Emerald Pools, Ruby & Sapphire, 08 March

Seventeen fishing today which, as the title suggests, put us on Ruby with an overspill on Sapphire.

Unfortunately there was also an overspill of pleasure anglers on Sapphire and as we were unloading our kit a couple more arrived and skipped past the barrier to the area reserved for us.

Just as well then that the owners' daughter arrived in time to send them on their way before it was necessary to send in the "heavies" to give them the Dean Malin treatment and I was spoilt for choice in that department with both Lee Waller and Steve Sewell fishing today.

So with that small problem sorted we put 14 on Ruby and 3 on Sapphire and then I remembered I had split the match into 4 sections of 4 (Ryan Radford wasn't in the pools), so Alan Healey in his role as vice-chairman  went back round and took peg 11 off of Ruby and stuck it on Sapphire thereby justifying his position on the committee for another year!

The general opinion was that a draw on Sapphire would be preferred as the carp on there tend to be a lot bigger and the silvers likewise.

Ruby on the other hand has a big stock of carp but they average under 2lbs and anything over that is considered a bonus.

Silvers-wise Ruby contains a varied selection ranging from the normal roach, rudd, skimmers and tiny tench to assorted crucians, f1's, fantails and the like that the Gimp suggested should all count as carp to save confusion but that bright idea was quickly shown the door!

Somebody put forward the notion that the framing weights (1st, 2nd and top silvers) could all come off of the Sapphire pegs meaning that whoever came last on the lake could win the section by triple default, which was great news for Derek Lucas, but as it turned out Ruby fished better overall and especially for Steve O Toole who saw more elastic come out of the end of his pole than he has done in all the matches he's fished this year put together (and more most likely)!

Anyway, following the organisation dramas it was decided to put the start back to 10:15 which was bad news for the Gimp and for Simon Belcham as it doesn't take too long to set up one rig and add or remove the required amount of line and even I was ready with time to spare having only set up two rigs myself.

As per normal I had drawn last and for my sins found myself on peg 5 which was the second peg up from the corner of the back bank of Ruby and the first in my section which also consisted of Keith Meredith, Chris Gay and Mr Belcham.

To my left was the Gimp, fortunately hidden by a tree, and next to him was Mark Radford who was in a cosy little corner and on the golden peg (safe) yet again, luckily for Mark this corner looked a bit more inviting than "Wiggets Corner" on Sapphire which was where he drew in our last match and moaned his way through all six hours!

View across Ruby from my peg

That section also included Darren North and Mike Wilson and the third section started with Julian Nurse on the top end bank along with Lee Waller, Ryan, Steve O' Toole and ending with venue expert, Chris Szakacs.

The Sapphire section consisted of: Alan Healey and Steve Sewell in the mangroves, Matt Taynton on Lee Waller's island retreat and Derek Lucas in the peg by the gate that Chris Szakacs had last time round, so four good pegs any of which looked good for a decent weight.

Back in my peg and as mentioned previously I set up two rigs, one for open water at 11m where it was around 4 feet deep and the other for 14m as near to the island as the overhanging undergrowth would allow which was 3 feet (or so) deep.

Both rigs were finished with a size 16  808 to fish either maggot or soft pellet.

At the all-in I fed two open water lines with maggot and micros and a pot of the same over to the island which I intended to leave alone for as long as possible.

Starting over to the left in the direction of the aereator I had a couple of roach straight away followed by a small carp of about a pound and that pattern continued in the same vein for the first couple of hours, catching steadily but nothing like Steve O' Toole opposite who was catching carp one after another.

The Gimp next to me was amusing himself plundering fry and attracting carp and Mark Radford was getting a few but was also having a few torrid moments with fish taking him in the reeds.

Ryan however was doing better and giving Steve a run for his money but Keith to my right was struggling as were Chris Szakacs, Mike and Darren as well as Lee Waller who looked to be struggling to get a bite from anything up his end of the lake.

My biggest problem was with shipping my pole back. It was either a case of shipping on an angle through a decent sized gap in the trees or just jamming the pole between the branches behind, neither option was great and it was a lot worse when I eventually went across to the island as that meant breaking down twice.

I had tried feeding a short 2+2 line in front to make things simpler but this didn't produce anything although I never persevered with it.

So out to the island then and while trying to get the pole sections together I got myself hooked up on an overhanging reed which saw the end of the rig (and my best new float), so feeling a bit peeved and without a suitable spare rig to replace it I stuck a shallow banded pellet rig on instead and went out with a hard 6mm pellet set to half-depth feeding 4's.

First put in produced a nice big rudd, followed by a small carp and the next couple of hours was quite pleasant apart from the fun and games with shipping through the trees.

Approaching the last hour I reckoned to be doing enough to be ahead in my section as Keith was still struggling and although I wasn't too sure I assumed (wrongly) that Chris Gay and Simon never had much either.

To my left the Gimp was now getting properly "carped out" and it was looking likely that if he wasn't winning the silvers he would definitely win his section but 

there was no doubt who was going to win the match as Steve O' Toole had sorted that by about 1 o' clock and easily had doubled any one else's weight.

So I spent the last hour fishing the pellet rig down the left edge where I'd been feeding regular doses of pellet and maggot and spotted a few swirls. 

Fishing 2+2 with the float almost resting on the grass bank I had a bite straight away but the hook pulled out of that one.

Next drop was more successful but I then lost two or three more so I snipped the band off and switched to maggot on the hook which got me three or four more before the all-out which included my two best fish of the day.

Mike Wilson's day in the corner on peg 1 had never got off the ground and he'd packed up early and started the weigh-in and as expected John Bradford had won the silvers with 14-4 of maggot chokers.

His accidental carp had taken his weight up to a total of 44-11 which topped the section so the default section went to both Mark Radford and Darren North who both had 38-2.

My nets went 47-14 which I was happy with until we got to Chris Gay who somehow managed  48-2 for the section although I reckon he should have been docked 4oz for using a method feeder and another ounce for double-checking the scales.

The third section went to Julian Nurse with 37-0 by default as that section, and the match, was won by Steve with an awesome weight of 124-12.

Ryan Radford was 2nd overall with 51-13.

Over on Sapphire the weights were less than expected with Steve Sewell, Matt Taynton and Derek all weighing 30's but that just left Alan to weigh in and he came up with 49-8 for 3rd overall (2nd in the payouts) which completely pissed on my fire as they say.

On the whole though it was a good day's fishing and other than the winning weight, a close finish.

Steve O'Toole with part of his winning net

Full Result:

1. Steve O' Toole (13) .... 124-12
2. Ryan Radford (12) ..... 51-13
3. Alan Healey (11s) ..... 49-8
4. Chris Gay (7) ............ 48-2
5. Steve Burgess (5) ..... 47-14
6. Simon Belcham (8) ... 45-6
7. John Bradford (4) ..... 44-11
8. Darren North (2) & Mark Radford (3) ... 38-2
9. Matt Taynton (16s) .... 37-4
10. Julian Nurse (9) ........ 37-0
11. Lee Waller (10) ......... 36-1
12. Steve Sewell (17s) ..... 34-0
13. Derek Lucas (15s) ...... 33-1
14. Chris Szakacs (14) ...... 28-5
15. Keith Meredith (6) ...... 10-12
16. Mike Wilson (1) .......... dnw

Silvers:

1. John Bradford ..... 14-4
2. Derek Lucas ....... 9-9
3. Julian Nurse ....... 7-0
4. Alan Healey / Matt Taynton ... 6-12
5. Chris Gay ......... 6-9
6. Steve Burgess ..... 6-8
7. Simon Belcham .... 6-4
8. Keith Meredith ..... 4-0

Quote of the day ...
Darren North to John Bradford: "at least now that Avon Angling has shut down   my casters sink"

Emerald Pools, Sapphire, 25 Jan (10 pegs)

Out of an original 16 / 17 that were booked in for this one by Saturday night we were down to 10.

All the usual excuses such as swollen legs, wife's car broke down, bad run on the fruit machines, Ashton Gate etc

But the one that did make me laugh was "I'm going on holiday on Thursday"!

Anyhow it was probably a blessing in disguise as Alan the owner had phoned me a week or so beforehand a bit concerned as a few pegs were, shall we say, in need of a bit of gardening!

Well ok, more like completely overgrown with reeds making some pegs unfishable and others challenging.

In fairness Alan is planning a big overhaul over the next few weeks and hopefully the lake will be transformed by the time we're down there next in March.

Anyways, Mr Rixon had kindly donated a pegging plan (elegantly drawn with a crayon on a paper bag) based on the results from his match down there last Thursday and after ten minutes of communal head-scratching we managed to decipher the treasure map and sort out ten pegs.

Only "problem" though was that two of them were alive with fish, peg 10 which was on the island facing the lodges, and 8 which was at the far end of the reed jungle (and the golden peg).

These pegs were occupied by Lee Waller and Alan Healey respectively so it looked like last week's pound profit would be short lived.

The rest of the lake seemed a bit lifeless in comparison so it looked like it was going to be a 2 horse race between Lee and Alan, and as the payout was to be top 2 overall and 1 silvers pool realistically the rest of us would want to be avoiding carp and targeting silvers instead.

For my sins I had drawn peg 2 (permanent peg 3) which gave me quite a large expanse of open water in front and I could comfortably reach the end of the island at 14m slightly to my right.

Mark Radford was on the other end of the island in peg 1 which for some reason has the name "Wiggets Corner".

I've no idea who Mr Wigget is but I guess he's none too bothered about his fishing but at least it's handy for the bar and the toilet facilities.

Speaking of which they are the tidiest toilets I've yet come across at a fishery so fair play to the owners on that score.

Anyway just around the corner from Mark was Chris Szakacs with a nice looking peg that gave him pretty much all of the back of the island to play with.

And back on my left was Matt Challenger, the silent assassin, who also had an island corner to fish to.

I set up two rigs, one for 13m in open water and one for close-ish to the island (but not close enough to get snagged in any underwater obstacles) where it was 4" shallower and that rig would also do for down the edge to my right but that was a waste of bait so no more on that (as they say in the more popular blogs)!

Bait was a selection of live / expired maggots, casters, soft pellet and corn with some wetted micros for feed.

I was tempted to set up a lead to chuck to the reeds out in front past the islands but time was getting on so on the all-in I fed both pole lines with a little bit of everything and went out on the open water rig.

Matt had opted to go out tight to the island dobbing bread and was soon hauling out tiny roach.

Mark Radford did the same and got attached to underwater obstacles and moaned a lot!

After about 10 minutes I had a bite on soft pellet which produced a nice sized rudd and for the first hour I was kept quite busy with good roach and rudd falling to anything I put on the hook until the bites started to slow and the fish started getting smaller.

So I gave that line a small pot of feed and went over to the island which was a similar story.

By now Matt had landed a couple of small carp in between the blade roach, Chris Szakacs was getting some tidy carp and good silvers and Mark was on his third or fourth rig, fishless and having a moaning competition with Steve O Toole. 

Meanwhile Alan, after catching some quality silvers, was netting a procession of carp and Lee Waller was also doing well as was expected.

Lee Williams, on the other end of the reed jungle from Alan was keeping busy, just how busy you can find out from his own blog here.

Back in my peg and by the halfway point I'd had a few more good roach and rudd plus the smallest carp in the lake before hooking a lump that headed off round the back of the island back towards Lee's peg before the hook pulled.

I had another look on the open water line but it was now dead which was disappointing as I was hoping they'd be queuing up after resting it and I wished I'd stuck on it longer before going over to the island.

For some reason the deeper rig was working better over by the island with a few inches on the deck but I ended up trashing that rig through shipping back a bit over enthusiastically.

I then went through a dodgy spell of bumped fish and missed bites which turned out to be due to a blunted hook.

Then another junior carp went a bit mad and buggered the swim up and after that it slowed right up and I could only get tiny roach come the end.

Chris Szakacs however was having a good last hour and was regularly netting carp and (worryingly) good roach and although I couldn't see him, I could see the end of Lee Williams' pole and there were quite a few silvers attached to the end of it!

The outcome of the match was a foregone conclusion ....

Alan weighed in 99lbs 9oz which also included the top silvers weight of 11lbs which, with being the golden peg as well, meant a healthy payout of £111 (including my £1).

Alan caught mostly on maggot and fed about three pints of the same.

Lee Waller managed 54-3 for second place and Chris weighed in 38-15 for third.

The silvers pool went to myself, by default, with 9-7

A very smug Alan Healey

Lee Waller

Full Result:

1. Alan Healey (peg 8)* ....... 99-9
2. Lee Waller (10) ............ 54-3
3. Chris Szakacs (9) ......... 38-15
4. Lee Williams (7) ........... 18-2
5. Steve Burgess (2) ......... 13-15
6. Matt Challenger (3) ....... 13-1
7. Mark Radford (1) ........... 6-4
8. Mike Wilson (4) ............. 5-13

*golden peg


Silvers:

1. Alan Healey ...... 11-0
2. Steve Burgess .... 9-7
3. Chris Szakacs .... 7-11
4. Lee Williams ...... 5-6
5. Mike Wilson ....... 4-9
6. Lee Waller ......... 4-7
7. Matt Challenger ... 3-10
8. Mark Radford ..... 3-0

Next week we are back up at Harescombe, I shall be taking a leave of absence for this one so the blog will be left in the capable hands of Mr Szakacs