Sedges, Brick Lake, 08 June (16 pegs)

With 16 fishing today and everybody in the pools it was a simple matter of taking out 2 pegs on each side, that was until all the would-be match organisers decided to have their say, so after much deliberation, 2 & 3 were left out on the bank shared with Tile and 13 & 19 on the opposite bank.

Personally I would have taken peg 1 out (and 20) as these pegs had no wind but a certain person was ADAMant that peg 1 was full of carp, so much so that he was happy to be given the peg. 

I was tempted to let him have it but I didn't and Alan Healey drew it instead!

He probably won't be running to it next time around!

Anyway, we had a practice draw before the main event and I drew out a couple of iffy pegs and then left it as I didn't want to jinx my chances in the proper draw.

And that proved to be a wise move as the last ping-pong ball in the bucket was peg 11 which is the top right corner and the wind was blowing up there.

Brian Shanks drew 10, the opposite corner which usually wins when there is a tidy angler on it and for company I had Chris Gay on 12 which was a repeat of last week but hopefully the result would not be quite so unfortunate ... It wasn't!

Setting up never took long, a shallow rig for 8mm pellet which never got wet and a rig for 14m along into the corner which was about 4' deep to fish meat over 5mm pellet.

Finally, the wag rod was untangled and set up for 8mm pellet at about 12 inches deep.

On the "all in" I fed the corner with a cup of pellet and meat, fired out a pouch of 8mm's and slung the wag out.

By this time Brian was playing his first fish and I was beginning to worry that I was going to get my backside spanked again by the Westerleigh Slapper when the rod was nearly ripped from between my knees.

Needless to say I never saw that fish but the next fish wasn't long in coming.

By casting about two thirds of the way across and letting the float drift into a small gap in the reeds I was getting some really confident bites and after an hour and a half I was quite a bit ahead of Brian who was struggling a bit on the pole but he dug out a waggler rod and caught on that straight away casting around the tree that overhangs peg 10.

By midway the fish in my peg started to get a bit cagey and I was having to cast a bit further along the bank and out into the open water to keep the bites coming. Brian meanwhile had abandoned the wag rod and was back on the pole and getting a few fish from in the corner of his peg and to my left, Chris Gay was catching in close and made sure everyone knew it by wandering up and down the bank with "weighers".

Just before the last hour we had a downpour and the wind dropped for a short while and after that I struggled.

I had a look down the edge with the meat rig which resulted in a foulhooker that came off and not much else.

In hindsight I could have tried the shallow rig down the edge but it was of little consequence as my 20 or so carp went 134lbs exactly which was good enough for 1st although Brian was only 1 fish away from that with 125-8 so it was close.

Chris Gay made the best of the empty peg next to him and weighed in 83-12 for third place catching mainly on worm over groundbait close in.

I forgot to ask him if he caught on a single worm or a specific number of pieces of worm ... I'm sure he will put me right!

And fourth was Pete Uzzell with 57-2 from peg 6. His weight was boosted quite a bit with a fish that went just over 22lbs which he hooked minutes before the end of the match and it was just starting to get dark by the time he landed it but at least it gave his new pole a good workout and the section money he won should go some way towards paying for it!

[I'm pretty sure that Matt Williams has been sent the picture by now]

The silvers fished really well today by Psv standards and made up 1/4 of the total weighed in.

Rocket Ron Hardiman took the honours from peg 4 with 35-12 of good quality skimmers caught on 8mm meat fished at 6m.

Second was Matt Taynton on peg 18 with 24-8 caught on double caster at 14m

And Keith Ray managed 21-12 of skimmers from peg 8.

Section winners were Pete Uzzell by default and Mark Radford by lots of defaults!

Full Result:

1. Steve Burgess (11) ....... 134-0 (no silvers)
2. Brian Shanks (10) ............ 125-8
3. Chris Gay** (12) ............. 83-12
4. Pete Uzzell (6) ................ 57-2
5. Matt Taynton (18) ............ 48-5
6. Ron Hardiman (4) ............ 44-12
7. Mark Radford (16) ........... 40-12
8. Darren North (15) ........... 32-4
9. Mike Welling (9) .............. 27-8
10. Adam Caswell (7) ............ 26-10
11. Lee Waller (5) ................ 25-11
12. Keith Ray (8) .................. 21-12
13. Alan Healey (1) ............... 18-11
14. Ryan Radford* (17) ......... 17-12
15. John Bradford (20) .......... 8-8
16. Steve O Toole (14) .......... dnw

*golden peg

**silver peg

Silvers:

1. Rocket Ron Hardiman (4) ... 35-12
2. Matt Taynton (18) ....... 24-8
3. Keith Ray (8) ............. 21-12
4. Lee Waller (5) ........... 19-4
5. Pete Uzzell (6) .......... 15-9
6. Mike Welling (9) ........ 12-8
7. Chris Gay (12) .......... 12-0
8. John Bradford (20) .... 8-8
9. Darren North (15) ..... 7-4
10. Alan Healey (1) ........ 7-3
11. Adam Caswell (7) ..... 7-2
12. Ryan Radford (17) .... 6-4
13. Brian Shanks (10) ..... 2-4
14. Mark Radford (16) .... 2-0

Next week is on Campbell at Viaduct and I wont be there so please let me know by Friday if you can't make it so that I can give the fishery an idea of numbers and book a time slot that isn't going to upset anybody.

There are a couple of spaces left for this one.

This also means that your next update will be brought to you by the very talented and marginally less sarcastic Chris Szakacs.

Landsend 25 May / Shiplate 01 June

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and 6 dnw's

Silvers:

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

Shiplate, Hawthorns, 01 June (11 pegs)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and 2 dnw's (including myself)

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

Trinity blind pairs, 18 May (19 pegs)

Having given it a miss last week to keep the wife in line I was really looking forward to this especially seeing as the forecast was for a shorts & flip-flops day.

My usual travelling partner was away on family duties today so he was replaced by my end-of-the-draw-queue nemesis, Will Dearlove.
Unfortunately, the last pegs in the box let us down badly this week but that's another story.
As the title suggests, this week was a blind-pairs match and Misha kindly drew the pairs and sorted the pegging.
Payout was top three and one silvers overall, plus the top three pairs paid out additionally.
With the recent spell of warm weather a lot of the carp on the lake  were otherwise occupied and there was a breeze blowing diagonally across the lake into peg 6.
I won't bore you with the details as the winner, Lee Williams, has already done a good job of that : http://woolavy.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/psv-match-180514-trinity-woodlands-lake.html

Winner on the day was Lee in peg 6 with 116-4, close second was Brian Shanks with 114-12 from peg 8 and in third place (and battered from both sides)! was Darren North with 84-5 from peg 7.
Rich Jones came close to upsetting the windward corner domination with 83-5 from peg 32.

Silvers went to Adam Caswell on peg 15 with 7-12.
Winners of the pairs were Simon Belcham and Rich Jones.

Overall Result:

1. Lee Williams (peg 6) ......... 116-4
2. Brian Shanks (8) ............. 114-12
3. Darren North (7) ............. 84-5
4. Rich Jones (32) ............... 83-5
5. Simon Belcham (12) ........ 55-7
6. Ron Hardiman (13) .......... 42-7
7. Pete Uzzell (2) ................ 40-9
8. Mike Welling (30) ............ 40-7
9. Andy Gay (27) ................ 36-0
10. Ryan Radford (26) ........... 35-15
11. Chris Gay (29) ................ 33-9
12. Chris Szakacs (17) .......... 26-11
13. Steve Wynne (10) ........... 21-0
14. Mark Radford (23) ........... 19-0
15. Adam Caswell (15) .......... 16-0
16. Alan Healey (19) ............. 13-9
17. Steve Burgess (24) .......... 11-8
18. Will Dearlove (20) ........... 6-15
19. Lee Waller (3) ................. dnw

Silvers:

1. Adam Caswell ....... 7-12
2. Mike Welling ......... 7-3
3. Will Dearlove ........ 6-15
4. Chris Gay ............. 6-0
5. Ryan Radford ........ 5-12
6. Pete Uzzell ............ 5-1

Pairs:

1. Simon Belcham / Rich Jones (9pts) ... 138-12
2. Brian Shanks / Mike Welling (10) ...... 155-3
3. Pete Uzzell / Darren North (10) ........ 124-14
4. Lee Williams / Steve Wynne (14) ...... 137-4
5. Ron Hardiman / Chris Gay (17) ......... 76-0
6. Andy Gay / Mark Radford (23) .......... 55-0
7. Chris Szakacs / Steve Burgess (29) ... 38-3
8. Alan Healey / Adam Caswell (31) ...... 29-9
9. Will Dearlove / Lee Waller (37) ......... 6-15

Through to the next round of the knockout this week were:
Lee Williams
Mark Radford
Andy Gay (beat Ryan Radford by 1oz)
Simon Belcham
Darren North

Harescombe Match lake  15 pegs   

Mr Burgess is having a week off so its guest blogger time ,so another trip up the M5 to deepest Gloucestershire today , originally there were 19 booked in but unfortunately with the gales on Saturday and the promise of blustery weather for sunday a couple cried off leaving 17. At the draw there was some very sad news as Darren North received a phone call informing him his father had passed away, understandably he needed to get home so travelling partner Si Belcham kindly took him, which left fifteen numbers in the draw bag.

So on behalf of all of PSV Angling club i'd like to offer our sincere condolences to Darren and his family.

Back to the match and at the draw it was decided by acting match secretary Mr Healy that there would be three sections of five paying top two in each section , Alan incedently was looking rather glum as his pound coin collection wasn't going to swell today with the absence of Adam Caswell and Steve Burgess.

Anyone who knows Harescombe will know it can be abit of a fish race which means a bad start can be very tricky to claw back but one thing you always get is a very close fishing match and today was no different. As venues go its one of the more fairer fisherys we fish with most pegs being capable of a weight ,but in contradiction to that our matches up here always seem to be won around peg 2!

Keith Ray taking parking behind your peg to a whole new meaning! note the local parking attendant.

The match started slow for most with no one really setting a pace, I myself drew peg 9 which is the middle of the carpark bank and for company had Rich Britton to my left on 7 and mad Mike Welling on 11 ,down on flyer 29 was Alan Healy and he had Rich Jones and rocket Ron Hardiman on 1-3 respectively which is usually a good area ,also 'mugger' shanks on 13 and 'the slayer' Matt Taynton on 16 would be big threats.

The view from peg 9 and the angler in the background is Lionel Legge on peg 22.

After the slow start a few people started to put a weight together with Alan catching a few along with rich on 1,up on 16 Matt was taking fish regular and even had time for some reason to lose six sections of pole attached to a large F1 which lucky for matt towed the pole across the lake into the waiting hands of Keith Ray on peg 15! The main battle thou ended up being between myself and Rich Briton ,the middle of the match went great for Rich who fished down his margins fishing maggot taking f1s on a regular basis building up a good lead. I started on worm and caster short on the back of finishing second doing the same on my last visit but as is typical of match fishing it didn't work! so going nowhere fast a rethink was in order and after id been pinging pellets across to the boards and far shelf with three hours to go went over with a banded 6mm ,luckly for me it was solid and I mananged to claw my way back catching f1s and small carp most put ins to the all out.

At the all out there was no clear winner and so it was proved at the weighin with one good F1 separating the top three anglers ,winner on the day and winner of section 29-7 was Rich Briton pictured below with 60lb 8oz lucky for him peg 7 was the golden peg which earnt him an extra £100 so well done Rich!!

second was myself with 59lb 6oz so very close although I did win section 9-16 ,the third section 17-24 was won by Lionel Legge with 28lb 15oz followed by Collin Butler with 25lb 12oz

Alan Healy second in section 29-7 with 57lb

Matt Taynton second in section 9-16 with 47lb 4oz

FULL RESUILT

1ST            RICH BRITON             60LB 8OZ         PEG 7   **
2ND           CHRIS SZAKACS       59LB 6OZ         PEG 9
3RD           ALAN HEALY             57LB                 PEG 29
4TH           MATT TAYNTON       47LB 4OZ         PEG 16
5TH           RICH JONES                45LB 3OZ         PEG 1
6TH           BRIAN SHANKS         40LB 8OZ         PEG 13
7TH           RON HARDIMAN        32LB                PEG 3
8TH           LIONEL LEGGE          28LB 15OZ       PEG 22
9TH           WILL DEARLOVE      27LB 4OZ         PEG 5
10TH         COLIN BUTLER          25LB 12OZ       PEG 20 ***
11TH         STEVE WYNNE           22LB                 PEG 18
12TH         MIKE WELLING          15LB 13OZ       PEG 11
13TH         KEITH RAY                  15LB 8OZ         PEG 15

AND TWO DNWS
** GOLDEN PEG *** SILVER PEG

Also this week was the start of the club knockout with the winner getting a free membership ,each round is over a set of four matches each month giving everyone a chance to fish against their respective opponent

todays pair ups

ALAN HEALY                 V               WILL DEARLOVE
RON HARDIMAN           V               MIKE WELLING
BRIAN SHANKS             V               MATT TAYNTON
LIONEL LEGGE              V               KEITH RAY

Next week were at trinity waters which is pencilled in as a blind pairs match so should be interesting!!

 

 

Hillview, Canals 3 & 4, 04 May (18 pegs)

It's been a few years since we've made the trip up the M5 to Hillview and since then the canals have been stocked with a load of small (hungry) F1's so with that in mind plus the promise of a pleasant spring day expectations were high for a decent day's fishing.

With eighteen fishing and two canals at our disposal pegging was quite simple with nine on each canal spread out so that everyone had an empty peg on one side.

Payouts were first overall, one overall Silvers / F1's and first & second on each canal.

I won't bother this week with any long-winded, self-indulgent rubbish about what I did and didn't do as the highlights of my day were the breakfast and a pork pie I found in my bag so no more on that one other than that I didn't have to look too far for this week's "Hero to Zero" award!

As it turned out Canal 3 fished much better than 4 and out of the nine anglers on Canal 3, eight of them weighed in more than the best weight from Canal 4, which incidentally was Chris Szakacs who winkled out 33-11 from peg 86 on worm over worm and floating caster.

Overall winner was Brian Shanks on 76 with 80-10 of carp and F1's all caught on his topkit with pellet.

Rich Britton took second place fishing almost identically to the winner weighing in 73-12 which also included the top Silvers / F1's weight of 53-1

Ryan Radford was 3rd from peg 74 with 63-8.

Derek Lucas deserves a special mention this week as not only did he come 18th in the match but he also had to suffer a considerable amount of piss-taking from the Psv Bristol City supporters club who were celebrating Rovers' relegation.

At one point Stevie Wynne was sat behind him playing a recording of the last 10 minutes of the match!

Full Result:

1. Brian Shanks (peg 76) ..... 80-10
2. Rich Britton (80) .................. 73-12
3. Ryan Radford**(74) .............. 63-8
4. Rich Jones (70) ................... 57-8
5. Steve O Toole (79) .............. 50-2
6. Chris Gay (82) ................... 43-9
7. Lee Waller* (77) ................ 41-2
8. Darren North (73) .............. 39-15
9. Chris Szakacs (86) ............. 33-11
10. Adam Caswell (71) ............ 31-15
11. Alan Healey (83) ............... 26-1
12. Ron Hardiman (95) ........... 20-10
13. Andy Gay (88) ................. 18-4
14. Mark Radford (91) ............ 17-11
15. Simon Belcham (85) ......... 17-0
16. Steve Wynne (89) ............. 15-14
17. Steve Burgess (94) .............. 11-2
18. Derek Lucas (92) ............... 6-3

*golden peg
**silver peg

Silvers / F1's:

1. Rich Britton ....... 53-1
2. Brian Shanks ...... 25-2
3. Rich Jones .......... 24-6
4. Ryan Radford ...... 17-6
5. Steve O Toole & Lee Waller..... 15-10
6. Darren North ...... 13-8
7. Chris Gay ........... 11-2
8. Andy Gay ........... 9-4
9. Simon Belcham .... 8-0 (of fry)
10. Steve Burgess ...... 5-13
11. Mark Radford ....... 5-8
12. Adam Caswell ...... 4-12
13. Ron Hardiman ...... 3-1
14. Chris Szakacs ....... 1-12
15. Steve Wynne ........ 1-2
    
    
    

Don't forget Tuesday night is this month's meeting at The Horseshoe.
Matches to book in to are Harescombe (next week), Trinity 18 May, Landsend 25 May and Shiplate Canals 1 June.
As always people who come to the meeting will get first choice.

Also there are now two £100 golden pegs on the go and a third one will start next week so somebody will be getting a healthy payout before too long.

In the meantime I'm going to drown my sorrows with a box of Stella's and Amanda Holden on the recording of last night's Britains Got Talent!
May the 4th be with you!!

Sedges, Tile Lake, 27 April (19 pegs)

19 fishing this week which is a full house all bar 1 peg.
I had the choice of taking a peg out with the obvious choice being 30 as this one doesn't seem to do too well for us, or to leave all 20 in and let fate decide.
I stuck with the latter which resulted in 29 being the last ping-pong ball in the bucket and the empty peg which gave peg 30 a bit more of a chance so that worked out quite well.
The second last ball to come out went to myself and that was 21, a corner surprisingly, and it had the wind blowing into it so no complaints from me!
That's the third week on the trot now that I've drawn a corner and also the third time on the trot I've drawn a corner on Tile lake so somebody up there must like me.
Payout today was top three, two sections and just the one silvers which I expected John Bradford and Matt Challenger to be fighting over as they were both drawn in the mid thirties which tend to throw up some good silvers weights. (Got that wrong then)
Arriving at my peg I had Brian Shanks next door on 22 and up from him, thankfully obscured by undergrowth, Alan Healey.
Opposite I could see Adam Caswell in 40 which is a good corner peg and won last Sunday's match with over 140lbs. Strangely though, Adam had geared himself up to fish for silvers and never brought any rods so that peg was wasted (dnw)!
I could also make out Matt Taynton on 37 through the gap between the islands.
Setting up today I never got any rods out as, with the wind blowing into the corner, even a blind man could have worked out how to fish it (got that wrong as well)!
Plumbing up revealed there wasn't any definite ledges to fish on so I set up 3 rigs, one to fish at the shallowest area (tight to the bank), one at the bottom of the slope and one somewhere in between.
Bait was to be casters (with groundbait), meat, 6 & 8mm pellet and there was a tin of corn in reserve in case all the other options let me down.

On the all-in, which was on time as even I can manage to sort out three pole rigs in an hour, I churned up 3 handfulls of caster into the groundbait mix and deposited a ball on each of the three lines at 13m plus I fed some caster down each margin and over into the corner,

Starting with double caster on the full depth kit produced a slow start but after 30 minutes a couple of roach and a tiny skimmer gave themselves up.

Brian next door had started shallow with pellet slapping a stumpy little waggler to aid presentation (something he has picked up from Si Belcham but wouldn't admit to) but it wasn't having the desired effect and he was soon fishing soft pellet on the deck, probably to get some use out of his new plummet.

At this stage the only pegs that were producing were Lionel Legge in 31 and also peg 32, most others were struggling.

Having re-fed the deep swim I tried the "up the slope" rig but this was also unsuccessful.

I had a look on the shallowest line with an 8mm banded and after a few lifts I hooked and landed a carp of a couple of pounds and for a brief moment it looked like the tide had turned but nothing followed. 

My inside caster lines also produced nothing and a look into the corner only gave up a couple of suicidal micro-rudd.

The emergency tin of corn had no effect either!
Shanksy meanwhile had snared a couple of fish on the 13m line but was struggling to get into any sort of rhythm and was chopping and changing between every method that didn't involve watching a rod tip.

It was time for a walk!!

As it turned out the lake was fishing much harder than I had anticipated perhaps due to a bit if pressure in the week from the Sedges / Avalon Spring festival.

On my return I happened to spot a fish top out towards the aereator cable so with half the match gone and nothing to lose other than my dignity and pound coins to Alan and Lee Williams  I filled a bait tub with 8mm pellets and dug out the (almost brand new) waggler setup.

First random chuck towards the edge produced a bite almost straight away which I wasn't expecting and therefore missed completely.

Reeling in it became apparent that the wind had blown my line in amongst the undergrowth as instead of the rig heading back to me it veered off to the right and lodged itself in an overhanging reed bush resulting in the first of many trips along the  end bank!

Second chuck had the same result only this time I was coiled like a tiger and this one was safely landed.

The rest of the match followed the same vein with a few fish followed by a walk round the bank.

Occasionally the bites went a bit "iffy" either because the fish had come up shallower or they had maybe backed off a bit but on the whole they were small fish around the 3lb mark with the odd better fish thrown in but none of the proper ones that you would normally expect to come shallow and are necessary for a big weight.

Mr Shanks in the meantime had stepped up a gear and was putting a few fish together on his long line, probably due to superior presentation helped by a back-shot (ask him)? 

Unfortunately in his desperate attempts to catch up he was wasting time swapping methods instead of sticking to the one that was working which was the cause of his demise.

I was first to weigh and put 58-5 on the scales and despite my concerns Mr Shanks could only muster 49-6.

Alan had fished for silvers and deposited 10-8 of them on the scales, his three carp boosted that to 22-15 although he did manage four carp on the lead after the all-out by the time the scales reached him!

The rest of the weights up this bank were  mediocre with the exception of Chris Davis on 28 who had 43-8.

Lionel on 31 had just under 52lbs and Matt Taynton on 37, who had had a bit of a late charge had me sweating for a moment, running me close with 54-8

Which just left Matt Challenger to weigh on 39 and he put 79-0 plus a couple of pounds of silvers on the scales which well and truly pissed on my fire!

I think I will be visiting Avon Angling in future for my bait and tackle!

And Alan's dismal silvers weight was good enough to win the silvers money which meant the Healey family's KFC bill was sorted for another week.

So no big weights but a close result. 

And I think the same could be said for the Board Mills club match on Brick as there were a few dejected souls packing up early on that one but I don't know the winning weight (please comment if you do)

This Sunday we are up at Hillview on the canals for a change of scenery ... Should be interesting as we've not been up there for a few years.

Full Result:

1. Matt Challenger (peg 38) ....79-0
2. Steve Burgess (21) ....... 58-5
3. Matt Taynton (37) ......... 54-8
4. Lionel Legge (31) ......... 51-15
5. Mark Radford (39) ........ 51-7
6. Brian Shanks (22) ........ 49-6
7. Chris Davis (28) ........... 43-8
8. Lee Williams (27) ......... 39-6
9. Andy Gay (32) ............. 38-8
10. (Not so) Rocket Ron Hardiman (25) ... 32-4
11. Steve Wynne* (35) ...... 29-15
12. Rich Jones (24) ............ 23-14
13. Alan Healey (23) .......... 21-15
14. and 6 DNW's

*golden peg
**silver peg

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!

Avalon, 13 April 2014 (21 pegs)

This time round I thought it wouldn't be necessary to bore you with the intricate details of how I managed to catch 2 carp, (one on meat from the margin and one that tried to drag my tip rod into the lake)
And a solitary skimmer on lead / pellet, plus a rudd that took a shine to an 8mm pellet on the shallow wag to give me a grand total of 13lbs.
Similarly, I had no intentions of mentioning that I put four of my best floats in a tree.
I also wasn't going to bore you with the fact that there were 2 pegs left in the drawbag ... one was peg 24 (one of the best pegs on the lake and the golden peg that was worth £100), the other being peg 3 which couldn't have been more undesireable,
and that Will Dearlove ran to his peg as fast as his little legs could carry him with a smug grin on his face.
I wasn't going to mention the fact that the first carp that I hooked in the margin would have secured me another section win if it hadn't have swam out of the landing net on the first attempt and then shed the hook just as it was about to revisit it.
And I definitely wasn't going to say anything about the fact that Alan Healey weighed exactly the same as me but  his weight included 4oz of micro pellet and Vic Bush wouldn't re-weigh him.
But it seems I have done!
What I did intend to do though was to impress you all with my awesome photography skills (below)

Signed & framed prints available from the Psv online shop

So having not mentioned any of the above, on to the nitty gritty.

21 fishing today with 20 in the pools so the payout was top 2 overall, 2 silvers as there are now 25lbs of skimmers on every peg (apparently they've grown a bit) and 4 sections of 5 anglers to give everyone half a chance of picking up something.

Vic had sorted the pegging for us giving us 5 pegs round the back of the Long Island at the top (good) end of the lake so a decent bit of room for all and it was a glorious day for a change with almost unbroken sunshine and a gentle breeze so some good weights were anticipated.

Unfortunately it didn't quite go to plan as the lake fished much harder than expected.

It turned out to be a 3-horse race between Will on golden peg 24, Brian Shanks on 9 and Rich Britton on 12.

But when conditions favour fishing the pellet wagg Rich takes some beating and today was no exception with Rich taking the honours with 54lbs caught on the wagg and straight lead along the end of the island.

It was close though as Brian finished just 1½ lbs behind with 52-8 caught on the pole shallow with pellet.

Will had a bit of a "torrid" day losing 16 fish down the edge and his catch rate wasn't helped when an inquisitive pleasure angler decided to stand on the bridge and lean over the water where he was fishing.

Will did put him right but the damage had already been done. Just as well it wasn't Dean Malin fishing the peg!

The silvers honours went to Matt Challenger on 16 with 30-3 of mainly skimmers and a 3lb 8oz python all caught on worm over chopped worm / caster so Vic's estimate of 25lbs was pretty well spot on.

Runner up in the silvers was Alan Healy with 8lbs from peg 11.

Section winners were: Chris Gay (peg 5), Chris Szakacs (20), who was the only one to weigh in in that section and Mark Radford (26).

There was a bit of controversy however, as in the 3rd section 4 out of the 5 anglers framed which meant that Stevie Wynne would have claimed the section by 4x default if he had weighed in (which he didn't), so after a steward's enquiry it was decided to pay the unclaimed section money to 3rd place (Will), giving Mark Radford that section by default which everyone agreed was the fairest way to resolve the situation.

So a lesson to be learned there!

Full Result:

1. Rich Britton (peg 12) ...... 54-0
2. Brian Shanks (9) ........... 52-8
3. Will Dearlove* (24) ........ 47-0
4. Matt Challenger (16) ..... 33-11
5. Mark Radford (26) ......... 31-3
6. Chris Szakacs (20) ........ 29-9
7. Chris Gay (6) ............... 15-9
8. Ryan Radford (30) ......... 15-5
9. Steve Burgess (3) / Alan Healey (11) ... 13-0
10. Adam Caswell** (7) ....... 11-5
11. Keith Ray (29) .............. 10-12
12. Ron Hardiman (5) .......... 10-5
13. Derek Lucas (1) ............ 4-13
14. and 7 dnw's

* golden peg 
** silver peg

Silvers

1. Matt Challenger (16) ..... 30-3
2. Alan Healey (11) ........... 8-0
3. Adam Caswell (7) ......... 7-11
4. Mark Radford (26) ........ 5-8
5. Will Dearlove (24) ........ 4-8
6. Keith Ray (29) ............. 2-4
7. etc

Next week we are back at Viaduct (Campbell) which is a full house with a reserve list, so if anyone who is booked in can't make it can you please let me know sooner rather than later to enable someone else a chance to fish.