Shiplate Main Lake, 02 October 2016

Once the early morning mist had cleared we were treated to a last taste of summer, not the best of conditions for fishing but I wasn't complaining as I doubt there will be many more t-shirt days for a few months so I was happy to make the most of it and give the "lucky legs" (thanks Bela) a final airing.

This was my second consecutive trip to Shiplate as I have been roped into their Teams of 3 series supporting Ryan and Mark Radford.  Last Sunday I was on Hawthorns (8) and did ok with 50lbs or so which put me around mid-section but Mark let the side down and we didn't do too well.
The "B-team" consisting of Alan Healey, Matt Taynton and Lionel Legge did a little better coming joint first on the day but beaten on weight.  Saying that though it was hardly surprising having drawn 3 end pegs!

Anyway back to today then and, as ever, the day started with breakfast at Lilypool which came with a healthy tirade of abuse from just about everyone in there but mostly from a certain local celebrity who used to win a lot before Trigger came good so now earns a meagre living from robbing pensioners at the Acorn cost cutters???
Down at the fishery (more abuse) but only nine of us fishing today as Matt Williams had shyed off to go see Bridget Jones at the cinema .... apparently the cinema round his way only shows "chick flicks" on Sundays and it's a big thing for him,  Brian Shanks couldn't afford to go as Ron wasn't booked in and somebody else had a pretty lame excuse but I've forgotten!
Draw done and lo-and-behold, Alan Healey draws peg 15 and Adam Caswell draws 1, so that was the two fliers gone and I grabbed the last ticket which put me on 14.
Not the worst, actually not bad at all, but it meant I would have to listen to Alan "I've only brought a tip rod" and Adam all day!

I had, for once, done a bit of preparation on Saturday night which was good so I set up 4 top kits:
A margin rig for the bush on the left, a shallow pellet rig and two rigs for on the deck at 13m
One for skimmers and the other to take a banded pellet.
Also a pellet wag which I wasn't putting much faith in as it was a bit bright and calm, and a straight lead as I had bought a new 10' lead rod and wanted to christen it.
Bait ... 6's and 8's, micros and a pint of dead reds for the skimmers and down the edge.
(And some for Alan as they don't sell maggots round his way)
For company, but all out of sight, I had former "Silvers Slayer" Lee Waller on 13, Lee Williams on 11 (also slaying silvers) and the Gimp on 9 (no doubt slaying silvers)

I shouted the all-in at 10:15 and potted a small ball of micros / mags at 13m and fired out a few 8's as far as they'd go whilst listening to Alan and Adam "debating" where the boundaries of their respective pegs were and to be fair to Adam he's pretty good at casting round corners.
[Please note that at this point self-confessed venue expert Alan "only brought a tip rod" Healey was still pretty smug after drawing the best peg on the lake]

Out on the skimmer rig with 2 dead reds on the hook and I started catching small 3/4oz skimmers straight away but I stuck with it in the hope that their bigger relatives would move in.  They didn't though and they weren't liking my 10/12 elastic very much so I swapped over to a lighter elastic and that change brought about my first carp which wasn't very big thankfully and came in without too much drama.

Meanwhile the "Silvers Slayer" next door wasn't doing much slaying, Adam had landed a couple of carp from around the corner of his peg and Alan was entertaining the ducks and muttering something about "they're not always there"!
To add to his cheer I hooked and landed a double on the maggot rig but it churned the peg up so I re-fed it and had a go with the lead rod.
That only produced a few liners and knocks from small fish so I gave the pellet wag a go and as expected that never produced either despite the fact that I could see fish coming to the feed.
It seemed as though they were attracted to the noise of the pellets but weren't interested in feeding.
But just as I was about to knock it on the head I hooked a fish that came in like a wet sack and turned out to be a 12lb grass carp (weighed and returned after showing Alan what a 12lb fish looks like)

I gave the wag rod a miss and had a go with slapping a  shallow rig around as there were a few fish cruising around on the pole line and that produced one small-ish carp but it knackered the rig in the landing net so I spent another hour playing around with the mini-skimmers in the hope of ... catching a decent weight of skimmers but it wasn't going to happen with fish of that size so I dumped a pot of pellet on the skimmer line and it started fizzing straight away.

By now we were into the last hour and the Silvers Slayer had stopped whining and started slaying, Pete Uzzell had finally lost the lump he'd snared on a silvers rig and been playing since 11 o'clock, Chris Szakacs had lost a 20lb fish at the net, Lee Williams had started his blog and was writing about how he'd have won the match twice over if he had have fished for carp and Alan had eventually managed to get a few in his net.
I had managed a couple more carp on the ex-skimmer line and then with 30 minutes to go I "hooked" a proper one that took me the rest of the match to land.

Alan was first to weigh and his tip-rod only approach had let him down badly .... 42lbs 6oz
My 8lbs of mini-skimmers pushed my total to 71-9 which secures my place in next years' winners final.
Adam took 2nd position with 57-7 and Mark Radford claimed 3rd place with 49-0
Lee Waller's late run of decent skimmers paid off securing the silvers pool with 15-12 mostly caught on worm in the last hour.

Full Result:

1. Steve Burgess (14) 71-9

2. Adam Caswell (1) 57-7
3. Mark Radford (5) 49-0
4. Chris Szakacs (7) 47-15
5. Lee Williams (11) 45-8
6. Alan Healey (15) 42-6
7. Pete Uzzell (3) 22-9
8. Lee Waller (13) 15-12
9. John Bradford (9) 11-15

Silvers: 

1. Lee Waller 15-12

So, not a bad result for me and also a few lessons learned in advance of next Sunday when I'll be back on the same lake ....

Wear shorts, draw some good pegs and take more than just a tip rod!!

Shiplate, Hawthorns & Westpool, 05 April (15 pegs)

The last match of the Psv season and my last match in command of proceedings saw 15 of us at Shiplate Fishery which was looking very attractive in the perfect Spring conditions which seemed a million miles away from the conditions we had last week at Viaduct which was more like an episode of Deadliest Catch so that was a relief.
Also fishing today (on the main lake) were the "cuddle club" which I'd never heard of before but apparently are Shiplate regulars and get there name from the fact that their matches are less concerned with the fishing as with the cuddles with fishery owner Carol, so I made sure I got mine in early before things got too messy!
Anyway, as we had both canals at our disposal, we had 8 on Hawthorns and 7 on Westpool paying out the top 2 overall, an overall Silvers and 2 sections.
And obviously an Easter Egg for all the framing places (thanks for the reminder Ron)
As ever, and perhaps for the last time, I had the last ticket from the Mr Potato-Head bucket which gave me 11 on Westpool which was probably the furthest I've been round that end.
Lee Williams had hung back to the end for the last-but-one and dug out 11 on Hawthorns which he wasn't overjoyed about but I would have been happy to have swapped.
And you can read all about that here
Adam Caswell had drawn the Golden Peg which was 15 on Hawthorns and that had won the midweek match, so that would be £62 rolling over to the next match!
Arriving at my peg I found I had Facebook legend and "tackle tart" Steve Sewell to my right on 9 who was keen to have a pound with me to try and recoup some of the cost of his shiny new Tourney Pro X, which I suspect is going to take a while as he also had a pound with Julian Nurse and he battered him senseless as well.
On my left, on pegs 12 and 13 was self-made millionaire Matt Taynton who, despite being a thoroughly nice bloke and all that, can be a nightmare to fish by as he is ruthlessly good at what he does and has on quite a few occasions given me a right proper hiding off the next peg.
Also present in my section were both generations of Radford, Mark on peg 7 and Ryan on 15 which looked to be the peg to beat.
At the other end were Lee Waller on 5 and Lionel Legge on 2.
And for added entertainment value we had several members of the "cuddle club" on the opposite bank (fishing the main lake) who kept us amused all day with their banter which seems to improve with age!
Fair play then to "George" wherever he was as he managed to land a twenty on silvers elastic without a pull bung which took him about 30 minutes and we had the benefit of a running commentary which was hilarious.
I don't think he caught much else, he was more knackered than the carp.
Anyway, back to today and I set up 3 rigs.

The first for 14m, bottom of the shelf in about 4ft of water with a .3gram pencil float on .15 mainline to a size 16 808 on 0.13

Next was a shallow rig for up on the far shelf which was on a long line to save putting my 16m section on and finally a rig to fish down the edge at topkit plus 2 seeing as I couldn't go much further along the edge as Matt "2 pegs" Taynton had already laid claim to that!

For bait I had a pint and half of red / white maggots that had spent the night in the freezer but had come back to life before the match even started, a tin of meat cut up to 6mm (leftovers from last week), 4mm pellet for feed and a handful of soft pellet just in case.

There was also a tin of corn in the bag just in case the soft pellet didn't work!

To kick off the proceedings I potted in a cup of 4mm's with a few bits of meat added, chucked a handful of maggots in the margin and pinged half a dozen pieces of meat over to the far side.

Starting on 14m with meat on the hook I didn't have to wait long for my first fish which impressed my Oap audience on the far bank.

Next put-in and after a few twitches the float buried and a much better fish was on .... but not for too long as the elastic gave way just above the connector which wasn't nice as it was a brand new float and rig that I'd made up the night before .... bugger!!

Luckily I had a backup rig ready and was back out again without too much drama.

The next bite produced a chub of just under a pound which was a bit of a suprise but apparently there are lots of them in all the lakes and they go up to 3lbs on the main lake.

Topping up with a small kinder pot of pellet / meat after every fish and lifting and dropping the rig regularly seemed to keep the fish coming at a reasonable rate and after an hour I had about 6 or 7 carp in the net so apart from the elastic mishap a good start for me.

Meanwhile it seemed Ryan had started well and was catching across to the far bank on the end peg and maybe had a few more than me, which he was denying (but I've learned the hard way never to believe anything from a Radford) and Lee Waller was also getting a few. 

My two neighbours were both struggling, Steve Sewell was digging around in his pockets for change after the first hour and Matt was not happy with me as he was asking what I was catching on and he didn't believe the answer.

Matt had struggled from the off and despite trying all around his peg(s) was only getting odd small silvers but I wasn't going to rub it in too much as I've fallen foul of Matt many times as he has a habit of turning things round dramatically in the later stages and it there was plenty of time to go.

By the halfway stage I'd added a few more carp including a couple of good sized lumps and a big skimmer around 2lbs but things were starting to slow up, the bites were getting finicky and I was missing more than I was hitting and foul-hooking a few.

So I cupped in some bait to get them back down and went across on the shallow rig, still with meat on the hook, to see if I could tempt some fish that were showing over there, especially the one that was towing my best float around.

First swing over resulted in a carp snatching the bait but I missed that one and spooked it, and a few of it's mates out of the peg.

So I dug out the 16m section and shortened the rig but after 5 minutes of plopping around nothing happened and I got the feeling those far bank fish weren't going to be easy targets so I gave that up .

I had an early look in my left margin to see if there was anything about but all that produced was a chub that coughed up most of the maggots I'd been throwing down there so I gave that up too.
But not before filling it in with a couple of handfuls of maggots as by now the end of Matt Taynton's pole was lurking around the same area and I wasn't intending to surrender without a fight but he was only getting odd silvers out so it seemed to be devoid of carp down there.
But he switched to his left margin and, as I had expected, started catching down there with worrying frequency.
Ryan meanwhile had run out of steam so it seemed like I was going to be ok as long as I kept a few more  coming in as Matt was now getting one a chuck but he had a lot of catching up to do.
Steve the owner made an appearance and reckoned Adam was doing well on Hawthorns (15) with about a dozen carp on paste of all things but I was confident I had more than that.
Back out at 14m and some fish had settled on the bait I'd potted in earlier and I had a good run with 4 or 5 on the trot and in the meantime I'd seen a bit of activity in my right margin which I'd been feeding with pellet as I was getting low on meat and maggots.
I spent the last 45 minutes down there hooking and losing a few but managed 2 or 3 out with the last one hooked just before the "all-out" so there was no need for injury time today!
We did our own weigh-in starting with Ryan on 15 and for once he hadn't been telling fibs and his nets went 48-10.
Matt's late charge gave him 63-10 which included 10-10 of silvers which wasn't bad seeing as he only caught for about two hours.
My collection of carp and accidentals went 74-13 so that was the section sorted as the next best was Lee Waller with 55-9.
Going round to Hawthorns and Adam on the golden peg had managed 61-9 so I was feeling quite pleased with myself until we got to the last but one weight which was Matt Challenger on peg 3 who then pissed on my fire and weighed in 80-9.
Matt caught all his fish on paste at 13m feeding a little bit of pellet through a kinder pot as he had left his pole cups at home!
So a good, close match with plenty caught all round and I went home with an Easter egg for the wife (and Carol got one too) and a full house of £1 side bets ... Happy days

Full Result:

1. Matt Challenger  (H3) ........ 80-9
2. Steve Burgess (W11) ........ 74-13
3. Matt Taynton (W12 / 13) .... 63-10
4. Adam Caswell (H15)* ........ 61-9
5. Alan Healey (H7) .............. 59-7
6. Lee Williams (H11) ........... 56-2
7. Lee Waller (W5) ............... 55-9
8. Darren North (H9) ............ 55-8
9. Ryan Radford (W15) ......... 48-10
10. Julian Nurse (H1) ............. 46-6
11. Mark Radford (W7) ........... 33-0
12. Lionel Legge (W2) ............ 26-12
13. Steve Sewell (W9) ........... 23-13
14. Mike Wilson (H13) ........... 19-0
15. Adam Woodland (H5) ....... dnw

Silvers:

1. Darren North ....... 11-8
2. Matt Taynton ....... 10-10
3. Mark Radford ....... 9-8
4. Steve Burgess ...... 7-5
5. Julian Nurse ......... 6-3
6. Steve Sewell ........ 6-0
7. Lionel Legge ........ 5-2
8. Mike Wilson ......... 4-9
9. Alan Healey ......... 3-15
10. Matt Challenger .... 3-8
11. Ryan Radford ....... 2-2
12. Adam Caswell ...... 1-4
13. Lee Waller ........... 1-3
14. Lee Williams ........ 1-0

And finally, Alan Healey came back the next day to fish the Bank Holiday open, drew peg 1 and won the match with 106-6 winning £150 in the process but no Easter Egg .... Bugger!

Shiplate, Main Lake, 18 Jan (13 pegs)

Prior to this match I did receive some cheery news courtesy of Pete Sivell who I came across in Scotts on Saturday morning.

Apparently, during the Thursday evening Docks match Alan Healey somehow managed to jettison his seat box and everything attached to it into the water.

Luckily for him he managed to hang on to it long enough for someone younger and fitter to turn up to drag it all back out.

That would have been one match where I would really have liked to have been pegged next to him!

Anyway 13 fishing today on a very soggy Shiplate main lake and with cold bright conditions and a gentle breeze putting a bit of ripple on the lake I was hoping that even if the carp weren't playing ball the silvers might, and especially the big bream that inhabit this lake.

And with all of Psv's silvers specialists present (except Lee Williams who has an identity crisis) I was expecting an interesting match.

So with this in mind we settled for top 3 overall and 2 silvers payouts.

And put 7 on the sheltered far bank and 6 on the underwater bank.

(Guess who never brought waterproof boots)!

Peg 5 for me then, and for company I had Adam Caswell on 6, who for some strange reason was keen to lose a pound, and to my right, on peg 4, was Lee Waller who would be fishing for silvers as he doesn't own a topkit with anything over 4 elastic.

Opposite I had Simon Belcham on 12, also likely to be sprat bashing, and he was sandwiched between Alan and Matt Challenger (another silvers expert).

The hot peg (15) was occupied by Mark Radford so first place looked pretty much sewn up but he did have Derek Lucas next to him on 14B so he would be pressured!
Brian Shanks was on peg 1 and I had been reliably informed by one of the resident experts that peg 1 will fish well when peg 15 doesn't (and vice versa) so that would be interesting.

Strangely then, on the all-in shout Mr Belcham went out on the feeder and before I had finished potting in a few micros, casters and stunned maggots on my pole lines he was playing and landing his first carp ....

And not long after that Matt Challenger was fiddling with the scales to weigh a 4lb9oz grass carp .... So much for my pre-match assessment then.

I had started the match with the intention of fishing the waggler with corn and a couple of pole lines with stunned maggot / caster or corn for bait.

Normally I would have mixed up some groundbait the previous night but having got in at 3:30 Sunday morning I hadn't and I didn't fancy mixing any before the match as the water was too cold!

So I made do with some soaked micros.

As per my plan I started on the wag with corn and after an hour that had only produced just one dip on the float that came out of the blue and I missed it. 

Various combinations of numbers and colours of maggot had only given weightless roachlets and by that time the wind had got a bit stronger and was blowing at me and to my left which was dragging the float along a bit so, with the three anglers opposite having all caught carp on the tip (Alan had also hooked a carp but fortunately lost it) I gave in to temptation and dug out a lead rod with a pellet feeder attached.

This was plopped out with a couple of stunned maggots on the hook.

After 15 minutes an 8oz hybrid saved the blank (always a relief) and another 15 minutes later the tip went round again and something was on that was shaking it's head but not really pulling back very hard.

I was hoping it was one of the big bream and wound it in very gingerly but as it got nearer the bank it started to wake up a bit and turned into a carp that needed a bit of juggling to fit into the landing net which was a bonus!

Trying the pole lines with maggot over micros was slow going but a couple of small skimmers kept me interested.

Especially as nobody else seemed to be catching much.

Adam meanwhile had gone for another wander to leave his bait mountain to settle and revealed that Mark on 15 had, as expected, caught a few carp.

Shanksy was struggling on peg 1, Darren North on peg 3 was admitting to at least one carp, a tench and a few skimmers.

And Lee next door was playing around with micro roach although I did see him land a carp that he was vastly understating as "a small one".

Adam was on ounces until the last half hour at which point he snared a 5lb bream that had taken a liking to the bait mountain.

I spent the rest of the match swapping around without much success until 10 minutes from the end when I hooked a carp on the pole line on a single caster.

Once netted there were just a couple of minutes left so there would be no injury time fished today as I knew I had a decent weight!

Mark weighed in first and his four carp (caught on 8mm pellet) were, as expected, good enough to win with 21lbs 7½oz.

Next best on that bank was Matt Challenger who added 4-9 of silvers to his grass carp for a total of 10-8.

Me Healey could only manage 7-5, Adam's "slab" boosted his weight to 5-9 which was good enough to win the silvers and I was pleasantly surprised to find my 2 carp and 2-14 of silvers totalled 20-6 and was good enough for 2nd.

Lee's 5-4 of bits was good enough for 2nd in the silvers and Darren managed a total of 16-14 which was good enough for 3rd.

Full Result:

1. Mark Radford (peg 15) ....... 21-7½
2. Steve Burgess (5) ........... 20-6
3. Darren North (3) ............ 16-14
4. Lee Waller* (4) .............. 14-14
5. Matt Challenger (13) ...... 10-8
6. Simon Belcham (12) ....... 8-7
7. Alan Healey (11) ............ 7-5
8. Ryan Radford (14) .......... 6-7
9. Adam Caswell (6) ........... 5-9
10. Keith (7) .................. 1-1
11. and 3 dnw's (including peg 1)

*golden peg

 

 

Silvers: 

1. Adam (1 fish) Caswell ..... 5-9
2. Lee (lots of fish) Waller .... 5-4
3. Matt Challenger ........... 4-9
4. Darren North ............... 4-4
5. Alan Healey ................ 2-15
6. Steve Burgess ............ 2-14
7. Simon Belcham .......... 2-7
8. Keith ................ 1-1
9. Ryan Radford ..... 0-13
10. Mark Radford ..... 0-1½

Oh, and if anyone's wondering what Mark Radford's ½oz is all about ....

Adam volunteered to take charge of the weigh-in (a thankless task), and Mark wasn't overly happy that his solitary roach was called at 1oz so I gave him an extra ½ to shut him up, even though he had clearly won the match ... no pleasing some people!

Shiplate, Hawthorns, 19 Octtober (13 pegs)

A bit of a late start this morning as the cafe at Shipham seemed busier than usual and there were some unfamiliar faces in the kitchen and things didn't seem to be running quite as efficiently as usual ... A half hour wait for the wrong breakfast but never mind.

In addition I had made the classic match secretary's mistake of working out all the figures the night before and so with one no-show and one not going in the pools that was binned and another version hastily cobbled together which gave us a payout of 1st and 2nd overall, 1 silvers and 2 section payouts (sections of 6).

By some amazing coincidence Ryan Radford, who wasn't in the pools, drew peg 8 which put him in between the two sections.

I had the last ping-pong ball and that put me next to Ryan on 7.

I won't make a song and dance about it as it wasn't one of my most memorable of matches and my Shiplate jinx continues.

I set up a shallow rig to fish a 6mm pellet across to the far bank where I fed the ducks* with micros and maggots and caught chuff-all.

Cutting the band off and going over with maggot on the hook produced a roach plankton that never made the 14m journey back over and that rig was abandoned.

I set up a rig for 5m on the deck to fish maggot / 4mm expander over groundbait / micros for silvers to keep occupied while I waited for my inside line to kick in.

After an hour that line produced a roach-skimmer type thing followed by a carp that took me all around the peg on my new 5-8 "silvers" hollow elastic until it bottomed it out and unhooked itself on an underwater branch.

I had a rig set up to fish maggot over groundbait at the bottom of the inside shelf which was where I hoped to achieve glory but there were carp "tailing" in amongst the cut back reed stems tight into the bank so the abandoned shallow rig was re-deployed here to try to tempt these fish out of their reedy snag-pit.

The first one I hooked was buried in the undergrowth before the float tip had made it completely below the surface!

I eventually managed a couple of fish from the shallow water (in between fighting off the ducks)* and in the last hour, a few more on the deep rig.

Another go on the "silvers" gear produced some more plankton, followed by an half-tidy skimmer (sussed it)? 

And then another carp that did a couple of journeys up and down the far bank before depositing the hook in a tree somewhere down in Adam Csswell's peg  which was the end of another fancy (Nick Gilbert) handmade float and also the end of my pathetic attempt at fishing for silvers.

So the end result of this tale of woe was a massive 27-10 which included 3-4 of silvers (for absolutely nowhere) and I think next week at Viaduct I shall be spending an hour sat behind the Gimp to learn how to fish for plankton properly because I can't seem to get to grips with it.

But in the meantime, as I've already mentioned, my Shiplate jinx continues.

For the record the match was won by camera-shy Pete Sivell, pictured below after he had sobered up, with 74-9 from peg 2.

I've no idea how he caught but I would imagine he talked them out of the peg.

Second was Chris Gay with 70-4 from peg 1 and again, I've no idea, but rumour has it that he fished a method feeder with a banded expander on the hook.

I'm sure Chris will elaborate in the comments!

Mike Wilson (below with the silly hat) took third with 65-12 from peg 10.

He caught most of his fish on maggot over groundbait on his topkit.

In other news, Lee Williams made a sound move having chosen to fish the Pawlett club match on Westpool and the Main Lake he then went on to draw peg 15 on the Main Lake and win the match with 156-ish.
I'm sure you will be able to read all about it on Lee's blog http://woolavy.blogspot.co.uk/ just as soon as he's finished uploading another picture of his seatbox!

*and if you're wondering about the ducks ... They are a complete pain at this fishery.  As soon as you move your pole they are in there like a scavenging hoarde  and in shallow water will wipe out any feed you put in within seconds.

Pancakes and hoisin sauce springs to mind!

Full Result:

1. Pete Sivell (peg 2) ......... 74-9
2. Chris Gay (1) .................. 70-4
3. Mike Wilson (10) ............. 65-12
4. Mark Radford (3) ............ 53-14
5. Matt Taynton (15) ........... 52-3
6. Alan Healey* (9) .............. 47-10
7. Adam Caswell (6) ........... 46-13
8. Lionel Legge (11) ........... 30-8
9. Steve Burgess (7) .......... 27-10
10. Ryan Radford (8) ........... 23-12
11. Derek Lucas (13) ........... 18-3
12. Jason Bird (12) .............. 18-0
13. and 1 dnw

*golden peg

Silvers:

1. Matt Taynton .......  11-2
2. Mark Radford ....... 8-6
3. Alan Healey ......... 5-6
4. Mike Wilson ......... 5-2
5. Steve Burgess ...... 3-4

Landsend 25 May / Shiplate 01 June

They say that you can wait ages for a bus and then two turn up together, well in this case it's three but to save Darren North's internet data allowance I'm going to condense the first two posts into one and save the best one for tomorrow!

Landsend, Match & Speci Lakes, 24 May (24 pegs)

24 booked into this one which was our best turnout of the year so far and, no doubt must have been like Christmas-come-early at the Duckett mansion.

As a result we had two sections on Match Lake and a section on the back side of Speci.

The weather was good, warm and sunny with a gentle breeze (ideal), and even though the results from the Saturday open weren't encouraging most were expecting a decent match.

It turned out to be a bit of a struggle on Match Lake and the section on Speci fished a whole lot better.

Winner on the day and riding on his success drawing ability from the previous match at Trinity was Lee Williams on peg 32 (his first match on the Specimen lake and I suspect not his last) with 108-8

Fortunately for Lee he had John Bradford next door in 31 which is always good news as he is allergic to anything over a pound in weight but he did hang around long enough to win the silvers with a pitiful 17-9.

You can read all the gory details of Lee's match here as he does a much more professional job of this nonsense than I do!

Mark Radford was 2nd with 91-11 from peg 30, making the most of the fish that turned left instead of right out of the Gimp's peg!

The best of the rest was Brian corner-peg Shanks with a late charge from peg 1 on Match Lake that gave him 82-10 which was just enough to fend off Steve O' Toole's 73-9 from peg 5 and Ryan Radford who weighed in 72-14 from peg 3.

As for me, I had a next-peg battle on Speci with with Will Dearlove which I lost by 2lbs-ish but I managed to scrape 2nd in the section thanks to a couple of defaults, and a pound coin off of Alan Healey which went straight into Lee's Holiday fund.

1. Lee Williams (peg 32) ........ 108-8
2. Mark Radford (30) ........... 91-11
3. Brian corner-peg Shanks (1) ............. 82-10
4. Steve tonsilitis O' Toole (5) ....... 73-9
5. Ryan thanks Grandad Radford (3) ... 72-14
6. Will munter-hunter Dearlove (26) ... 55-12
7. Steve Burgess (25) ....... 55-5
8. Darren 100mb North (16) ..... 50-8
9. Chris silvers Szakacs (11) .... 42-3 
10. Matt Taynton (9) ........... 40-4
11. Not-so Rocket Ron (19) ..... 31-8
12. Simon Belcham (15) ......... 29-10
13. Adam Caswell (28) ........... 26-4
14. Rich Jones (22) ................ 26-3
15. Alan Healey (24) .............. 26-0
16. Mike Welling (7) ............... 20-2
17. John Bradford (31) ........... 17-9
18. Pete Uzzell (21) ............... 17-4

and 6 dnw's

Silvers:

1. John Bradford .... 17-9
2. Chris Szakacs .... 16-0
3. Rocket Ron ..... 9-0
4. Simon Belcham .... 8-0

Shiplate, Hawthorns, 01 June (11 pegs)

After hitting the dizzy heights of 24 fishing at Landsend it was back to reality  this week with a turnout of 11 on Hawthorn's Lake at Shiplate Farm Fishery.

Again the weather conditions were excellent but again the fishing was a bit "iffy".

I drew peg 3 which is apparently a "feast or famine" peg but unfortunately for me Brian Shanks was on 1 with nobody in between us.

My mission for the day, if I chose to accept it, was to intercept any fish that were heading into peg 1 from the rest of the lake.

For whatever reason I chose to ignore that mission and instead pissed about for six hours getting nowhere slowly and feeding two pints of casters down the edge for no apparent reason!

The highlight of my day was the large breakfast at Shipham Cafe which I almost (but not quite) managed to consume and the company of a huge family of newly hatched ducks that had not yet developed a fear of bait bags  or anything else for that matter!

To cut a long story short, Brian had a thoroughly enjoyable day's pleasure fishing in peg 1, easily winning the match by plopping and slapping an 8mm pellet shallow all around his peg and ending up with 105-9 for an easy win.

He did have a 30 minute spell when everything went wrong which happened to coincide with the 30 minutes that I was sat behind him with the camera.

I did contemplate making a space amonst the goose shit to have a siesta on tghe grass but "one more chuck' syndrome got the better of me and my solitary carp of ?? went back early which I would have done too if  the results board and weigh-gear weren't under my control (the joys of being match secretary)!

1. Brian Shanks (peg 1) ....... 105-9
2. Mark Radford (9) ........... 78-9
3. Adam Caswell (6) .......... 54-7
4. Rocket Ron Hardiman (10) ...... 53-10
5. Chris Gay (4) ........ 41-10
6. Matt Taynton (14) ..... 35-1
7. Ryqan Radforsd (15) .... 33-4
8. Alan Healey (7) .......... 25-12
9. Lee Williams (11) ........ 21-2

and 2 dnw's (including myself)

To ease the pain somewhat I fished the  following Thursday evening knock-up back at Landsend where I drew peg 7 (photo at the top of this post) and managed second with 60-ish lbs.

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)!

Shiplate, Hawthorn & Westpool, 19 May (15 pegs)

Not a great deal to say this time round other than that Hawthorns fished a lot better than Westpool and Brian Shanks fished a lot better than everyone else.

In fact the Westerleigh mugger more than doubled Alan Healy's second place weight with an all carp net of 109lbs 2oz from peg 10.

My day, as you may have guessed, wasn't one of my most memorable.  Drawn on the wrong end of the wrong lake (westpool 3) I struggled for five small carp and some skimmers for an unimpressive 19-2 but that was a fair bit more impressive than Pete Sivell's two carp and no silvers next door on 5 and I do believe I may have mentioned that to him once or twice during and after the match.

Next week (this week) we are at Rood Ashton which should be interesting as, according to "those in the know", a load of fish have been netted /  sold off / eaten by foreigners etc etc . Anyway, to make things interesting I thought I'd make it tip only and maybe a pairs match.  If there is an odd number Adam Caswell can make up a "pair" of 3 just to make it a bit fairer!

Full Result:

1. Brian Shanks (peg H10) ... 109-2
2. Alan Healy (H1) ......... 52-13
3. Andy Curry (H4) ........ 45-1
4. Mike Smith (H12) ....... 41-2
5. Matt Taynton (W11) ... 39-12
6. Jason Bird (H14) ....... 35-12
7. Rocket Ron Hardiman (W9) ... 35-11
8. Ryan Radford* (H6) ..... 28-11
9. Mark Radford (H2) ....... 19-12
10. Steve Burgess (W3) ..... 19-2
11. Chris Szakacs (W13) .... 16-9
12. Pete Sivell (W5) .......... 11-7
13. Colin Ellaway (W7) ....... 11-5
14. Adam Caswell (W15) .... 5-9
15. Derek Lucas** (H8) .... dnw

Filling In The Gaps (Again)!!

Shiplate, 7 October, Psv vs Frys

Following our previous interclub match with Frys at Shiplate back in May which Frys dubiously claimed to have won???? it was our turn to host the rematch.
Psv had 17 fishing against Frys' 13 so each of the 3 lakes had a section of 10 with a payout of First, Second and Silvers overall plus top 2 and a silvers on each section so 12 payouts in all.
The top 10 results overall from both clubs were counted to decide the winner.
All three lakes fished well with the lower numbers on Hawthorns being especially useful and producing the top weight for Pete Sivell on peg 1 (85-2)  and 3rd for Matt Taynton on peg 3 (79-15).
Alan Healy worked his magic on the Carp lake for second place with 81-8 made up of just 5 carp including a 13-6 Grass Carp and 16-2 of silvers.
Westpool however was the most consistent section with five weights over 40lbs.
Shiplate's famous "big skimmers" showed up in all sections with Psv's Chris Szakacs weighing in five of them in his 32-0 winning silvers weight from peg 5 on the carp lake.
Bragging rights went to Psv with a convincing overall victory!

Overall:
1.  Pete Sivell (Frys) ..... Hawthorns 1 .... 85-2
2. Alan Healy (psv) ..... Carp Lake 14 .... 81-8
Silvers: Chris Szakacs (psv) ... Carp Lake 5 ... 32-0

Hawthorns:
1. Matt Taynton (psv) ... peg 3 ..... 79-15
2. Stewart Riddle (psv) ... peg 11 ... 48-14
Silvers: John Gingell (frys) ... peg 5 ... 10-3

Westpool:
1. Mike Smith (psv) ... peg 15 ..... 65-9
2. Andy Curry (frys) ... peg 9 ..... 59-14
Silvers: John Macey (frys) ... peg 5 .... 17-4

Carp Lake:
1. Steve Preece (frys) .... peg 1 ... 59-8
2. Jason Bird (frys) .... peg 11 .... 37-4
Silvers: Eddie Wynne (psv) ... peg 6 .... 28-0

Al Healy with his 13-6 Grass Carp from the main lake

 























And finally .... a competition!!

Win a luxury spa weekend break for 2 at a 5* hotel on Siston Common.  All you need to do is explain in less than fifty words how you would fit 10 anglers on a 15 peg lake so that every angler has an empty peg next to him!
Answers on a postcard please to: matchorganiser@giveusafrigginbreak.com  



Viaduct, Match Lake, 14 October

Unfortunately, due to having to cook Sunday lunch for the wife, kids and outlaws I wasn't present at this one but it was a successful day for Luke Tanner on peg 52 winning the match with 65-12 and the £100 golden peg!

Result:

1. Luke Tanner (52) ...... 65-12
2. Mark Radford (49) .... 40-6
3. Alan Healy (51) ........ 39-0
4. Derick Lucas (44) ...... 31-8
5. Matt Taynton (45) ...... 27-4
6. Darren North (43) ...... 23-4
7. Pete Uzzell (39) ......... 22-14
8. Adam Caswell (42) .... 21-11
9. Simon Belcham (48) ... 20-2
10. Paul Reed (50) ......... 16-3
11. Rich Jones (47) ......... 15-8
12. Ryan Radford (40) ..... 14-10
13. Steve Tanner (41) ...... 14-0
14. Steve Wynne (46) ...... 8-6

Shiplate Farm, Hawthorns, 9 Sept (9 pegs)

Another disappointing turnout due, I guess, to a few regulars being away on holiday and weekends away at least meant there was plenty of room for all to enjoy the late summer sunshine and catch a few fish.
A steady breeze blowing down the lake towards peg 1 and a strong right to left tow meant presentation on the far bank was difficult for most so as a result most of the action today came from the margins and with a few colder nights of late the normal pellet tactics had given way to maggot in recent results and pretty much everyone adopted the same approach.
With his impressive form at Shiplate it was no surprise that Alan Healy on peg 11 headed the field .
Alan started the match long across with limited success but soon found plenty of fish in close.
Fishing at 4m down his left margin with maggot Alan caught steadily throughout the six hours, feeding 5 pints of other people's maggots to weigh in 96lbs 13oz which included a couple of hard-fighting "proper skimmers" around the 5lb mark.  With an hour to go Alan was forced to scrounge a keepnet and more maggots from his neighbour (me) which cost him his £1 side-bet (unlucky)!
In hindsight I should have made him do the walk of shame back to his car to get his own keepnet seeing as after scrounging maggots off me with an hour left, he then filled in his margin with the maggots he already had (which must have been a pint at least) and used mine to finish the match.
The morale of that little tale I suppose is never to trust a shifty-looking Knowle-Wester although anyone who has witnessed Alan's weight estimations will know this already!
Anyway, getting back to the important stuff, Chris Szakacs (fresh back from anger management classes) managed to remain composed long enough on peg 6 to take second place with 72-0.
Chris caught on maggot in close and also on paste down the track and included a skimmer of around 8lb in his catch.
Most psv matches somebody manages to break a pole section or two, this week was Chris's turn to go home with his Connoisseur G8 in more bits than it should have been!
Third on the day went to myself with 69-12 from peg 12 caught on maggot across and in the right margin and fourth place went to Eddie (end-peg) Wynne on peg 1 with 65-9.
Eddie caught on maggot and also on pellet. Had his fish been a similar size to everyone elses he would have won the match easily but for some reason he seemed to have had rather a lot of pasties which, I suppose, is the story of his life!

Overall Result:

1. Alan Healy (peg 11) ..... 96-13
2. Chris Szakacs (6) ................ 72-0
3. Steve Burgess (12) .............. 69-12
4. Eddie Wynne (1) ................. 65-9
5. Adam Caswell (15) ............. 62-0
6. Mark Radford (8) ................ 55-10
7. Derel Lucas (9) ................... 31-10
8. Will Dearlove (3) ................ 27-12
9. Ryan Radford (4) ................ 22-1

Shiplate, Hawthorn, 18 March (14 pegs)

Overall Result:

1. Rich Jones .... peg 12 ..... 56-4
2. Darren North ........... 14 ........ 37-12
3. Simon Belcham ........ 6 ......... 15-6
4. Chris Gay ................. 8 ......... 13-10
5. Steve Burgess .......... 1 .......... 11-12
6. Mike Smith ............. 11 ......... 11-8
7. Mike Welling .......... 7 ........... 10-4
8. Alan Healy .............. 4 ........... 9-6
9. Mark Radford ......... 2 ........... 7-0
10. Paul Reed ... Dnw
11. Bob Warren ... Dnw
12. Adam Caswell ... Dnw
13. Lionel Legge .... Dnw
14. Steve Wynne .... Dnw

Silvers:

1.  Simon Belcham ...... 3-14
2. Chris Gay ................ 2-12
3. Darren North .......... 1-8
4. Alan Healy ............. 0-8
5. Mark Radford ......... 0-2

Shiplate Farm, Hawthorn. 22 January 2012 (15 pegs)

There is a vicious rumour circulating the match angling fraternity that this blog only ever gets updated when the Match Secretary has a good day .... so this should well and truly put that to rest with absolutely no bitterness involved whatsoever!
And so with all fifteen pegs filled it meant the pegging wouldn't be too much of a problem and having counted out the pegs twice over, there was little chance of there being a redraw, and there wasn't fortunately, which meant that the biggest problem would be down to the blustery wind.  And fortunately again that was straight off our backs so there was no real problem there either .... so far so good!

Chris Gay with "25lbs" which miraculously turned into 54lbs!

As far as the match itself went it was pretty much business as usual with Chris  Gay (left) being closest on hand to draw the golden peg (peg 1) and then proceeding to "innocently" draw it for himself (strangely) and then win it!
And with Alan spawny bollox Healy using some kind of Jedi powers to cement second place ahead of up-and-coming superstar, Will Dearlove, closely followed by the "gruesome twosome" of Simon Belcham and Darren North in fourth and fifth respectively.

Will doing his best impression of Freddie Mercury!

For the record, Chris Gay spent half the first half of the match fishing up to the rope barrier on the left bank of peg one fishing maggot over micro with a few maggots catapulted over the top and caught just off the deck by regularly lifting and dropping.  He spent the remaining part of the match at 13m across to the far bank using the exact same tactics as before and cruised to victory with 54lbs 11oz.
Alan, on peg 11, fished on top of the far shelf at 13m with maggot for 28lbs exactly and Will (pictured above) had one carp across and the rest down the inside edge from a slight depression in the bottom, again on maggot / micro for 20lbs 4oz.

Stevie Wynne contemplating life after 5hrs pegged next to Mike Wilson

It was a first visit for many of us to Shiplate and it must be said that this looks like rapidly becoming one of the top venues locally thanks to the top quality facilities and warm welcome from owners Steve and Carol.
More info for Shiplate can be found here or alternatively look for the Shiplate Farm page on Facebook.

Overall result:

1. Chris Gay* .... peg 1 ... 54-11
2. Alan Healy ...........11 ... 28-0
3. Will Dearlove ....... 4 .... 20-4
4. Simon Belcham ... 10 ... 17-4
5. Darren North ....... 12 ... 14-15
6. Keith Ray ............ 13 ... 14-8
7. Mike Welling ........ 8 ..... 12-5
8. Bob Warren ......... 9 ..... 8-4
9. Mike Wilson ......... 6 ..... 7-12
10. Rich Britton ......... 3 ..... 7-2
11. Paul Reed ............ 15 .... 6-4
12. Kev Jefferies ........ 14 .... 6-4
13. Stevie Wynne ....... 5 ..... 5-1
14. Derek Lucas ......... 2 ... dnw
15. Steve Burgess ...... 7 ... dnw

*yep, golden peg!