Plantations, Horseshoe Lake, 26 April

Well this could be my shortest update for a while!

Apparently Frys had fished here last week and found it tough but the last hour proved to be productive.

For most of us today the first five hours were challenging and so was the last one.

I missed the draw and started 30 minutes after the rest, not that it made much difference.

Alan Healey showed a rare bit of compassion and skipped this week's side bet (although he has lost the last 2 and was out for a meal after so maybe wasn't taking any chances).

Steve Sewell was not feeling quite so generous, especially as he was aware that I'd spent all day and half of Saturday night driving across Europe and back on a humanitarian mercy mission and was therefore absolutely cream-crackered,

But I wasn't going to let that stop me fishing!

My peg (13) looked good. It was on the end of the island on the right hand side facing into the far right corner and the wind was pushing up this end.

I had no kit prepared (although past experiences have shown that this isn't always a bad thing).

Bait options were whatever was lurking in the holdall which turned out to be various sizes of pellet. Some 6mm soft hookers and a tin of corn so plenty there to empty the lake with!

I dug out a suitable rig to fish at 10m, the depth here was around 5' and varied by about half the float's depth around the peg so would do.

I also found a rig suitable for the left hand margin. 

The right margin was taken up by overhanging branches which looked to be a tackle graveyard and was best avoided (although I did try it later on out of desperation)

I was tempted to set up a shallow wag to chuck to the opposite bank margins but chose not to as the tree behind would have been a pain with casting.

To cut a long story short I missed about 6 bites on the pole lines, probably liners, and foul hooked a skimmer and a carp.

Set up a shallow rig which produced nothing.

Went down the edge and had a properly hooked skimmer on corn and finally went in amongst the tree branches and missed another sail-away.

My three fish went 8-4 (less than I thought) and I was glad to get home and sink my face into a couple of bottles of "wife-beater" and fall asleep on the sofa.

The match was won by Paul Preston (below) with 31-4 caught on the lead with 8mm pellet fished over to the reeds on the opposite bank.

In second place was Ross Baker with 26-8 caught on the pole with dead maggot over to the end of the island.

3rd was Rocket Ron Hardiman (below) with 24-12

Sneaking into 4th (and getting his first, and last £ back) was Steve Sewell with 16-12 and his biggest match weight ever.

Full Result:

1. Paul Preston (15) ........ 31-4
2. Ross Baker (3) .......... 26-8
3. Ron Hardiman (14) .... 24-12
4. Steve Sewell (4) ........ 16-12
5. Darren North (2) ....... 14-0
6. Steve O'Toole (9) ...... 13-8
7. Chris Szakacs (7) ...... 12-0
8. Alan Healey (11) ....... 11-8
9. Warwick Davis (8) ..... 10-0
10. Steve Burgess (13) ... 8-4
11. Derek Lucas (11) ...... 2-4
12. and a few dnw's

Next week we're down at Viaduct on Cary so hopefully there should be some 1's in front of the above results (or 2's even).
And it will be the first Psv match under the control of the smaller of our match secretary duo.
I have a feeling it will go well (he's organised)!!
 

Plantations, Coarse Lake, 15 Feb (17 pegs)

Seventeen were eventually booked in for this one which included some new faces and as a result I was fairly determined for there to be no draw cock-ups (not that we've had any for a while).

So, with my super-efficient head on I turned up armed with 4 variations of payout depending on wether or not we had any Larry Let-Downs.

Fortunately we never so it was version #2 which was top 4 overall and 2 silvers with 16 in the pools.

I did hear someone comment that Adam ought to pay Ryan's pools for him as he would win a lot more money that way but  to be honest I thought that was a bit harsh.

I was expecting some good silvers weights today as (and I know I seem to say the same thing every week)

there are plenty of good sized skimmers in this lake but, having said that, The Gimp was fishing today which usually puts a hex on the silvers' fishing.

I left the pegging in the capable hands of Pete Sivell and his manservant Jason Bird who had both fished the Frys match here the previous weekend and were keen to make amends for their dismal performances and both were keen to have a £ with me which makes me wonder what Alan Healey had been telling them!

I think they made a good job of the pegging by putting less pegs at the far end of the lake as this end fished crap last week and it did so again this week although Pete ended up down the "good" end and still struggled which speaks for itself really.

Back to the draw then and Lee Williams decided to upset my Karma and pulled out the last two balls and gave me the choice.

I picked 11 which left Lee with 29 which is a nice peg on the far bank with plenty of options.

My peg was a different kettle of fish (sorry) tucked away in a bay towards the end of the carpark bank.  It's saving grace was that Ryan Radford had won from it the last time we fished here, catching late down the left margin.

Self-confessed Plantations expert Chris Szakacs came over and reckoned it would be a case of fishing long into the open water for skimmers and then plunder the carp down the margins later in the match and this was backed up by the Plantations bailiff who recommended fishing long into the right margins.

For company today I had Mark Radford on 19 and Lee Waller over in the opposite corner on 23. 

I also had a squirrel, which ended up on Mark's side tray eating his pellets

And a very persistent duck that kept coming up and pecking my boots to get more food.
It was quite amusing for a bit but after a dozen or so visits and much boot tapping it did start to get a bit annoying, especially when it decided it was going to get in my groundbait bucket!

Back to the fishing and I kicked things off by putting a couple of balls of groundbait laced with maggots, casters and micros out to a couple of spots at 13m and started over that with various combinations of live and dead maggots etc which gave no indications.

After an hour of nothing I finally started to get a few small skimmers averaging about 6oz but it was slow going and the bites were extremely finicky and it was just as well the lake was quite calm as if there had have been any ripple I wouldn't have seen any of the bites.  But strangely most fish had taken the bait well down so maybe my rig wasn't set up quite right but never mind.

By halfway I guess I had about 4lbs of these but the grapevine reckoned the lower end of the lake was doing well with Chris Szakacs on peg 5 admitting to 10 or so carp. 

Ryan also had a few and Alan had 3 or 4 from peg 1.

Lee and Mark had both had hardly anything and I wasn't aware of anyone else catching much in the way of silvers.

So I had a bit of a dilemma as to whether to try for carp down the edge and play catch-up or to carry on with the skimmers and hope for some better ones to turn up.

After 30 minutes of mucking about in the margins for nothing I decided to give it up and go for the skimmers.

But that didn't really happen either and after heaping in maybe a bit too much bait I had a 6lb carp and the highlight of my day, an 8oz tench!

The total of my efforts was 8-8 of skimmers plus the one carp for a total of 14-4 which was unfortunate really as I had quite a few fish but no quality.

Elsewhere the proper skimmers showed with Darren North doing best with 15-12 of them followed by Lionel Legge with 12-5 and The Gimp with 11-9.

The match was won by Chris with 56-14 followed by Lee Williams with 40-11

Newbie Julian Nurse took 3rd place with 37-5 from peg 4.

All three pegs were located on or near the smaller of the two islands so it seemed the fish were concentrated in that area.

Although Pete Sivell on peg 3 managed somehow to avoid them!

 

Full Result:

1. Chris Szakacs (peg 5) ...... 56-14
2. Lee Williams (29) ............. 40-11
3. Julian Nurse (4) ............... 37-5
4. Ryan Radford (7) ............. 34-5
5. Darren North (31) ............ 28-8
6. Alan Healey (1) ............... 26-4
7. Jason Bird (26) ............... 20-14
8. Steve Sewell (39) ............ 15-6
9. Steve Burgess (11) .......... 14-4
10. Pete Sivell (3) ................. 12-6
11. Lionel Legge (38) ............ 12-5
12. Derek Lucas (8) .............. 12-3
13. John Bradford (27) .......... 11-9
14. Adam Caswell (25) .......... 10-11
15. Keith Meridith (28) ........... 10-1
16. and 2 dnw's 

Silvers:  

1. Darren North ..... 15-12
2. Lionel Legge ......... 12-5
3. John Bradford ....... 11-9
4. Julian Nurse .......... 10-15
5. Steve Sewell ......... 10-12
6. Keith Meridith ........ 10-1
7. Lee Williams .......... 8-10
8. Derek Lucas / Ryan Radford .... 8-9
9. Steve Burgess ........ 8-8
10. Alan Healey ........... 3-5
11. Pete Sivell ............. 1-15
12. Adam Caswell ........ 1-4

Plantations, Coarse Lake, 23 March (18 pegs)

18 fishing today, then 19 and then back to 18 (confused? So was I)!
Anyway, 18 is about as many as you would want as although there are officially 40ish pegs available, due to the unusual shape of the lake a lot of pegs clash with each other and it's not an easy one to peg out.

I had spent a long while on Saturday night trying to sort 18 pegs out from the above map but it's quite old and doesn't really represent the lake as it is now.

Fortunately Chris Gay, who knows the venue really well (his words, not mine) kindly volunteered to sort the pegging while I enjoyed my breakfast courtesy of Karen in the Plantations cafe and after three laps of the lake we were sorted!

For a change today the payout was to be  top 2 plus 3 sections and despite Kev Jefferies being down at Emerald on Tony Rixon's match, just the one Silvers pool.

So, following last week's catastrophe at Viaduct I made sure I saved the last number for myself and I wasn't disappointed as it revealed peg 1, the shortest walk and a corner with the wind blowing into it (it could have been worse)!

For company I had Adam Caswell in peg 3 who was well happy as I had let him have the whole of my left margin.

Up from Adam were Chris Szakacs in 4 and my replacement travelling partner in the fishing bus, Stewart Riddle in 5 followed by Rich Jones in 7 and Alan Healey in 8.

Alan was looking very confident as he was armed with some hi-tec groundbait mix that looked expensive ..... I don't think he will be wasting the kids' KFC fund on that again in a hurry!

Across from me on 38 was Darren North and over on the far side I could make out Simon Belcham and one of our new members, Lee Williams.

My peg seemed fairly straightforward as with the wind blowing into it and no island to snag up on it was going to be a margin job into the corner.

I also set up a rig for 13m to plunder the skimmers for a couple of hours while the corner margin was being primed.

Chris Szakacs wandered round and suggested a long chuck with a method feeder over towards the edge which apparently  does well here  but I wasn't keen  and was fairly confident of getting a few down the edge on corn.

On the start I put 3 balls of caster-laden groundbait in at 13m, another at 14.5 and fed the margin with a cocktail of caster, corn, 4mm pellet and groundbait.

Out to 13m and sure enough, absolutely nothing! So I stuck with it for an hour or so mucking around wth shotting and different baits and still the float never even trembled.

In the meantime, Darren had started off chucking a wag to the island and had snared a carp more or less straight away but it came off at the net,
Lee looked to be in a similar position to myself and I couldn't see much going on to my left other than Chris Szakacs getting one or two fish from the island.

Adam had hooked one on the pole line that snapped the end of his topkit but he got it in but that was all he had by the midway point.

I had by now given up on the long line and was fishing at 5m and next to my keepnet with single caster getting odd tiny roach but missing most bites which was annoying so in desperation I had dug out the lead rod and hurled that out with a banded 8mm on the hook to a spot between two trees on the end bank where Chris had suggested but it was too far away to feed anything in the wind and produced nothing other than sticks and branches.

I had a look on my corner margin line and again nothing but it did reveal a problem in that it was full of underwater junk that had collected over the winter.

I did notice a fish swirl a bit further along the bank, out of pole range, so I plopped the lead over in that direction and cattied a few 8mm's over the top to feed the ducks.

Adam had just come back from a wander and it seemed Ryan Radford was catching well as was Mark and Brian Shanks and a few others wre getting odd fish including "that new bloke" (Lee)

The only good news was that Alan and his devastating new groundbait were struggling.

At this point Adam asked if I had caught but before I could answer the rod tip headed round in the direction of Bullocks Farm and I had my first carp in the net.

A couple of chucks later a second carp followed which took me into double figures and out of the embarrassment zone.

I spent the last 90 minutes doing the same which gave me five more carp which I was guessing would take me to 30lbs.
My guess wasn't far off the mark with the scales giving me 31-2 which was good enough to win the section ahead of Chris Szakacs.
And, more importantly, pound coins from Alan Healey, Pete Sivvell (who packed up early moaning about a bad back), and Adam Caswell (uncollected as yet)!
The match was won by Ryan Radford from peg 11 with 73lbs caught short from his left and right margins with meat over meat and corn feed.
Unfortunately his Dad, Mark, is too tight to pay for him to go in the pools so the money went to 2nd placed Lee Williams with 66-8 caught partly on the wag and down the edge.
You can read Lee's own version of events here
The Silvers honours went to another "newbie", Chris Davis with 15-10 of skimmers on meat at 5m.

Full Result:

1. Ryan Radford (peg 11) .... 73-0
2. Lee Williams (32) ............ 66-8
3. Brian Shanks (28) ........... 62-2
4. Mark Radford (19) ........... 57-10
5. Darren North (38) ........... 31-7
6. Steve Burgess (1) ........... 31-2
7. Chris Szakacs (4) ............ 27-5
8. Chris Davis (24) .............. 20-10
9. Alan Healey (8) .............. 18-12
10. Pete Uzzell (15) .............. 16-8
11. Rich Jones (7) ................ 15-10
12. Chris Gay (29) ............... 15-9
13. Simon Belcham (31) ...... 13-8
14. Matt Challenger* (26) ..... 10-1
15. Adam Caswell (3) ........... 8-12
16. Mike Wilson (27) ............. 6-1
17. Stewart Riddle (5) .......... 1-8
18. Pete Sivell (18) .............. DNW

*golden peg

Silvers:

1. Chris Davis .......... 15-10
2. Simon Belcham ..... 13-8
3. Matt Challenger ..... 10-1
4. Pete Uzzell ........... 7-1
5. Alan Healey .......... 5-8
6. Rich Jones ............ 4-0
7. Mike Wilson ........... 3-3
8. Darren North ......... 2-10
9. Chris Gay ............. 1-10
10. Stewart Riddle ...... 1-8
11. Lee Williams ......... 0-12
12. Steve Burgess ...... 0-6

Sections:

1. Steve Burgess ...... 31-7
2. Mark Radford ....... 57-10 (default)
3. Darren North ....... 31-7 (double default) 

Next Sunday we are at Harescombe which has been producing some good results of late and with the weather looking favourable it promises to be a good match.