Bristol PSV Fishing Club: Staunton Court, 16 August (14 pegs)

So, as is traditional now with our occasional visits to Staunton Court our first port of call was for breakfast at Watersmeet Hotel just a couple of miles back from the fishery at Hartpury.

Apparently they have changed management now and it was a lot busier than I've rver seen it before but the breakfast was still top notch although I noticed there were no racks of toast brought to the table and the usual pots of tea and coffee had been substituted for a self service arrangement at the bar but this was probably down to how busy it was.

More worrying though was that in the front lake nearest the car park every fish in the lake was on the surface sucking in air, presumably due to a lack of oxygen in the water that was maybe caused by the recent unseasonal weather we've been having.

This did make me wonder how the fishing would be at Staunton today although with it being a Psv match no big weights were likely (apparently)!

In charge again this week, despite it being 90 miles from Somerton, was Will Daiwalove and he was using the same pegging and format as he did the last time we were up here which was back in May.

That meant there were five pegs on each of the long banks, two on both end banks and paying out top 2 overall, a silvers and 2 sections.

That match was won by Will's father-in-law Keith Ray with 110lbs from the top corner of the grass bank with Lee Williams getting 2nd from the other end of the same bank (the famous "bin peg")

And incidentally yours truly was 3rd from the bottom end bank.

6-toes wasn't with us today as he was out with Pawlett Legion on Campbell & Cary but Mark Radford had found himself on the "bin peg" so he was moaning less than usual.

Strangely, Keith drew the exact same peg this time round (peg 8) which meant he would be keeping me company as I was on 9 and next to me was Pete (the paste) Uzzell, so between the three of us there was quite a collection of colourful keepnets much to the amusement of those opposite ... Somebody mentioned a resemblance to a set of traffic lights which was quite an accurate description .

I set up a couple of shallow rigs, one normal one and the other was a Preston Jigger which I was trying for the first (and last) time. Both of these for banded 8mm's but with the option of fishing a piece of meat pulled onto the band.

I also set up a rig for on the deck (meat) which was plumbed up at 14m

No rods today as it was pole only.

I started off by feeding a big pot of pellet and meat at 14m and went out over it with the Jigger which proved fruitless as despite plenty of "jigging" the only things taking an interest in the pellet were micro skimmers which were stripping the 8mm pellet down to nothing within a minute.

The first hour was slow to say the least, and not just for me, as most were in the same boat and only a couple of odd fish had been caught around the lake.

By now my 14m line was fizzing like crazy so I switched to the deep rig with meat which produced a small skimmer and my first carp of the day.

After that I started getting plagued by liners so I re-fed and went back shallow on the proper shallow rig which produced one carp and a couple of foulers that were lost.

Most of us were suffering a similar struggle although Steve o'Toole had started to catch at a decent rate up in the top corner (peg 6), and Pasty Pete next to me was catching skimmers regularly with a few carp thrown in.

Will on peg 3 was doing ok and Mark Radford was on his 2nd fish for the 3rd time but generally it was slow.

I'd been feeding both my edges regularly and there was plenty of activity on both sides judging by the swirls and waving tails.

An early look proved fruitless despite there being plenty of fish mooching around.

Adam and Keith were having similar problems, especially Keith who was having a torrid time hooking and losing fish on a regular basis.

It was quite strange as the fish seemed to be homing in on the feed and rooting around but not feeding. Or perhaps they were mopping up the feed and ignoring the hookbait, I've no idea but it was frustrating all the same and I think Pete made the right decision by ignoring the margins and sticking it out on the deck.

Eventually I did manage to land a couple of margin fish, some of which were hooked legitimately, but my total of 37-6 was never going to make any waves but at least I managed to recover all 3 of my side bets, including Alan's as he had suffered an (almost) repeat of his last performance here weighing in a dismal 27-8 from peg 14 which is usually a decent peg, at least it was in the last match if I remember rightly!

As expected Steve o'Toole won the match convincingly with 116-4 caught on 8mm pellet in the margins on his topkit, although if that was the case he has 11m topkits so I suspect there was a bit of fibbing going on there.