Latest Happenings!

Firstly, thanks to all who attended last nights meeting at the Horseshoe (all 5 of us)!

Unfortunately I have had to cancel this Sundays match at Acorn so I apologise in advance for those of you who had made plans to fish this one.

I have now booked up another weekend festival at Holgan Farm for 19-21 September.

The format should be pretty much the same as the last time (1 match on each of the three lakes, winner of the first match gets first pick of the accommodation) only this time round we will all be able to stay on the venue as Ian has now built 2 new lakeside lodges as well as the existing farmhouse.

The cost of the weekend will be £125 which includes 2 nights B&B plus 3 days of fishing.

Obviously pools, evening meals and alcohol are extra but if you have a look under the desk in the tackle shop or under the dog's bed there should be a couple of bottles of single malt lying around.

Please let me know as soon as possible and I will be looking for a deposit of £20 at the next meeting which will be on Tuesday 4 March at The Horseshoe.

Please note that the March meeting will also be the AGM and membership renewal time so if you have any concerns / criticisms over how the club is being managed or if you fancy having a go yourselves then now is your chance to shine!

I suggested at the meeting last night that we should keep the membership open this year (rather than capped as before) to attract a few new members as the numbers fishing recent matches have been pretty dire which is a shame.

So if you are reading this and fancy joining feel free to come along.

In the meantime there are spaces left for the next three matches which are:

Harescombe (16 Feb)

Sedges - Tile (23 Feb)

Shiplate - Main lake (2 March)

Sedges, Tile Lake, 19 Jan (13 pegs)

The New Years resolution didn't last too long as was probably expected but anyway ...

13 fishing today which included 2 guests, Dean Malin had managed to drag himself away from Shiplate for a day and John the gimp Bradford had also graced us with his presence so I thought it best to put 2 silvers in the payout to avoid the inevitable whinging from certain quarters.

Pegging was a bit of a head-scratcher, Denise suggested leaving out all four corners which I didn't like the sound of (so she had a sulk) but luckily a quick phonecall to Jamie who was fishing a club match at Landsend sorted things out and everybody ended up with a bit of space (sort of)!

The previous Sunday had seen 19 of Tony Rixon's superstars on the same lake so no doubt plenty of information had been exchanged during the week and there seemed to be a definite bread theme going on although, to be fair, it seems to be the  "in thing" at a few venues at the moment.

It was quite interesting after the match to see the different interpretations of the bread theme as the evidence was floating around in the margins....

Kev Jefferies up in corner peg 30 had gone for the K&A approach which resulted in a net of fry that even the average canal angler would have been ashamed of while over in the opposite corner (31) Will Dearlove, who does an excellent impersonation of a shrunken down Steve Ringer, had gone to the opposite extreme and it looked as though he had been using a bread punch fashioned from an empty sweetcorn tin however his three carp totalled over 21lbs!

Anyway, back to the match and I had the last ping pong ball out of the basket which put me on 40 and the golden peg (drawn by Denise after she'd stopped sulking).

As there was nobody on 39 I was reasonably happy to say the least. For company I had Lionel  leadslinger Legge on 38 who seemed to be having a few problems with the tree behind him so I guess he'd forgotten his glasses.

My plan of action for today was 3-fold.

Slinging a pellet feeder with maggot to the island, waggler with maggot in the open water and, later on, caster into the corner margins which would be my banker as the margins at Sedges are around 2' deep so will still produce in the depths of winter.

And in this peg there is a second shelf further out about 4' deep before it disappears down to 8'-ish so I set up rigs for both.

I didn't bother with a rig for the deep water as I fancied a day fishing the wag so that was untangled from the rod bag and the float set at (a guessed) foot off the deck.

I started off with the inevitable chuck to the island with two maggots which fell too short. The second chuck hit dry land but luckily plopped into the island margin with no drama and looked quite impressive but it took a few more random chucks to provoke a bite which I missed.

A few chucks later I managed to snare one of the culprits but a 2oz roach was not part of the plan!

Eventually I did manage a small carp although Lionel next door had one in the net and pulled out of a second putting his rig in the tree behind.

I stuck with this for an hour or so and managed a second small carp but Lionel was by now well ahead and showing off dropping a method feeder 2 inches off the island.

So, having been sparingly pinging out 4mm pellets since the start, it was out with the wag and double maggot which was quite successful, producing a steady-ish run of small carp.

Not really setting the world alight but enough to overtake the neighbour and it didn't look like Adam Caswell or the gimp were doing much further up so I persevered with it.

With an hour and a half left I thought it was time to empty the margins but that proved a waste of casters as the low sun made it impossible to see anything so that was a pint of caster wasted.

I did manage 3 minutes down there when the sun went behind a cloud but that only resulted in a skimmer fry so I abandoned it and spent the rest of the match back on the wag which produced a couple of better fish.

First to weigh in was Matt Taynton on 21 who put 42lbs on the scales which was worrying as I hadn't seen him catching.

Next up was Ryan Radford with 42-11 caught on the bread / lead.

Steve Wynne weighed in 6-9 of silvers before Alan Healy on 26 (who had been admitting to 14 carp on bread) produced 48-14.

This was eclipsed by Dean on 27 with 73-0 also caught on the bread / lead combination.

Mark Radford managed 38-11 and Kev Jefferies' K&A tactics only yielded 7-14 which included a 2lb carp fry.

Will Ringer weighed in 23-11, the Gimp had packed up early and was somewhere on the M5.

Next door on 33 Bristol's other tackle shop owner, Matt Challenger had sewn up the silvers with 8-8 caught at 14m over groundbait and squatt (owning your own tackle shop has it's advantages)

Adam weighed in 7-4 of skimmers which would be good enough for 2nd in that department.

Next up was Lionel who's lead slinging was good enough for 34-12.

I was admitting to 30/35 lbs but hoping for 40, luckily that grew into 48-11 which was enough for 3rd and left me feeling a bit bruised as Alan had beaten me to 2nd by 3oz, about the same as the roach I dropped at my feet that flipped its way to freedom, never mind!

Overall:

1. Dean Malin (27) ..... 73-0

2. Alan Healey (26) .... 48-14

3. Steve Burgess (40) ... 48-11

4. Ryan Radford (23) ... 42-11

5. Matt Taynton (21) ..... 42-0

6. Mark Radford (28) .... 38-11

7. Lionel Legge (38) ..... 34-12

8. Will Dearlove (31) ..... 23-11

9. Matt Challenger (35) ... 8-8

10. Kev Jefferies (30) ..... 7-14

11. Adam Caswell (37) .... 7-4

12. Steve Wynne (24) ..... 6-9

13. John Bradford (33) ... dnw

Silvers:

1. Matt Challenger ..... 8-8

2. Adam Caswell .... 7-4

3. Steve Wynne ...... 6-9

4. Kev Jefferies ...... 5-10

Acorn, old canal, 12 Jan (7 pegs)!

Happy New Year all, and I hope all your New Years Resolutions are going well, if so I guess the cafe at Shipham has been doing a roaring trade in dry toast, salads and decaf coffee.

My New Years Resolution is to update the psv blog on the day so here goes (don't worry, it won't last long)!

Only 7 fishing today which was unfortunate but some were fishing the Westerleigh winter series (or counting the leaves on the bottom of the lake ) and a few others were tied up on the Shiplate winter series.

As for the rest, well I guess they are in hibernation and waiting for the sun to come out but anyway despite the low turnout it was a case of quality over quantity with the cream of the club in evidence ( and Chris Gay )!

Anyway, I won't drag this out too much ..... Suffice to say that Chris Szakacs very kindly offered to do the pegging out and that was the most exciting part of his day on peg 1 (yes, that is the peg that used to win every match),  the rest of it was spent watching Rich Britton on peg 2 apply a liberal coating of batter.

I did feel sorry for Chris as he doesn't take defeat lightly and so packed up at the end and vanished with his tail between his legs.

Rich meanwhile had comfortably pissed the match with 16-5 of carp and skimmers caught on maggot over pinkies at 13m.

In second place was myself with 5-1 from peg 4 which was next to the bridge.

This consisted of 4 carplets and a goldfish all caught on punched bread in  a gap in the fat bank sedges.

Apart from a couple of dinks on a soft pellet I never had a bite elsewhere in the peg.

Lionel Legge was on the other side of the bridge which was also the golden peg ( and worth £32 ) but that was academic as he had one bite all day which he missed!

3rd on the day was Stevie Wynne up on peg 7 (far end of the lake).  Steve managed 2 carp for 4-12, again on punched bread.

Chris Gay could only manage 3-13 for 4th but lost a fish of about 5lbs which cost him dearly.

And Matt Taynton had one carp of 3-10 which he was quite proud of!

The Acorn Antiques ( over 50's and misunderstood ) faired a little better on Paddock.

Ray Bazeley took the honours from peg 11 with 31-14 and Bob Warren was 2nd with 19-ish from peg 40.

This I know as Bob lent me the slice of bread I used and stopped by after the match to see if I had any left!

Anyway, next week is at Sedges (tile) and there is plenty of room so let me know.

Until then .....

Psv Christmas Spectacular, Acorn, Paddock Lake, 14 December

Only 16 fishing today which was a bit of a disappointment seeing as we had 31 last year.  Unfortunately, I suppose, I had booked the Saturday as the coffin-dodgers have a bit of a monopoly on Sunday matches here which meant quite a few of the regulars had to work or whatever.
Next year's match is also on the Saturday however I am thinking of cancelling in favour of a different venue, we shall see.
Anyway, the good news was that it was dry and mild and it was looking to be a good day's fishing however that would soon change when the gale-force winds arrived at about 11 putting the blocks on fishing the pole at anything more than a couple of sections.

Winner on the day, by a country mile, was Rich Britton on peg 6 with 70-15.
Richard caught long on pinkie, kindering a pinch of pinkies after each fish.
He tried various other baits but pinkie was the only bait that produced for him.
I took the photo of the winner before the start of the match, so I guess that means I can predict the future or more likely it goes to show the importance of a good draw on winter commercials.
You can also see in that pic how calm the lake was, which changed dramatically later on for everyone although it did remain reasonably calm in Richard's peg!
Second on the day was Acorn (and Westerleigh) superstar, Simon Belcham who put 40lbs on the scales from peg 33.
Chris Szakacs was third on peg 31 with 26-12. Chris caught early across on top of the shelf with various baits but struggled in the later half after the wind got up.
Fourth place went to another of the Acorn coffin-dodger regulars, Bob Warren with 20-11 from peg 2.

As for my day, peg 10 was the last ping-pong ball in the bag for me and after a chat with my friendly neighbour (and Acorn expert) Kev Jefferies the plan of action was to start across in the gaps to nick a few carp early on and bank on some quality fish from down by the empty platform on peg 11.
So the first hour or so was spent hunting around the gaps in the sedges on the far bank and produced sod all.
Kev meanwhile was doing the same and hooking plenty of fish (landing none) which inspired me to stick at it but I never had a single bite there so I came down into the deeper water at 11m and managed a small skimmer on maggot so a blank was avoided.
Nothing more happened there until a change to soft pellet produced 2 carp in 2 put-in's followed by a lost foul-hooker which seemed to kill it.
An early look down to the platform produced a small carp on maggot and then the wind picked up making things extremely awkward.
I did manage another carp from the deep water in between the gusts and lost another but I spent the rest of the match hanging on to my top 3 down the edge where there was a big clump of sedges which produced a carp that unhooked itself plus a micro roach and a half-tidy skimmer.
I never had a bite in the last 20 minutes which coincided with a visit from two fellow competitors who will remain nameless, one of whom beat me by 4lbs for the section (hmm) but I'm not one to get bitter and twisted so I took that on the chin gracefully.
And to be fair, I did give him a fair bit of stick when he was losing a few so "swings and roundabouts" I suppose and he did buy me a beer in the pub which  always eases the pain a little.


Full Result:

Sections:

Finally, big thanks to everyone who fished today and all who have done through the year and provided many laughs along the way.

Pete Uzzell for volunteering to do the weigh-in which is something that doesn't happen often, an eager volunteer that is.  Mind you it was the first fish he'd seen all day.  

And thanks to whoever it was that filled in the weigh sheet as they had very neat writing which is a big help when I'm sorting the results.

Also thanks to everyone who attended the evening do and especially Lynne Britton for her bingo calling skills and Mrs B for doing the buffet.

Next matches are back on Acorn (top lake) on 12th Jan followed by Sedges (Tile) on the 19th and I will be taking bookings at the meeting on Tuesday Jan 7th.

In the meantime, Happy Christmas to all.

Christmas Match Details

As it stands at the moment we have 16 booked in for Saturday, it could be 17 but even with the best will in the world I don't think one day will be enough to recover from double laser eye surgery to be able to spend five hours staring at a float tip, even if it is the current superstar of Acorn!

So based on that the arrangements are as follows:

Draw at 9 or sooner

Fish from when I'm ready (as normal)

Finish at 3 or when I get my last fish on (whichever is later)

Peg fees will be covered by the club.

Pools £15 plus optional £5 Silvers Pool

Payout will be overall winner £80 plus 4x sections of £40

The winner will also qualify for a free membership.

Results, Payouts and Prizes will be at The Horseshoe, Siston Common

As discussed and agreed many months ago the prizes will be drawn instead of what we have done before with the prizes going in order of the results sheet.

Please feel free to come along on the evening as the wife will have spent all day Saturday preparing the buffet and I'd hate to see it wasted on the "pond life" of Kingswood that frequent the Horseshoe!

If anyone isn't happy with any of the above let me know otherwise, see you on Saturday.

And by the way, "having to go to a Baby Shower" is without a shadow of doubt, the most pitiful excuse I've ever heard for missing a match!

Trinity Waters, Woodlands, 24 November (8 pegs)!

One positive about posting my updates a  day or two after the event is that I get the chance to see how the rest of the circuit has been doing over the weekend.

And with a mini cold-snap over the previous few days ( consecutive frosts on Friday and Saturday nights ) it was expected to be tough.

The first round of Mugger Shanks' Westerleigh winter league was won with 18-8 from peg 6 by Psv's very own Darren North. 

Things were a little better at Acorn on Sunday for the over 43's coffin-dodgers match with current Acorn superstar and  another Psv member, Ray Bazeley method-feedering his way to victory there with 43-12 from peg 5.

Psv's Mike Wilson shared second with M? Richards who both weighed in 40-5 and 4th was yet another psv veteran, Bob Warren with 36-1 so that would have been a close match.

The Saturday open at Landsend was hit by the cold, bright weather and 37-12 was enough for Rod Wooton to win from peg 15.

Over on Shiplate it was hard work for Mr Rixon and his superstars on the main lake, 27-10 was enough to win for Kev Molten from peg 1 but strangely the canals fished much better for the Shiplate winter series.

Tim Lewis won that one with 87-9 from peg 9 on Hawthorns.

A bit closer to home the recently reopened and refurbished Bitterwell Lake had its first match (I think) on Sunday but again it was a tough one and only 21lbs was enough to win that one.

Incidentally, second was someone called Des with 19-4.

By now I expect you're wondering where the hell this is all leading but the (very long-winded) point of this is that we are now well and truly in winter mode where every bite counts and one lost bonus carp can make the difference between framing or coming nowhere.

Personally I enjoy this type of fishing although I don't enjoy those days in the depths of winter when you know you'll be lucky if you get a bite but, as they say, "a bad day's fishing is better than a good day's work" (ok, I made that up)!

ANYWAY, on to the big event and it was a pretty poor turnout with just 8 fishing.

Thankfully the lovely Misha let us have the far bank to ourselves and only charged us the peg fees which was generous especially seeing as there had been an overnight charity carp match on Wildmarsh where 32 were booked in but "only" 24 turned up ... Bless her!

For a change, and seeing as there were only 8 of us, I thought I'd do a quick rundown of each peg so here goes.

Peg 6, Will Dearlove

Will has got it into his head that the last peg in the bag (which I normally have) is always a flier so to humour him I gave him the choice of the last 2 and sure enough he drew peg 6 in the bottom corner which was the peg everyone fancies and is usually a really good margin peg.

Not today though as Will never had anything down the edge and caught at 14m on corn, and feeding corn.

He ended up with a couple of lumpy carp and 11-12 of silvers for a total of 26-11.

His silvers net was made up mostly of good quality roach and a confused tench and was easily enough to take the silvers pool.

Peg 8, Stewart Riddle

One carp and a decent net of silvers for a total of 12-7

Peg 10, Mark Radford

Unfortunately Mark managed to forget to bring any maggot or caster but it made little difference as he caught down the edge to an overhanging bush on corn (I think) to weigh in a total of 29-3 which was good enough for second on the day.

Peg 12, Matt Challenger

Arguably Bristol's most popular tackle shop owner Matt fished 16m with soft pellet over micro where he caught silvers and a couple of decent carp. He also caught (and lost) a few more fishing to the empty platform next to him.

His total weight of 30-13 was enough to win the match and just about covered his bait costs.

Peg 14, Me

No chance of winning today as this was the golden peg but I did better than last week.

I fed 3 areas at 14m, to the left I put in quite a bit of groundbait, caster and micros. In the middle it was just caster / maggot / micros and to the right I fed ultra-cautious (just the one potfull).

I also put a bit of maggot and caster at 11m and fed both margins with caster and groundbait just to make sure I never had to take any home.

The long lines produced small silvers straight away on double maggot and over the groundbait, where I was getting a bit of fizzing, I had 2 small carp before hooking a scale which seemed to kill it for a bit.

The shorter line was also giving up tiny roach as did the left margin which I'd been topping up with casters.

First put in down the right on caster produced a pole-bender which snapped the rig line on its way down to Matt's peg.

It was an old rig I'd dug out of the box and stuck a new 0.12 hook length on so that was a possible match-winning fish lost due to laziness unfortunately.

I stuck with this margin for the last 2 hours, topping up with groundbait and caster and managed a further 3 carp and a good skimmer on double maggot for a total of 25-1 and 4th place.

Peg 16, Ryan Radford

Ryan fished a tidy match but didn't seem to have any fish in front of him ... Dnw

Peg 18, Pete Uzzell

Pete seems to like drawing this peg although the peg doesn't seem to like drawing him!

One carp and a few silvers gave him 11-10 and the "must try harder" award.

Peg 20, Chris Gay

Fiortunately Chris didn't need the 30lb ice-breaker that together with the world's heaviest seatbox knocked about 10mpg off the fishing bus's fuel consumption on the motorway.

Chris caught very late down the left margin towards the corner on triple caster (nothing on single or double)!

Apparently the carp turned up in his margin in the last half hour which was too late to make a difference.

Mind you halfway through the match he decided to go down with his landing net and do a bit of swim clearing which may have also cleared out any carp that were in there ... nice logic!

Chris ended up with 22-3 and would have won if we'd fished on for another 30 minutes.

Full Result:

This Sunday we are on Spring lake at Viaduct and currently have 11 / 12 booked in. It should be a good day's fishing so don't miss out!

2014 Match Calendar

Not fully complete as there are a couple of empty dates, and I will be sorting out the weekend away in September over the Christmas holidays.

Harescombe Match Lake, 17 November (15 pegs)

This was our 4th and final trip up to Harescombe this year and I was looking forward to it, especially after last week's match on Campbell which was a bit of a struggle.

For once the weather was expected to be kind with little or no wind and reasonably dry too so it would be interesting to see how we would get on with the venue in decent conditions where presentation wouldn't be a problem.

The Tuesday match had been won with 104lbs with two weights of 99lbs and the previous Sunday had been won with 112lbs so despite the recent drop in temperature it looked like the fish were still very active.

Looking through the recent results showed no particular area standing out although Andy the owner reckoned pegs 5/6 were producing consistently recently (more on this later)!

Incidentally, if you are interested, you can find the match results here.

On to the match then and the pegging was sorted by Andy and almost everyone had an empty peg one side or at least plenty of space.

Payout was 1st and 2nd overall with three section payouts.  As Ryan Radford doesn't go in the pools I did suggest that if Ryan won his section I would leave it to the discretion of the default section winner to hand over part of their spoils to him although this suggestion was met with a rather mediocre response!

As usual I drew last and was left with peg 6 (more on this later).

Being quite an open venue it's quite easy to see (or hear) who is catching and from my vantage point, halfway down the carpark bank I could see plenty of elastic coming from the pegs to my right, most notably Brian Shanks on peg 9, Chris Szakacs 2 down on 13 and Rich Jones to my right on 7.

Jason Bird was sandwiched between Brian and Chris on peg 11 and I couldn't see much elastic coming from his pole although I guessed he had formulated a cunning plan of attack and would come good as the match progressed ( he didn't  though which was a shame)!

At the top end of the lake, fortunately I couldn't see him, Simon Belcham was also off to a tremendous start on the temporary end peg 29.

Luckily for everyone around Simon's neighbour Lionel Legge was keeping score with regular updates of how many fish Simon had .... By the time he reached 84 most were bored!

Mr Shanks meanwhile was steadily putting fish in his net in between losing fish and snagging the far bank undergrowth.

On the other side of the lake Derek Lucas had gotten off to a flying start on peg 18  (yes, you read that correctly), as had Stevie Wynne on 22 and I could just about make out Darren North opposite me on the other temporary end(ish) peg 24 putting a few in his nets.

And that was pretty much how it ended up with Brian Shanks taking the honours with 74-2 just ahead of Simon Belcham's tremendous weight of 70-0.

Miraculously Chris Szakacs' estimated 40lbs suddenly grew into 68-15 for third place.

Section winners were Dean Malin's bitch, Alan Healey (by default), Chris Szakacs (also by default) and Stevie Wynne who won his section fair and square and never broke anything so a good day for him!

Not a good day for Jason Bird however as he was well and truly "chip-shopped" between Brian and Chris, oh dear!
I did take the trouble to find out the secrets of the top 3's success.
Simon's response was "clean living" which made sense really as I wasn't expecting a sensible answer.
Brian and Chris were a little more forthcoming....
Brian caught on double maggot over kindered micros, feeding approximately 15 micro's after four fish.  He caught mostly on the shelf with a few fish caught down the shelf.
Chris fished similarly but fed maggots and found lifting his rig a few inches would induce more positive bites.
Neither admitted to lashing bait in with a polecup, lesson learnt! 

See below for the scores on the doors.

Oh, and back to what happened on peg 6.  Not a lot to be honest!

I've always been a believer in the saying:

"Fail to prepare and prepare to fail" so with this in mind I sacrificed my normal Saturday dose of Ola Jordan on Strictly and set about making up some "special" F1 rigs which included ultra sensitive floats, light (0.12) line, size 16 Tubertini 808 hooks and lots of tiny no. 11 shot that could be spread around as required.

I also equipped a topkit with some light elastic so all was looking good.

I started the match feeding 2 spots at the bottom of the far shelf with micros and dead reds, a cup of the same went down the track and also in front of the empty platform to my left.

Starting at the bottom of the far shelf not much was happening apart from a few tiny skimmers on drm's and after flogging a dead horse for 30 minutes it became apparent that everyone else were catching in the shallow water on top of the far shelf which I hadn't accounted for in my clever plan of attack.

So a pot of feed was dumped up there while I fished around in the box for a suitable rig.

The best I could come up with was a shallow rig left over from the summer which had what looked like 0.18 line and a 14 B911 on but it would have to do and that was stuck on a topkit with 16 elastic in ( another leftover from the summer)!

I messed around with this rig up on the shelf with 2 or 3 drm's on the hook but it was a major struggle and was only producing small silvers and the odd half-decent suicidal carp/f1. Those that I did get seemed to be a bit bigger than what most people were catching but they were very few and far between and my best fish turned out to be a chub of about a pound and a half.

Corn produced sod all and the platform swim gave up a small skimmer and a missed bite.

I spent the last half hour down the track which produced a few tiny things and a last gasp decent carp in extra time just seconds before I called the "all out" ... Funny that!

Anyway the end result of that dismal performance was 20-8 for 15th (my fingers won't allow me to type the "L" word. But at least I never chickened out of weighing in and it was still an enjoyable match with plenty of bites for most of us which is what you want this time of year.
Next week we are on Woodlands at Trinity and at the moment we are a bit light on numbers so don't be shy.