Viaduct, Campbell, 03 July (17 pegs)

Seems like ages since I last did a blog post or fished a psv match for that matter so I was very much looking forward to this one.

Will had booked us in for an 11-5 match with a 9:30 draw which everyone I spoke to seemed more than happy with, and it meant I had time to enjoy my breakfast at Canards (served by a very pleasant young lady) and had plenty of time to set up all required kit with time to spare which makes a change.

In fact the drive down was that leisurely I got overtaken by some Coffin-Dodgers in a Honda Jazz but I am on 9 points at the moment which is my excuse!

For my sins I drew 119 which I was happy with as there were a lot of fish showing all around the peg as there were next door in Ryan Radford's peg.

Ryan has been doing really well lately so I had a feeling it wasn't going to be an easy ride today. 

I set up a shallow rig for 14m where there were a fair few fish swirling around, a pellet rig for on the deck, an identical rig without a band for meat and a rig to fish as far into the corner as was sensible as it's a bit of a tackle graveyard tight into the corner so I opted for 13m, about 2m off the bank and probably 3m out from the corner.

I also untangled two float rods, 1 shallow and 1 on the deck to fish between the overhanging trees in front of 120 but other than one bite on the deep rod that I missed they were a waste of time.

For some reason I've never done much good with the pellet wag on Campbell, no idea why.
The lead rod stayed in the bag as it was quite calm so there would be no problems for float presentation,

Only trouble with this peg is that you can't see much of what's going on around you which isn't good when you've got 3 pound coins at stake but fortunately Adam was across the other side on 125 so I would have a good idea of who was "emptying it"!

As it turned out most of the "emptying" would be coming from next door but anyways ...

At the all-in I went straight out on the shallow rig and hooked a fish straight away which unfortunately snapped the hooklength .... bugger!
After that slight hiccup a few fish followed, not all of them coming in the right way round but never mind.
After the first hour I was doing ok and ahead of Ryan who had started on the lead without success before switching to a shallow pole rig.
During the second hour he quickly caught me up as I was struggling to keep the bites coming.
I had a go on the deep pellet rig as there was a lot of fizzing but that only produced one fish amongst the liners.
The meat rig got me bites but I never connected with anything?

While I was fishing on the deck there would be fish moving shallow but when I went back on the shallow rig they backed off ... Frustrating!

With a couple of hours to go Ryan's shallow line had also slowed but he was well ahead of me and he was now catching down his left margin.

Rumour has it that Chris Szakacs and Mark Radford on the next 2 pegs down were doing well too.

I had a first look down towards the corner with meat and hooked a fish straight away which trashed the rig.

The rest of the match went well once I got the hang of how much pressure I could put on my pole to haul the fish away from the snags. 

The old Aspire might be a bit on the heavy side but it can take a lot of stick.

The same couldn't be said though for Stevie Wynne's pole.

He was fishing the Capenters Arms match on Cary and his top 3 exploded while playing one of Cary's bigger inhabitants so he decided to put 4 sections across his knee in a fit of rage (as you do)!

By the end I estimated I had near the 100lb mark with Ryan on 150 

The far bank was weighed first and the top weight came from guest Scott Russell on 132 with 106-4 followed by Alan Healey with 105-9, he chucked a 2lb skimmer back to save getting another net which cost him the section but nobody took the piss (honest)!

Matt Williams weighed in 20-7 of silvers from 123 which looked unlikely to be beaten.

My nets went 103-2 and Ryan had 144-5 so my guessing wasn't far off.

Chris Szakacs was painfully close with 142-2 and third place went to Ade Crawley who suprised everybody nearly as much as he suprised himself with 114-12 from peg 112

The unlikely lads ....

Full Result:

1. Ryan Radford (118) 144-5
2. Chris Szakacs (116) 142-2
3. Ade Crawley (112) 114-12
4. Mark Radford (115) 111-3
5. Scott Russell (132) 106-4
6. Alan Healey (130) 105-9
7. Steve Burgess (119) 103-2
8. Lee Williams (110) 100-12
9. Adam Caswell (125) 88-10
10. Steve Sewell (128) 88-2
11. Pete Uzzell (114) 86-6
12. Will Dearlove (111) 65-6
13. Ross Sewell (126) 63-11
14. Matt Powell (129) 55-0
15. Paul Preston (124) 46-0
16. Matt Williams (123) 45-8
17. Lee Waller (127) 39-14

Silvers:

1. Matt Williams (123) 20-7
2. Lee Waller (127) 15-8
3. Chris Szakacs (116) 13-13

Viaduct, Campbell, 01 May (19 pegs)

I have no idea what the results were from the Psv / Frys inter club match at Shiplate last week as I was pissed somewhere in Berlin but the Radfords cleaned up with Ryan winning overall from 15 on Hawthorns and Mark winning Westpool also from 15.

And apparently Frys got their backsides properly kicked so I'm told!

Nineteen of us fishing today, one no-show but it was his birthday and he was probably up to no good on Saturday night so not wholly unexpected.

I won't mention names as that would be unfair ....

Anyway, the Saturday match had been won with 200lbs up in 123 and every peg from 128 down had weighed over 100lbs.

The wind was still blowing up that way so that was the desired area (but it was a Psv match)!

I hung back towards the end of the draw queue, Lee Williams was hanging back also (waiting for 130 to go) and orgsniser Will had the last one which was 132.

Lee got 125 and I got 128 which was the same peg I had last time and I did ok off it then so I was happy.

I think Lee was happy too even if he was hoping for a days silvers fishing.

Talking of silvers, the "Silvers Slayer" (Lee Waller) was not so happy having drawn 123 which is traditionally a "run to" silvers peg but maybe not today.

Payouts today were top 3 overall, 2 silvers and 3 sections. The silvers was mostly likely to be a battle between John Bradford next door on 127, 1-rig Belcham on 112, Mike Wilson on 114 and the 2 Lee's on 123 & 125

Plenty of time to set up today as we had a 10-30 start, much to the disgust of "1-rig" and it was quite ironic really as I had actually done some prep on Saturday night putting new line on reels, setting rods up properly and changing catty elastics so even I was ready in plenty of time.

Adam Caswell  even had time to go for a bath (bless him) ....

I set up the obligatory tip rod, a full depth waggler and 2 pole rigs, one for meat straight out at 14m and a similar rig for off the end of the spit which didn't produce for me last time but it should have and would hopefully be my banker today.

Bait was nothing fancy, 8mn pellet and/or meat for the lead and waggler, meat with wetted 4mm's for the pole lines.

Starting off I dumped hefty pots of pellet / meat on the pole lines and started on the waggler. The presentation wasn't great with the wind blowing right to left and towards me but it mattered little as I wasn't getting any indications anyway.
Unlike Steve Sewell over on 116 who was catching on the tip from the off, as were Ross Sewell and Matt Williams either side of the aerator on 111 & 130 respectively.

After about an hour of thrashing the waggler around and feeding the ducks I finally had a proper bite and landed a carp of about 5lbs. And this was followed by another four that all seemed to be hooked properly but all came off.

I tried altering the depth and stepping up the feed but it wasn't really happening.

Feeding more pellet created a bit more interest but not much in the way of proper bites.

I had a few chucks with a pellet waggler but that was a waste of time as well.

The only consolation was that everyone else down our end were in the same boat  and most of the action was taking place on the opposite side. 

Steve and Ross Sewell were still reeling them in on a regular basis as was Alan Healey on 119 and even the now dried out Adam was catching on 118.

2 hours in and with only 3 or 4 carp to show for it I gave up and chucked the lead out ..... and it went round more or less straight away (bugger)!

But it turned into a similar scenario with lost fish and a few foul-hookers detaching themselves.

With 2 hours to go I reckoned I had about 8 or 9 fish for 50lbs which was way behind Alan and the Sewells (£2 down the drain then) so the rods were abandoned in favour of the pole off the end of the spit.

First put in resulted in a near ten pound fish which was a bit of a trauma to get in with trying to thread the pole through a suitable hole in the otter fence while trying to control mr angry on the other end.

The rest of the match went much better as a few fish had moved in and they were quite a bit bigger than the fish I'd been catching earlier.

I did have one hiccup losing a proper lump when the B911 snapped in half

(that was a first) 

Unfortunately I think I might have overdone it on the feed as the last half hour was a bit frustrating missing loads of bites and having to ship back constantly to put another piece of meat on.

Probably should have fished hard pellet over there but never mind.

I ended up with 92lbs which was the 2nd best weight on our bank after Matt Williams who weighed in 99-2 although Degsy Williams ran me close with 91-9 from 124.

As expected Steve Sewell was well ahead of everyone else with 139-1 all reeled in on the lead with meat.

Alan was second with 106-14  and Ross was third with 104-6 (mostly caught by bouncing a lead off the aerator)

Silvers went to John Bradford with 33-9 of good skimmers and a stray tench caught on worm over caster at 9m

1-rig Belcham (below) was 2nd with 19-3

(well it is Star Wars day)!

Full Result:

1. Steve Sewell (116) .... 139-1

2. Alan Healey (119) ..... 106-14

3. Ross Sewell (111) ..... 104-6

4. Matt Williams (130) .... 99-2

5. Ron Hardiman (114) ... 94-14

6. Steve Burgess (128) .. 92-0

7. Degsy Williams (124) .. 91-9

8. Adam Caswell (118) ... 87-2

9. Mark Radford (136) .... 68-11

10. Will Dearlove (132) ... 68-8

11. Keith Ray (129) ....... 62-15

12. Mike Wilson (113) .... 58-1

13. Brian Shanks (126) ... 51-11

14. Lee Williams (125) .... 48-10

15. John Bradford (127) ... 33-9

16. Simon Belcham (112) .. 19-3

and 2 dnw's including the "Silvers Slayer" (again)

Silvers:

1. John Bradford .... 33-9

2. Simon Belcham .... 19-3

3. Brian Shanks ....... 16-9

4. Lee Williams ....... 10-8

5. Ross Sewell ..... 8-0

    Ron Hardiman ... 8-0

    Mike Wilson ...... 8-0

(the scales were stuck)

Viaduct (Campbell), 13/3 and a little bit of Staunton Court from last week!

First up then is a bit of an apology as many have probably noticed, maybe not, the psv blog updates have been a bit thin on the ground over the last few months.

The main reason being that after almost 25 years of "wedded bliss" the wife decided that she was no longer happy being a work / fishing widow and as a result life has been a bit strange for me over the last few months.
Not all bad news though as after losing one in the margins it didn't take too long to hook and land another one which means that Sunday's winnings?? are no longer going to Curry Kings in Kingswood but are now being spent at Mike's Kitchen in Frome (strange name for a Chinese takeaway but very nice food).
With all this travelling, house selling etc it has meant that fishing and blog writing has taken a bit of a back seat.
I have actually still been going fairly regularly but preparation has been almost non existent so to be honest, I've been making up the numbers on Sundays which is only any good for Alan Healey's pound coin collection.
Anyway things are looking a bit brighter now and I even introduced Miss Frome to the joys of elasticating topkits and cutting up tins of meat on Saturday night which she found quite amusing in a totally bemused kind of way .... she's a fast learner though and she can see better than me so some lessons in making rigs up may be overdue.

So anyway, back to the fishing and last week we were up at Staunton Court which is usually good for a few fish and in the colder months a possibility of some good nets of skimmers when they can get a look in past the carp.

Only 10 were booked in which meant there was no need to peg the end banks and therefore no need to make it pole only.

For some strange reason I had volunteered to pick Adam Caswell up which meant a detour to the wrong side of town but at least I got myself a free breakfast at Watersmeet which was nice even if Brian Shanks never got a grilled tomato on his.

I drew peg 3 which put me halfway up the concrete bank and the aerator to aim a lead at (which I expected would be my main line of attack). 

I also set up a deep rig for out in front and later a margin / shallow rig.

Bait was corn with soaked micros for feed, no maggots as I never made it back from Frome in time to get any which was probably a good thing in hindsight.

For company I was sandwiched between the Radfords (father and son) and Brian Shanks was in peg 1 which is now devoid of the derelict platform but the legs are still there to provide entertainment value!

Chris Szakacs was "running a bit late" so he was donated peg 5 next to Ryan.

He was running that late that he actually never made it which gave Ryan quite a lot of room!

To cut a long story short Darren North ran away with it from the start.

Fishing in the "bin peg" he caught his first carp shallow out in open water and then caught a shed load fishing long into the corner margin with either meat or corn, or both (I don't remember) but either way he ended up well ahead of everyone else with a total of 75-1

Second place went to Ryan Radford with 56-8.

As for my match, I started off on the lead with corn in the vicinity of the aerator (and a few yards past it) and stared at a motionless tip for the best part of an hour before switching to the deep rig on the pole which eventually produced a small skimmer or 2.
Having seen Darren and Brian Shanks both catch shallow, a hastily assembled shallow rig produced a nice ghostie that was neatly hooked in the wing and I managed a further carp and a proper skimmer from my left margin for a fairly disappointing 17-8
My travelling partner faired worse coming last with 4lbs of silvers although he did manage 1 carp after the all out when he tried down his edge with a method feeder and the tip wrapped round within seconds ..... if only!

Full Result:

1. Darren North (10) ...... 75-1
2. Ryan Radford (4 & 5) ... 56-8
3. Brian Shanks (1) ........ 36-8
4. Mark Radford (2) ....... 35-3
5. Simon Belcham (7) .... 22-2
6. Steve Burgess (3) ...... 17-8
7. Pete Uzzell (9) .......... 16-10
8. Will Dearlove (8) ..... 11-0
9. Adam Caswell (6) .... 4-0
10. Chris Szakacs .... running a bit late!

Moving on a week saw us on Campbell at Viaduct so a bit of good fortune would be required at the draw.

A nice short drive for me today and no breakfast stop as Miss Frome had got up and made me bacon sandwiches.

I had told her I'd like to draw either 114 or 127. 

For a change I sneaked into the queue early and nailed 128, no complaints as it's in the right area and had framed on the Saturday.

For company today I had Matt Taynton on 127 (he likes to be close to me) and Derek Williams hiding behind the safety of the spit on 129.

Typically, Alan Healey was looking smug opposite on 114 and Keith Ray and Pete Uzzell were making the most of the shade on a nice spring day in 112 & 111 respectively.

I set up the obligatory tip rod plus rigs for13m out in front and over to the spit.

Only one bait for the day and that was meat and an unopened tin of corn just in case but it stayed unopened.

No big surprises today as the carp were still concentrated mainly in the middle of the lake. 

Keith got off to a bit of a flying start, as did Alan and Derek, all three hooking carp more or less from the off, as did Nick Sanders up in 119 although that was a false dawn and his day went "tits up" from then onwards.

I had liners on the first two casts followed by a big skimmer and from then on, odd carp on the lead / meat.

It wasn't hectic action though and by midway through the match I was up to about 10 carp plus the skimmer and a stray tench, but I seemed to be holding my own although I had a feeling that Alan and Keith had 1 or 2 each more than me and I had no idea what Derek had except from the procession of bank-walkers who reckoned he "had a few".
It was however far more hectic than many others were experiencing.
Mark Radford was crying in peg 132 and doing his best to convince Steve Sewell and Matt Williams that none of them were going to catch anything.
Chris Szakacs was getting restless in 123 and had joined Adam Caswell in the queue at the lodge for maggots, Will Dearlove had given up all hope of ever catching a carp again and Ryan was moaning almost as much as his dad.

By now I was getting bored of waiting for the tip to go round and was itching to have a look on the pole lines I'd been feeding but a quick look on both never produced a bite which was a bit of a pisser as I was expecting a few fish to have moved in on the end of the spit.
I had also been throwing bits of meat into the right corner margin so I gave that a try and it didn't take long for the float to bury resulting in a very angry F1
The next fish beat me in the tug of war competition and pulled free under the brambles but I managed to get the third one in successfully but then I hooked a right lump that after taking me under the brambles, under my platform (twice) and knitting a pattern through my keepnets, made a second attempt at getting in the brambles and smashed the rig up.
I chucked the lead back out while I tried to remake the rig and that went round twice during the re-tackling process (should have stuck with it) and I managed another fish from down the edge before Will shouted the all out.
Apparently Derek had had a really good last hour and weighed in 120-12 to win it, followed by Alan with 109-7 (I still lost a pound) and Keith wasn't far behind with 97-6
My efforts totalled 94-7 for 4th place and the section which I was pleased with.

Full Result:

1. Derek Williams (129) ...... 120-12
2. Alan Healey (114) ........ 109-7
3. Keith Ray (112) .......... 97-6
4. Steve Burgess (128) .... 94-7
5. Matt Taynton (127) ..... 69-11
6. Pete Uzzell (111) ........ 23-14
7. Mike Wilson (115) ..... 21-9
8. Nick Sanders (119) .... 20-13
9. John Bradford (110) ... 13-15
10. Adam Caswell (116) .. 12-2
11. Mark Radford (132) ... 5-8

and 6 dew's

Silvers:

1. Mike Wilson ..... 21-9
2. John Bradford .... 13-15

Viaduct, Campbell, 09 August (13 pegs)

First stop today, as usual, was Lilypool cafe at Shipham but unfortunately there was no view of the Mendips today as she must have been having a day off.
On the plus side?? Tony Rixon and a few of his apprentices were present on their way to the last of his Short pole series matches at Trinity.
I mentioned in the cafe that I'd be happy to draw anywhere on Campbell as long as it wasn't 110 as it's a bit of a tug-of-war peg and I know that there is a tiny crack in one of my pole sections (no 7 I think) which doesn't aspire confidence [that's not a spelling mistake]!
I arrived at the draw with a few minutes to spare and Will had everything well under control, looking very efficient sat at a table outside the shop with coffee tin and draw sheet at the ready.
I waited until the last 2 pegs and pulled out ... 110, but then it is a corner peg so was inevitable really (why do I always seem to get banished to corners)?
Anyway, it was the shortest walk on the lake so that was a bonus and the aereator has been running 24-7 of late and apparently this meant there would be a lot of fish down this end of the lake.
For company today I had Mark Radford on 112 and across on 131 & 132 was Chris Szakacs although with the aereator running and fishing down to the corner with my back to the rest of the lake I was expecting be having a "Billy no-mates" day.

By the time I had set up a couple of shallow rigs and a deep rig for banded pellet plus another for meat I'd run out of time so no rods were set up.
I fed a couple of spots at 6m with meat and pellet and pinged a few 6's down to the edge of the brambles and by the time I had achieved all this Mark was netting his second fish from chucking a lead towards the aereator which had me thinking maybe I should dig out the lead rod but instead I went down towards the corner at 14m and maybe 5m away from the brambles with an 8mm banded pellet and caught straight away on the shallow rig.
A good run followed and I caught small carp fairly regularly from then on, swapping between the deep and shallow rigs and after about 90 minutes I reckoned on around 50lb and started on my second net.
Chris had caught some on the lead but was well behind and Mark, after his flying start, had slowed especially since he'd had to take time out to visit the shop for first aid after harpooning his finger with an angry pole float ....
I heard the scream, saw blood dripping and looked the other way as I'm not good with serious injuries!

The middle part of the match continued as before although maybe not as hectic as earlier and I was suffering foul-hooking problems, one of which made it into the brambles and destroyed the shallow rig and the elastic, but at least the pole held out even though it was bending into some alarming shapes at times.
Heading towards the last hour I had a first look on the 6m meat line and after a couple of missed bites I landed my biggest fish of the day, near 10lb, which broke my landing net (bugger) and took my second net, guestimated, up towards the limit so this meant as I'd only brought 3 nets I had to chuck back my three skimmers and start a third.
I spent the last hour and a bit on the 6m line with meat but it was a very frustrating hour as I kept missing bites and losing foul-hookers while everyone around me seemed to be landing fish. Chris opposite especially so, and he was netting some big fish from down the margins which was worrying and I reckoned he had caught me up coming up towards the end.
I only managed to land one more in that last hour, I'm blaming it on Aldi's bacon grill which doesn't seem to sink very well (that's my excuse anyway)

Chris was first to weigh in and he put 114-1 on the scales which I reckoned had me beat (he thought otherwise).
That weight was topped by Steve o'Toole on 118 with 121-8 and I was pretty sure I never had that and I was right as my nets went 119-4 for second and left me wondering whether those three skimmers would have made 2 and a bit pounds but then Steve had gone over by a couple of pounds on one of his nets so I can't complain.
And it was a good, close match again with 10lb separating the top 6


Full Result:

1. Steve o'Toole (118) ........... 121-8
2. Steve Burgess (110) ......... 119-4
3. Chris Szakacs (131) .......... 114-1 (section)
4. Mark Radford (112) .......... 113-8 (section)
5. Will Dearlove (116) ........... 113-7
6. Keith Ray (119) ................ 110-7
7. Adam Caswell (128) .......... 94-4
8. Lee Waller (114) .............. 88-12
9. Lee Williams (115)* .......... 85-15
10. Ryan Radford (129) .......... 82-12
11. Kev Jefferies (123) ........... 76-11
12. Mike Wilson (125) ............. 69-12
13. Pete Uzzell (116) .............. 41-10

Silvers:

1. Mike Wilson (125) ....... 30-3
2. Lee Williams (115) ...... 28-2
3. Keith Ray (119) .......... 13-9
4. Kev Jefferies (123) ..... 12-7
5. Ryan Radford (129) .... 11-1

Viaduct, Cary, 03 May (20 pegs)

After what could be best described as a dismal match on Horsesoe at Plantations last week I was really looking forward to this match.

And not just because there had been some good weights coming out in recent matches but also because it would be my first match out of the driving seat.

It all started well (almost) with the usual quality breakfast at Shipham and the new staff creating a bit of a stir.

And arriving at Viaduct the new match secretary team had things well under control and organised like clockwork ... even had envelopes for the payouts!

I hung back for the last two tickets and found 77 (that wasn't part of the plan) and Will was left with 96 which was about right.

77 is one of the early pegs on the thin end of Cary on the bank shared with Campbell.  Not a peg I would have run to but at least it was a short walk back to the fishing bus for spare nets (like that was going to happen)!

For Company, yet again it was Matt (2 pegs) Taynton down on 74 who didn't look over the moon about it.

And going up the bank I had Lee Waller on 78 and Lee Williams on 79.

Lee Waller (widescreen)

Lee Williams

Up from them was Chris Szakacs in peg 80 (left side of the spit) which was probably the best draw in this area.

Across from me was the sumo wrestling partnership of Steve Sewell and Paul Preston on 103 & 105 and Chris Gay on 102 who was fishing with a plastic bag on his hand after spending a few traumatic days in hospital after suffering a nasty scratch from his cat (which must be worth an extra sardine)!

Back to my peg then and I'd been hoping for a nice open water peg with plenty of space to chuck leads and floats around so I was a bit scuppered.

And instead the pole was reluctantly drafted into service with a rig for 13m which would also work for up against the overhanging willow tree branches to my left at 5m. That rig was set up with 0.15 to 0.13 and a size 16 808 to fish with corn over 4's and 6's to target anything.

I also set up a waggler for 8mm pellet on the deck out past the pole line and that was it.

No meat today as I'd asked the wife to get me a tin of meat the night before and she came back with a little round tin of "lean ham" so it was corn instead but I was hoping the Viaduct carp weren't too choosy about their dinner.

I won't bang on much about what happened through the match sufficient to say it was frustrating.

I ended up also setting up a lead rod and a shallow wag to tempt fish that were coming to the feed but not having it.

Foul hooked and lost a few on all three rods, managed to land just two (one fouled) on the lead and the shallow wag only produced a big skimmer.

The pole lines produced a handful of silvers before the last hour when the carp finally turned up under the tree and I managed 2 good ones from there before a freak gust of wind took the rig into the tree branches and completely f'ed up my chances of a late charge.

I half-heartedly dropped the wag into the same spot but wasn't concentrating and looked down to find my float wasn't where I left it but was attached to an underwater branch in the margins .... Great!!

And that was that, my unimpressive 4 carp and handful of silvers gave me a grand total of 43-0 which was the top weight for about 10 seconds (Matt had struggled for 23lbs).

Lee Waller had done well on silvers with some nice perch on caster from the other side of the tree for 20-1

Lee Williams whinged out 72-15 see here for the gory details

And then Chris Szakacs took the lead with 123-8 caught partly on the tip and then later catching some Cary "babies" down the edge on meat.

And the leaderboard stayed that way with the closest contender being Alan Healey on 97 with 106-1

Full Result:

1. Chris Szakacs (80) ...... 123-8
2. Alan Healey (97) ......... 106-1
3. Pete Uzzell (86) .......... 99-11
4. Ron Hardiman (81) ..... 82-1
5. Will Dearlove (96) ...... 80-3
6. Lee Williams (79) ....... 77-11
7. Rich Britton (94) ........ 76-4
8. Cat Scratch Gay (102) ... 75-3
9. Mark Radford (100) ..... 64-8
10. Paul Preston (105) ...... 62-14
11. Steve Burgess (77) ..... 43-0
12. Ryan Radford (88) ...... 34-11
13. Adam Woodland (90) ... 33-5
14. Steve Sewell (103) ...... 31-3
15. Matt Taynton (74) ....... 23-0
16. Lee Waller (78) .......... 20-1

Silvers:

1. Lee Waller (78) .......... 20-1
2. Steve Sewell (103) .... 17-5
3. Alan Healey (97) ....... 14-14
4. Ron Hardiman (81) ... 11-11
5. Matt Taynton (74) ..... 11-2
6. Rich Britton (94) ....... 7-5
7. Steve Burgess (77) .... 6-12

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!

Viaduct, Match Lake, 22 Feb (12 pegs)

I'd love to go on for ages about how well this match fished but I won't because it didn't unfortunately.

No idea why really as the lake is stuffed with fish of all kinds including loads of F1's, usually reliable all year round, and plenty of carp up to double figures.

But winter has a habit of throwing a spanner in the works and it did just that today.

I was a bit surprised though when I looked out of the window to see a frozen fishing bus on the drive as the forecast was for wind and heavy rain all day, not to worry though as it wasn't long before it arrived in force.

No Derek again today so my travelling partner was trainee Match Secretary Will Dearlove (well he hasn't denied it yet), who kindly insisted on getting my breakfast at Shipham cafe .... And that was the hilight of our day (and Will only had a coffee)!

I drew the last ticket which gave me peg 50, an island chuck, and Paul in the shop reckoned it was one of the better draws.

 Chuck (tight) to the island with maggot on the hook for F1s and carp and fish 13m for skimmers as it's usually a reliable peg for these on the pole line, happy days then!

The bait lineup consisted of last week's leftover maggots (executed in the freezer overnight), a pint of immaculate casters from Scott Tackle on Soundwell Road, Kingswood BS16  4QP

(Other tackle outlets are available)

A tin of meat, cut up and untouched and an unopened tin of Aldi's best corn.

No live maggots due to the inclement weather forecast and the fact that I keep my seat box and bait bag permanently in the back of the fishing bus and it's only 2 weeks old so I could do without the usual fly hatch problems.

For company on the bank today I had Ryan Radford on 51 and Psv chairman Mike Wilson (briefly) on 49 who threw in the very wet towel by 1 o clock.

Going around the corner was Steve O Toole on 48 who also surrendered early. Although he did have the full force of the weather straight in his face which is never pleasant when you can't get a bite for love nor money.

And next to Steve was Alan Healey, more on that later!

Due to spending too much time in the shop absorbing Paul Greenwood's fountain of knowledge I only had time to set up a small cage feeder three times

(1st plopped into the lake before I'd finished tying on a connector bead and the 2nd got "tree-d" on the first attempt to clip up)  plus a 4x12 rig for 13m, or anywhere else, as the  depth was around 2½ feet all over give or take a few inches.

After dropping a couple of balls of caster-loaded groundbait on two lines at 13m

I started off on the tip with 2 dead reds giving the hordes of hungry skimmers a chance to move in on the pole line.

But despite my pinpoint casting accuracy, apart from a tiny twitch, it never moved for an hour during which time Matt Challenger had snared a good skimmer on the tip and Mark Radford had managed an early carp on the pole.

Out on the 13m line then and the blank was avoided by a microscopic roach.

And that's how the next four hours continued, a fairly steady stream of weightless roach.

Further visits to the island were unrewarded apart from a liner that looked suspiciously like it had been caused by a passing duck but I was staying positive.

With an hour to go nobody appeared to be catching much and a few had either packed up or were wandering around looking wet and bored.

Alan Healey then proceeded to land a big carp fishing long down the edge immediately cancelling out my collection of fry. 

Ryan also started catching across on the feeder with maggot, netting a couple of small F1's and carp.

With my collection of fry unlikely to trouble the silvers pool which was looking to be a race between Lee Waller and Matt Taynton, I was determined to rescue my pound from Alan and had a look down the edge to the right with double caster on the hook and started catching roach of a slightly better stamp (but still under 2oz) before the float slid away and plenty of elastic appeared.

I never found out what the culprit was though as it came off!
And that was as good as it got for me.

Alan's near-9lb carp together with his  3lbs of silvers was enough for first place followed by Mark Radford with a slightly smaller carp and the same weight of silvers.

The silvers pool itself was won comfortably by Matt Taynton with 7-12 

So as I said at the start, it was not a match to remember other than that Chris Gay weighed in more than Steve O Toole and therefore won the knockout, which I (and everyone else except Chris Gay had completely forgotten about) so well done Chris!



Full Result:

1. Alan Healey (47) ....... 11-14
2. Mark Radford (41) ........ 9-11
3. Matt Challenger (52) ..... 8-5
4. Ryan Radford (51) ........ 8-0
5. Matt Taynton (42) ......... 7-12
6. Lee Waller (40) ............ 3-8
7. Chris Gay (44) ............. 3-4
8. Steve Burgess (50) ....... 2-12
9. Adam Caswell (43) ........ 0-8 
10. and three dnw's

Silvers:

1. Matt Taynton ........ 7-12
2. Lee Waller ............ 3-8
3. Chris Gay ............. 3-4
4. Alan Healey / Mark Radford ... 3-0
5. Steve Burgess ...... 2-12
6. Matt Challenger .... 1-3
7. Adam Caswell ....... 0-8
   

This week (today) is at Landsend but I'm not fishing so your next exciting instalment will be coming to you from the capable fingers of Mr Szakacs.

Viaduct, Campbell, 26 October (16 pegs)

Up bright and early this morning as my normal travelling partner Derek wasn't fishing today as he has been having a bit of an identity crisis of late and now thinks he's a Secret Agent.

Instead I'd offered to pick up "Little Les" aka Adam Caswell but this did mean travelling into deepest, darkest Knowle and as I had no idea where I was going around the backstreets of Beirut it was a case of lock the doors, don't stop for anything and pray the Satnav doesn't let me down.

Fortunately it didn't (almost) and as a result we were around the first arrivals at Lilypool cafe in Shipham which is a new one for me.

Arriving at Viaduct, on time for once, it was also good to discover that the immaculately turned out Will Daiwalove, who had been given a day pass by his wife (seriously), had pretty much sorted everything out for me and for my penance I was given the choice of the two last tickets.

I chose 125 and Will ended up with 129 so both good pegs and mine had won the match the day before so no complaints were forthcoming.

A trip to Viaduct HQ with the weigh sheet revealed The Gimp boiling a dozen maggots to death to provide 6hrs-worth of hookbaits - I prefer to freeze mine humanely but I guess either way is fairly unpleasant if you're a maggot - but anyway, Paul advised I concentrate on chucking a lead or full-depth wag out into the centre of the lake, slightly to the left, where the fish would be queuing up to be caught.

I was happy with that as they were the only rods I had made-up anyway.

So on arriving at my peg I stuck those two rods together and set up a rig for 6m to use up the tin of meat I'd bought.

For company I had the comedy partnership of Steve O Toole and Lee Waller on 126 and 128 and up in 123 was Ryan Radford which was today's Golden Peg and therefore safe because, as everyone knows, this peg is stuffed full of big fat skimmers and tench!

Across from me Keith Ray had occupied 119 with Rich Jones next to him on 118.

And next down was another comedy partnership of Rocket Ron Hardiman (116) and Brian Shanks (115) who had disguised himself as Clint Elliot.

The start was on time as I'd only had to set up one rig and after feeding the meat line I started off on the tip with an 11mm pellet in the band and gave it the obligatory pellet barrage.

After a short wait the rod bent double and a good sized fish was soon in the net to start the ball rolling.

I wasn't alone though, as Ryan had somehow managed to avoid the skimmers and tench and was on his second carp. And a few others had early fish as well including Rich Jones and also Stevie Wynne down on 112.

Chris Szakacs, who hadn't been too happy with drawing 110 again was also catching.

Meanwhile i was finding it slow going and with 45 minutes gone had only added another fish to my nets.

So the tip rod was dumped and teplaced by the full-depth wag rod but it didn't improve my catch rate and by now Ryan was leaving me standing and I was just about holding my own elsewhere.

I was also finding it tricky to get the wag out to where I'd been sending the pellet artillery and it wasn't until the end of the second hour and a few more fish later that I discovered the problem which was that the line was wrapped around the tip between the tip eye and the next one down, which was most likely due to setting the rods up last night in the kitchen whilst being distracted by The X-Factor and bottles of Stella.

That was duly sorted and after that the float cast out a whole lot better but it still never really made much of a difference to my catch rate which was slow but consistent.
Ryan meanwhile was getting one-a-chuck on 8mm banded pellet at 13m and by the half-way stage Brian Shanks had gotten his act together after going through various methods (I'm sure I even saw a lead plop out at one stage) and was catching steadily on the pole on the deck I think.
Halfway through the match and even Steve O Toole was getting carp next down to me on the pole line, although he was having a bit of drama getting them in, all the same I had a look on the pole line with meat on the hook and had two fish straight away but lost the second one which killed it so I was soon back out on the wag / tip.
By now the fish were swirling on the feed so, not having had a pellet wag set up, I shallowed up the waggler rig and tried that which resulted in no fish and a couple of foulers that broke the hooklengths, back on the tip then while I re-made the waggler rod.

The last hour was my best hour and I even managed a couple that snatched the hookbait as it landed including the best fish of the day.
Brian also was having a late charge catching regular fish from his margins and it was looking like he was going to give Ryan a run for his money as Ryan was struggling by then but it turned out he had done enough, uncomfortably winning with 161-0 which resulted in a good earner with £60 winnings and £48 for the Golden peg.
I say "uncomfortably winning" as his first net went 79-12 and so was 4oz away from being disqualified.
Brian managed second with 134-12 and sneaking into 3rd was Will Daiwalove with 125-8 ahead of myself with 113-13.

The Silvers pool was won by Lee Waller with 18-2 from 127 just ahead of his neighbour Colin Butler who weighed in 15-2

Ryan Radford

 Full Result:

1. Ryan Radford (peg 123)* ..... 161-0
2. Brian Shanks (115) ........... 134-12
3. Will Daiwalove (129) ......... 125-8
4. Steve Burgess (125) ......... 113-13
5. Ron Hardiman (116) ......... 106-8
6. Richard Jones (118) .......... 105-10
7. Chris Szakacs (110) .......... 104-12
8. Steve Wynne (112) ........... 90-2
9. Steve O Toole (126) .......... 89-1
10. Keith Ray (119) ................ 78-4
11. Lee Waller (127) ............... 54-14
12. Mark Radford (111) ........... 34-10
13. Adam Caswell (132) .......... 30-2
14. Colin Butler (128) ............. 15-2
15. John Bradford (114) .......... 10-12
16. and one dnw read all about it here!

*golden peg


Silvers:

1. Lee Waller (127) ..... 18-2
2. Colin Butler (128) .... 15-2
3. Mark Radford (111) ... 13-10
4. John Bradford (114) ... 10-12
5. Will Daiwalove (129) ... 10-6

There was a bit of controversy today but fortunately not in our match.
Next door on Cary another club was fishing a match and I guess they weren't regular visitors as there seemed to be a bit of a misunderstanding over the net limits.
One guy went over the 70lbs limit and as a result missed out on winning the match and didn't take it to well.
Apparently he reckoned that their match secretary hadn't explained the rules properly and had given the impression that a couple of pounds over the "70" wouldn't matter as long as it was under 80lbs
He then decided that the match organiser, the club and the fishery were all a bunch of ***** and stormed off after resigning from the club!

And on a lighter note ... please note that Psv members wanting to fish the Christmas match at Bitterwell (Sunday 07 December) will need to get their £15 pools to Mike Wilson or myself by, or at, the November meeting which is on Tuesday 04 November at The Midland Spinner, Warmley.

Viaduct, Campbell, 07 September (18 pegs)

 

So after a well-deserved two week break in Ibiza spent mostly asleep in various places (according to my son) it was back down to Viaduct.

Mind you, I almost never went as I spent all day Saturday suffering from a severe dose of man-flu and after spending the evening in one of Staple Hill's finest Indian restaurants I booked myself out and phoned my travelling partner at 11pm to tell him I wouldn't be picking him up in the morning (which is normally severely frowned upon but I let myself off on this occasion).

However I woke up at 5am and thought sod it, threw my gear in the van and coughed and sneezed my way down to Shipham for breakfast .... In hindsight I might as well have stayed in bed as arriving at the fishery we were told by Steve Long that the Saturday open had been a struggle and had been won with just 101-12 from peg 128 and that anyone catching over 100lbs today would do well!

A bit of a shame then as Viaduct has been fishing it's nuts off all summer with most matches requiring 200-plus to frame but never mind, at least the sun was shining (and I'd forgotten my hat)!

It did occur to me that I did bump into Kev Dicks when I went in Scotts on Saturday to pick up a few bits and he asked if I had enough nets as I would need five at least ... kiss of death then!

On to the match then, and seeing as Will Dearlove had done all the hard work, bless him, I let him have the last peg (130) and I took the second last which gave me 127. I wasn't too bothered where I drew as there was almost no wind and there were fish active all over the lake.

For company I had Lee Waller on 128, yesterday's winning peg, and Rich Britton on 126 so a chip shop battering was looking extremely likely but at least it meant I wouldn't need to worry about running out of cigs.

Opposite on 115 was Alan Healey and the six-toed sprat-basher from Bridgwater was up on the top bank on 121 so I had a clear view of where my pound coins would be heading.

The corners were occupied by Chris Szakacs on 110, Ryan Radford on 132, Chris Davis on 119 and Kev Jefferies on 123 which would be interesting......

I didn't have much of a plan formulated as I hadn't looked at my kit for three weeks so it would be a simple day with just 8mm pellet for bait and feed at 9m, 13m (shallow and on the deck) and in the right margin plus a lead rod and a wag rod were looked at and abandoned as they were in an horrendous tangle in the rod case so it was to be "pole-only" for me today. 

After the almost on-time start, as predicted not a lot was happening.  Rich Britton had an early fish on the lead (which was worrying) as did a few others on various methods including myself getting one on the 13m "deep" rig first drop, but nobody seemed to be running away with it except for Derek, my ex travelling partner, on 135 who had five carp in the first hour which is probably the best hour's fishing he has had for about four years!

Lee next door was struggling to get a bite from anything as was Alan Healey and a few others.  And those that were getting fish were losing as many as they were netting.

Rich Britton was managing to put a few together by swapping between the lead and the shallow wag and I was getting odd fish on the pole but was missing loads of bites, some were sailaways maybe liners and the float was going under every couple of minutes but I wasn't connecting with hardly anything apart from the previously mentioned carp and a baby tench plus one good skimmer that thought it was a carp.

It didn't help much either that I couldn't see the yellow float tip against the glare from the sun and was relying on either Rich Britton telling my float had disappeared  or waiting for a load of elastic to come out of the end of the pole which is always a good indication that something has taken the bait!

At one point I struck at a bite and spooked a couple of shallow fish so I went out on the shallow rig and had one almost straight away but nothing followed and that was the only fish I had on that rig so no more on that as they say.

Back out on the deck rig and I hooked a fish that tore off like a foul-hooked train towards Colin Butler on 112 so I stuck the pole under the water and braced myself for the inevitable but it didn't happen and after much elastic pulling I got it within netting distance and realised that it wasn't foul-hooked at all but was a beast of a fish.  Despite having played it almost to a standstill, due to it's weight and there being too much give in the elastic I couldn't get it's head up so tried to net it under the water but it side-stepped the net and went for the platform leg in slow-motion resulting in the inevitable rig explosion and much abuse from all around the lake.

That was enough for me and my "pole-only" day.  I took a timeout and set up a wag rod.

Elsewhere Mark Radford was putting a weight together on 114, fishing long towards the redundant peg 113, Chris Davis was also getting a few fishing into the corner and Rich Britton was still steadily sneaking a few out.

Alan Healey however, had spent the best part of his day hunched over a motionless tip rod feeding the fish that were swirling on the top in front of him whilst rolling fags to keep himself busy (he did have a few breaks to loose fish on the pole line) and Derek was having a rest after his busy first hour and was topping up his suntan.

Lee next to me had started getting a few silvers in between loosing carp, six-toed Lee was getting a few lumps and Adam on 125 had "decided" to go for silvers (presumably as he had foul-hooked a couple of skimmers).

My pellet waggler efforts had produced one tiny carp plus several lost fish, plenty of frustration and a lost rig where the mainline strangely broke on the strike so I was soon back in "pole-only" mode which wasn't much more productive but a couple of 4oz skimmers maybe answered the mystery of the un-hitable bite problem I had earlier.

A look down in the right margin that I had been hand feeding with 8mm's all day gave nothing more than a few tiny dips on the float from the resident fry so that was abandoned and I spent the last hour back out on the pellet waggler.

This time the fish seemed to have gained a bit of confidence and bites were coming thick and fast but unfortunately, of the six fish I hooked in the last hour I only managed to land one.  The rest either pinged off or broke the hooklengths so that will be the last time I will be buying pre-tied banded hooklengths (laziness). Odd too that they were tied to 0.20 powerline when I usually tie my own to 0.16 powerline and don't get that many breakages (I got through the whole pack of 10 today)

Anyway, the 4 o' clock finish came (and went) but I couldn't manage another one in extra time so I called the "all out" and guestimated my weight at 50lbs.

Steve was soon round with the scales having started with Ryan Radford on 132 who had struggled for only 20ish pounds.

By the time the scales arrived Will Dearlove was leading with 74-11, my efforts went 50-6 which was 6oz over my guestimated weight (take note Lee / Alan).

Rich Britton then took over the top place with 89-6 and Adam's collection of foul-hooked skimmers and tench went to 16-7 and was looking safe in that department as Kev Jefferies had cocked up peg 123 and didn't weigh.

Six-toed Lee put 68-6 on the scales robbing me of a pound coin (read all about it here) and it was then round to Chris Davis on 119 who managed 104-1 of carp plus a few silvers for a total of 108-15.

Keith Ray managed 52-8 from 118, Lionel and Alan dnw'd which was unfortunate for Al but good for me as I got my pound back!

And then it was Mark Radford's turn and it was going to be close ....

105-14 of carp but only 2lbs of silvers meant a total of 107-14 so not quite enough but despite the lake fishing well below par it was a very tight result.

Next weekend we're at Avalon and there are plenty of spaces for that one so give me a call if you fancy it.

 

Full Result:

1. Chris Davis (119) ........... 108-15
2. Mark Radford (114) .......... 107-14
3. Rich Britton (126) ............ 89-6
4. Ron Hardiman (111) ......... 76-8
5. Will Dearlove (130) .......... 74-11
6. Lee Williams (121) ........... 68-6
7. Keith Ray (118) ............... 52-8
8. Steve Burgess (127) ........ 50-6
9. Derek Lucas (135) ........... 43-13
10. Rich Jones (129) ............. 41-13
11. Adam Caswell (125) ........ 37-0
12. Ryan Radford (132) ......... 20-2
13. Lee Waller (128) ............. 15-2
14. Colin Butler (112) ........... 13-2
15. and 4 Dnw's including Alan Healey

Silvers:

1. Adam Caswell ....... 16-7
2. Lee Waller ............ 15-2
3. Colin Butler .......... 13-2
4. Steve Burgess ...... 5-13
5. Rich Britton .......... 5-12

 

Easter Eggstravaganza, Viaduct, Campbell, 20 April

 

20 fishing today and Steve had pegged it slightly different than usual leaving out the set-back pegs (113 & 117) and putting in 121 and 135 instead which are in the middle of the end banks.

It's been a long time since I've seen these pegs fished and the last time I remember the match was won from 135 by Mark Britton, which shows how long ago that was as Mark hasn't been allowed to go fishing for quite a few years now.

On that day, if I remember rightly, he narrowly beat Bob Warren (his travelling partner) into 2nd and it was also the golden peg.

Anyway, payout today would be top four and two silvers, the same as the last time we fished here back in mid-March which saved me any early morning maths as I used the same figures from the last match.

As an added bonus, all the framing places got an Easter egg because I'm good like that!

Unusually for me I was running a bit late but I arrived to find that the ever-dependable Will Dearlove had collected up all the money and got the pegs, coffee tin and weighboard all sorted so when it came down to the now inevitable Mexican standoff for the last peg I was going to give in but he dived in first and picked 135 which looked like a good draw today and I was left with 132 which was the golden peg so I wasn't too disappointed either regardless of the fact that the last time round Stewart Riddle was in here and moaned his way to a dnw.

Since then the fish have spread out a bit around the lake and besides, I planned to fish it a bit different to how Stewart tackled the peg which involved 0.10 hooklengths and 4 elastic.

Incidentally, Ron Hardiman was hanging around the end of the draw queue and he picked the third from last peg which was 118, the peg he won from last time with 201lbs and with nobody in 117 he was also an happy (Easter) bunny.

For company today, I had Pete the meat Uzzell in 131, Darren North in 130 and Mark Radford on this side of the spit on 129.

As already mentioned, Will was around the corner in 135 and opposite me were Rich Britton in 110, Keith Ray in 111 and Mike Wilson in 112.

My plan of attack was fairly simple, a lead rod that was already set up, a wagg rod (also ready made up) that was only set up as it was new and I wanted to christen it but that never happened, and two pole rigs, one for straight out at 11m with meat and one for into the corner as close as I dared to the big over-hanging willow tree.

I didn't bother to plumb up the margin tight into the bank past the tree as even though it looked very inviting I expected there to be a fair bit of branches and other rubbish there which would be a bit of a nightmare so I was hoping to tempt the inhabitants out of the snags and into the clearer water where I would have more chance of hauling them out ...... that was the plan anyway!

So with not much to set up we were started on time for a change.

On the start I fed both the pole lines with pellet and meat and went out on the lead over towards the left bank and began the pellet barrage.

Most of my neighbours had started off in pretty much the same vein, except for Darren North, who had started off on the pole fishing shallow, no doubt in an effort to get one over on Brian Shanks who doesn't like being beaten on his speciality, least of all by one of his employees.

It wasn't very long before Rich Britton was reeling in his first fish and Pete Uzzell, Mark Radford and Will all followed suit but it took a fair while before my rod tip headed towards Somerton and put me back into contention and my first pellet went on the tray, which was my version of a fish-counter as I didn't want to do a "Chris" and fall foul of the 70lb net limit. 

My thought was to start a second net after 10 pellets which would allow for an average size of 7lbs and hopefully give me room for error.

As time went on my early confidence was fading as for some reason bites were hard to come by and it was looking like my pellet counter was going to be a bit pointless.

Pete had also cottoned on to the pellet counter trick only his pile of pellets was growing at a much greater rate than mine.

A switch to the pole with meat produced a fish almost instantly and for a moment I thought the tide had turned but it hadn't as nothing followed.

An early look down to the tree produced a fish straight away on meat, followed by a sailaway bite that I missed completely probably due to me not concentrating and then another fish that wasn't having any of it and won a tug-of-war battle under the tree by breaking my hooklength.

In the meantime, everyone around me seemed to be doing better except maybe Darren who was being a bit grumpy.

Will was catching anywhere and everywhere, Rich Britton was hooking brambles, snapping pole sections but still getting a few and Pete was being smug and giving me a running count of how many pellets he had on his tray!

With two hours left I was going nowhere slowly switching between the lead the pole and the rain that was forecast had started.

Going back down to the tree produced a big foul-hooked fish that I managed to get in but then went dead, so I threw caution to the wind, shortened the rig and stuck another section on to fish past the tree tight to the bank.

This resulted in almost a bite a chuck although I did pull out of a few due to pulling too hard and I probably doubled my pellet pile in the last 30 minutes, so that was a lesson learned.

Another lesson learned was that the pellet counter system I had developed doesn't work in the rain and by the end of the match I was left with a pile of mush on my tray.

The weigh-in was a bit of a nightmare as when Steve turned up with the scales the heavens opened making it almost impossible to write the weights down.

I ended up having to add up all the weighs in my head and then quickly open the folder and put the totals down but even so, by the time I got to Brian Shanks on peg 123 the pen was completely dead and the weigh-sheet was turning to paper-mache.

I was first to weigh and my pile of mush gave me a total of 12 fish for 65-11 so my estimated average of 7lbs per fish was a bit over-cautious.

I was soundly beaten by Pete "the meat" who had 77-15 despite me telling him his peg was crap at the start. 

The lake hadn't fished too well on the whole but the winner once again was Rocket Ron on 118 with 167lbs exactly which now makes Ron the club's current "big weight" specialist - a title he may not be too happy with!

Ron caught all his fish on meat on the lead and also on the pole.

Second was new signing Andy Gay on 115 with 83-0, followed closely by Rich Britton with 82-5 and Mark Radford with 80-5.

I didnt manage to get all the silvers weights but Brian Shanks won that with 16-1 from peg 123 and Darren was 2nd with 8-something so despite the "attitude" he still went home with 30 notes and an Easter egg and left with a smile.

The same couldn't be said for Chris Szakacs as although he caught a few fish, three of his pole sections got blown in to the lake at the end, he managed to rescue two of them but he was forced to strip down to his budgie-smugglers and go for a swim to retrieve his number 4.

Steve Wynne had similar troubles but he chose to shrug his shoulders and laugh it off as his matches usually involve some kind of disaster and he's used to it.

Steve Long did say he'd put his chest waders on and have a hunt for his sections for him which was good of him so hopefully Steve should be reunited with them in the near future.

 

Full Result:

1. Rocket Ron Hardiman (peg 118) ...... 167-0
2. Andy Gay (115) ............... 83-0
3. Richard Britton (110) ........ 82-5
4. Mark Radford (129) .......... 80-5
5. Pete the meat Uzzell (131) .. 77-15
6. Chris Szakacs (114) ......... 77-7
7. Al Healey / Rich Jones (126 / 127) ... 75-4
8. Steve Burgess* (132) ....... 65-11
9. Brian Shanks (123) .......... 65-9
10. Will Dearlove (135) ........... 64-2
11. Lee Waller** (116) ........... 63-7
12. Simon Belcham (125) ....... 57-13
13. Adam Caswell (121) .......... 52-2
14. Mike Welling (128) ............ 48-11
15. Mike Wilson (112) ............ 47-11
16. Darren North (130) .......... 41-11
17. Stevie Wynne (119) .......... 35-2
18. Ryan Radford (124) .......... 23-0
19. Keith Ray (111) ............... dnw

**golden peg
***silver peg

Next week we are at Sedges on Tile Lake and we have all 20 pegs taken at the moment but the pegging is quite generous so it should still fish well.
Sunday's match was won with 144lbs from peg 40 which is the peg I've drawn in the last two matches we've fished there so that should be interesting, especially towards the back of the draw queue!

Viaduct, Campbell, 16 March (20 pegs)

Another pleasant day, not as warm as last Sunday and a bit breezier but after the crappy wet winter we've had any bit of sunshine is more than welcome.

20 fishing today, which is a good number as it makes the maths easy!

Payout today was to be top 4 and 2 silvers as there was no Kev Jefferies and I was hoping for some good weights seeing as the recent warm weather had got the resident carp into feeding mode and hopefully they would be spreading out a bit now that the winter pellet ban had been lifted.

As for my match it was cursed from the start as I left home without my fishing hat which has been firmly attached to my head for every match since before I had grey hair, except for one match last year down at Landsend when Bob Warren had left his behind and it was pissing down with rain so, against my better judgement,  I let him borrow it and he kicked my arse off the next peg

which was a first as far as I remember.

Following on from that initial disaster, at the draw there were two tickets left in the back of the fishing bus and Will Dearlove had decided he was going to have the last one despite the fact that I always have the last peg.

So seeing as Will had dug his size 6 Cuban heels in and wasn't going to give in I let him have the last one and he drew peg 116 and I ended up with 131 and even Steve Long in the shop couldn't come up with something positive to say about that draw so that was disaster #2.

But that won't be happening again as I will be having the last peg from now on no matter how much of a stalemate there is. 

And I noticed that even Tony Rixon has cottoned on to this as he had the last peg at Landsend yesterday and drew 19!

Anyway, arriving at the peg it was looking even less promising as the water was quite clear and there was no sign of anything (carpy) moving, although there was a bit of fizzing at 11m which I guessed / was hoping would be skimmers.

For company I had Stewart Riddle on 132 and Steve O Toole on 130.

Rich Britton was on 129 and I expected him to do the best out of these 4 pegs.

I hadn't prepped any kit on the night before as i never seem to do any good when i turn up organised so I just set up a lead rod and a full-depth wag outfit (both for a banded 8mm pellet,

Which left me just enough time to set up a pole rig for the 11m line  to fish last week's maggots over last week's micros.

And I had a shallow pellet rig in reserve just in csse!

At the "all-in" I fed the pole line with a pot full of maggots and micros and went out on the wag.

Derek Lucas, opposite on 111 landed a carp straight away, much to the disgust of his neighbour for the second week in a row, Brian Shanks  and with others further up the lake also catching, I resigned myself to a day of spectating but the float went under and carp #1 gave itself up.

Carp #2 followed shortly along with a third by the end of the first hour leading me to believe there was hope but it was short-lived (a "false dawn" as they say)!

Nothing further followed on the wag or the lead and a half-hearted switch to the shallow wag also produced nothing.

Steve and Rich Britton were doing a little better but not a lot, and Stewart was doing his best to moan a carp out of peg 132 without success.

Opposite, Derek had failed to build on his flying start whereas Brian was catching a few on the pole shallow and giving him (and Chris Szakacs) a repeat of last weeks fishing lesson at Trinity.

Keith in 110 was slso struggling but all the pegs further up the lake were catching.

By now Stewart had given up fishing for non-existant carp and was out on the pole with an ultra-light rig for skimmers which could only have one inevitable result and sure enough he was soon having a torrid time!

My 11m line was only any good for "blade" roach so I gave it up and resigned myself to catching the same stamp of fish on my topkit either side of my nets just to keep myself occupied and to use up last week's maggots and micros.

This proved to be quite successful with a bite every put-in but unfortunately it takes a lot of roach to make up a good silvers weight when they average 4 to an ounce and when the "bonus"  2-ouncers fall off mid swing it can be a tad frustrating!

So I got fed up and slung the last of the micros in to my right margin and put 2 maggots on the hook which produced my fifth and final carp of the day.

My five carp went to 30lbs-ish and with my collection of roach and perch fry went a total of 34-0 for absolutely nowhere but I had faired better than the other three pegs at this end.

Stewart was long gone and both Keith and Derek in 110 & 111 had tipped back.

I didn't follow the scales round as, despite not being able to see a great deal from my peg, I had a good idea what had been caught from the Bankside Telegraph and also the fact that a few anglers had wandered down our end to borrow extra nets which was a bit of a giveaway.

The match was won by Rocket Ron Hardiman with 201lbs 10oz from peg 118

It would have been a bit more but he had 7lbs knocked off of one his nets ... There's always one! Although there were actually two but I don't include Chris Szakacs as he does it every time he fishes at Viaduct (can't count past 10)

For the record Ron caught on meat and pellet on the lead and later with meat on the pole in close.

Second on the day was Will Dearlove with 145-1 caught from the peg I should have had, 116 (but I won't go on about it).

Will caught on meat on the full-depth wag, I think, but I'm sure he will correct that in the comments if it's wrong.

Third place went to Lee Waller with 134-5 caught on the pole with pellet from peg 126
And in fourth place was a much improved Matt Taynton with 129-3 from peg 127.


Full Result:

1. Rocket Ron Hardiman (118) ...... 201-10
2. Will Dearlove (116) ....... 145-1
3. Lee Waller (126) .......... 134-5
4. Matt Taynton (117) ....... 129-3
5. Matt Challenger (123) .... 112-9
6. Ryan Radford (119) ....... 107-15
7. Brian Shanks (112) ........ 99-11
8. Chris Szakacs (115) ....... 92-1
9. Adam Caswell (125) ....... 90-2
10. Alan Healey (124) .......... 85-6
11. Rich Jones (127) ............ 76-15
12. Mark Radford (128) ........ 67-7
13. Rich Britton (129) ........... 57-0
14. Steve O Toole (130) ....... 50-13
15. Steve Burgess (131) ....... 34-0
16. Chris Gay* (114) ............ 17-0
17. plus 3 dnw's and 1 early bath

*golden peg

Silvers:

1. Mark Radford (128) ...... 18-9
2. Chris Gay (114) ........... 17-0
3. Brian Shanks (112) ...... 15-15
4. Matt Challenger (123) ... 13-13
5. Ryan Radford (119) ...... 12-1
6. Rich Britton (129) ......... 7-3
7. Ron Hardiman (118) ..... 6-2
8. Rich Jones (127) .......... 6-2
9. Lee Waller (126) .......... 4-7
10. Steve Burgess (131) ..... 4-7
11. Will Dearlove (116) ....... 4-5
12. Steve O Toole (130) ..... 4-3
13. Chris Szakacs (115) ...... 2-9
14. Alan Healey (124) ........ 1-12  

Viaduct, Campbell, 10 November (15 pegs)

After a week of wind and rain the weathermen had promised a bit of a respite today and they were right and although the overnight temperature only just held above freezing we were blessed with a warm(ish) and clear day with hardly any wind for the second fixture of the Psv Winter Series.

For whatever reason however, maybe the weather conditions, the recent top up of cold rain or the start of the winter pellet ban, the fish decided to shut up shop for the day and it was tough going and not just for us as the matches on Cary and Lodge were also a struggle.

Apart from a few odd fish coming out around the lake, Mike Wilson had one early on the pole and Matt Taynton also snared one early on the waggler, most of us were resigned to the frustration of motionless floats and rod tips and even the silvers were refusing to cooperate.

As the day went on though a few pegs were showing signs of activity with Chris Szakacs finding a few fish on the 14m line down on 129 and both Matt Taynton and Will Dearlove (126 & 116) catching odd fish on the waggler with corn as was Brian Shanks on 119.

And that was pretty much how it finished up with Chris Szakacs (pictured below) winning fairly convincingly with 54-10 caught on meat at 14m.

Chris is on a bit of a roll at the moment having won or framed in every match he's fished recently. 

He has been doing well lately catching down the edge over groundbait although this week he tried something a little different and fed a Samsung Galaxy S3 down the edge. I tried to call him later to ask how he got on but unfortunately his phone was switched off!

Will Dearlove took second place with 41-0 caught on corn on the waggler and Brian Shanks was 3rd with a similarly caught 32-10. 

Silvers went to Simon Belcham with 13-6 from peg 112 which came as no surprise as Simon is the only club member with the patience to target fish that aren't capable of pulling a float all the way under for six hours.

Bob Warren did once go through a phase  of chasing silvers glory, no doubt under the influence of his midweek carer Mike Nicholls, but he has now regained his senses and even managed to catch proper fish on the lead today.

Seond in today's Silvers pool (yes, 2 silvers payouts today in the absence of Kev Jefferies) was Mark Radford with 9-2 from peg 110.

Full Result:

1. Chris Szakacs (peg 129) ...... 54-10
2. Will Dearlove (116) ....... 41-0
3. Brian Shanks (119) ....... 32-10
4. Ryan Radford (118) ....... 23-8
5. Matt Taynton (126) ........ 22-0
6. Bob Warren (130) .......... 20-8
7. Simon Belcham (112) ..... 13-6
8. Mark Radford (110) ........ 13-2
9. Steve Burgess (127) ....... 9-13
10. Derek Lucas (123) .......... 4-12
11. and 5 dnw's

Silvers:

1.  Simon Belcham ........ 13-6
2. Mark Radford ............ 9-2
3. Matt Taynton ............ 5-12
4. Derek Lucas ............. 4-12
5. Brian Shanks ............ 3-12
6. Chris Szakacs ........... 3-5
7. Steve Burgess ........... 2-9
8. Bob Warren ............... 2-0

Finally, just to clear up a bit of confusion, the match at Trinity on the 24th is on Woodlands and not Ash Pool and there are plenty of spaces available so book now to avoid dissappointment.

And also, could I have names please (and ideally) deposits for the Christmas match so that I know how many prizes to get.