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

Harescombe, 22 November (13 pegs)

After a spell of damp and mild weather winter made it's first proper appearance with Saturday being bitterly cold and windy with it.
I spent a couple of hours on Saturday up a ladder playing around with the x brother-in-law's roof which wasn't a very pleasant experience.
Fortunately the wind died away overnight but it was still cold and I had to sort the windscreen of the fishing bus with a credit card (it's only use these days).
Despite the frost the log burner at Harescombe's cafe wasn't put to use but the breakfast was good, I had a "Pricey"
I don't know if they do a "Half Pricey" especially for Mike Nicholls, could be a winner!
 

Alan Healey was in charge of proceedings and with thirteen fishing it was pretty much every other peg and paying out top 5 overall so plenty to go at.

I drew 13 with Alan on 11 and Lee Waller in the corner on  15 (or 16)
The hot pegs, either side of the landslip, were occupied by Rich Jones on 24 and Steve Sewell on 29.
Most were expecting a few fish to be caught today as the f1's that are the main target here apparently feed all year round regardless of the weather but I wasn't so sure about that as the sudden drop in temperature was sure to knock the weights back a bit.
And it was a psv match after all (sorry Lee)

Nonetheless I was quite happy with my peg as the far bank wooden posts in front of me had collapsed and given me a bit of a feature to fish to and it seemed that the shelf had given way as well as I had a depth of 4ft tight across which seemed a good thing until Steve o' Toole came round and said he'd won a recent match from the same peg and never caught anything across and caught all his fish by his feet in the shallow water.
I set up a rig to fish either side of the collapsed bank with maggot over micros and that rig also suited a couple of lines at topkit plus one.
I also had a rig set up for tight across further along the bank which again suited the inside margins (although I wasn't expecting to catch much from them and didn't) and another rig, same depth, but for banded pellet as Chris Fox had done well on it recently (I didnt so he must have been fibbing)!

With 9 different lines on the go I missed the all-in unsurprisingly but it made little difference as the match was a slow starter and after about 5 minutes I was the first person I could see catch anything, a 10oz gudgeon from across on maggot followed by a chublet but that was a false dawn as not much followed.
Elsewhere Steve Wynne over the other side on 19 was getting odd fish on other people's bait (he'd left all his at home) and Rich Jones was catching, not much else was happening and even Brian Shanks on 21 was struggling and was getting "chip-shopped" by Steve and Rich either side of him.
Alan was getting nowhere and Lee had only caught "eyes" fishing 16m across to the end of the island.
He then came in short and had a "run" of 2 or 3 f1's before that went dead.
But I pulled that back with a proper carp across (all 1lb of it) and a skimmer and another similar sized carp from my short lines

It was hard work and by mid-way through the match Mark Radford was complaining about hypothermia and a lack of fish, Lee was just moaning in general and both Steve o' Toole and Lionel Legge were wandering around aimlessly.
 

Meanwhile Brian had finally got his mojo back and was catching and Alan was staging a big comeback accompanied by a lot of coughing and splashing etc just to let me know our pound side bet wasn't going to be a foregone conclusion and to add insult to injury I hooked up in the far bank foliage and broke the tip off my best float.

In my panic to avoid losing a pound I decided to heap some feed in on my short lines which Alan found highly amusing.
He went a bit quiet though when I had 3 f1's from there straight away and in the last hour, by which time the Radfords were heading down the M5, I had a few more from across with my newly adapted f1 float, not enough to trouble the front runners but enough to keep my pound safe.

The match was won by Steve Sewell from 29 with 31-0
Steve caught alternating between maggot and soft pellet fishing to the pipe thing that sticks out of the water at about 14m.
Rich Jones was 2nd with 26-10 caught mostly on caster short.

Full Result:

1. Steve Sewell (29).... 31-0
2. Rich Jones (21) .......... 26-10
3. Chris Szakacs (30) ..... 24-12
4. Steve o'Toole (3) ......... 23-10
5. Steve Wynne (19) ........ 19-2
6. Brian Shanks (21) ........ 17-0
7. Steve Burgess (13) ...... 16-4
8. Rocket Ron (6) ............ 13-2
9. Alan Healey (11) .......... 10-6
and 4 dnw's

So a close result which is always good although the weights were well down on the norm but it was cold and it was a psv match so no surprises there then!

Harescombe, 21 June (13 pegs)

I wasn't around for this match as I was away on my annual camping / fishing expedition at Hartleton lake near Ross on Wye which is always a good laugh with old friends

The fishing was a bit slow but I did enjoy a good couple of hours on the last evening when, after four days, the bream finally showed up and it was "one a chuck" until I couldn't see my float any more. So the chicken madras and Stella  must have made the difference.

Or maybe it was due to the hi-viz Frenzee net being chucked up the bank in favour of a not quite so conspicuous one, who knows.

In the meantime the Harescombe match fished well with Matt Taynton topping the weigh sheet with 93-4 from peg 29

1. Matt Taynton (29) ........ 93-4
2. Chris Gay (24) ............ 89-8
3. Lionel Legge (6) .......... 60-12
4. Adam Caswell (19) ...... 56-6
5. Ryan Radford (18) ....... 54-14
6. Pete Uzzell (21) ........... 49-4
7. Rich Jones (5) / Steve Sewell (15) 45-15
8. Mark Radford (2) ......... 42-2
9. Alan Healey (30) ......... 41-15
10. Kev Jefferies (11) ........ 36-3
11. Simon Belcham (16) .... 29-6
12. Steve Wynne (22) ....... 28-0
13. Paul Preston (3) .......... 27-1
14. And 3 dnw's

Harescombe Match Lake, 12 October (14 pegs)

It was a bit nippy out last night when I was loading the fishing bus up in my shorts late last night and I was fully expecting to be scraping ice off the windscreen this morning, which would not have been great for the prospective day's fishing, but as it turned out it wasn't too bad, 5-ish degrees and foggy so no wind and a dry day which is always a blessing up at Harescombe with it being so exposed to the elements.
The on-site cafe was busy as the locals were having a match on one of the other lakes but most of our lot had opted to visit Ronald MacDonald.
I'm not a big fan of MacD's "breakfasts" so I took my chances with a "Pricey" in the cafe.
I don't think the ironic naming of the "Pricey" breakfast was intentional but at £7.25 (once you've added a cup of diy instant coffee) it's a little, well ... pricey!
But it wasn't bad and it filled a hole which is more than can be said of a MacMuffin.

Anyway, fourteen on the list today and with no Silvers pool the payout was to be top two overall plus two sections of seven paying first and second (well it made sense to me)

No scrabbling about in the bag for me as I had the last peg which gave me peg 24, one of the landslide pegs and one that wins a lot here so I wasn't displeased.

It's a peg I've had here before and the last time I had it I started off well but ended up totally messing things up so I was keen to avoid doing that again.

For company I had Mike Wilson on my left and on the opposite side was my pound coin nemesis, Lee Williams who was sandwiched between Adam Caswell and Lee Waller. 

Alan Healey was next down from him so I could see whether or not my other pound coin was safe but I suspected it would be as there was no phonecall to Dean Malin for instructions.

I set up rigs for the bottom of the near shelf (topkit plus 2), to fish with soft pellet or maggot.  A rig for the margins which would also cover the far bank and finally a shallow banded pellet rig to fish 6mm pellet at 14m over to the right where the landslide goes into the lake.

This was where I expected to catch mainly as there were fish swirling there and mooching about in the shallow water against the mud.

At the kick off I fed the close lines and the far bank with micros and maggot and pinged out a few pellets over to the right edge.

By the time I'd done that a few fish had already been caught so I was guessing it would be a bit of a fish race.

I started (under advice from the guy in the cafe) on the short line down the shelf with a soft pellet on the hook and after a few missed bites eventually made contact with a small F1 to get the ball rolling.

It was slow though and a few were struggling to get anything.

I stuck with it, topping up with micros, and it was getting gradually better with a few more small F1's and junior skimmers surrendering.

A drop in with maggot on the hook only produced a roach fry so that was scrapped.

Elsewhere a few were catching. Word was that Mark Radford was doing well on the other side of the landslide (peg 29) as was his offspring Ryan on peg 2 who was denying catching and therefore must have been doing well.

Alan was quite pleased with himself as he had landed a 2lb chub and I heard Chris Szakacs was doing ok down in peg 14.

Adam however, after an hour of sitting over a golf ball of F1-resistant paste, decided to do a "Mark Britton" and marched off with his kit into the distance to the pleasure lake to find a pensioner in a deckchair who he could hopefully win a pound from.

Meanwhile, I was overcome by the urge to fish up to the landslide so I dumped a pot of micros on the short line and went over with the shallow pellet rig.

And it didn't take long to hook a "proper" carp of a couple of pounds followed by a second one foul-hooked in a fin.

By this time a steady stream of floating casters that had come from the bottom end of the lake had grabbed the attention of a few fish so, as I never had any caster (floating or otherwise), I catapulted out a couple of pouches of maggot and went over with a newly made up shallow rig with maggot on the hook.

To cut a long story short, apart from a couple of small F1's from the right margin and one from the far bank I spent the rest of the day with the shallow rig over to the landslide catching fairly steadily.

The last hour was a good spell with most drops ending up with a small F1 (8 to 12oz) along with odd chublets plus a few more bonus carp which were caught in the really shallow water against the bank just a few inches deep.

To get these was just a case of laying the rig in the shallow water and waiting for the big swirl and the elastic to come out.

Unfortunately this would spook the rest of the fish so I didn't spend too much time chasing them and stuck with the smaller fish in the deeper water.

I'm not comfortable fishing to my right side, especially long, and I couldn't feed while I was fishing as my bait tray and catty were behind me so I was feeding a couple of pouches of maggots and then going over it until I hooked one but it seemed to be working ok.

By the end of the match I had no idea what I had but I was guessing about 40lbs which hopefully would get me my section dependant on Chris Szakacs who I'd heard had done well.

Mark Radford was first to weigh and put 51-2 on the scales which included all six of the lake's barbel population.

Next up was Chris Gay who weighed 43-11 and a wet leg as he slid into the lake getting his nets out bless him. 

Ryan weighed 40-0 which was 8oz more than Alan and after a couple of 30's weights, Chris Szakacs' one net went 43-7 (his other net had been "moused").

I was last to weigh and my net of big stuff went 20-8 but my F1/silvers surprised me a bit going to 40-8 for a total of 61-0.

So a little bit out on my estimation but it's easy to lose track of these small fish.

Full Result:

1. Steve Burgess (peg 24) ...... 61-0
2. Mark Radford (29) ............. 51-2
3. Chris Gay (30) ................. 43-11
4. Chris Szakacs (14) ........... 43-7
5. Ryan Radford (2) ............. 40-0
6. Alan Healey (4) ............... 39-8
7. Rich Jones (11) ............... 36-0
8. Lee Williams (7) .............. 35-8
9. Mike Wilson (22) ............. 35-0
10. Stevie Wynne (17) .......... 25-15
11. Derek Lucas (12) ............ 10-7
12. and 3 Dnw's

Next week we are down at Shiplate on Hawthorns which should be interesting as at the moment it's the only place outside of an aquarium where Alan Healey has any chance of framing!

Harescombe Match Lake, 30 March (17 pegs)

Over the course of the last few months I have gotten into the habit of paying for my morning paper with ten pound notes (whenever I can), the reason being so that I have plenty of £ coins to hand out on Sundays.

But I have now found myself in a bit of a predicament as there is nowhere left in the fishing bus to store them all.

Anyway, (more on that later) with 17 fishing today I entrusted fishery manager Andy with the pegging which gave everyone an empty peg to one side and with the weather forecast to be warm and sunny with a bit of breeze, conditions were ideal.

Payout today was to be top 3 plus 3 sections, 2 sections of 6 and 1 with 5 in!

No silvers pool as here the silvers go in the same net as the mini F1's and the bigger fish go in a separate net.

I made sure I had the last peg and for the second week running was left with peg 1 which is a corner with plenty of options and not much to complain about.

For company I had Rich Jones in 29 which used to be a corner but is now a secluded bay since part of the hillside became a major feature of the lake.

And Mark Radford in 3. The rest of my section was made up of Steve O Toole, Darren North and another new signing, Andy Gay (no relation to Chris).

I set three rigs up. A shallow rig for across to the island with a banded 6mm, a rig for the bottom of the far ledge and a rig for the margins.

I would have set up a couple more but the rabble were getting a bit restless by 10:07 so I shouted the "all-in" before I had my nets in and let them get on with it.

It was soon apparent there were plenty of fish up this end as both Rich, Mark and myself all caught well from the off.

Rich looked to be doing the best partly due to the 5 minute head-start and his being super-organised and having 3 pole rollers set up.

After feeding some wetted micros and meat in various places and pinging some 4mm's over to the island  I started on the shallow rig with a banded 6mm over towards the corner of the island at 14m and caught straight away.

I was having a bit of a mare to begin with as with my 1-roller setup I was having to break my pole down twice to ship back up the slope behind but after a couple of adjustments I got it reasonably sorted though it still wasn't quite right.

Rich jones meanwhile was catching anywhere he could get his bait in the water and Mark (pictured below) was fishing tight over with soft pellet and doing his best to try to convince me and anyone else who could be bothered to listen that he was being battered by the two of us but it can be a bit tricky to hide what you're catching from someone sat next to you.

I had a bit of a quiet spell mid-match when the fish seemed to back off and a look on my other lines kept a few fish coming until they returned with a spot towards the left edge at 14m producing a few better fish by lifting and dropping small pices of meat on the deck but I was having to wait too long for bites for it to be worthwhile and I was soon back out on the shallow rig by which time the fish had returned.

The last hour was quite frantic for all three of us and I was getting bites non stop but the fish were snatching at the pellet and I was getting foul-hookers and pulling out of a lot.

Being tucked out of the way up this end, and with no Adam Caswell to provide a running commentary, I couldn't really see what was going on around the lake but it seemed that other than the three of us, and also Lee Waller and Brian Shanks on the far end pegs (15 & 16), nobody else was setting the place alight and that's how it finished up with Mark lying his way into first place with 71-0, Brian second with 61-13 caught mainly on corn down the edge (I think), and Lee 3rd with 60-13 caught on (not too sure)

I managed to scrape the default section money (and 4th overall) with 59-9 beating Rich by just 5oz so that last fish netted on the all-out made all the difference for me,

Jason Bird won the middle section, which also had Brian & Lee in, with 27-7 from peg 9 and in-form Ryan Radford won the small section with 39-5 from peg 21, earning Uncle Adam Caswell a small bonus as Adam had paid for him to go in the pools this week which, according to Mark, was a good move as it gives Adam a better chance of picking up money!

Although there was no official Silvers pool today, the unofficial silvers was won by Simon Belcham with 6-10 caught on his leftover maggots from the Westerleigh Winter Series.

It's a little known fact that Simon was a member of the team that won the National Mortgage Lenders Angling Association fishing competition not once, but twice ... not a lot of people know that!

Full Result:

1. Mark Radford (peg 3) ..... 71-0
2. Brian Shanks (16) ......... 61-13
3. Lee Waller (15) ............. 60-13
4. Steve Burgess (1) .......... 59-9
5. Rich Jones (29) .............. 59-4
6. Ryan Radford (21) ......... 39-5
7. Steve O Toole (4) .......... 37-2
8. Alan Healey (19) ............ 29-4
9. Matt Challenger (22) ....... 28-6
10. Jason Bird* (9) .............. 27-11
11. Ron Hardiman (10) ........ 20-10
12. Andy Curry (13) ............ 16-2
13. Simon Belcham** (12) ... 15-10
14. Darren North (6) ........... 9-7
15. and 2 DNW's (including Pete Sivell again)

*golden peg 

**silver peg

And finally, going back to what I mentioned earlier about my pound coin predicament, well it wasn't made any easier today by Allan Healey, Pete Sivell, Jason  Bird or Andy Curry and so if they don't start trying a bit harder I'm going to have to find a bigger coin pot in the van,

Fortunately for the aforementioned, I didn't go on about it too much ... Or did I?

No match next Sunday (I'm away for the weekend and didn't want to loose any league points) but there is a meeting on Tuesday night at The Horseshoe where I will be taking bookings for our next matches which are ,,,
Avalon on 13 April
Campbell on 20 April (Easter weekend)
Sedges (Tile) 27 April 
and Hillview 04 May

Sedges, Tile Lake, 23 Feb (12 pegs)

First of all my apologies for the lack of activity around here but unfortunately I've been busy with work and other stuff.
So here's a quick summary of what has been missed.
Back at the end of January we were up at Harescombe but due to the shitty weather forecast (strong winds and rain all day) only eight of us fished it, and to be honest, neither myself nor my travelling partner were very keen as the wind and rain started as we were loading the van.
Because of the forecast and my lack of enthusiasm I hadn't put any effort whatsoever into preparing for the match but it actually transformed into a decent afternoon and my lack of prep resulted in finishing 7th (1 place above the dnw).
The match was won by Matt Taynton with 59-13 with Chris Szakacs coming a close second with 56-12.
I don't have the peg numbers as whoever was writing down the results didn't bother with that bit but from memory Matt & Chris were next to each other on 15 & 13 respectively (or thereabouts) but I'm sure Chris will put me right as he is younger than me and has a better memory and is better looking!
I was a bit disappointed with the turnout for this match as it is a brilliant winter venue that guarantees a few fish even on the worst of days and is only 45 minutes away but never mind!
Next up was at Shiplate on the main lake. I wasn't at this match and I haven't seen the weigh-sheet but fortunately Carol is very organised and puts their results up on Facebook!
She wrote this (bless her cotton socks) .....

Two of Bristol's match groups Frys and PSV fished matches at Shiplate at the weekend.
Fry's fished the two canals, Hawthorns and Westpool whilst PSV fished the Main lake.
After the prolonged influx of cold rain water recently, the results were going to be unpredictable.
Fry's match group had the better weights of the day with Jason Bird on peg 9 of the Hawthorns fishing the pole down the margins using maggot for bait and lightly feeding maggot at the same time and ended with top weight of the day, 53lb 10oz.
PSV's match on the Main lake proved much harder. Matt Taynton on peg 13 caught 31lb 14oz of Silvers to win the match.

Fry's results
1st Jason Bird p9H, 53lb 10oz (pictured)
2nd Steve Howell p12W, 46lb
3rd Ray Cooper p15W, 33lb
3rd Andy Curry p5H, 33lb
4th Gordon Jones p10W, 19lb

PSV results
1st Matt Taynton p13, 31lb 14oz
2nd Alan Healey p14, 28lb
3rd Mark Radford p1, 14lb 4oz
Silvers went to Adam Caswell p3, 6lb 8oz


Following that was a match on Acorn's old canal but I was forced to cancel that one as, again, as the weather forecast was crap and the rumour-mill had been busy sending out negative vibes about the recent form resulting in hardly any interest.  It also clashed with the Westerleigh winter league which fished really well!!

16 Feb saw us back at Harescombe and this time round the weather forecast was better and as a result we managed 17 with the help of a few guests.
The top two was a repeat of our last visit with Matt Taynton winning from peg 2 with 63-2 and Chris Szakacs taking 2nd  from peg 11 with 51-4.
Section winners were:
Lee Waller, peg 4, 49-0
Steve O'Toole, peg 10, 34-0
Simon Belcham, peg 16, 48-10
Darren North, peg 20, 40-0

A good day with the average weight being around 30lbs (I weighed in below average)!

Anyway back to today, or should I say last Sunday, and there were 12 of us this time round so 6 on each bank and plenty of room for all.

Strangely I found myself on peg 40 again and even more strangely I had Lionel lead-slinger Legge for company on 38 again .... déjà-vu!

I hadn't had time last night to sort out rigs as I had spent the night searching through draws to find the log book for the car but anyway the waggler rod was left in the bag as the wind was too strong for that.

The lead rod came out still with the same pellet feeder on from last time but I changed the hook length to take a banded pellet.

2 pole rigs were dug out, 1 for down the edge which was getting on for 3 feet deep and the other for 6m which was as about as long as was comfortable in the wind.

At the start I fed the 6m line with chopped worm & caster in 3 balls of groundbait and the margins with a few casters before slinging the feeder stuffed with micros in the general direction of the island.

After 30 minutes, 3 cigs and 2 coffees the tip hadn't moved an inch and the popped-up expander remained untouched and even though Lionel had snagged 2 decent carp on the tip enough was enough and the feeder rod was abandoned in favour of the  6m line with a bit of worm on the hook.

This produced a similar result but I persevered and eventually the float went under and after a bit of unnecessary drama the culprit turned out to be a carp around 3lbs hooked neatly in the wing.

Topping up with a bit more feed then produced a small skimmer, this time hooked up the wrong-un which had me thinking there was something badly wrong with my presentation (I think the 0.4g float was a bit too light) and after a lean spell and a bit of playing around with the shotting a perch of about a pound gave itself up, this time hooked in the cheek (so getting closer).

More feed produced a 2lb skimmer (hooked properly) and some of his offspring which had me thinking I could stick with the silvers.

The next bite produced a carp which put paid to that idea as things tailed off after that prompting a look down the margins with double caster on the hook.

The right hand margin gave up a solitary roachlet and nothing else.

But first put in down the left side and the float buried as soon as it settled.

Unfortunately, after a bit of ploughing about in the deeper water, that one managed to unhook itself somehow (much to the amusement of my neighbour).

Back in again and the float went again and this one managed to stay on but made its way over the top of the keepnet where it got the hook stuck but managed to stay on. After a bit of poking and prodding I managed to get it into the landing bet but somehow the rig was still attached to the keepnet, I couldn't get my head round that!

Persevering with the left margin produced another good perch, a bit bigger than the last one and then, timed to perfection on the arrival of Keith Ray who had given up on peg 30, another carp which I reckoned was on the small side but miraculously turned into a net-stretcher.... Happy days.

The end result of that was 27-1 which was good enough for third (by default) as Matt Taynton took the Silvers money.

The match was won comfortably by new boy Steve O'Toole with 93-14 from 33 all caught on corn over corn at 6m or thereabouts.

Matt Challenger was 2nd with 74-9 from 26 (bread-slinging) and Matt Taynton won the silvers with 11-12

Full Result:

1. Steve O'Toole (33) ..... 93-14

2. Matt Challenger (26) .... 74-9

3. Matt Taynton (23) ...... 30-10

4. Steve Burgess (40) .... 27-1

5. Chris Szakacs (28)* ..... 26-10

6. Lionel Legge (38) ...... 20-14

7. Alan Healey (36) ....... 17-14

8. Mark Radford (25) ..... 17-1

9, Adam Caswell** (21) ... 6-13

And 3 dnw's

* golden peg

** only fished for 5 hrs due to having a diabetic hypo episode resulting in a visit from an ambulance crew

Silvers:

1. Matt Taynton ..... 11-12

2. Steve Burgess ..... 8-0

3. Alan Healey ....... 7-15

4. Steve O'Toole .... 4-8

As it happened I was chatting to Steve Wynne in the Hilltops Cafe at breakfast (he was fishing the Carpenters Arms match on Brick) and I predicted that Tile would produce the better weights today as it fishes better than Brick in winter and I was proved right but it was good news for Steve as he won his match with 71lbs from peg 20 fishing maggot at the bottom of the nearside shelf so good weights all round.

This weekend is at Shiplate on the main lake although it could turn into a knock up with Frys as they have the canals but I won't be there so Alan will be taking the reigns ,.. Hence anything could happen! 

And finally, don't forget that Tuesday is the AGM at the Horseshoe on Siston Common (memberships)!

Harescombe Match Lake, 17 November (15 pegs)

This was our 4th and final trip up to Harescombe this year and I was looking forward to it, especially after last week's match on Campbell which was a bit of a struggle.

For once the weather was expected to be kind with little or no wind and reasonably dry too so it would be interesting to see how we would get on with the venue in decent conditions where presentation wouldn't be a problem.

The Tuesday match had been won with 104lbs with two weights of 99lbs and the previous Sunday had been won with 112lbs so despite the recent drop in temperature it looked like the fish were still very active.

Looking through the recent results showed no particular area standing out although Andy the owner reckoned pegs 5/6 were producing consistently recently (more on this later)!

Incidentally, if you are interested, you can find the match results here.

On to the match then and the pegging was sorted by Andy and almost everyone had an empty peg one side or at least plenty of space.

Payout was 1st and 2nd overall with three section payouts.  As Ryan Radford doesn't go in the pools I did suggest that if Ryan won his section I would leave it to the discretion of the default section winner to hand over part of their spoils to him although this suggestion was met with a rather mediocre response!

As usual I drew last and was left with peg 6 (more on this later).

Being quite an open venue it's quite easy to see (or hear) who is catching and from my vantage point, halfway down the carpark bank I could see plenty of elastic coming from the pegs to my right, most notably Brian Shanks on peg 9, Chris Szakacs 2 down on 13 and Rich Jones to my right on 7.

Jason Bird was sandwiched between Brian and Chris on peg 11 and I couldn't see much elastic coming from his pole although I guessed he had formulated a cunning plan of attack and would come good as the match progressed ( he didn't  though which was a shame)!

At the top end of the lake, fortunately I couldn't see him, Simon Belcham was also off to a tremendous start on the temporary end peg 29.

Luckily for everyone around Simon's neighbour Lionel Legge was keeping score with regular updates of how many fish Simon had .... By the time he reached 84 most were bored!

Mr Shanks meanwhile was steadily putting fish in his net in between losing fish and snagging the far bank undergrowth.

On the other side of the lake Derek Lucas had gotten off to a flying start on peg 18  (yes, you read that correctly), as had Stevie Wynne on 22 and I could just about make out Darren North opposite me on the other temporary end(ish) peg 24 putting a few in his nets.

And that was pretty much how it ended up with Brian Shanks taking the honours with 74-2 just ahead of Simon Belcham's tremendous weight of 70-0.

Miraculously Chris Szakacs' estimated 40lbs suddenly grew into 68-15 for third place.

Section winners were Dean Malin's bitch, Alan Healey (by default), Chris Szakacs (also by default) and Stevie Wynne who won his section fair and square and never broke anything so a good day for him!

Not a good day for Jason Bird however as he was well and truly "chip-shopped" between Brian and Chris, oh dear!
I did take the trouble to find out the secrets of the top 3's success.
Simon's response was "clean living" which made sense really as I wasn't expecting a sensible answer.
Brian and Chris were a little more forthcoming....
Brian caught on double maggot over kindered micros, feeding approximately 15 micro's after four fish.  He caught mostly on the shelf with a few fish caught down the shelf.
Chris fished similarly but fed maggots and found lifting his rig a few inches would induce more positive bites.
Neither admitted to lashing bait in with a polecup, lesson learnt! 

See below for the scores on the doors.

Oh, and back to what happened on peg 6.  Not a lot to be honest!

I've always been a believer in the saying:

"Fail to prepare and prepare to fail" so with this in mind I sacrificed my normal Saturday dose of Ola Jordan on Strictly and set about making up some "special" F1 rigs which included ultra sensitive floats, light (0.12) line, size 16 Tubertini 808 hooks and lots of tiny no. 11 shot that could be spread around as required.

I also equipped a topkit with some light elastic so all was looking good.

I started the match feeding 2 spots at the bottom of the far shelf with micros and dead reds, a cup of the same went down the track and also in front of the empty platform to my left.

Starting at the bottom of the far shelf not much was happening apart from a few tiny skimmers on drm's and after flogging a dead horse for 30 minutes it became apparent that everyone else were catching in the shallow water on top of the far shelf which I hadn't accounted for in my clever plan of attack.

So a pot of feed was dumped up there while I fished around in the box for a suitable rig.

The best I could come up with was a shallow rig left over from the summer which had what looked like 0.18 line and a 14 B911 on but it would have to do and that was stuck on a topkit with 16 elastic in ( another leftover from the summer)!

I messed around with this rig up on the shelf with 2 or 3 drm's on the hook but it was a major struggle and was only producing small silvers and the odd half-decent suicidal carp/f1. Those that I did get seemed to be a bit bigger than what most people were catching but they were very few and far between and my best fish turned out to be a chub of about a pound and a half.

Corn produced sod all and the platform swim gave up a small skimmer and a missed bite.

I spent the last half hour down the track which produced a few tiny things and a last gasp decent carp in extra time just seconds before I called the "all out" ... Funny that!

Anyway the end result of that dismal performance was 20-8 for 15th (my fingers won't allow me to type the "L" word. But at least I never chickened out of weighing in and it was still an enjoyable match with plenty of bites for most of us which is what you want this time of year.
Next week we are on Woodlands at Trinity and at the moment we are a bit light on numbers so don't be shy.

Harescombe Match Lake, 13 October (18 pegs)

Last week's "match" was on Wildmarsh (Trinity Waters) but the turnout was a tad disappointing with only 8 fishing, which was a shame as it is a good venue but it's not easy fishing which probably put a few off.
I couldn't make it myself as I was away for the weekend in Krakow but the match was run very professionally in my absence as can be seen from the "weigh-sheet" below!

I've only mentioned it as Matt Taynton (sixpack) won the match and with it the £100 golden peg with 48-7 from peg 23 and that included the top silvers weight of 32-8 so well done that man (and his worms).

Anyhow, this was our third trip up the M5 to Harescombe.  The last time we were up there was back in early September which I missed due to being away on holiday but the match was won by Andy Curry with 81-8 from peg 3 and the back up weights were close with only 15lbs or so separating the top 6 anglers.
Bearing in mind that fish over a pound are a bonus that's a lot of fish and as you can see from the results below there was no particular area that was more productive which was the intention when the lake was dug a few years back.
Plenty of bites all year round and no features to hold the fish, although that has changed a bit since the landslip that filled in pegs 26 to 30 which has created two end pegs but the owners have re-jigged the pegs on either end of the lake to compensate for this.

Our first visit up there was back in February which was memorable for two reasons, firstly that it was won by myself and it was the worst weather conditions I have ever fished in which is probably the biggest drawback as the lake is very exposed, perched halfway up a hill, in a wind and rain tunnel.
(see here for the highlights of that particular match)
Which brings me round to today's match as although I had been informed in the week by our resident meteorologist, Chris Gay that we were going to have a dry day with little wind it turned out to be quite horrendous, extremely wet and windy but luckily the fish weren't put off by it.
Winner on the day was Chris Szakacs (and another golden peg win) with 75-12 from peg 2.
Chris caught on corn and soft pellet over caster and micro but it was very close as around the other side of the lake, Lionel Legge (steeplejack??) on peg 21 weighed in 74-9, losing out by 1 or 2 fish.
Lionel caught mainly on dead maggot fished shallow.
Third was Andy Curry with 70-4 from end peg 29 followed by Jason Bird with 62-2 from the other end peg 23.
It's worth mentioning though that there was a bit of a cock-up with the draw which meant there was an extra peg in the bag and as a result peg 24 wasn't drawn giving young Jason three pegs to himself (kind of) so he could have, and should have, done a lot better!
I won't bore you with a blow by blow account of my match as it didn't really go all that well and worse still I ended up adding to the pound coin collections of Pete Sivell, Jason Bird and Alan Healey but by way of a small consolation  I managed to  pick one up from my neighbour for the day, Derek Lucas and would have had another from my other neighbour, Chris Gay if I had have taken up his offer at the start of the match.
Entertainment today was provided by Kev Jefferies and Chris Gay.
For some strange reason Kev's topkit gave up the ghost on a small F1 and ended up in four pieces like a comedy magician's wand while his travelling partner Chris had his 14m butt section collapse on him presumably under the weight of the rain on his pole, the joys of buying second-hand Maver from eBay no doubt, but on the plus side "Rixons Repairs" should be busy this week!

Full Result:

And finally this week, a spot the difference competition (with thanks to Rich Jones for the inspired bit of photography)

Catch up time / clearing the backlog!

Yes, I know it's been a while but I've been on holiday for a couple of weeks and then to add insult to injury I got lumbered with some necessary domestic repairs.  Well the shower has been leaking for years now and besides the slight inconvenience of turning the downstairs lighting circuit off to have a shower the living room ceiling was looking like it was about to go through at any moment.
That just leaves painting the woodwork on the stairs which isn't a rush job as there has been masking tape on the handrail since the 90's so a few more months won't hurt!
Anyway, first up in the backlog was a match at Trinity (Woodlands) way back on 18 August.
It was another glorious sunny day with very little wind and prior to the start there were fish showing all over the lake which looked promising.
For whatever reason though, most likely down to the bright calm conditions, the carp were cagey on the shallow pole line and the way forward seemed to be with paste.
Pete Sivell did the honours from a flat clam and unfancied peg 2 with 108lbs on (you guessed it) .... paste.
Second on the day was Chris (2 pieces of worm) Gay with 77-11 from peg 27 followed by Brian Shanks on golden peg 8 who staged a legendary comeback after a fruitless first half of the match to weigh in 71-11.
Silvers was a tie between Simon Belcham and Chris Gay both with 11-0 although Simon collared the money by default.
I had yet another bad day after drawing peg 13.  I struggled to catch shallow on the pole so switched to trying to catch skimmers on meat which was semi successful but they were small fish.  I had tails waving in my right margin but I hadn't plumbed it up and just went in there with meat on my adapted shallow rig.  If I had have plumbed the margin I would have realised that there was a complicated network of tree roots under the surface and saved myself a whole lot of heartache!
I ended up with 8-1 of silvers and 26-2 of carp for a measly 34-3 which was a lot closer to the bottom of the weigh sheet than the top and meant handing over pound coins to both Alan Healy and a very smug Pete Sivell.
I was even beaten battered off the next peg by Alan Healy's apprentice, Garth Creese, who has not long taken up fishing matches and caught mostly plopping a method feeder in the margins which I'm not knocking because he did a lot better than me and he's built like a brick shithouse!
Speaking to Misha's bodyguard and resident expert, Tom after the match he seemed to think the pellet wag would have been the way to go, he may have been right but who knows as I don't recall anyone using it on the day.

Next up was the "much anticipated" inter-club with Fry's at Durleigh res.
Merv Sivell loves this place and had enthusiastically talked me into this one and to be fair I've heard the fishing (especialy for the roach and bream) is awesome but I had a sneaking suspicion that we weren't going to have a very good turnout from psv with mutterings about horrendous walks to pegs etc.
As it happened we had 2 turn out for psv and one of those was a "ringer".
Lee's blog from this match can be found ..... click here
To be honest I would have been more than happy to have fished it myself as I've never even seen the place but unfortunately I was in Skiathos at the time and I have absolutely no idea of the result!

The following weekend was on the match lake at Harescombe near Stroud.
30-ish pegs in an oval around a central island at around 14m with no features to speak of and stuffed full of small carp and f1's averaging 1 to 2lbs so a nice and fair venue where you need a lot of fish to do well.
Winner on the day was Andy Curry with 81-8 (peg 3) followed by Mark Radford with 73-2 (peg 15).
Another Fry's defector, Jason Bird was 3rd (he's took my advice on board and seems to be trying a bit harder) with 67-13 (peg 9)
Alan Healy was 4th with 66-12 (peg 5).
 I've just been through the results and in actual fact Ryan Radford was 3rd with 71-2 (peg 29) so perhaps Jason Bird really ought to try that litle bit harder!

Next up was Walters Lake at South Cerney.  This was our 3rd visit here and my first match back from holiday so I was hoping for a good day today as the previous two visits had been disappointing (crap).
Walters consists of four interconnected canal-style "lanes" set out in a in a "w" shape and the Saturday opens regularly produce weights of 200lbs plus
This time round we were on the Blue lane which is supposed to be the best one and there was another club match on White behind us.
To cut a long story short, it fished crap (again)!
Mark Radford took the honours with 63-8 from peg 18 caught on pellet.  He was struggling for the first few hours until the fish eventually turned up in force.
Chris Szakacs repeated his previous performance here by taking 2nd place (again) with 62-12 from peg 8.
Third place went to Pete Uzzell from end peg 19 fishing worm up towards the corner and weighing in 59-15, closely followed by Brian Shanks with 58-0 from peg 16.
Brian also collared the Silvers with 5-10.
Ironically peg 1 (best peg on the lake) never got drawn.  The following Saturday produced a new venue record of 400lbs-odd  so no prizes for guessing which peg produced this weight!
My day was grim to say the least. After nearly five hours I had nothing bar one lost fish that I'd hooked on meat swinging a long shallow rig out as far as I could get towards the far bank at 16m. Once hooked it had trashed my rig in the undergrowth!  I managed to avoid the dreaded blank with a couple of late fish from the margins and that was heart-stopping as on my peg (bridge peg 11) they like to take you round the corner and under the bridge to freedom so it's a bit of a tug-of-war even with the small ones.
One day I'm sure we'll get this venue right on the right day but at £8.50 for a large brekkie and a coffee I'll be taking sandwiches!
  

Harescombe Match Lake, 10 Feb (13 pegs)

A few lessons were learnt today.  Firstly, the Preston Soft Shell pole jacket is more suited for summer showers than all-out "wrath of the Gods" weather, although the £20 ski trousers from Lidl did manage to hold their own in today's horrendous conditions.
Secondly, maggots and rain don't mix and, of course, the big one .... don't leave your expensive long bit of carbon fiber resting on your pole roller when you go for a wander.
Anyways, for those that don't know it (it was a first for Psv), Harescombe Fishery is tucked away in Cotswold bandit country somewhere between Gloucester and Stroud and the Match Lake that we were booked on is a 30-peg canal lake with a narrow central island running it's entire length so that each peg is 13m wide to the island with a depth of 5' down the track and a shelf of about 18 inches deep extending about 1m from the near and far banks.
Other than the above the lake has no features, the aim being that no peg has an advantage and makes pegging nice and easy!
The lake is heavily stocked with F1's and carp averaging 1lb and "bonus" fish to 3lbs along with a healthy stock of silvers ,mainly small skimmers.
So I was hoping (when I booked the venue) that despite the weather everyone would have a chance of a few fish.
Another appealing factor is that the venue has it's own large cafe (complete with a log-burning fire) where you can get a decent breakfast and there are layouts of each of the lakes on the wall  complete with peg numbers hung on pins, Hillview style, which is handy.
On the negative side the lake sits at the bottom of a steep valley and has no protection from the elements and also, it has suffered a landslip which has wiped out five pegs but that actually worked in our favour as it made the pegging easy with everybody having a spare peg to one side (no moaning)!
On arrival and setting up after the draw the weather was bearable, cold with drizzle and an Easterly breeze but once the match started the drizzle turned to proper rain and the breeze became a biting wind which made things difficult to say the least and worsened throughout the day.
In a repeat of last week's match, Simon Belcham was into a fish straight away, in fact, it was that quick I hadn't even got my nets in or any bait in the polecup as it had taken me longer than I thought to set up 2 rigs and it wasn't until the moaning started that I dug my phone out of it's little dry home and I realised it was 10:03.
A quick look round and it became apparent that there were several more poles with elastic coming out so I hastily cupped in some micros and maggots at three spots along the bottom of the far shelf and also cupped in a big potful on top of the inside shelf next to an overflow pipe slightly to the left of the platform of the up-wind peg (23) just in case.  But as it happened I never tried this swim as it would have meant turning round to fish head-on into the wind and rain which I wasn't keen on doing!
I also fed some maggot and micros by hand down-wind at about 8m along on the bottom of the nearside shelf.  Plumbing up had revealed that one rig would work anywhere in the peg in the deeper water.
Rigs were a 4x12 inline Mosella Impact float on 0.11 powerline (it's winter) to a size 18 808 for single red maggot in the deeper water with 4 no12 droppers to help anchor the rig in the tow.  To fish on top of the shelf I had set up a similar 4x10 float with the same line and hook, but this rig never got used!
First put in at 12 o clock on the 12m line with a maggot on the hook and the float settled and went under resulting in a skimmer of about 10oz which was soon followed by it's little brother and then an F1 of about a pound.  Swapping to the 10 o clock position produced a couple more F1s and by re-feeding and swapping these two swims I was able to keep a steady run of fish coming for the first couple of hours as well as getting the odd fish from down the inside at 8m, although these fish seemed to be smaller and it took longer to get bites here.
By now though the wind and rain were getting worse and it was getting more and more difficult to hold the pole at 12m plus decent presentation was almost impossible.  But as long as I could keep the pole still and the rig steady for long enough I could catch across.
To add to my problems my top kit got stuck on the no4 so I could no longer use my pole cup and had to make do with dripping feed in with the kinder pot but that probably did me a favour as it made no difference to my catch rate.
Looking around I could see Chris Szakacs opposite on 7 catching across as was Lionel Legge on the next but one peg down (20).  The bankside rumour-mill also revealed that Adam Caswell was catching with chopped worm up on the far shelf on peg 13 and both Darren North on 15 and Stewart Riddle on 18 were emptying their pegs.
Elsewhere, some of the lightweights had given in to the elements and were heading home for early baths.  I had a walk round the survivors and a swift opinion poll was held and it was decided to cut the match short by an hour.
At this point disaster struck as while I was away my flash new Maver double pole roller decided to do a cartwheel and snap my no8 section which put paid to fishing across although by this point the wind was gusting so badly that it was almost impossible anyway, so the rest of the match was spent at 8m down the peg picking up odd fish to finish up with about 25 F1's and baby carp plus half a dozen small skimmers for 31lbs 3oz and first place.
Second place went to Stewart Riddle with 24-10 followed by Darren North with 19-10 and Chris Szakacs with 17-0.  Only seven brave souls stuck it out to the end!

Full Result:

1. Steve Burgess (peg 22) .... 31-3
2. Stewart Riddle (18) ......... 24-10
3. Darren North (15) ........... 19-10
4. Chris Szakacs (7) ............ 17-0
5. Lionel Legge (20) ............ 14-8
6. Paul Reed (11) ................ 6-0
7. Simon Belcham (9) .......... dnw
8. Everyone Else ........... early baths

Thanks to Lionel Legge for "volunteering" to weigh in even though he never had his glasses but I don't think anyone was too worried about a few ounces here or there!
Next week Staunton Court, breakfast is booked at Watersmeet from 7:30 onwards.
Finally, there are a couple of late additions to the Match Calendar:
10 March, Plantations (Coarse Lake)
26 May, Rood Ashton