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.

Plantations, Coarse Lake, 15 Feb (17 pegs)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Full Result:

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

Silvers:  

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

Year Totals and Winter League

For those that attended the meeting last week and were anxiously awaiting the latest league tables please accept my apologies!
If anyone would like to see the complete totals let me know (I won't hold my breath)!

Winter League:

1. Alan Healey,  158pts    293lbs 9oz
2. Lee Waller,       146   171-7
2. Steve Burgess, 146    116-4
4. Mark Radford,  140    202-14
5. Darren North,  105    151-1
6. Lee Williams,   104    154-6
6. Ryan Radford,  104    79-15
8. Chris Szakacs,  103   195-3
9. Adam Caswell,  85    93-1
10. Lionel Legge,  77    181-14
11. Brian Shanks, 75    156-13
12. Matt Taynton, 74    123-8

Year Totals:

1. Mark Radford,  678    1,758-5
2. Steve Burgess, 567      1,320-14
3. Brian Shanks, 541      1,731-3
4. Alan Healey,  532      1,224-2
5. Ryan Radford, 523     1,282-6
6. Chris Szakacs, 457    1,297-11
7. Adam Caswell, 401   901-12
8. Lee Williams,  395    1,073-4
9. Chris Gay,   375      1,155-0
10. Ron Hardiman, 371    1,339-1
11. Rich Jones,  299    932-4
12. Lee Waller,  292    606-11

Sedges, Tile Lake, 08 Feb

Following a week of frosts and the possibility of ice-breaking by Friday the numbers for this match were diminishing rapidly and I was considering cancelling but we had a couple of late book-ins and the weather forecast was promising a bit of a rise in temperature and no frost overnight.

In addition I'd phoned the fishery and both the main lakes were ice free unlike a lot of other Somerset venues so no need for my sledgehammer head to weigh down the brand new fishing bus!

Even better news was that Alan Healey was helping me christen the new bus which meant he was buying at the cafe and the icing on the cake would be to rob him of another pound coin but unfortunately that wasn't to be.

Predictably the weather forecast was completely off the mark and the skies had cleared overnight resulting in it being very cold and foggy (although that didn't hang about too long once the breeze got up).

So with just the seven fishing, pegging was a bit of a head-scratcher .... One bank, but which? Or spread out on both banks?

In the end we decided on the one bank, the bank shared with Brick lake, leaving out the corners (31 & 40).

No doubt it was the wrong choice as in this kind of situation you're never going to please everybody but never mind.

The match itself was fairly un-eventful for some, especially for Lee Williams on peg 39 who, despite his best efforts, gave up early after snaring just two very greedy (and very tiny) roachlets.

The serious action took place at the other end of the lake and was shared between Lee Waller on 32 and Alan on 33.

Lee fished soft pellet over micros long and found quality skimmers whereas Alan opted to sit it out on the tip with bread all day for four bites and four carp totalling 17-5 but it wasn't enough to beat Lee who's net of skimmers plus a bewildered carp went 19-5.

I had found myself on peg 36 sandwiched between Keith Ray on 35 and Matt Taynton (who seems to enjoy drawing next to me here) on 37.

36 is an open water peg but I spent the first hour chucking a method feeder with micros and 3 dead mags to an island I discovered accidentally (Keith insisted I mentioned that).

Regardless though of whose peg it ended up in it produced bugger all.

Dropping back on the pole at 13m with a single maggot over micros eventually produced a tiny skimmer which was a relief as I was starting to have ideas about a dreaded blank.

That one was followed soon after by its twin brother before the next bite produced something a lot more substantial which turned out to be a skimmer of about 1½ lbs.

Unfortunately though, despite the most delicate of shipping back, it nodded its head and shed the hook leaving me close to tears and wishing I had a seven metre landing net handle as it floundered around on the surface for ages like a jellyfish before it realised it was free and swam off to warn its mates.

Closer inspection revealed the maggot had flipped over the hook point ... bugger (as they say on the good blogs)!

So a quiet spell followed at which point I got bored and went back out on the tip for more biteless action (although I did have a liner).

In the meantime Keith had spent several hours fruitlessly bread-slinging  and Matt had been trotting a wind and tow assisted waggler past the island whilst muttering about being on the wrong bank. That had produced just one roachlet so I was doing ok in my 3 man section.

That was until Mat dropped onto his pole line after 3 hours and promptly had four skimmers in a row, reversing the deficit, before losing number 5.

By now I was getting no indications at all on the pole but I was struggling with presentation as the tow was pushing the rig back towards me. Adding a section and fiddling around with the shotting improved things a bit and I managed to get a few more skimmers and baby roach including a fish around the pound mark.

By the end Keith had followed Lee Williams on the walk of shame after netting just one skimmer (that was hooked in the wrong-un).

With first and second places sewn up it was going to be a close call between myself, Matt Taynton and Matt Challenger on 38 for the default silvers payout.

Matt Taynton took the honours with 5lbs dead which comfortably beat my 3-7 and Matt Challenger's 3-3.

So a hard day but it was enjoyable working hard for every fish.

Full Result:

1. Lee Waller (32) ....... 19-5

2. Alan Healey (33) ..... 17-5

3. Matt Taynton (37) .... 5-0

4. Steve Burgess (36) ... 3-7

5. Matt Challenger (38) ... 3-3

And 2 dnw's

Next week we are on the main lake at Plantations and hopefully it will have warmed up a bit by then and it will be a better result.

At least there are a few going though and there are some spaces available for those that forgot there was a meeting last Tuesday.

Harescombe match lake 11 pegs

Originally there were 14 booked in for this trip to Harescombe but on the day this ended up being 11 of psv's most hardy and they needed to be as the weather was challenging to say the least! A fierce north westerly wind was ripping through the valley which made fishing the pole long virtually impossible for most, and I hate to think what the wind chill factor was but when Brian Shanks mumbles that he cant feel his feet hands and face you know its cold!!

With Mr Burgess not in attendance it was left to Alan Healy to sort pegging and payouts and with no silverpool it was a simple case of top four, pegging wise it was decided to put two pegs at each end 15-16 and 29-30 respectively and space the rest along each straight.

With the ends of the lake being the more favoured draws especially 15-16 which apparently had been doing the business lately so when Alan drew 16 a large smile appeared on his face in anticipation of another good day after last weeks golden peg bagging session down emerald pools, and with the wind directly off his back and that of young Ryan Radford who drew 15 leaving them both with flat calm pegs things were looking good for the pair, unfortunately for Alan it was a case of hero to zero as he ended up with a big fat DNW!

At the other end of the lake and with the wind blasting them straight in the face was serial draw bag Mark Radford on 29 a peg that always produces a few fish and on 30 was yours truly and with the conditions I was really unsure what to expect, as it happens the match itself was a fairly close affair with no one really sure who'd won and although the weights were not big most had a few bites despite the conditions.

Due to the landslide Mark had a bit of shelter and calmer water and was able to fish long at the start making the most of it catching several f1s against the island. On peg 3 Lee Waller had the same idea and started long but soon gave it up after being turned round on his box several times despite this he was still catching the odd f1, up the other end there was elastic being pulled especially Lee Williams on 13 and Si Belcham on 7, Si in particular was fishing a steady match at five metres and although not bagging was putting f1s and silvers in the net at regular intervals.

My match started bad it felt like I was being cut in two by the wind and couldn't feel my fingers after ten minutes which made baiting up hard work! Id gone with a plan to fish bread long on the far shelf, shipping over and laying in at the start the float buried but on shipping back the fish came off, the next two put ins the same result and I then had a torrid half hour trying to present over and constantly being blown around so gave up the line, a rethink was in order so a maggot line was opened at six metres towards the island and also three metres left down the ledge and also a caster line to my right in the corner that didn't really produce, by constantly dripping in maggot and micro tho I started to get a few bites and put a few f1s in the net, it was a case of just waiting and lifting at any indication as tiny little dinks was as positive as it got from the shy biting f1s, for some reason tho with a hour and a half to go all my lines just went completely dead and in that time I only had three bites two from 12oz skimmers and one from my biggest fish of the day a lunking great 5lb f1 which was to prove a match winning fish!

So first on the day was myself with 39lb 8oz

second went to Si Belcham with 35lb 14oz

third was Mark Radford with 30lb 14oz and last in the frame was Lee Williams with 26lb 14oz

FULL RESULT

1ST CHRIS SZAKACS   39LB 8OZ
2ND SI BELCHAM         35LB 14OZ
3RD MARK RADFORD 30LB 14OZ
4TH LEE WILLIAMS     26LB 14OZ
5TH LEE WALLER        24LB  5OZ
6TH DARREN NORTH  22LB 10OZ
7TH BRIAN SHANKS    19LB 5OZ
8TH RYAN RADFORD   9LB  8OZ
AND THREE DNWS

A nice tight match at a very fair venue, next week the club are back down the sedges on tile lake and there should be a meeting this Tuesday where steve will be taking bookings for this months matches

Emerald Pools, Sapphire, 25 Jan (10 pegs)

Out of an original 16 / 17 that were booked in for this one by Saturday night we were down to 10.

All the usual excuses such as swollen legs, wife's car broke down, bad run on the fruit machines, Ashton Gate etc

But the one that did make me laugh was "I'm going on holiday on Thursday"!

Anyhow it was probably a blessing in disguise as Alan the owner had phoned me a week or so beforehand a bit concerned as a few pegs were, shall we say, in need of a bit of gardening!

Well ok, more like completely overgrown with reeds making some pegs unfishable and others challenging.

In fairness Alan is planning a big overhaul over the next few weeks and hopefully the lake will be transformed by the time we're down there next in March.

Anyways, Mr Rixon had kindly donated a pegging plan (elegantly drawn with a crayon on a paper bag) based on the results from his match down there last Thursday and after ten minutes of communal head-scratching we managed to decipher the treasure map and sort out ten pegs.

Only "problem" though was that two of them were alive with fish, peg 10 which was on the island facing the lodges, and 8 which was at the far end of the reed jungle (and the golden peg).

These pegs were occupied by Lee Waller and Alan Healey respectively so it looked like last week's pound profit would be short lived.

The rest of the lake seemed a bit lifeless in comparison so it looked like it was going to be a 2 horse race between Lee and Alan, and as the payout was to be top 2 overall and 1 silvers pool realistically the rest of us would want to be avoiding carp and targeting silvers instead.

For my sins I had drawn peg 2 (permanent peg 3) which gave me quite a large expanse of open water in front and I could comfortably reach the end of the island at 14m slightly to my right.

Mark Radford was on the other end of the island in peg 1 which for some reason has the name "Wiggets Corner".

I've no idea who Mr Wigget is but I guess he's none too bothered about his fishing but at least it's handy for the bar and the toilet facilities.

Speaking of which they are the tidiest toilets I've yet come across at a fishery so fair play to the owners on that score.

Anyway just around the corner from Mark was Chris Szakacs with a nice looking peg that gave him pretty much all of the back of the island to play with.

And back on my left was Matt Challenger, the silent assassin, who also had an island corner to fish to.

I set up two rigs, one for 13m in open water and one for close-ish to the island (but not close enough to get snagged in any underwater obstacles) where it was 4" shallower and that rig would also do for down the edge to my right but that was a waste of bait so no more on that (as they say in the more popular blogs)!

Bait was a selection of live / expired maggots, casters, soft pellet and corn with some wetted micros for feed.

I was tempted to set up a lead to chuck to the reeds out in front past the islands but time was getting on so on the all-in I fed both pole lines with a little bit of everything and went out on the open water rig.

Matt had opted to go out tight to the island dobbing bread and was soon hauling out tiny roach.

Mark Radford did the same and got attached to underwater obstacles and moaned a lot!

After about 10 minutes I had a bite on soft pellet which produced a nice sized rudd and for the first hour I was kept quite busy with good roach and rudd falling to anything I put on the hook until the bites started to slow and the fish started getting smaller.

So I gave that line a small pot of feed and went over to the island which was a similar story.

By now Matt had landed a couple of small carp in between the blade roach, Chris Szakacs was getting some tidy carp and good silvers and Mark was on his third or fourth rig, fishless and having a moaning competition with Steve O Toole. 

Meanwhile Alan, after catching some quality silvers, was netting a procession of carp and Lee Waller was also doing well as was expected.

Lee Williams, on the other end of the reed jungle from Alan was keeping busy, just how busy you can find out from his own blog here.

Back in my peg and by the halfway point I'd had a few more good roach and rudd plus the smallest carp in the lake before hooking a lump that headed off round the back of the island back towards Lee's peg before the hook pulled.

I had another look on the open water line but it was now dead which was disappointing as I was hoping they'd be queuing up after resting it and I wished I'd stuck on it longer before going over to the island.

For some reason the deeper rig was working better over by the island with a few inches on the deck but I ended up trashing that rig through shipping back a bit over enthusiastically.

I then went through a dodgy spell of bumped fish and missed bites which turned out to be due to a blunted hook.

Then another junior carp went a bit mad and buggered the swim up and after that it slowed right up and I could only get tiny roach come the end.

Chris Szakacs however was having a good last hour and was regularly netting carp and (worryingly) good roach and although I couldn't see him, I could see the end of Lee Williams' pole and there were quite a few silvers attached to the end of it!

The outcome of the match was a foregone conclusion ....

Alan weighed in 99lbs 9oz which also included the top silvers weight of 11lbs which, with being the golden peg as well, meant a healthy payout of £111 (including my £1).

Alan caught mostly on maggot and fed about three pints of the same.

Lee Waller managed 54-3 for second place and Chris weighed in 38-15 for third.

The silvers pool went to myself, by default, with 9-7

A very smug Alan Healey

Lee Waller

Full Result:

1. Alan Healey (peg 8)* ....... 99-9
2. Lee Waller (10) ............ 54-3
3. Chris Szakacs (9) ......... 38-15
4. Lee Williams (7) ........... 18-2
5. Steve Burgess (2) ......... 13-15
6. Matt Challenger (3) ....... 13-1
7. Mark Radford (1) ........... 6-4
8. Mike Wilson (4) ............. 5-13

*golden peg


Silvers:

1. Alan Healey ...... 11-0
2. Steve Burgess .... 9-7
3. Chris Szakacs .... 7-11
4. Lee Williams ...... 5-6
5. Mike Wilson ....... 4-9
6. Lee Waller ......... 4-7
7. Matt Challenger ... 3-10
8. Mark Radford ..... 3-0

Next week we are back up at Harescombe, I shall be taking a leave of absence for this one so the blog will be left in the capable hands of Mr Szakacs

Shiplate, Main Lake, 18 Jan (13 pegs)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Guess who never brought waterproof boots)!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I made do with some soaked micros.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Especially as nobody else seemed to be catching much.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Full Result:

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

*golden peg

 

 

Silvers: 

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

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

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

Sedges, Tile Lake, 11 Jan (15 pegs)

Back again to Tile lake at Sedges for our first match of the year as it's always good for a few bites especially when a lot of other venues have gotten a bit challenging.
Plus its a venue I really like (which helps)!
So with this being my last year in charge of the fixture list (yes I know I'll be sadly missed lol) I suspect we'll be fishing a few more matches there yet.
Anyway, it was a relief to find the gale force winds we'd had over Friday night and into Saturday morning had passed and we were greeted with a reasonably nice day for the time of year, not too cold and with a bit of breeze blowing into the causeway bank.
With 15 fishing I put 8 on the more sheltered rosdside bank and 7 on the causeway side.
All four corners were in including 30 which is a peg that I usually avoid but it has had a bit of form recently but if I could have chosen a peg it would have been 40 as the wind was pushing into it so it's just as well it wasn't a rover match as Chris Szakacs drew it and ended up chucking back (hero to zero award maybe)???

Otherwise I would have been happy anywhere on the road bank except 23 which I had last time round and spent the day watching other people catch, including Adam Caswell on 21.

So back on 23 again for me and to make matters worse, Alan Healey was 2 pegs up on 25 so if things didn't go too well for me I would be hearing all about it

(And I did)!

Payout today was top 2 overall, one silvers (as the silvers weights have been iffy) and two 7-peg sections as Ryan wasn't in the pools today.
It was agreed to split the sections between the two banks regardless of where Ryan drew so it was Sod's law then that Ryan drew on the 7 peg bank resulting in a section of 8 and a section of 6 but nobody was too concerned.

The match started slowly for most although Keith Ray on 21 got off to a good start getting regular bites chucking a lead with bread? (I think) along the bank and over to the island.

Over the course of the first two hours he landed half a dozen carp and was looking on course for an easy win but for some strange reason his peg completely dried up after that, they probably moved up into the safety of empty peg 22 (or peg 23).

In the meantime, Matt Taynton who was next to me on 24, after a fruitless hour throwing a lead around, switched to the deep wag and started catching a few out in open water alternating between maggot and pellet on the hook and feeding a small amount of 6mm's.

Elsewhere Lee Williams and Chris Gay were having a close battle on 27 & 28 (read Lee's blog here ) and on the opposite bank, Mark Radford was getting a few on 33 as was Rich Britton on 37.

Winner on the day was Matt Taynton with 57-4 caught mostly on the wag on the deck with pellet.

Rich Britton was 2nd with 51-11 caught on bread popped-up at various depths.

And Lee Williams just about got the better of Chris Gay with 49-4 against 47-6 which gave him 3rd (section win)

Mark Radford took the second section with 38-14 and Lee Waller needed just 4lbs to take top silvers.

I had a crap day believe it or not, the tip produced nothing, I never had a proper wag set up in the rod case and a half-hearted play around with a pellet wag set to 4 feet deep was equally fruitless.

And I struggled for most of the day at 14m with various baits for a paltry 2-14 of silvers.

My only saving grace was that at one point later in the match I did hit into something that pulled out a lot of elastic and it wasn't a carp but it mattered not as it soon un-hooked itself.

Possibly if landed it could have got me the silvers money but everyone loses fish so no point in going on about it but it made me feel slightly less insignificant at the time!

Especially as I started 2015 giving pound coins to Alan and Adam.

Full(ish) Result:

1. Matt Taynton (peg 24) ....... 57-4
2. Rich Britton (37) .................. 51-1
3. Lee Williams (27) ................. 49-4
4. Chris Gay (28) ..................... 47-6
5. Mark Radford (33) ................ 38-14
6. Keith Ray (21) ..................... 18-0
7. Alan Healey (25) .................. 12-13

 Silvers:

1.  Lee Waller ....... 4-0
2. Chris Gay ......... 3-0
3. Steve Burgess .... 2-14