Plantations, Coarse Lake, 10 March (17pegs)

Spring finally showed it's face during the early part of the week leading up to this one, but it was short-lived and by Sunday morning winter was back with a vengeance with a bitter easterly wind to contend with and although the temperature in the fishing bus was showing 4` it felt more like 0` in the windchill.
In order to secure the whole Lake for ourselves we needed a minimum of 15 fishing but with it being Mothers Day, despite much furious texting, I only had 11 booked in. Luckily we (Alan) managed to snare half a dozen of Frys finest ringers at short notice who were happy to fish somewhere other than Bullocks or the Docks  where there would be a possibility of a few bites.
Sure enough there were a few bites for almost everyone and despite the cold wind the carp were feeding.
Jason Bird on peg 25 was off to a flying start with a couple of quick fish on the method chucked to the island and Merv Sivell surprised himself and everyone around him catching  on the pole at 14m with soft pellet on the noted flier peg 6.
And on peg 4 yours truly was having some action on the lead with double corn chucked in the direction of the island.
However, self-confessed venue expert Chris Szakacs was the man on the money with 10 good sized carp caught on corn at 4m down his right hand margin which, with his silvers, went a matchwinning 62lbs 8oz.
Jason Bird wasn't overjoyed with having wasted half an hour playing a Canada goose and a rather large island, neither of which came in very easily and quite possibly cost him the match.
As a result he had to settle for second with his 13 carp which went a total of 52-4.
Third place went to Marvelous Merv Sivell with 30-0 followed by myself with 23-12.
Silvers went to Bob Warren with 10-2 from peg 8.  Bob, after his religious 3 minutes on the tip, caught on caster down the edge and later a chopped worm which produced a bonus perch of 2lb plus.
Cadbury Angling had had a silvers match on the day before which was won by Andy Hembrow on peg 7 with 34lbs of skimmers caught on soft pellet. Steve Mayo was second with 21lbs from peg 5.  Ray Cooper dnw'd from peg 5 today .... hmmm!

Overall Result:

1. Chris Szakacs (peg 18) ...... 62-8
2. Jason Bird (25) ................ 52-4
3. Merv Sivell (6) ................. 30-0
4. Steve Burgess (4) ............ 23-12
5. Mark Radford (28) ........... 21-1
6. Alan Healy (1) ................ 19-2
7. Bob Warren (8) .............. 18-11
8. Mike F (38) .................... 16-10
9. Paul Reed (32) ............... 12-2
10. Andy Curry (33) ............. 12-0
11. Kev Jefferies (39) ........... 10-4
12. and 6 dnw's

Silvers:

1. Bob Warren ..... 10-2
2. Andy Curry ....... 5-4
3. Kev Jefferies ..... 4-9
4. Paul Reed ......... 2-15
5. Mark radford ..... 2-8
6. Chris Szakacs .... 2-5 
7. 
   

Plantations, Horseshoe Lake, 03 Feb (16 pegs)

A healthy turnout today of 16 was encouraging considering the time of year and the day started well with breakfast at the Plantations cafe which is now run by Karen (who used to run the cafe at Bullocks).
A really nice breakfast it was too for a fiver and turned out quick as well so no hanging about either which was good as I have known cafes to collapse under the strain of a horde of hungry anglers descending all at once.
It was probably not quite substantial enough for those that like an early morning Man vs Food challenge but I'm sure she would be happy to do something on a slightly larger scale for the Rixons and Bakos's and others that obviously like a good portion in the morning!
On to the fishing, and the pegging went 1-9 anti-clockwise on the inside of the "horseshoe" then the rest spread around the outside with 10 being the first peg as you enter the lake.
As expected with winter fishing it was relatively tough going for most although both Simon Belcham and Derek Lucas were into carp early on but these turned out to be "false dawns" for both of them and not much else happened for either and both ended up in the list of dnw's.
The best of the action was concentrated in the left side of the lake,
Matt Taynton and Chris Szakacs in pegs 2 & 3 seemed to be doing well as was Rich Britton in peg 11.  But Mark Radford, after a slow start in a featureless peg 12, then turned his attention to his margins where he found plenty of fish willing to feed  and cruised to a convincing win with 55lbs 14oz.
Mark fished at 11m alternating between his left and right margins fishing double white maggot over caster.
Matt Taynton, who is well known for his winter "scratching" abilities (apparently), finished up second with 29-6 caught on red maggot tipped with a pinkie and feeding micros and pinkies.
A bit of a late turnaround for Darren North, who had spent much of the early part of the match whingeing about a lack of section payouts and catching very little, meant he went from nowhere to third with 27-2 out of peg 15 which goes to show there's a lot of truth in the saying "good things come to those that wait".
Fourth place, and just 2oz out, was Rich Britton with 27-0.
Top Silvers went to Chris Szakacs by default courtesy of a lonely 2lb 1oz fantail.
However, there is (unusually for me) a bit of controversy here as Darren actually won the silvers with an equally lonely 2lb 10oz crucian and, as the Silvers payout was bigger than the overall 3rd place payout he should have had the Silvers money which then put Chris into 4th overall by default.
Anyway, Chris doesn't know about that yet so apologies mate if you are reading this but you owe Darren a fiver and Rich Britton £15, there we go, job done!
Confused? .... So am I!
As for me, well I drew peg 13 which put me at the back of the lake out of the worst of the wind and a nice easy reach to the island of 13m or so.
Three rigs, one at the bottom of the far shelf at 10 o clock which was as far as I could go leftwards without going out of the shade of the trees and being unable to see my float in the glare, and one at 3 minutes past 12 (just to be different), again at the bottom of the far shelf.  The third rig was at the bottom of the near shelf at 2 o clock at "maggot-throwing" range to slaughter the silvers if need be.
All three rigs were on 0.13 powerline (it's winter) to size 18 808's for single / double maggot / corn or 4mm soft pellet.
After about an hour the 12 o clock line produced a good carp but nothing much else and the 10 o clock produced absolutely naff all for the entire match.  Although on my first look at that line I got the rig stuck on an overhanging branch which, due to my far from brilliant eyesight, I couldn't see against the background of undergrowth on the island.
Now I  know that Powerline is a tad understated in its diameters but whoever it was at Preston that made this batch of "0.13" must have got it mixed up with something normally used for big-game fishing or towing broken down tanks so pulling for a break from the tree was a bit traumatic to say the least but it did provide some amusement for Darren and Mike Wilson who were hoping to see my topkit explode or myself impaled by a polefloat missile so sorry to disappoint!
So anyway, a change of plan was required so I set up a fourth rig to fish on top of the shelf across which produced a "sailaway" and a "dink" neither of which connected with anything.  But this rig doubled up to fish my near right margin which, having spotted Mark Radford slaying his margins, I had "cautiously" filled-in with maggots. 
Sure enough the fish arrived but it was too late in the day to do any damage and to cap it off my "cautious" feeding had sent the residents into a bit of a maggot frenzy resulting in me losing three good ones in a row due to the hook pulling out.
The end result was 13-7 for 7th place but on the plus side I gained pound coins from venue expert Mike Smith (7-11 from peg 5) and self-confessed superstar Alan Healy who ran to peg 9 with a huge grin on his face but ended up tipping back his pathetic three roachlets.




Full Result:

1. Mark Radford (peg 12) .... 55-14
2. Matt Taynton (2) .......... 29-6
3. Darren North (15) ........ 27-2
4. Rich Britton (11) .......... 27-0
5. Chris Szakacs (3) ......... 24-6
6. Mike Wilson (14) .......... 14-0
7. Steve Burgess (13) ....... 13-7
8. Mike Smith (5) ............. 7-11
9. Ade Crawley (8) ........... 7-7
10. Adam Caswsell (6) ........ 1-9
11. Ryan Radford (16) ........ 1-8

Nobody else, including Alan Healy, weighed in. And I wont bother listing the Silvers as other than the two lonely ones already mentioned and a couple of odd skimmers and perch nothing much else showed although Alan did claim 3 roach which nobody else saw and I will assume didn't exist as he didn't weigh in!
Don't forget this month's meeting tomorrow night as normal for booking into matches which includes Harescombe match lake this coming Sunday which is a new one for Psv so should be interesting.
Finally, a quote from the day ...

  "If I don't win today from this peg I'm going to pack in fishing"

There are no prizes for guessing who came up with that gem but he is fishing the Frys series next week at Bullocks which is as close as you can get to packing-in fishing!

Plantations, Horseshoe Lake, 08 May (10 pegs)

With the recent renovation and restocking of the lake only having been completed a few days before this match the rumour mill was in full swing so I had heard everything from there being no fish in the lake to the lake having no water in it and I had also been reliably informed that the owner had removed the sunken bars that can be seen in the photo above.
However, having spoken to the owner in the week it was clear that most / all of the above was a load of crap and that all the work was complete, the fish were back in their home and they even had some water to swim in.
In addition to that, one of the locals had "test fished" it during the week and had over 100lbs out on two different occasions (don't they always say that?) so things were looking good for our match.
In actual fact the owners have now put in corrugated tin sheeting supported by wooden posts on top of the bars, either that or the bars are no longer there and the tin sheets continue for about 8 feet below the surface!
And on arrival at the lake it seemed that the occupants were so pleased with their new surroundings that most of them were celebrating by getting laid in the margins! (not a good sign) And to make matters worse there was a hefty wind blowing down the lake which was going to make things difficult.
As it turned out, the wind got worse as the day progressed which meant that Bob Warren and Mike Smith in pegs 1 & 2 (nearest the car park) were unable to fish out at any length and could only fish down the edge.
In hindsight I would have left these pegs out and just put in the sheltered pegs as there's no point in having a "good" peg if it's unfishable and Bob probably wouldn't have broken his no6 section when his pole blew off the roller but shit happens!
Man of the moment, Alan Healy's luck with the drawbag continued when he pulled out the £72 golden peg, peg 5 which was reasonably sheltered at the back of the "shoe" and an end peg that appeared to be solid with fish. In fact there were so many in his peg that he found it difficult to plumb up!
Sure enough the pheasant beater caught all day long alternating between 13m to the opposite bank reeds and short into open water to weigh in 48lbs 4oz which netted him £132, his second golden peg win of the year.

 

Derek Lucas (above) was close behind on peg 6 which was on the central spit and completely unaffected by the wind.  Derek fished double red maggot on his top4 straight out in front catching mostly small carp around 8 to 12oz with the odd good fish to finish up with 42-13.
Third place went to Chris Szakacs on peg 8 with 41-13 of carp caught on corn.

Full Result:

1. Alan Healy* ..... peg5 .... 48-4
2. Derek Lucas ........ 6 .... 42-13
3. Chris Szakacs ...... 8 .... 41-3
4. Simon Belcham ... 10 ... 35-4
5. Ade Crawley ........ 9 .... 21-0
6. Paul Reed ............ 7 .... 19-8
7. Mike Smith .......... 2 .... 12-8
8. Steve Burgess ...... 3 .... 10-0
9. Bob Warren ......... 1 .... DNW
10. Darren North ....... 4 .... DNW

*golden peg