A bit of info

Next weeks' match at Walters Lake is the last match of the 2011/12 season so membership renewals will be due at the next meeting or as soon as possible after that.  Please be aware that the club now has a few more members than we have had in previous years which makes it even more important that you attend the monthly meetings to secure places at matches as I anticipate a lot of matches will be fully booked next season.
I have (finally) booked this year's Christmas match! It will be at Acorn (Paddock Lake) on 16 December.
The Holgan Farm weekend festival (3-5 August) is now booked up and deposit sent.  I have 11 booked in for definite but there is still room for more so if you are interested please let me know as soon as possible so I can organise the accommodation.
The Agm will be on Tuesday 1 May and we will be looking for a new Chairman,  Vice-Chairman, Treasurer and Match Secretary so if any of those positions sound appealing please feel free to step up! (but don't all rush at once).  I won't be attending as I will be topping up my tan and propping up one of the many bars on the Independence of the Seas somewhere between Spain and Portugal!

Driving Directions for Walters Lake

I have switched our match to the Green lane as this has more pegs than the other lanes.
There are 2 ways to get there. You can go the scenic route via Chipping Sodbury / Tetbury / Cirencester and then on to the A419  or up the M4 to jct 15 (second Swindon junction) and on to the A419.
Either way you want to come off the A419 on to the B4696,  the venue is on Wickwater lane which is the second turning on the left (look for the signs for Waterside Cafe).
For those of you with modern technology, the postcode is GL7 5TL




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Shiplate, Hawthorn, 18 March (14 pegs)

Overall Result:

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

Silvers:

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

Acorn, Old Match Lake, 11 March (12 pegs)

Overall Result:

1. Alan Healy ....... 46-10
2. Mark Britton .............. 36-0
3. Mark Radford ............ 33-3
4. Ron Hardiman ........... 32-8
5. Simon Belcham ......... 27-15
6. Darren North ............. 22-6
7. Mike Smith ............... 17-0
8. Paul Reed .................. 12-14
9. Mike Wilson .............. 11-1
10. Ryan Radford / Will Dearlove .... 9-0
11. Derek Lucas ............... 7-9

Silvers:

1. Darren North ..... 1-10
2. Simon Belcham .. 1-7
3. Paul Reed ........... 1-6
4. Will Dearlove ..... 1-4
5. Mark Radford ..... 1-1

Psv Weekend Festival @ Holgan Farm, 3~5 August

I don't normally like to namedrop but I had a chat on the phone today with Ian Heaps, former world champion and owner of Holgan Farm Fishery in Pembrokeshire, and have more or less sorted the arrangements for our weekender in August.
Dates are Friday 3rd to Sunday 5th August with a match on a different lake on each of those days.
Accommodation will be split with some staying at the fishery and the rest at a nearby pub b&b.
The cost for peg fees and accommodation will be $115 (us laptop) for 2 nights  or $165 if you prefer to travel on the Thursday.
All are welcome and I'm sure it will be a weekend to remember however, I need to know as soon as possible how many are definitely interested so that I can finalize the arrangements with my mate Ian!
More information on the fishery can be found at www.ian-heaps.com

Boyd Valley, 04 march (12 pegs)

Unfortunately I wasn't able to fish this one but even so, due to the ongoing problems with my phone(s), i still managed to mess up as 13 turned up for this 12 peg venue!
Still, never mind, as I had a thouroughly enjoyable dinner at Farrells retaurant in Keynsham and seeing as it was a very cold, wet, windy and miserable morning I wasn't overly bothered!
Thankfully, the carp showed at last resulting in some decent weights and a close result.


Full result:  sorry no peg numbers or silvers weights!

1. Rich Britton ...... 59-12
2. Darren north .... 58-5
3. Chris Gay ........ 52-4
4. keith Ray ......... 50-0
5. Simon Belcham .. 46-0
6. Alan Healy ........ 21-9
7. Bob Warren ...... 19-12
8. Derek Lucas ..... 14-10
9. Paul Reed ........ 11-4
10. Mike Wilson ..... ?
11. Steve Wynne ..... dnw
12. Trigger ............. dnw (see below) 

Funnily enough, a couple of weeks back I mentioned that with the weather warming up some of the club's fairweather muggers members were stirring from their winter hibernation and making a welcome reappearance and that it wouldn't be long before legendary carp-magnet, Craig Trigger Edmunds would be gracing us with his presence.
And sure enough, right on cue, that day had come.  But unfortunately it seems  he jumped the gun a bit as my bankside spies told me that he packed up halfway through the match complaining of hypothermia.
I suspect however, that he had a call from his girlfriend who is due to produce a "mini Trig" any time soon, demanding extra supplies of custard donuts and catfood to satisfy her pregnancy cravings!

Please note that the monthly club meeting is on Tuesday night where I will be taking bookings for Acorn, old lake (11 March),  Shiplate (18 March) and Walters lake, South Cerney (1 April).
Although we haven't had a match at Walters before, a few members have fished there and it was one of the venues that was put forward when we discussed new places to book so it will be interesting to see how many book in for this one!
If you are unable to make the meeting you can contact me in the week to book into matches if spaces are available.
My work phone (07979647233) should be back up and running from Tuesday onwards or alternatively you can get hold of me on 07583295430  evenings and weekends.
On a lighter note, the picture below has absolutely no relevance to this post whatsoever but if you look closely it shows how to tie a "snowman" rig which may come in handy one day when the carp are a bit tricky!

Sedges, Tile Lake, 26 Feb (9 pegs)

After the chaos that ensued last week at Burley Fields "fishery" (their description not mine), turning up at The Sedges this week couldn't have been more different.
Keepnets and landing nets supplied ready and waiting, scales and weigh-sling on the bank, kettle boiled, sign up on the wall displaying who's fishing where and owner Denise on hand to welcome her customers ... proper job!
We had been assigned the roadside bank of Tile (pegs 21 to 30) which, apparently, had been fishing better recently and with only nine fishing, all ten pegs went into the hat so it was sod's law that the golden peg (29) was the peg that was left in the bag so yes, I should have drawn two golden pegs out just in case but never mind!
Our newest member (who is so new I haven't thought up an abusive name for him yet), Lionel Legge was fortunate enough to draw the flier peg , 21,  in the car park corner and promptly cruised to victory with an impressive weight of 42lbs 13oz.
Lionel's catch consisted mostly of carp caught down the edge of the car park bank at 14m on pellet over pellet feed and some taken on the lead further out along the edge.
Second place, for the second week running, went to Chris Szakacs who was pegged next to the winner on peg 22.  Chris had three carp early on the straight lead with bread fished up to the island before switching to a "banjo" feeder with micro and hard banded pellet hookbait for 30lbs 9oz.
Just five ounces behind was Psv's most senior member, Bob I don't fish for silvers Warren, with 30lbs 4oz consisting mostly of skimmers caught on 4mm soft pellet over micros at 11m.
Bob commented after the match that if he hadn't have wasted 25 seconds fishing the tip (for carp) at the start of the match he would have got 2nd ... comical but true!

Full Result:

1. Lionel Legge .... peg 21 ..... 42-13
2. Chris Szakacs ........ 22 ...... 30-9
3. Bob Warren ............ 27 ...... 30-5
4. Steve Burgess ......... 28 ..... 16-10
5. Stewart Riddle ........ 25 ...... 14-2
6. Alan Healy .............. 30 ..... 11-15
7. Kev Jefferies ........... 24 ...... 6-8
8. Colin Butler ............ 23 ...... 3-10
9. Mark Radford ......... 26 ....... dnw

Silvers:

1. Bob Warren .......... 26-5
2. Stewart Riddle ...... 12-9
3. Steve Burgess ........ 10-10 

• There is one space available for Boyd this weekend, first person to get me to answer my phone can have it!  Now Full
  

Burley Fields, 19 February (13 pegs)

You can tell winter is drawing to a close and spring is on it's way .... the mornings are lighter, the birds are up and about their business, dead badgers line the sides of the roads and the likes of Rich Jones and Chris Szakacs start turning up at matches after their winter hibernation. It won't be long before we will be having the pleasure of Trigger's company in his shorts and flip-flops!

Due to the lack of dining establishments en route to that jewel of the Cotswolds that is Burley Fields, I had managed to convince the owners of the Bell Inn at Shurdington to forgo their Sunday lie-in in order to feed thirteen hungry blokes from Bristol which they were more than happy to do.  Unfortunately the chef was either hungover or suffering from Alzheimers and it could hardly have been described as either cheap or nice but the landlady was pleasant enough and I guess you can't win em all!
I should have read the signs there and then when she questioned whether  we had phoned Pam and Steve to let them know we were coming over as it can sometimes get busy on weekends.
Anyway, bear with me here, but over the years you can  easily become accustomed to fishing at well organised and well run fisheries such as Viaduct, Sedges and Trinity to name just three. So it makes a refreshing change every once in a while to fish somewhere where disorganised chaos reigns supreme and topping the list of such venues is Burley Fields!
So having phoned the owner three days previous and asked him to put a sign up to say the match lake was booked it came as no surprise to find seven anglers already on the lake and setting up for a match of their own.
On further investigation it turned out that they had phoned to confirm their match on the previous evening!  So without the benefit of Dean Malin to threaten to throw then all in the lake if they didn't pack up and move (as was the case on a previous occasion) it was off to wake the owner's boyfriend / fishery manager / pig farmer / village idiot to come down and sort the mess out.
So the outcome of it was that we, that is Chris 'don't worry I've fished this lake before' Gay, managed to slot in 13 pegs on the carp lake in between the bivvies and rodpods for our silvers match where any carp caught count as 1lb and which was pole-only (despite the expanse of water) due to most of us having not brought rods!
But to his credit Mr pig farmer / fishery manager / village idiot generously only charged us the peg fees instead of the usual £100 , bless him!
Fortunately the quality of the fishing saved the day with roach and skimmers feeding well all over the lake.
Psv newcomer Kev Jefferies made the best of a good draw, peg 1, which was the first peg to the left of the bridge that separates the main lake from the double-booked match lake.  Kev spent most of the match fishing straight in front at 11m with soft pellet over micros and caught good sized skimmers to over 2lbs plus quality roach for a convincing winning total of 46lbs 6oz.
He would most probably have had a fair bit more had he not been hampered by the awkward bank and fence that meant he had to break his pole down section by section to ship in.
Second place went to Chris Szakacs on peg 4 with 33lbs 6oz of skimmers and roach taken at 14m on  maggot over micros followed by Darren North in amongst the bivvies on peg 13 with 30lbs 4oz.
Despite only one carp being caught, Rich Britton's 9lb fish landed on a 6m whip and 1.5lb hooklength, only two anglers weighed in less than twenty pounds which shows the quality of the silvers fishing.


Full Result:

1. Kev Jefferies ... peg1 ... 46-6
2. Chris Szakacs .... 4 ..... 33-6
3. Darren North ....13 ..... 30-4
4. Keith Ray .......... 7 ..... 29-3
5. Brian Shanks ..... 11 .... 28-8
6. Simon Belcham .. 12 ... 26-15
7. Rich Jones .......... 8 .... 26-14
8. Steve Wynne ....... 3 ... 26-10
9. Chris Gay ........... 6 .... 25-4
10. Rich Britton ........ 10 ... 22-10
11. Steve Burgess* ... 9 .... 20-13
12. Derek Lucas ........ 5 .... 19-13
13. Colin Butler ......... 2 .... 9-4

Boyd, 12 February 2012 (icebreakers at dawn)

A heavy overnight frost meant that the ice which had thinned out considerably (much like Alan Healy's hair) over recent days had returned with a vengeance.  However, half an hour of demolition with various ice-breaking implements soon put paid to that problem.
Unusually, following the ice-breaking barage, the fish were slow to switch on and some were saying after the match that they never had a bite for over 2 hours.
This wasn't the case though for Boyd supremo and one rig expert, Simon Belcham who was catching well from the off on the golden peg, peg 2, with red maggot on the hook and feeding next to nothing.


Over on peg 4 however, in form Alan Healy opted for a more positive approach fishing white maggot and feeding heavily which resulted in a narrow win with 12lbs 6oz of good quality roach which was enough to push Simon into second by just 4oz.

• Pictures courtesy of Roy Garland 

Full result: 

1. Alan Healy ......... peg 4 .... 12-6
2. Simon Belcham* ...... 2 ..... 12-2
3. Bob Warren .............. 12 ... 7-4
4. Dave Tippet .............. 9 ..... 6-1
5. Steve Burgess ........... 8 ..... 5-15
6. Darren North ............ 5 ..... 5-9
7. Keith Ray ................. 1 ..... 4-6
8. Mike Wilson ............. 7 ..... 3-14
9. Steve Wynne ............. 3 .....3-9
10. Kev Jefferies ............ 10 ... 3-12
11. Steve Wynne ............ 3 ...... 3-9
12. Chris Gay ................. 6 ...... 3-6

*golden peg