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)!!
 

Ivy House new canal 15pegs

A short drive down the m4 today to Ivy House lakes, its been awhile since the club have visited the fishery and in that time the venue has changed owners with the very capable Andy and Karen Lloyd taking over the reins. The couple have really done a fantastic job and its turning into a first class venue.

We were on new canal today which was a total unknown for all that were fishing so no one knew what to expect, but with 18 pegs and 15 fishing talk in the carpark by the venue experts (Dean Malin) suggested it could fish hard! and boy he wasn't wrong! we could of filled the lake but had to cap it at 15 with Darren North, Lionell legg and Brian Shanks travelling up anyway and fishing the open on the main lake, Darren in particular was really looking forward to pitting his wits against all the locals and venue experts in attendance including England international and Bristols finest Des Shipp, Darren was so excited he was seen running to the car to fetch his autograph book and after the draw even offered to carry Des's tackle to his peg bless him.

Alan Healy was running things today and one half of the new match secretary duo was taking things easy sampling one of the great breakfasts on offer, the nine oclock draw time came and went meaning
we ended up drawing at half past and fishing from half ten to half four, pay out wise it was top four and two silvers so lots to go at

No one was really fussed where they drew as no one had fished the lake before so everyone was clueless on what was a flyer good peg bad peg etc, as it happens they were all bad pegs! Not a lot can be said about the match really as the lake just didn't fish and it was a struggle for everyone in fact it was that bad a third of the field had gone home with two hours to go, why that is I don't know as the lake has plenty of fish in it they just didn't want to play ball today.

It ended up being a bitter sweet day for the Radfords as dad Mark came first and son Ryan came second but yet again Mark never paid Ryans pools which I guess over the course of the last season has probably ended costing Mark a fair few quid the amount of times Ryan has framed!!

Mark was on peg 16 and caught most of his fish in the first hour and half , ending with three carp and several tench all caught tight over on pellet, Ryan was on 11 and took a leaf out of the Adam Caswell school of foulhooking landing two large carp hooked in the wrong end which made up most of his weight. Third went to myself on 17 and my match started in great fashion, shipping out on the whistle I lowered the rig in against the far bank and it kept going and within a minute a bemused ten pound common was laying in the net but that was as good as it got with a handful of f1s tench and skimmers making up the rest of my weight, fouth went to Si Belcham on 10 with a decent net of skimmers and one carp, Si also came first in the silvers followed by Steve Sewell on 12 with a net of tench and f1s

the view from 17

FULL RESULT

1ST   MARK RADFORD     29LB 14OZ   PEG 16
2ND  RYAN RADFORD      19LB 14OZ           11
3RD  CHRIS SZAKACS       18LB  8OZ            17
4TH  SI BELCHAM              17LB                     10
5TH  ALAN HEALY             10LB  9OZ             8
6TH  LEE WALLER                9LB  8OZ             1
         STEVE SEWELL            9LB  8OZ           12
7TH  MATT CHALLENGER  6LB  8OZ           15
8TH  JULIAN NURSE             5LB  1OZ           18
9TH  ADAM WOODLAND     2LB  1OZ            3
AND FIVE DNW'S

SILVERS

1ST  SI BELCHAM               10LB
2ND STEVE SEWELL            7LB  12OZ

Next week the club are on the match lake at plantations Kingston Seymour and the blog will back in the capable hands of the soundwell love guru and Fatima Whitbread body double Steve Burgess

Trinity, Woodlands Lake, 12 April (16 pegs)

My first match in a non-organisational role started with ..... collecting the money as one half of the new match secretary team, Alan Healey  was running late due to Shipham cafe being a tad busy (the other, smaller half wasn't fishing today).
Luckily, I had skipped Shipham in favour of Hilltops as it's quicker for me to go straight down the motorway and to be honest, they do a good brekkie there and it comes out pretty quick too although the staff may not be quite as glamorous!
Anyway, 16 fishing today and Misha sorted out the pegging for us (no need for her bodyguard today as they're now married).
Taking my turn with the rest of the rabble this week I found myself on peg 10 which put me in the company of Rich Jones on 11 and, yet again, Matt "2 pegs" Taynton on 8 who was still trying to live down the memories of last week and muttering something or other about the bush between us meaning he wouldn't be able to watch me kick his arse again!

A quick chat with Mr Jones who knows the lake like the back of his neck confirmed what I suspected that it would be an up-in-the-water / margin day as we had a stiff breeze blowing at us and up to the top corner (peg 17) which was occupied by Simon Belcham so there was a fair chance that his sprat-bashing was going to be interrupted today.
I never had a quick chat with Mr Taynton as he was still sore about last week.

I set up a shallow rig for 8mm pellet, a full depth rig, about 8' deep, to fish meat over soggy 4mm pellet for as far out as was comfortable in the wind (11-13m) and a rig to fish towards the bush on my right at topkit plus 2 sections which was beefed up a bit as some of the fish here can be quite hefty.

As I had a bit of time left I also set up a wag rod set to about half depth in case the wind dropped which it didn't so no more on that one, as they say (I've been dying to put that in somewhere)!
After cupping in a combination of pellet and meat on the pole lines I started out on the shallow rig (as did pretty much everyone) with a banded 8 and feeding 6's over the top.
And after a few minutes of old-school lifting and plopping the rig in (I can't get my head round the slapping nonsense) I was playing my first fish.
And looking round while I was playing it, it seemed that everyone else on our bank were also playing fish.
Unfortunately it wasn't so on the opposite bank as nobody was getting much over there and as the match progressed there seemed to be a bit of jealousy creeping in ... not that I was too bothered!
Sticking with the shallow rig I was getting odd fish but nothing like as many as Darren North and Chris Gay who were having a close battle on pegs 14 & 13 but for the time being I was keeping up with Rich Jones next door thanks mainly to a monster of a fish that would have been more at home at Cary.
I had an early look down the edge which resulted in missing a bite and putting my rig in the overhanging bush .... bugger!
This is a problem I'm getting a lot now as my 50 year old eyesight is failing rapidly and I struggle to work out distances and colours but never mind.
With a new rig on I went back down the edge and had another double-figure fish and a lucky escape as while I was playing it on my topkit I noticed out of the corner of my good eye the rest of my pole sliding off the roller into the lake and luckily, with a bit of one-handed carp juggling, managed to grab it before it vanished.
With my shallow fishing not really setting the world on fire I had a look on the deep rig but presentation was a nightmare as the tow was going with the wind and pushing the rig back towards me at a silly rate.
I hooked 2 fish on this rig, both fouled when I was lifting the rig out, managing to get one of them in backwards so I have a suspicion they weren't on the deck!!
As the match progressed Chris and Darren were still catching miles more than everyone else and Rich Jones (below) had a  second wind catching shallow close in.

Up on Peg 17 Simon Belcham was, as predicted, suffering carp problems,  the whingers on the opposite bank were still whingeing, Lionel Legge had even taken the opportunity to have a lie down in the sun.
Although Ron Hardiman on 32 had a few and Ryan on peg 20 was also catching so it wasn't all bad over that side.
I did manage a couple more out of the margin before the all-out but it never really lived up to expectations.
Rich next door had one on the all-out and provided a bit of comedy when he dropped his landing net and while retrieving it managed to get the hook off one of his other kits stuck in his hat and got in a bit of a pickle.
I was going to help him out but he'd got himself sorted by the time I'd stopped laughing at him!
My efforts went a total of 53-14 which was good enough for 5th place and one off the money but more importantly (for me) it meant another pound coin from Alan Healey and another lesson for 2-pegs Taynton who was well and truly "chip-shopped" as his other neighbour Matt "chatty-man" Challenger came 3rd with 85-1 caught mainly on paste down the edge, so I went home happy.
The match was won by Darren North with 96-2 all caught shallow with pellet and Chris Gay was one fish behind with 92-2
Mr Jones took fourth with 64-10 so the 2oz rudd I chucked back never cost me.
The silvers was won by Lee Waller on 29 with 7-13 of skimmers.
Ryan Radford was 2nd with 5-7 but wasn't in the pools allowing Simon Belcham to frame with 5-4 of whitebait by default.

Full Result:

1. Darren North (14) ......... 96-14
2. Chris Gay (13) ............. 92-2
3. Matt Challenger (7) ...... 85-1
4. Rich Jones (11) ........... 64-10
5. Steve Burgess (10) ...... 53-14
6. Ryan Radford (20) ....... 46-15
7. 2 Pegs Taynton (8/9) .... 42-4
8. Chris Szakacs (2) ......... 38-10
9. Ron Hardiman (32) ....... 35-2
10. Adam Caswell* (24) ...... 32-12
11. Mark Radford (27) ........ 24-8
12. Lee Waller (29) ............ 21-14
13. Ross Baker (23) ........... 11-4
14. Sim on Belcham (23) .... 5-4
15. and 2 dnw's 

 

 Silvers:

1. Lee Waller (29) .......... 7-13
2. Ryan Radford (20) ...... 5-7
3. Simon Belcham (17) ... 5-4
4. Ross Baker (23) ......... 4-4

 

 

Next week's adventure is on the new canal at Ivy House and it's a long while since we've been there so should be interesting.

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!

Application Form

Job Title:  Bristol Psv Fishing Club Match Secretary

Full Time / part time (Job Share)
Hours: 8am - 12pm 7 days per week
Pay: £0 (plus bonuses)

The following qualities would be an advantage:

Thick skinned (very)
Good at Maths
Good at time keeping
Good telephone manner
Be able to remember names and numbers of people fishing off the top of your head at any time of day, even if you are 20 feet up a ladder.
Similarly be able to remember who is/isn't booked into matches for the next month at any time of day whatsoever.
Must be able to remember the match calendar off by heart
Be sober on Sunday mornings
Willing to take on board advice & criticisms from many other people
Must be able to peg out a lake without knowing how many are fishing
Must be able to inform fisheries how many are fishing a week in advance without actually knowing the numbers
Must be able to book up venues up to 2 years in advance and know whether they will fish any good or not in 2 years time
Must be able to shout "All In" very loudly so everyone can hear.
Must be able to shout "All Out" even louder so that Adam & Alan can hear.


If you think you have all these qualities please apply at The Midland Spinner on 
Tuesday 7 April

We welcome applications from all ethnic and religious backgrounds!

Viaduct, Campbell, 29 March

With gale force winds forecast this match was never going to be a showcase of angling skills but rather a case of drawing the right area and waiting for the tip to go round.
Not everyone's cup of tea but it was probably the most likely option to catch a few fish especially as we were now over a week into Viaduct's "pellet season".
But with two silvers payouts on offer there was still an opportunity for those that were brave enough to fish the pole to win a few notes.
The last ticket in the back of the van gave me 114 which was near enough in the right area but it was likely that the gale force winds churning up the water would spread the carp out a bit and that turned out to be the case.
Arriving at the peg it looked a bit daunting with the wind coming straight at me perched out on a platform that reminded me of sitting on the end of Weston pier in a hurricane!
I wasn't going to take any chances and set up just the tip rod and nothing else, so probably the quickest I've ever taken to get ready.
2 bags of 8mm pellet (although they looked more like 10's to me) and a tin of meat cut up that never got touched was all that was on the side tray.
My neighbours for the day were Ryan Radford on 113 and Adam Caswell on 115.
Adam, after his resounding win fishing the lead at Avalon a few weeks back was full of confidence and was keen to have a pound with me (which I kindly accepted) and oddly he also had a pound bet with Alan Healey that Darren North would beat him.
Adam, as well as setting up a lead rod, got his pole out and attempted to plumb up a rig in front of him at some ridiculous length before putting it all back away.
He does provide plenty of entertainment at times!
There's no point me going on too much about how the match went because, as expected, most fished the lead and most caught on it ... except Adam who got well and truly "chip-shopped" by myself and Steve O'Toole on 116.
Across the other side of the lake it was a similar story with Will Dearlove in 125 seeming to have the best of it early on, but Chris Szakacs on 123 turned the tables in the second half of the match.
Fishing the pole long into the corner with 8mm pellet Chris was on fire for the last couple of hours and was catching non stop.
To be honest, I was glad to see the match finish as even though I had caught a decent weight I'd had enough of the wind. I'd spent much of my day struggling with keeping my nets in the water, bait tubs on my tray and waiting for the wind to drop long enough either to cast a lead out or fire some pellets out.

And as for my attempts to light a cig up...

But that's my own fault but it won't be a problem for much longer as i am currently in the process of giving up the death sticks!!
Chris Gay in 132 had been relatively sheltered but had struggled to catch carp and instead had gone for the silvers.
Darren dnw'd in 131 (first of Adam's £'s gone) although Rich Jones then weighed in 120lbs off 130 but Alan had also struggled in 129 which was odd.
On our side of the lake Lionel Legge also dnw'd from 110, Derek Lucas found 102lbs from 111 but then Keith Ray struggled in 112 so almost a repeat of the opposite side.
The best weights though came from the top end and it ended up with 1 fish separating Chris and Will (123 & 125) with Chris taking the honours with 173-7 against Will's 170-1 but ....
Will had 10 fish in one net that went 82lbs which at Viaduct means the whole net gets disqualified, unfortunate but those are the rules.
Luckily for Will his revised weight of  88-1 was still good enough for a default section win.

3rd (2nd) went to Rocket Ron Hardiman with 120-13  from 127 closely followed by Rich Jones' 120lbs.

Top silvers went to Simon Belcham who top-kitted his way to 10-8, followed by Ron with 8-5 and Chris Gay's 7-4 which got him 2nd in the silvers pool by default.
A good days fishing then with seven weights over 100lbs but spoilt a bit by the weather conditions.

Full Result:

1. Chris Szakacs (123) ........ 173-7
2. Will Dearlove (125) ......... 170-1 (oops)!
   
3. Ron Hardiman (127) ........ 120-13
4. Rich Jones (130) ............ 120-0
5. Steve O'Toole (116) ........ 117-4
6. Lee Williams (119) ......... 108-10
7. Derek Lucas (111) .......... 102-11
8. Steve Burgess (114) ....... 96-6
9. Will Dearlove (125) ......... 88-1
10. Steve Sewell (124) ......... 85-10
11. Ryan Radford (113) ........ 81-10
12. Matt Taynton (117) ......... 71-12
13. Mark Radford (126) ......... 60-11
14. Adam Caswell (115) ........ 45-8
15. Steve Wynne (128) ......... 41-8
16. Alan Healey (129) ........... 35-8
17. Keith Ray (112) .............. 33-1
18. Chris Gay (132) .............. 30-6
19. Simon Belcham (118) ...... 10-6
20. and 2 dnw's

Silvers:

1. Simon Belcham ....... 10-8
2. Rocket Ron ............ 8-5
3. Chris Gay .............. 7-4
4. Mark Radford ......... 6-12
5. Will Dearlove ......... 5-0
6. Steve Wynne ......... 4-8
7. Keith Ray .............. 4-1
8. Steve Burgess ....... 3-0½
9. Alan Healey .......... 3-0
10. Rich Jones ............ 2-4
11. Derek Lucas .......... 2-3
12. Lee Williams .......... 0-4 (estimated)

Our next match is at Shiplate and we have both canals. So still some places available.

Don't forget Tuesday is AGM night at the Spinner and after that I won't be dealing with match bookings or memberships

See you there!

Avalon, 15 March / Sedges, 22 March

I never fished last week's match at Avalon due to the fact that it was Mothers Day and also number 2 son's 19th birthday and a responsible adult was required to light the candles.

My stand-in blogger also wasn't brave enough to risk a day's fishing either so that's why there wasn't an update last week.

For some strange reason though, (one too many Friday night Stella's)
I decided to issue a bit of a challenge in that if anyone caught more than 30lbs of silvers I would pay their membership.

- seeing as there are 30lbs of skimmers on every peg at Avalon (apparently)

So I was a little bit concerned when Vic Bush took me up on it, mainly as he owns the place!

And he came close to robbing me of my hard-earned, winning the silvers with a shade over 20lbs of skimmers and he may well have beaten the target if he hadn't have lost a good bream and a tench so he proved his point (almost) and generously stumped up the £20 membership money.

As it turned out the match was won convincingly by Adam Caswell from peg 11 With 61-4 caught on the lead with 8mm pellet so it's just as well then that I never went as that would have been another pound gone out of the Burgess family holiday fund which, thanks mainly to Alan Healey and Lee Williams is looking more like a weekend in Brean than a fortnight in the Maldives.

Full Result:

1. Adam Caswell (11) ...... 61-4
2. Mark Radford (5) ......... 24-14
3. Alan Healey (16) ......... 21-11
4. Vic Bush (17) ............. 20-9
5. Ryan Radford (20) ...... 13-15
6. Lee Williams (19) ....... 10-12
7. Steve Sewell (22) ...... 7-2
8. Matt Challenger (7) .... 5-2
9. Julian Nurse (9) ......... 2-13
10. Lee Waller (13) ......... dnw

Silvers:

1. Vic Bush ........ 20-9
2. Lee Williams ... 6-15
3. Alan Healey .... 6-1
4. Matt Challenger .. 5-2
5. Mark Radford .... 4-12
6. Steve Sewell .... 3-6
7. Julian Nurse ..... 2-13

So on to today then and over the course of last week, partly due to a football match somewhere, we were down from 17 to just 9 of us fishing which was a bit disappointing but never mind.

I was expecting a nice spring day as had been forecast but instead it was dull and  a bit nippy in the North-Easterly breeze.

I put 4 pegs on the roadside bank, avoiding peg 30 (the corner of death) and on the Middle bank we had the 2 corners and the rest spread out in between.
With only 9 of us the payout was limited to top 2 overall and 1 silvers.

The last ball in the bucket gave me 38 which was ok but I'd have preferred to have swapped with The Gimp who was next down and not looking best pleased with corner peg 40 because it looked "carpy".
My peg had an small island to chuck to but I wasn't too bothered about it as the islands here tend to be occupied by the smallest carp in the lake.
So I untangled a waggler rod to fish banded pellet at various depths, a 4x18 rig with a size 16 808 for skimmers at 13m and a rig to fish down the margin at the bottom of the shelf in about 4' of water.

To kick off I fed 6 small balls of groundbait laced with dead(ish) maggots at 13m plus a generous cup of the same (loose) down the edge and pinged out some 6mm's for the ducks.

To pass the time while waiting for the skimmers to arrive I started down the edge with a couple of maggots on the hook, mainly to annoy the Gimp as I'd offered to give him a lesson in silvers fishing.

One cig and a cup of coffee later and the float hadn't moved which was no more than I deserved for my over-confidence and I abandoned the silvers fishing lesson and went out on the longer line which resulted in more of the same - not the greatest of starts.

But it wasn't all bad as my travelling partner, Derek Lucas had netted a carp on his first chuck so a trip to Curry Kings was still a possibility, briefly!

Elsewhere the Gimp wasn't setting the silvers world alight either, Alan Healey, my other nearest neighbour, was annoying ducks with a method feeder and also struggling. In fact, apart from Julian Nurse on 33 who was getting a few skimmers the only person doing anything significant was Ron Hardiman up in the corner peg 31.

About an hour in and I finaly started getting a few indications on the skimmer line and a hand-sized specimen soon set the ball rolling but after that all I could get was silly bites from tiny roach hanging on to the maggots.

Then I hooked into a better skimmer but it bumped off straight away due to the maggot folding over the hook.
With over an hour gone I still only had about a pound in the net and the bankside gossip was that Rocket Ron up in the corner (31) had been sacking up  from the start and had the match won already.
To make matters worse, Alan on 35 had abandoned the method feeder and gone out on his pole line and caught 2 carp in quick succession .... it was time for a walk, or should I say, time to see what Alan was doing that was different to me!
- which turned out that he was using soft pellet as (apparently) maggot doesn't work at Sedges??

Anyway, I'd seen enough and returned to my peg with renewed vigour and determination not to lose another pound coin to Mr Healey.
I refed the pole line and went out on the waggler with a 6mm pellet in the band and within a couple of casts the float buried and that was the start of a bit of a "purple patch" which saw about 8 or 9 smallish carp come to the net.
I did lose one much bigger fish that was hooked in the wrong end and was unstoppable, eventually breaking the line but these things happen.
In the meantime, Alan's run of carp had ended and he was now getting odd skimmers instead.
His neighbour, Julian Nurse was doing well on silvers catching skimmers at a steady rate, unlike The Gimp who was as predicted suffering carp "problems".
Derek's early carp had proved to be a false dawn.
Lee Williams, who had talked himself out of catching anything on Facebook over the previous few days, was doing just that .... catching very little (read how Lee caught very little here) but Matt Taynton, 2 pegs down on 26 appeared to be getting a few on the waggler.
I had no idea how Lee Waller was doing as he was hidden behind an island (it was a big island) on peg 40 but I guessed he would be targeting fry and suffering similar problems to The Gimp (why people fish for whitebait in carp pegs escapes me but whatever floats your boat I suppose )

Back in my peg and the sun had come out and the breeze dropped which seemed to put the fish off a bit, or I'd maybe overdone it on the feed but for whatever reason my run of carp had come to a bit of a standstill so I had another look down the edge where I'd been piling in dead (now alive again) maggots and groundbait.
First put in with 2 maggots on the hook gave up a small skimmer followed by a carp of about 10lbs which didn't realise it was hooked and waddled into the net in seconds which was good, and then it went quiet again (which wasn't)!
After a fairly uneventful final hour during which Alan switched his method feeder to a straight lead set-up and worryingly started to catch one after another, I dumped a cup full of meat down the edge and went over it with the same on the hook and with just 2 seconds of time left the float buried and I was into something quite significant!
Fifteen minutes of elastic pulling later and with the help of a nearby pleasure angler's carp net it was landed (all 18lbs of it)!
Unsurprisingly there were a few comments!!

Everybody else had packed up by then so Lee Williams came round and kindly  took over the weighing detail.
Best weight from the road bank was Matt Taynton who weighed in 58-4 caught mostly on the waggler on the deck with 6mm pellet.
Ron had started well but ran out of steam later on in the match and ended up with 51-11
Julian Nurse had done well with the silvers on peg 33 and weighed in 18-13 of skimmers on maggot and later on soft pellet.
Alan, despite the predictably pitiful underestimate, then put 64-9 on the scales and despite my couple of bonus fish I couldn't beat that and ended up with 58-4 and second ... another pound down but I did cancel that out with 2 from Lee Williams as I'd upped the stakes when he started whining about tendonitis!

Full Result:

1. Alan Healey  (35) ...... 64-9
2. Steve Burgess (38) .......... 58-4
3. Matt Taynton (26) ............ 55-12
4. Ron Hardiman (31) .......... 51-11
5. Lee Waller (21) ............... 25-0
6. Julian Nurse* (33) .......... 24-4
7. Lee Williams (28) ........... 12-7
8. and 2 dnw's

Silvers:

1. Julian Nurse ...... 18-13
2. Lee Waller ......... 10-12
3. Matt Taynton ..... 8-0
4. Lee Williams ...... 6-6
5. Alan Healey ....... 5-14
6. Steve Burgess ... 1-15
7. Ron Hardiman .... 1-10

On then to next week and just to clear up any confusion there are currently 21 booked in for Campbell but this number will probably diminish over the course of the next few days (as is the norm).
And unless anyone says otherwise (and they won't) it will be an "any method" match ... ie: not pole only!

Emerald Pools, Ruby & Sapphire, 08 March

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

View across Ruby from my peg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ryan Radford was 2nd overall with 51-13.

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

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

Steve O'Toole with part of his winning net

Full Result:

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

Silvers:

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

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