Shiplate, Hawthorns & Westpool, 05 April (15 pegs)

The last match of the Psv season and my last match in command of proceedings saw 15 of us at Shiplate Fishery which was looking very attractive in the perfect Spring conditions which seemed a million miles away from the conditions we had last week at Viaduct which was more like an episode of Deadliest Catch so that was a relief.
Also fishing today (on the main lake) were the "cuddle club" which I'd never heard of before but apparently are Shiplate regulars and get there name from the fact that their matches are less concerned with the fishing as with the cuddles with fishery owner Carol, so I made sure I got mine in early before things got too messy!
Anyway, as we had both canals at our disposal, we had 8 on Hawthorns and 7 on Westpool paying out the top 2 overall, an overall Silvers and 2 sections.
And obviously an Easter Egg for all the framing places (thanks for the reminder Ron)
As ever, and perhaps for the last time, I had the last ticket from the Mr Potato-Head bucket which gave me 11 on Westpool which was probably the furthest I've been round that end.
Lee Williams had hung back to the end for the last-but-one and dug out 11 on Hawthorns which he wasn't overjoyed about but I would have been happy to have swapped.
And you can read all about that here
Adam Caswell had drawn the Golden Peg which was 15 on Hawthorns and that had won the midweek match, so that would be £62 rolling over to the next match!
Arriving at my peg I found I had Facebook legend and "tackle tart" Steve Sewell to my right on 9 who was keen to have a pound with me to try and recoup some of the cost of his shiny new Tourney Pro X, which I suspect is going to take a while as he also had a pound with Julian Nurse and he battered him senseless as well.
On my left, on pegs 12 and 13 was self-made millionaire Matt Taynton who, despite being a thoroughly nice bloke and all that, can be a nightmare to fish by as he is ruthlessly good at what he does and has on quite a few occasions given me a right proper hiding off the next peg.
Also present in my section were both generations of Radford, Mark on peg 7 and Ryan on 15 which looked to be the peg to beat.
At the other end were Lee Waller on 5 and Lionel Legge on 2.
And for added entertainment value we had several members of the "cuddle club" on the opposite bank (fishing the main lake) who kept us amused all day with their banter which seems to improve with age!
Fair play then to "George" wherever he was as he managed to land a twenty on silvers elastic without a pull bung which took him about 30 minutes and we had the benefit of a running commentary which was hilarious.
I don't think he caught much else, he was more knackered than the carp.
Anyway, back to today and I set up 3 rigs.

The first for 14m, bottom of the shelf in about 4ft of water with a .3gram pencil float on .15 mainline to a size 16 808 on 0.13

Next was a shallow rig for up on the far shelf which was on a long line to save putting my 16m section on and finally a rig to fish down the edge at topkit plus 2 seeing as I couldn't go much further along the edge as Matt "2 pegs" Taynton had already laid claim to that!

For bait I had a pint and half of red / white maggots that had spent the night in the freezer but had come back to life before the match even started, a tin of meat cut up to 6mm (leftovers from last week), 4mm pellet for feed and a handful of soft pellet just in case.

There was also a tin of corn in the bag just in case the soft pellet didn't work!

To kick off the proceedings I potted in a cup of 4mm's with a few bits of meat added, chucked a handful of maggots in the margin and pinged half a dozen pieces of meat over to the far side.

Starting on 14m with meat on the hook I didn't have to wait long for my first fish which impressed my Oap audience on the far bank.

Next put-in and after a few twitches the float buried and a much better fish was on .... but not for too long as the elastic gave way just above the connector which wasn't nice as it was a brand new float and rig that I'd made up the night before .... bugger!!

Luckily I had a backup rig ready and was back out again without too much drama.

The next bite produced a chub of just under a pound which was a bit of a suprise but apparently there are lots of them in all the lakes and they go up to 3lbs on the main lake.

Topping up with a small kinder pot of pellet / meat after every fish and lifting and dropping the rig regularly seemed to keep the fish coming at a reasonable rate and after an hour I had about 6 or 7 carp in the net so apart from the elastic mishap a good start for me.

Meanwhile it seemed Ryan had started well and was catching across to the far bank on the end peg and maybe had a few more than me, which he was denying (but I've learned the hard way never to believe anything from a Radford) and Lee Waller was also getting a few. 

My two neighbours were both struggling, Steve Sewell was digging around in his pockets for change after the first hour and Matt was not happy with me as he was asking what I was catching on and he didn't believe the answer.

Matt had struggled from the off and despite trying all around his peg(s) was only getting odd small silvers but I wasn't going to rub it in too much as I've fallen foul of Matt many times as he has a habit of turning things round dramatically in the later stages and it there was plenty of time to go.

By the halfway stage I'd added a few more carp including a couple of good sized lumps and a big skimmer around 2lbs but things were starting to slow up, the bites were getting finicky and I was missing more than I was hitting and foul-hooking a few.

So I cupped in some bait to get them back down and went across on the shallow rig, still with meat on the hook, to see if I could tempt some fish that were showing over there, especially the one that was towing my best float around.

First swing over resulted in a carp snatching the bait but I missed that one and spooked it, and a few of it's mates out of the peg.

So I dug out the 16m section and shortened the rig but after 5 minutes of plopping around nothing happened and I got the feeling those far bank fish weren't going to be easy targets so I gave that up .

I had an early look in my left margin to see if there was anything about but all that produced was a chub that coughed up most of the maggots I'd been throwing down there so I gave that up too.
But not before filling it in with a couple of handfuls of maggots as by now the end of Matt Taynton's pole was lurking around the same area and I wasn't intending to surrender without a fight but he was only getting odd silvers out so it seemed to be devoid of carp down there.
But he switched to his left margin and, as I had expected, started catching down there with worrying frequency.
Ryan meanwhile had run out of steam so it seemed like I was going to be ok as long as I kept a few more  coming in as Matt was now getting one a chuck but he had a lot of catching up to do.
Steve the owner made an appearance and reckoned Adam was doing well on Hawthorns (15) with about a dozen carp on paste of all things but I was confident I had more than that.
Back out at 14m and some fish had settled on the bait I'd potted in earlier and I had a good run with 4 or 5 on the trot and in the meantime I'd seen a bit of activity in my right margin which I'd been feeding with pellet as I was getting low on meat and maggots.
I spent the last 45 minutes down there hooking and losing a few but managed 2 or 3 out with the last one hooked just before the "all-out" so there was no need for injury time today!
We did our own weigh-in starting with Ryan on 15 and for once he hadn't been telling fibs and his nets went 48-10.
Matt's late charge gave him 63-10 which included 10-10 of silvers which wasn't bad seeing as he only caught for about two hours.
My collection of carp and accidentals went 74-13 so that was the section sorted as the next best was Lee Waller with 55-9.
Going round to Hawthorns and Adam on the golden peg had managed 61-9 so I was feeling quite pleased with myself until we got to the last but one weight which was Matt Challenger on peg 3 who then pissed on my fire and weighed in 80-9.
Matt caught all his fish on paste at 13m feeding a little bit of pellet through a kinder pot as he had left his pole cups at home!
So a good, close match with plenty caught all round and I went home with an Easter egg for the wife (and Carol got one too) and a full house of £1 side bets ... Happy days

Full Result:

1. Matt Challenger  (H3) ........ 80-9
2. Steve Burgess (W11) ........ 74-13
3. Matt Taynton (W12 / 13) .... 63-10
4. Adam Caswell (H15)* ........ 61-9
5. Alan Healey (H7) .............. 59-7
6. Lee Williams (H11) ........... 56-2
7. Lee Waller (W5) ............... 55-9
8. Darren North (H9) ............ 55-8
9. Ryan Radford (W15) ......... 48-10
10. Julian Nurse (H1) ............. 46-6
11. Mark Radford (W7) ........... 33-0
12. Lionel Legge (W2) ............ 26-12
13. Steve Sewell (W9) ........... 23-13
14. Mike Wilson (H13) ........... 19-0
15. Adam Woodland (H5) ....... dnw

Silvers:

1. Darren North ....... 11-8
2. Matt Taynton ....... 10-10
3. Mark Radford ....... 9-8
4. Steve Burgess ...... 7-5
5. Julian Nurse ......... 6-3
6. Steve Sewell ........ 6-0
7. Lionel Legge ........ 5-2
8. Mike Wilson ......... 4-9
9. Alan Healey ......... 3-15
10. Matt Challenger .... 3-8
11. Ryan Radford ....... 2-2
12. Adam Caswell ...... 1-4
13. Lee Waller ........... 1-3
14. Lee Williams ........ 1-0

And finally, Alan Healey came back the next day to fish the Bank Holiday open, drew peg 1 and won the match with 106-6 winning £150 in the process but no Easter Egg .... Bugger!