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!!!