Sedges, Brick Lake, 05 July 2015

Back this week to one of my favourite summer venues, Brick lake at Sedges where, at this time of year, almost any peg is capable of throwing up a match-winning weight and as the carp in this lake average a hefty size you don't need loads of them either.
Generally that will be fishing shallow, either on the pole or wag, or from the margins (or a combination of both).
As the carp here like to hang out in the surface layers they do tend to follow the wind which usually blows up the lake towards the corner pegs (10 & 11) so a draw up that end would be good news.
Good news for me then as Denise handed me the draw basket and out popped peg 11 and even better news was that there would be nobody on 12.

The only downside was that the last time we fished here in similar conditions peg 11 dnw'd which was a slight concern but to be honest not a massive one as there were obviously a few fish in the area today.

The picture above was taken when I got to the peg and it was flat calm then but it didn't stay that way for long.

First out of the bag today was the obligatory pellet wag rod followed by 3 pole rigs.

The first for bottom of the shelf at 13m along the end bank where it was about 5 foot deep to fish with corn and then 2 shallow rigs, with and without bands.
After feeding the pole line with a pot of corn and 6mm pellet it was out with the wag and after about four chucks the first carp of the day was hooked and landed.

Three more followed in the first hour so hardly hectic but I couldn't see anyone else catching so I was happy with that.

And by the end of the first hour most who had started on the wag had long since abandoned it.

As I've found before here the carp weren't taking the pellet on the drop and it was a case of chucking the wag out and firing pellet over the top (as best as possible in the gusting wind) and waiting for a bite.

The trouble with this is that you invariably get a bite while you're loading the catty so a lot of bites are missed and in addition the wind was pushing the float back towards me so that when I did get a bite I often had too much slack line to hit it.

At one point I tried reeling in slowly to keep in touch with the float and just watched the rod tip which worked for one fish.

After the second hour I was up to maybe 7 and my neighbour Ron Hardiman had wandered up and confirmed that nobody else was catching much and it seemed the lake was fishing below par although it can often switch on late here so there was still plenty of time for things to change.

Around midway through the match I had a look on the pole line and hooked a fish straight away, a big red and black koi that I'm sure I've caught before.

Next put in and another fish was hooked and I could tell straight away that this was a big one but it didn't want to come in and kept plodding off until the hook pulled, bugger!

The next fish was a fantail / crucian type thing (most likely an escapee from the canal) that was my only "silver" of the day.

After that I started getting roach holding up the corn hookbait so I dumped a pot of pellet and corn on their heads and after a brief and fruitless look on the shallow pellet rig in the right margin where I'd been throwing pellet at regular intervals, went back on the wag.

This coincided with the first of several torrential thunderstorms which got all my kit and bait completely drenched.

After the second of these downpours the wind suddenly dropped and the lake became flat calm.

This break in the weather allowed me to fish the wag properly and while it lasted I had three or four fish but going into the last hour the wind returned and changed direction and was now coming straight at me making it virtually impossible to fish the float or feed with the catty, especially as my pellet had turned to mush (twice).

Even worse for me was that across the lake on peg 8 Brian Shanks, who had caught hardly anything all day, had a complete transformation and was getting a fish a chuck on the pole.

Every time I looked up he was playing another one or wandering over to the scales on the bank.

At 4:15 I shouted the all out and hoped I'd done enough in the first five hours to hold off Brian's sprint finish.

But when he weighed in a total of 94-3 I was pretty sure I wasn't going to beat him and I was right as my nets went 81-12 for 2nd

Third place went to Chris Szakacs from peg 16 with 77-0 caught late on meat at 5m

Completing the frame was Matt Taynton with 55-14 from peg 4

That place could have been taken up by Lionel Legge but unfortunately his seven carp had an early release when his net slipped into the lake, unlucky!

Top silvers went to Steve Sewell on peg 9 with 15-1 of meat-caught skimmers.

Full Result:

1. Brian Shanks (8) ......... 94-3
2. Steve Burgess (11) ........ 81-12
3. Chris Szakacs (16) ......... 77-0
4. Matt Taynton (4) ............ 55-14
5. Steve Sewell (9) ............ 49-8
6. Rich Britton (14) ............ 43-3
7. Alan Healey (15) ............ 39-4
8. Rocket Ron (13)* ........... 39-1
9. Ross Baker (17) ............. 29-0
10. Mark Radford (20) .......... 28-10
11. Colin Butler (10) ............ 27-12
12. Ryan Radford (6) ........... 22-0
13. Paul Preston (1) ............ 17-8
14. Lionel Legge (18) .......... 9-8 (oops)
15. Julian Nurse (5) ............ 6-5
16. Adam Caswell (7) .......... 6-1
17. Lee Waller (3) ....... dnw 

Silvers:

1. Steve Sewell (9) ....... 15-1
2. Chris Szakacs (16) ...... 13-2
3. Paul Preston (1) .......... 12-2

And finally I often hear comments about the amount of kit match anglers take to their pegs and I now know the answer to that as there were four or five guys having a knock-up on the canal lake who I guess were staying in the caravans and were obviously "travelling light" as each of them must have walked behind me about ten times during the match.

I don't think they were from round these parts as one of them stopped for a chat but I couldn't understand a word he said, must have been a northerner (or Welsh).

But anyway that is why we take everything but the kitchen sink, so that we can cater for every eventuality.

Try telling that then to Adam Caswell and Steve Sewell who both never bothered to bring their coats and both got a bit damp!