row, reversing the deficit, before losing number 5.

By now I was getting no indications at all on the pole but I was struggling with presentation as the tow was pushing the rig back towards me. Adding a section and fiddling around with the shotting improved things a bit and I managed to get a few more skimmers and baby roach including a fish around the pound mark.

By the end Keith had followed Lee Williams on the walk of shame after netting just one skimmer (that was hooked in the wrong-un).

With first and second places sewn up it was going to be a close call between myself, Matt Taynton and Matt Challenger on 38 for the default silvers payout.

Matt Taynton took the honours with 5lbs dead which comfortably beat my 3-7 and Matt Challenger's 3-3.

So a hard day but it was enjoyable working hard for every fish.

Full Result:

1. Lee Waller (32) ....... 19-5

2. Alan Healey (33) ..... 17-5

3. Matt Taynton (37) .... 5-0

4. Steve Burgess (36) ... 3-7

5. Matt Challenger (38) ... 3-3

And 2 dnw's

Next week we are on the main lake at Plantations and hopefully it will have warmed up a bit by then and it will be a better result.

At least there are a few going though and there are some spaces available for those that forgot there was a meeting last Tuesday.

Harescombe match lake 11 pegs

Originally there were 14 booked in for this trip to Harescombe but on the day this ended up being 11 of psv's most hardy and they needed to be as the weather was challenging to say the least! A fierce north westerly wind was ripping through the valley which made fishing the pole long virtually impossible for most, and I hate to think what the wind chill factor was but when Brian Shanks mumbles that he cant feel his feet hands and face you know its cold!!

With Mr Burgess not in attendance it was left to Alan Healy to sort pegging and payouts and with no silverpool it was a simple case of top four, pegging wise it was decided to put two pegs at each end 15-16 and 29-30 respectively and space the rest along each straight.

With the ends of the lake being the more favoured draws especially 15-16 which apparently had been doing the business lately so when Alan drew 16 a large smile appeared on his face in anticipation of another good day after last weeks golden peg bagging session down emerald pools, and with the wind directly off his back and that of young Ryan Radford who drew 15 leaving them both with flat calm pegs things were looking good for the pair, unfortunately for Alan it was a case of hero to zero as he ended up with a big fat DNW!

At the other end of the lake and with the wind blasting them straight in the face was serial draw bag Mark Radford on 29 a peg that always produces a few fish and on 30 was yours truly and with the conditions I was really unsure what to expect, as it happens the match itself was a fairly close affair with no one really sure who'd won and although the weights were not big most had a few bites despite the conditions.

Due to the landslide Mark had a bit of shelter and calmer water and was able to fish long at the start making the most of it catching several f1s against the island. On peg 3 Lee Waller had the same idea and started long but soon gave it up after being turned round on his box several times despite this he was still catching the odd f1, up the other end there was elastic being pulled especially Lee Williams on 13 and Si Belcham on 7, Si in particular was fishing a steady match at five metres and although not bagging was putting f1s and silvers in the net at regular intervals.

My match started bad it felt like I was being cut in two by the wind and couldn't feel my fingers after ten minutes which made baiting up hard work! Id gone with a plan to fish bread long on the far shelf, shipping over and laying in at the start the float buried but on shipping back the fish came off, the next two put ins the same result and I then had a torrid half hour trying to present over and constantly being blown around so gave up the line, a rethink was in order so a maggot line was opened at six metres towards the island and also three metres left down the ledge and also a caster line to my right in the corner that didn't really produce, by constantly dripping in maggot and micro tho I started to get a few bites and put a few f1s in the net, it was a case of just waiting and lifting at any indication as tiny little dinks was as positive as it got from the shy biting f1s, for some reason tho with a hour and a half to go all my lines just went completely dead and in that time I only had three bites two from 12oz skimmers and one from my biggest fish of the day a lunking great 5lb f1 which was to prove a match winning fish!

So first on the day was myself with 39lb 8oz

second went to Si Belcham with 35lb 14oz

third was Mark Radford with 30lb 14oz and last in the frame was Lee Williams with 26lb 14oz

FULL RESULT

1ST CHRIS SZAKACS   39LB 8OZ
2ND SI BELCHAM         35LB 14OZ
3RD MARK RADFORD 30LB 14OZ
4TH LEE WILLIAMS     26LB 14OZ
5TH LEE WALLER        24LB  5OZ
6TH DARREN NORTH  22LB 10OZ
7TH BRIAN SHANKS    19LB 5OZ
8TH RYAN RADFORD   9LB  8OZ
AND THREE DNWS

A nice tight match at a very fair venue, next week the club are back down the sedges on tile lake and there should be a meeting this Tuesday where steve will be taking bookings for this months matches