Sedges, Brick Lake, 17 April (19 pegs)

Unfortunately for those of you who have expressed an interest (that's nobody then), my love life has taken a dramatic turn for the worse and sadly myself and Miss Frome are no longer an item.

Which means no more Sunday morning bacon sarnies or Sunday night trips to Mike's Kitchen to spend my winnings??

(Stupid name for a Chinese anyway)!

She does read this rubbish though but I suspect it's just to see the pictures of Psv's young studs such as Will, Rich Jones and Adam so today's her lucky day on that score.

Anyway, every cloud has a silver lining and mine was the fact that she had previously given me a can of de-icer and that was required this morning as we had an overnight frost .... see, there was a point to all that 😀

Also, the wind turbines at Avonmouth were generating nothing so quite a change from last Sunday, and that's a bonus as it can get a bit blowy at Sedges with it being so close to the seaside and all.

Down at the fishery a few thought the overnight frost and bright sunshine would make it hard work today, especially for the skimmers. I still had high hopes for some decent weights but maybe less so for the topkit match on Tile lake as the margins were still very clear.

I fancied any corner (except 1) but especially 10 however my luck at drawing at Sedges finally gave in and with four balls left I drew 14.

Nothing exciting about this peg with the only feature as such being the aerator but on the plus side plenty of fish were topping and swirling out towards it.

For company today I had, once again, Ryan Radford on 15 with local superstar Lee Williams next down from him. And on 13 I had Rich Jones followed by "Silvers Slayer" (his words) Lee Waller and Mark Radford in corner peg 11.

Mark wasn't happy and was moaning about the wind blowing the wrong way ... down towards peg 20 which was occupied by Pete Uzzell.

Peg 10, my preferred choice, had gone to Matt Williams and peg 1 to Steve Sewell who appreciated the short walk but maybe not the words of "encouragement" from others!

No suprises setting up today ... 

A deep rig at 14m for meat and a rig for topkit plus 2 either side, again for meat, on the first shelf at about 5' deep as I'd done ok on these on Tile a couple of weeks back.

I didn't bother with the margins as Ryan was giving me dirty looks and I didn't fancy them to produce much anyway even if I did spook a carp out when I put my nets in!

Last but not least, I set up a 6 gram loaded pellet wag for obvious reasons, no lead rod as I'd run out of time (and leads). In hindsight I maybe should have set up a shallow rig for the pole to give Rich Jones a harder time but never mind, too late to worry about now.

At the all in, after a bit of last minute rushing about, I fed the three pole lines with generous pots of soggy micros and meat (it worked last time) and fired some 8mm's out to feed the ducks.

By this time Chris Szskacs opposite on peg 9 was unhooking his first pellet wag-caught carp which was a bit odd as before the match he was doubtful about it working today.

Myself, Ryan and Rich had also started on the wag but nothing was happening.

Meanwhile the moaning in peg 11 had stopped abruptly as Mark Radford netted 3 fish in succession fishing long against the reeds.

Lee Waller was feeling quite pleased with himself after netting a 3lb skimmer on his first put-in but declaring himself "The Silvers Slayer" was always going to be a regrettable decision and he had 5hrs and 50 minutes to contemplate the error of his ways.

By the end of the first hour I was still fishless. My neighbours had both long since given up the wag and were on their pole lines, Chris Szakacs seemed to be getting one-a-chuck on the waggler and both Matt Williams and Keith Ray either side of him were both getting a few as well.

Lee Williams was busy winding Adam Caswell up which I don't think he mentioned in his version of the day's events [see here]

And the Silvers Slayer was having a torrid time losing hooklengths to "vermin".

I did a 10 minute tour of my pole lines which produced 1 sail away missed bite on the deep rig which was most likely a liner.

Back out on the wag and I finally got off the mark and followed that one up with a couple more over the next hour.
The middle stage of the match was quite productive for me and I managed to claw my way back a little bit but Rich Jones had also started catching shallow on his pole line and he seemed to be getting some bigger fish which included this net-busting 24lb mirror.

Across the other side of the lake Chris's flying start had slowed to a more sedate pace and he was on the pole bagging up on skimmers instead.

As the day went on though my wag line also dried up and it seemed as though the wind had pushed the fish over closer.

Rich Jones was taking full advantage of this and had a good last hour as did Keith who had stuck with the wag and possibly nicked Chris's fish while he was busy trying to win the match and the silvers.

As it turned out he didn't win either as Rich Jones's 10 fish went 108-4

And Keith snuck into second with 95-11 just ahead of Matt Williams (below) who had 90-12

The silvers was won by Steve o'Toole from peg 3 with 16-10 of skimmers caught on closely guarded secrets

His mate "The Silvers Slayer" packed up early in disgust!

Full Result:

1. Rich Jones (13) .... 108-4
2. Keith Ray (8) ............... 95-11
3. Matt Williams (10) ...... 90-12
4. Chris Szakacs (9) ........ 80-1
5. Steve Burgess (14) ...... 72-10
6. Will Dearlove (18) ...... 62-12
7. Steve o' Toole (3) ........ 54-10
8. Mark Radford (11) ...... 54-6
9. Steve Sewell (1) .......... 54-1
10. Ryan Radford (15) ..... 34-6
11. Lee Williams (16) ...... 31-15
12. Pete Uzzell (20) ......... 30-12
13. Mike Wilson (2) ........ 21-10
14. Degsy Williams (5) ... 19-13
15. Chris Gay (19) .......... 14-8
16. John Bradford (7) ...... 8-6
17. Matt Taynton (6) ....... 8-4
And 2 dnw's (including the "silvers slayer)!

Silvers:

1. Steve o'Toole (3) ...... 16-10
2.Chris Szakacs (9) ....... 9-12
3. Mark Radford (10) 
    Ryan Radford (15)
    John Bradford (7) all had 8-6
4. Matt Taynton (6) ...... 8-4
etc....

Next week is an inter-club match with Frys on the canals at Shiplate and it's fully booked with reserves so if you can't make it please let Will know.

I won't be there as I'm off on a stag weekend in Berlin which should be an experience.

In the meantime I'll leave you with a picture of the winner looking mysterious especially for the girls ... enjoy!!!

Trinity 27 March / Harescombe 03 April

I'm not going to dwell on the Trinity match too much as only 6 of us turned out and although I was really hoping that with being spread out along the back bank with a breeze blowing into us we'd have some decent weights, unfortunately it wasn't to be.

In fact it was one of the hardest matches I've fished for a long while as for whatever reason the lake just switched off completely.

I did manage to get a nice picture though 

I drew peg 8 and set up rigs for meat at 11m and down the margins.

After feeding all lines I went straight down the edge and caught a 7lb fish within 5 minutes and that, apart from one line bite and a few dinks on the float, was it for the day!

Winner on the day was Simon Belcham with 15-14 consisting of 3 carp plus 5lbs of whitebait caught mainly in the edge on maggot.

Matt Challenger was 2nd with an all-skimmers net of 10-11 and my solitary carp was good enough for 3rd!

Pictured below are the winner and default silvers winner (Rocket Ron) with their bonus prizes.

Onwards and upwards then (up the M5) to this week and Harescombe where hopefully this time round a few fish would be caught.
Thirteen fishing today so lots of room and that included a guest, Shane Caswell, who inevitably got lost and for the third week in a row I was running the show which is always good news as it meant I had time to fine tune some rigs with it being a 10:15 start.
I kept the last peg for Shane and pulled out the second from last one for myself.
That gave me peg 6 and 22 for the straggler so won't be doing that again as peg 6 is a bit of a bum draw whereas 22 can be a flyer.
Not to worry as fish have fins etc etc and I set up a banded pellet rig for across on top of the shelf, a rig for meat at top kit +2 out in front and a rig for both edges to fish maggot.
For company I had Derek on 4 and Steve oToole on 8 so a quiet day then!!
On the off I dumped a big pot of meat / pellet on the 2+2 line, fed some maggot down both edges and went across with a banded 6mm  over 4mm's and very soon hooked and lost my first F1 and after about 15 minutes it was 3-0 to the F1's before I gave that up in anger and frustration and tried the other lines.
The left margin, despite heavy doses of maggot feed was only any good for "eyes", the right margin produced nothing at all and, apart from one missed sailaway, the 2+2 line was also devoid of action .... not the best of starts but I wasn't alone as Steve oToole was having a similar struggle and Derek was happy catching "eyes"....

Not everyone was in the same boat though, Degsy Williams (yes, he has his name on his jacket too) opposite me on 24 was doing ok despite suffering losses and the wind-assisted pegs towards the bottom of the lake, 10-18, were all catching as well.
By the midway mark I had worked out that by feeding pellet across and fishing meat in the band I could hook and lose more F1's than with a banded pellet alone and, better still, shallowing up and slowly lifting and dropping the rig would add to the excitement of hooking and losing even more of the frustrating little ****s
However Mr oToole's regular heavy doses of loosefeed on his short lines were starting to pay off and after a very slow first half he went into overdrive and later in the match was catching F1's every put in on meat.

No such change of fortune for me unfortunately but Steve had given me a proper battering eventually winning the match with 83-4

Full Result:

1. Steve O'Toole (8) 83-4 

2. Matt Challenger (18) 71-5

3. Lee Waller (2) 61-4

4. Matt Taynton (10) 61-2

5. Chris Szakacs (15) 58-7

6. Lee Williams (30) 56-0

7. Lionel Legge (13) 49-0

8. Degsy Williams (24) 44-14

9. Shane Caswell (22) 39-11

10. Ross Sewell (29) 25-4

11. Steve Sewell (20) 24-12

12. Steve Burgess (6) 19-8

13. Derek Lucas (4) 15-4