Trinity, Woodlands / Rood Ashton

You may have noticed it's gone a bit quiet around here for a couple of weeks, but no, I haven't been on holiday or anything but after three dismal performances in a row I have slipped into one of those depressive states where you wonder why you bother getting out of bed on a Sunday morning.

In fact the way things have been going recently I reckon I'd struggle to catch crabs in a brothel but never mind, there's always the next match ....

So first up then was Trinity (Woodlands) back on the first Sunday in June and it was a nice warm day with a bit of breeze which under normal circumstances would have promised good weights for the 18 of us fishing.

But on arrival the carp in Ash Pool (both of them) were going at it like rabbits and chatting to fishery manager Misha who (judging by the size of her bump) has been as well,  the carp in the much deeper Woodlands lake had not started spawning properly and were likely to be more interested in following each other around than eating.

I drew peg 19 which is on the top bank and it was in the shade so while everyone else were stripping off and slapping on factor 30 I was shivering in my shorts and t-shirt. 

The peg looked good though with a big reed bed on the right and an overhanging tree on the left. I set up rigs for banded pellet shallow and deep at 11m and a rig for corn in the margins which I was expecting to be my banker.

Unfortunately none of the above really came good and my best run came when I switched to fishing shallow at 5m feeding by hand and even that didn't come to much.

I ended up with a handful of smallish carp and accidental silvers for 36-9

The match was won by Ivy House refugee Brian Shanks with 85-4 from peg 27 and his sidekick Rocket Ron Hardiman was 2nd with 75-1 from peg 7

It was an entertaining match all the same especially listening to Steve o' Toole catching eels and Mark Radford moaning constantly about the lack of fish in his peg but the highlight for me was Alan Healey who came with a grand plan of feeding off the hordes of tiny silvers armed with 6 pints of dead maggots.

He weighed in 1 carp and 300 micro fish that totalled 18-6 ... That worked well then!

Full Result:

1. Brian shanks (27) ..... 85-4
2. Ron Hardiman (7) ...... 75-1
3. Darren North (10) ..... 56-14
4. Matt Taynton (32) ...... 52-11
5. Matt Challenger (13) ... 44-1
6. Rich Jones (20) .......... 41-8
7. Steve Burgess(19) ..... 36-9
8. Lee Waller (4) ........... 30-2
9. Ryan Radford (14) ..... 28-13
10. Julian Nurse (30) ....... 27-5
11. Lionel Legge (11) ....... 27-1
12. Adam Caswell (17) ..... 24-8
13. Mark Radford (24) ...... 22-10
14. Alan Healey (29) / Steve o'Toole (23) ... 18-6
15. Steve Wynne (2) ........ 17-6
16. John Bradford (8) ....... 9-0
17. Derek Lucas (26) ....... dnw

Silvers:

1. Steve (snake-charmer) O'Toole  ... 11-3
2. Mark (the moaner) Radford ... 10-13
3. Alan (whitebait) Healey ... 10-2

The following Sunday we were at Rood Ashton which has long been an annual pilgrimage for Psv.

The only chance of a breakfast here has previously been Wetherspoons in Trowbridge (or TrowVegas as John Atkins calls it) but they don't open until 8 which means a late start.

But the good news was that fishery owner Alan's daughter has now started doing bacon baguettes which can be pre-ordered and delivered to the lake.

I had one and I was glad I did, next time round I will be ordering 5 to be delivered at hourly intervals (order one and you'll see where I'm coming from)!

Rood Ashton is a funny place, it's only a foot or so deep on the whole but is stuffed full of carp, roach and small skimmers.

We don't bother with a silvers pool here although I've no idea why as there are loads of them in there including plenty of quality roach.

Generally peg 1 nearest the car park and the end peg round the back in "the jungle" tend to be the best areas but anywhere can produce.

 I drew the first peg around the first corner which sticks out on a small spit.

I've done well at Rood Ashton before fishing paste in the margins but this time round (and God knows why after what happened to Alan last week) I opted to feed 3 pints of dead maggots down the left edge with a bit of corn and fish over it with corn or bunches of maggots to pick out the carp.

The same combination went next to an overhanging branch on the left at 11m and the same rig would do for the right margin at topkit range to be fished with meat over meat and 4mm's.

I set up a shallow rig to fish banded pellet (on the deck) at 13/14m and finally, as I had a bit of time to spare, a pellet wag.
There were a lot of fish cruising round in front of me so I started off on the pellet rig but all that produced were small roach that managed to choke on an 8mm pellet and swirls and bow waves from spooked carp.
Upping the feed brought in plenty of fish but connecting with any of them (in the mouth) was another matter.
Out by the tree branch with corn gave more roach and some carp but almost every fish I hooked I pulled out of.
In fact the whole match turned into a nightmare for me and when I finally worked out I'd been fishing with a blunt hook (caused by getting the plummet stuck in a snag before the start) I was too fed up to care about it.
The pellet wag was a waste of space (I hooked and lost one fish on it), the margins never came to life and it wasn't until the last 20 minutes or so that i finally managed to get some proper bites at 14m on the pellet rig.
My eventual total of 19-2 was only good enough for 13th place and with only 13 fishing it won't be a match I'll be remembering for too long.
And to add insult to injury, when I came round with the fishing bus to pick my kit up my margins were full of waving tails like something from a show at Seaworld ... why does this always happen!

For the second week running the match was won by Brian Shanks with an impressive 142lbs 3oz 

Second place went to Pete Uzzell from peg 1 with 82-4 

and the third spot went to Mr method feeder, Chris Gay with 76-0 from the "jungle" which conveniently brings me on to the highlight of the day which was when Chris got pulled into the lake by a particularly spirited fish along with his seatbox and everything attached to it including his phone.
Lee Waller commented that it was worth the £20 just to witness Chris's Tom Daly impersonation!

Full Result:

1. Brian Shanks ....... 142-3
2. Pete Uzzell .......... 82-4
3. Chris Gay ............ 76-0
4. Mark Radford ....... 57-7
5. Ron Hardiman ...... 52-13
6. Alan Healey .......... 50-12
7. Lee Waller ............ 49-13
8. Steve Sewell ......... 37-12
9. Matt Williams ........ 35-0
10. Ryan Radford ........ 34-10
11. Steve O'Toole ........ 34-5
12. Adam Caswell ........ 25-6
13. Steve Burgess ........ 19-2

Avalon, 31 May (19 pegs)

I may go off on a bit of a tangent this week as I haven't got much to write about fishing-wise after my dismal performance today.

So first up then and a short apology as it has been brought to my attention that I may have upset someone with my recent semi-drunken ramblings.

I won't go into details but to that person who I offended I do apologise if I over-stepped the mark a bit but please be assured that nothing that goes down on these pages is intended to cause bad feeling etc.

Talking of taking the piss (or banter as it is known these days) Giles Cochrane wrote an interesting passage about this on his FaceBlog thingy.
 You can read that here

Funny enough, the same person who was named and shamed in that piece was also up to his usual antics in the cafe at Shipham this morning but I can assure Mr Rixon that the Halall sausages were actually really good and I would thoroughly recommend them.

So after receiving my first dose of Sunday morning abuse (there was plenty more to come), I made it down to Avalon with about 3 minutes to spare mainly due to the chef not turning up at the cafe but it has to be said that the Lilypool Spice Girls did a great job and the breakfast was as good as it always is, just about 30 minutes longer in the making.

No travelling partner this week as Derek had gone off to London for the weekend for a "gay wedding" so next match I shall be making sure the centre armrest  in the fishing bus is well and truly fixed down and I will be hiding the Elton John cd

19 fishing today then, including the fishery owner Mr Bush who kindly organised the pegging.

And that gave us the normal left bank (1 - 23) and four pegs dotted along the back of the top Island.
In a similar fashion to last week Will was paying out 1st and 2nd overall, 2 silvers and 2 sections and we even had a golden peg to go at this week which was peg 21.

With the chilly wind blowing over the backs of most of us but forecast to swing right to left up the lake I fancied peg 23, 24 (top corners) or the right hand end of any island peg which would allow a waggler to drift into the reeds.

Getting in the queue early I got myself peg 17 which was worthy of a smug grin as it's a nice peg on a small island.

Three slight problems though ...

I was on the wrong end of the island,

There was an overhanging branch in front that was already decorated like a tackle shop Christmas tree,

And Alan Healey was on 16, which had apparently won the open on the previous Thursday with 108lbs

which you can read about here

Peg 17 and my new hi-viz nets

A very determined looking Alan Healey

Alan had unfortunately been on the receiving end of quite a lot of "banter" last week at Staunton Court after recording a massive dnw from the next peg to the winner but these things happen (even to good anglers)!

Nonetheless he was pretty determined it wasn't going to happen again this week.

On my left today, and on the good side of an island, was Keith Ray who was sporting a slightly less blinding version of the Team Frenzee look and down from Alan on peg 13 was Lee Williams who spent the first 15 minutes of the match doing an impression of an otter searching for his missing keepnet. 

Elsewhere Mark Radford and Vic Bush were on 23 & 24 which both looked likely to do well, 2-pegs Taynton had finally managed to draw away from me and was hiding round the back on 27 and Chris Szakacs had drawn the shortest walk on the lake, a flat calm peg 1, and wasn't looking overjoyed even though it had come second in the Thursday match.

That was the last I saw of Chris so I guess as fish have fins they had used them to bugger off elsewhere, as did poor Mr Szakacs.

To cut a long story short the match was won by Lee Williams who is currently on a bit of a roll and, despite swimming round his margins for 15 minutes, managed 106-13 of carp caught mostly on the wag.

And you can read all about that here

He chose not to weigh in his 3 accidental roach and that almost proved costly when we got round to Matt Taynton as after his first 2 weighs it was looking mightily close but he ended up 2nd with 102-14 also caught on the wag.

3rd place went to Vic with 66-3

Top silvers on the day went to Lee Waller with 16-6 of skimmers from peg 11

Just ahead of Steve Sewell's 16-2 from peg 28

Lee caught on worm over chopped worm and caster / groundbait at 14m

Full Result:

1. Lee Williams (13) ....... 106-13
2. Matt Taynton (27) ........ 102-14
3. Vic Bush (24) ............. 66-3 (section)
4. Keith Ray (19) ............ 55-10
5. Will Dearlove (9) ......... 48-14 (section)
6. Lionel Legge (6) .......... 36-9
7. Mark Radford (23) ....... 32-4
8. Ryan Radford (7) ......... 29-11
9. Matt Williams* (21) ..... 27-0
10. Adam Caswell (3) ........ 24-15
11. Steve Sewell (28) ........ 23-10
12. Paul Preston (5) ........... 17-7
13. Lee Waller (11) ............ 16-6
14. Alan Healey (16) .......... 13-12
15. and 5 dnw's

Silvers:

1. Lee Waller  (11) ...... 16-6
2. Steve Sewell (28) .... 16-2
3. Mark Radford (23) .... 12-12
4. Keith Ray (19) ......... 11-10
5. Paul Preston (5) ....... 11-5
6. etc

And if anyone was wondering ....

After a couple of successful practice chucks before the start my first proper chuck with the wag ended up in the tree much to Alan's amusement and my match never really improved from that point on.

My 1 carp, 2lb skimmer and handful of bits harpooned on my shallow rig would have struggled to make double figures but we'll never know as they never made it to the weigh net.

Alan didn't do much better but he weighed in for the satisfaction of getting one of his pound coins back.

Next week we're down at Trinity which suits me better as there's none of that island chucking nonsense!

Staunton Court, 24 May (14 pegs)

As usual the first port of call today was the Watersmeet Hotel for breakfast which  is always a good start to the day.

14 fishing so Will pegged 5 on the concrete bank, 5 on the grass and 2 on each end paying out first and second overall, one silvers and two sections.

Some eyebrows were raised at the inclusion of a silvers payout but no concerns from me even though I wouldn't be targeting them.

I drew 14 which put me on the bottom end bank next to Contraversial Chris (Gay) on 13 and Kev Jefferies on peg 1 which was the first peg on the concrete bank.

There were a lot of fish swirling within pole range which was a good sign and the shallow margins in front of Chris were also full of active fish but over in the corner (the famous bin peg) that was occupied by Lee Williams there was a full scale carp orgy going on in the reeds which is never a good sign.

Lots of options in this peg, obviously open water out in front, a long reed lined margin to the left and I remember Ryan Radford drawing it once and breaking his no4 section early on but he caught well later in that match on his topkit so that was another option to think about.

Pole only today so I set up a shallow rig for banded 8's, a deep rig for the same, and a rig for corn tight to the reeds down to the left where it was 2½ feet deep.

Chris had set up pretty much the same but had also set up a kit with a method feeder stuck to the end of it ... contraversial as ever!

He had mentioned earlier that it would take 200lbs to win today, I got the impression he meant he was up for that but he reckoned otherwise, however he was keen to have a pound with me but with a possible £3 loss on the cards for me already (Alan, Adam and Lee) I declined and he had one with Lee instead, in hindsight I should have taken him up on his generous offer.

Bait today was 8mm pellets, corn and 4mm's for the margin and some cubed meat which never got used.

After feeding a pot of 8mm's at 11m and some corn and 4's down the edge I started out on the shallow rig at 11m.

The pellet was under constant attack from bottle-top sized skimmers but I managed to snare a couple of carp quite quickly on this before it went quiet.

Chris had gone straight into his margin where there were still fish swirling but this was only producing skimmers and even the deadly pole/method combination didn't offer up any carp.

Lee had also gone down the margin but was only getting scales.

I kept plugging away with the shallow rig for the first hour and that took me up to four fish from about 400 false bites.

The pole line was by now fizzing like a jacuzzi so I tried the deep rig but that gave more of the same bites from tiny silvers so I didn't persist with it.

I had a look down the edge with a grain of corn on the hook and got the same result but I was hooking some better skimmers down there but they were coming off on the way back due to the heavy elastic so a change of plan was required and I fired a couple of pouches of 4's and corn into the margins while I dug out a lighter rig on light elastic to target these until the carp turned up.

Chris had all but given up on carp and was catching good sized skimmers in his margins.

My attempt at silvers fishing didn't last too long.

After about 10 minutes the float buried accompanied by a huge swirl and 20yds of green knicker elastic headed off towards Kev Jefferies before bottoming out accompanied by another big swirl before something gave way and the rig returned with a little pigtail of line where the hook should have been .... bugger!

I went back down there with the heavier gear but nothing followed.

By now we were past halfway but the only person really doing any good was Keith Ray up in peg 8 on the top end of the grass bank.

Alan Healey on 7 was virtually blanking and getting a lot of stick and Mark Radford wasn't doing much better judging by the moaning coming from his end of the lake.

Most others were on 3 or 4 fish although Contraversial Chris reckoned Lee had a few more than that, the whole lake was fishing badly.

At this point Adam Caswell on peg 9 hit a bit of a purple patch and started catching a few refugees from Keith's peg on his shallow line and making sure everyone in earshot knew about it which was handy as I went back out at 14m shallow and managed to put another 10 carp in the net ... Adam went a bit quiet again after that.

As Keith had by now easily won the match and it was looking to be between myself and Lee Williams for 2nd and we were both admitting to 14 carp although he had one at the death which was a proper net-stretcher.

As expected Keith won it with 110-10 catching on meat and paste down the edge.

Lee's "14" carp went 100-4 for second and you can read all about that here
My nets totalled 78-0 for 3rd (and the section) but I wasn't bitter in the slightest!

Silvers went to Contraversial Chris with 28-0 of skimmers.


Full Result:

1. Keith Ray (8) 110-10
2. Lee Williams (12) ..... 100-4
3. Steve Burgess (14) ... 78-0
4. Simon Belcham (11) .. 61-8
5. Darren North (4) ....... 56-6
6. Chris Gay (13) .......... 54-4
7. Lee Waller (6) ........... 54-0
8. Adam Caswell (9) ...... 50-0
9. Will Dearlove (3) ....... 41-6
10. Pete Uzz (10) ............31-10
11. and several dnw's (including Alan Healey)

Silvers:

1. Chris Gay ...... 28-0
2. Simon Belcham .... 15-0
3. Lee Williams ......... 6-0
4. etc

Inter-club vs Crapenters Arms, Sedges, 17 May (31 pegs)

Before I venture down the long and drawn out road of self appreciation it's worth mentioning that I fished a match on the Saturday at Docklow pools near Hereford.

It was a 58 peg "knock-up" that had been organised by Norm Sterry through the Match Fishing South West Facebook page.

I have to say that Docklow was a bit of an eye-opener for me as not only do they have 8 well kept lakes, but there are also holiday cottages, a pub/restaurant and a proper tackle shop 

http://www.docklowpools.com/

The match itself didn't go quite to plan for me as I treated it like I would do at the venues I'm more used to and to be honest it went a bit "tits up" from start to finish but my peg did look nice ....

Ok so I never bothered to trouble the scales but it still beats work!

And with this in mind I was determined to make up for my failings today so I spent Saturday night making up suitable rigs like proper anglers do.

On to today then and I was on my own in the fishing bus as my usual travelling partner was away watching a non-league football match which his team scraped through by the skin of their teeth to secure a place back in the proper league so well done them.

My first port of call was breakfast at Hilltops which was comical as Trigg was in there quizzing Bela on the finer details of his "random slapping method" while eating lemon meringue pie which is a scene you don't come across every day.

We had 31 between us fishing today on Brick and Tile and everyone was in good spirits with the usual nonsense pre-match banter flying around.

The two team captains sorted out the draw aided by fishery owner Jamie which gave us a fair, if not complicated, mix of pegs and as Carpenters had less fishing than ourselves they kept Stevie Wynne and Rich Jones (who are members of both clubs) and I believe we lent them Keith Ray to balance the numbers (but I could be wrong on that)

The wind was blowing left to right and slightly towards pegs 20 & 40 (looking down the lakes) so I was hoping for a peg with the wind behind me which would make the wag easy to fish, or any corner except 1 or 30.

Most people were hoping for a draw on Brick as it contains a bigger average stamp of carp although Tile has big fish in it but also a lot of smaller ones.

Our lot drew first and I took my chances in the middle and pulled out peg 10 on Brick which is a corner and one of the most desirable pegs out of the two lakes.

Most people would have ran to it but I chose to take a steady stroll with a smug grin and tried to ignore the obvious comments.

Lee Williams drew 30, and he didn't run to his peg either but for entirely different reasons ... never mind!

Read his tale of woe here

For company today I had Chris Woolley on peg 9 who apparently is quite an artist when it comes to fishing the paste and legendary amongst his Carpenters Arms colleagues.

Down from him on 8 was, yet again, 2-pegs Taynton who I reckon must have a bit of a man-crush on me considering how often he appears near me on the bank. I think I'll have to print him off a picture to keep under his pillow for the rest of the week!

Behind me (and the tree) was Phil Terry in 31 who I was expecting to do well and next(ish) to him on 33 was our Team Captain Will Dearlove who had somehow managed an empty peg either side of him which was a massive advantage and one not to be squandered in a team match.

Meanwhile Alan Healey, who had drawn 26 on Tile, popped over for a chat and attempted to give me his pound before the match had kicked off but I made him keep it warm and flatly refused to fall for his mind games. I do find it quite comical the depths some people will sink to for the sake of a shiny pound coin!

I did at one point consider walking down to fetch another net before the all in but as I said, I'm not into winding people up.

Anyways, rigs for today consisted of a shallow rig which was capable of supporting an 8mm pellet (unlike yesterday's).

This was to fish tight to the reeds near the tree stump towards the corner and would double up as a rig for "random slapping" in open water.

Next was a rig for the same area but about a meter away from the bank where there was an even depth of about 4 feet and that would be for meat over meat / pellet.

A third rig was set up for meat at 5m at 1 o' clock which was more of an emergency back-up in case all else failed.

Finally a shallow wag rod was set up with a 3ssg float set to 18" as there were quite a few fish swirling all around the peg.

Bait today was nothing fancy, 8mm pellets for the wag (but more like 10's),

2 tins of meat (there's a 3 tin limit at Sedges currently), and a bag of 6mm pellet left over from Docklow for feeding the ducks by the tree stump.

Nothing there to interest the silvers as they were not on the menu today (hopefully)

Will shouted the All-In at 10:30 and after feeding my pole lines I started out on the wag and by 10:31 my float had vanished and I was playing my first fish which took me a bit by suprise, a nice black and yellow ghostie of about 8lbs

Chris next door though was having none of it and also landed a similar sized wag caught fish minutes later and this was how it continued for the first 2 hours with myself and Chris matching each other fish for fish, not loads of them but they were averaging around 10lbs.

And from what I could see of it we were the only ones catching anything of note and especially on the far bank of Brick there was a line of glum looking faces.

The guy in 11 (with the nasty cough) who I had spoken to before the start had said he was going to target down the end bank by the reeds with paste but it seemed that hadn't gone to plan and he was later slinging a wag around to no avail.

A look over my shoulder and I got a big thumbs down from Will who was struggling from his three pegs and he reckoned nobody on Tile was getting a great deal.

After the first couple of hours the wagg line seemed to grind to a halt, bites were few and far between and those I did get I was missing. So I had a look round the pole lines.

The tree stump produced nothing even though I had seen fish moving there and the short meat line gave up one bite that I missed.

I had a go at the random slapping but it only produced one fish that was hooked in the chin.

Chris meanwhile had gone out long with paste and was catching well on it which was concerning as I had hit a wall and was getting nothing.

The bankside rumour mill reckoned Matt Taynton had been catching all day long on the wagg and looked to have it seem up.

With 90 minutes to go I started to get some fish from the tree stump and I was catching well for the last hour adding maybe another 40lbs in that time.

Come the all-out it seemed that Brick had been the better lake and had produced the top 6 weights but Tile had been more consistent with lots of weights  in the 50's and 60's

Matt was the clear winner with 135lbs 2oz followed by myself with 115-14 and then Chris with 91-4 (but still battered from both sides).

Lionel Legge in peg 20 took 4th spot with  79-0.

Top weight on Tile was Keith Ray with 69-13 from peg 22

The top Silvers  went to Colin Butler with 22-7 of skimmers from peg 5

The inter club match was decided on the top ten weights from both clubs and predictably went to Psv with 656-2 against 582-2

Weigh Sheet:

The guy in peg 11 with the nasty cough packed up early, fishless. I reckon he coughed all the fish out of his peg!

Viaduct, Cary, 03 May (20 pegs)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lee Waller (widescreen)

Lee Williams

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Full Result:

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

Silvers:

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

Plantations, Horseshoe Lake, 26 April

Well this could be my shortest update for a while!

Apparently Frys had fished here last week and found it tough but the last hour proved to be productive.

For most of us today the first five hours were challenging and so was the last one.

I missed the draw and started 30 minutes after the rest, not that it made much difference.

Alan Healey showed a rare bit of compassion and skipped this week's side bet (although he has lost the last 2 and was out for a meal after so maybe wasn't taking any chances).

Steve Sewell was not feeling quite so generous, especially as he was aware that I'd spent all day and half of Saturday night driving across Europe and back on a humanitarian mercy mission and was therefore absolutely cream-crackered,

But I wasn't going to let that stop me fishing!

My peg (13) looked good. It was on the end of the island on the right hand side facing into the far right corner and the wind was pushing up this end.

I had no kit prepared (although past experiences have shown that this isn't always a bad thing).

Bait options were whatever was lurking in the holdall which turned out to be various sizes of pellet. Some 6mm soft hookers and a tin of corn so plenty there to empty the lake with!

I dug out a suitable rig to fish at 10m, the depth here was around 5' and varied by about half the float's depth around the peg so would do.

I also found a rig suitable for the left hand margin. 

The right margin was taken up by overhanging branches which looked to be a tackle graveyard and was best avoided (although I did try it later on out of desperation)

I was tempted to set up a shallow wag to chuck to the opposite bank margins but chose not to as the tree behind would have been a pain with casting.

To cut a long story short I missed about 6 bites on the pole lines, probably liners, and foul hooked a skimmer and a carp.

Set up a shallow rig which produced nothing.

Went down the edge and had a properly hooked skimmer on corn and finally went in amongst the tree branches and missed another sail-away.

My three fish went 8-4 (less than I thought) and I was glad to get home and sink my face into a couple of bottles of "wife-beater" and fall asleep on the sofa.

The match was won by Paul Preston (below) with 31-4 caught on the lead with 8mm pellet fished over to the reeds on the opposite bank.

In second place was Ross Baker with 26-8 caught on the pole with dead maggot over to the end of the island.

3rd was Rocket Ron Hardiman (below) with 24-12

Sneaking into 4th (and getting his first, and last £ back) was Steve Sewell with 16-12 and his biggest match weight ever.

Full Result:

1. Paul Preston (15) ........ 31-4
2. Ross Baker (3) .......... 26-8
3. Ron Hardiman (14) .... 24-12
4. Steve Sewell (4) ........ 16-12
5. Darren North (2) ....... 14-0
6. Steve O'Toole (9) ...... 13-8
7. Chris Szakacs (7) ...... 12-0
8. Alan Healey (11) ....... 11-8
9. Warwick Davis (8) ..... 10-0
10. Steve Burgess (13) ... 8-4
11. Derek Lucas (11) ...... 2-4
12. and a few dnw's

Next week we're down at Viaduct on Cary so hopefully there should be some 1's in front of the above results (or 2's even).
And it will be the first Psv match under the control of the smaller of our match secretary duo.
I have a feeling it will go well (he's organised)!!
 

Ivy House new canal 15pegs

A short drive down the m4 today to Ivy House lakes, its been awhile since the club have visited the fishery and in that time the venue has changed owners with the very capable Andy and Karen Lloyd taking over the reins. The couple have really done a fantastic job and its turning into a first class venue.

We were on new canal today which was a total unknown for all that were fishing so no one knew what to expect, but with 18 pegs and 15 fishing talk in the carpark by the venue experts (Dean Malin) suggested it could fish hard! and boy he wasn't wrong! we could of filled the lake but had to cap it at 15 with Darren North, Lionell legg and Brian Shanks travelling up anyway and fishing the open on the main lake, Darren in particular was really looking forward to pitting his wits against all the locals and venue experts in attendance including England international and Bristols finest Des Shipp, Darren was so excited he was seen running to the car to fetch his autograph book and after the draw even offered to carry Des's tackle to his peg bless him.

Alan Healy was running things today and one half of the new match secretary duo was taking things easy sampling one of the great breakfasts on offer, the nine oclock draw time came and went meaning
we ended up drawing at half past and fishing from half ten to half four, pay out wise it was top four and two silvers so lots to go at

No one was really fussed where they drew as no one had fished the lake before so everyone was clueless on what was a flyer good peg bad peg etc, as it happens they were all bad pegs! Not a lot can be said about the match really as the lake just didn't fish and it was a struggle for everyone in fact it was that bad a third of the field had gone home with two hours to go, why that is I don't know as the lake has plenty of fish in it they just didn't want to play ball today.

It ended up being a bitter sweet day for the Radfords as dad Mark came first and son Ryan came second but yet again Mark never paid Ryans pools which I guess over the course of the last season has probably ended costing Mark a fair few quid the amount of times Ryan has framed!!

Mark was on peg 16 and caught most of his fish in the first hour and half , ending with three carp and several tench all caught tight over on pellet, Ryan was on 11 and took a leaf out of the Adam Caswell school of foulhooking landing two large carp hooked in the wrong end which made up most of his weight. Third went to myself on 17 and my match started in great fashion, shipping out on the whistle I lowered the rig in against the far bank and it kept going and within a minute a bemused ten pound common was laying in the net but that was as good as it got with a handful of f1s tench and skimmers making up the rest of my weight, fouth went to Si Belcham on 10 with a decent net of skimmers and one carp, Si also came first in the silvers followed by Steve Sewell on 12 with a net of tench and f1s

the view from 17

FULL RESULT

1ST   MARK RADFORD     29LB 14OZ   PEG 16
2ND  RYAN RADFORD      19LB 14OZ           11
3RD  CHRIS SZAKACS       18LB  8OZ            17
4TH  SI BELCHAM              17LB                     10
5TH  ALAN HEALY             10LB  9OZ             8
6TH  LEE WALLER                9LB  8OZ             1
         STEVE SEWELL            9LB  8OZ           12
7TH  MATT CHALLENGER  6LB  8OZ           15
8TH  JULIAN NURSE             5LB  1OZ           18
9TH  ADAM WOODLAND     2LB  1OZ            3
AND FIVE DNW'S

SILVERS

1ST  SI BELCHAM               10LB
2ND STEVE SEWELL            7LB  12OZ

Next week the club are on the match lake at plantations Kingston Seymour and the blog will back in the capable hands of the soundwell love guru and Fatima Whitbread body double Steve Burgess

Trinity, Woodlands Lake, 12 April (16 pegs)

My first match in a non-organisational role started with ..... collecting the money as one half of the new match secretary team, Alan Healey  was running late due to Shipham cafe being a tad busy (the other, smaller half wasn't fishing today).
Luckily, I had skipped Shipham in favour of Hilltops as it's quicker for me to go straight down the motorway and to be honest, they do a good brekkie there and it comes out pretty quick too although the staff may not be quite as glamorous!
Anyway, 16 fishing today and Misha sorted out the pegging for us (no need for her bodyguard today as they're now married).
Taking my turn with the rest of the rabble this week I found myself on peg 10 which put me in the company of Rich Jones on 11 and, yet again, Matt "2 pegs" Taynton on 8 who was still trying to live down the memories of last week and muttering something or other about the bush between us meaning he wouldn't be able to watch me kick his arse again!

A quick chat with Mr Jones who knows the lake like the back of his neck confirmed what I suspected that it would be an up-in-the-water / margin day as we had a stiff breeze blowing at us and up to the top corner (peg 17) which was occupied by Simon Belcham so there was a fair chance that his sprat-bashing was going to be interrupted today.
I never had a quick chat with Mr Taynton as he was still sore about last week.

I set up a shallow rig for 8mm pellet, a full depth rig, about 8' deep, to fish meat over soggy 4mm pellet for as far out as was comfortable in the wind (11-13m) and a rig to fish towards the bush on my right at topkit plus 2 sections which was beefed up a bit as some of the fish here can be quite hefty.

As I had a bit of time left I also set up a wag rod set to about half depth in case the wind dropped which it didn't so no more on that one, as they say (I've been dying to put that in somewhere)!
After cupping in a combination of pellet and meat on the pole lines I started out on the shallow rig (as did pretty much everyone) with a banded 8 and feeding 6's over the top.
And after a few minutes of old-school lifting and plopping the rig in (I can't get my head round the slapping nonsense) I was playing my first fish.
And looking round while I was playing it, it seemed that everyone else on our bank were also playing fish.
Unfortunately it wasn't so on the opposite bank as nobody was getting much over there and as the match progressed there seemed to be a bit of jealousy creeping in ... not that I was too bothered!
Sticking with the shallow rig I was getting odd fish but nothing like as many as Darren North and Chris Gay who were having a close battle on pegs 14 & 13 but for the time being I was keeping up with Rich Jones next door thanks mainly to a monster of a fish that would have been more at home at Cary.
I had an early look down the edge which resulted in missing a bite and putting my rig in the overhanging bush .... bugger!
This is a problem I'm getting a lot now as my 50 year old eyesight is failing rapidly and I struggle to work out distances and colours but never mind.
With a new rig on I went back down the edge and had another double-figure fish and a lucky escape as while I was playing it on my topkit I noticed out of the corner of my good eye the rest of my pole sliding off the roller into the lake and luckily, with a bit of one-handed carp juggling, managed to grab it before it vanished.
With my shallow fishing not really setting the world on fire I had a look on the deep rig but presentation was a nightmare as the tow was going with the wind and pushing the rig back towards me at a silly rate.
I hooked 2 fish on this rig, both fouled when I was lifting the rig out, managing to get one of them in backwards so I have a suspicion they weren't on the deck!!
As the match progressed Chris and Darren were still catching miles more than everyone else and Rich Jones (below) had a  second wind catching shallow close in.

Up on Peg 17 Simon Belcham was, as predicted, suffering carp problems,  the whingers on the opposite bank were still whingeing, Lionel Legge had even taken the opportunity to have a lie down in the sun.
Although Ron Hardiman on 32 had a few and Ryan on peg 20 was also catching so it wasn't all bad over that side.
I did manage a couple more out of the margin before the all-out but it never really lived up to expectations.
Rich next door had one on the all-out and provided a bit of comedy when he dropped his landing net and while retrieving it managed to get the hook off one of his other kits stuck in his hat and got in a bit of a pickle.
I was going to help him out but he'd got himself sorted by the time I'd stopped laughing at him!
My efforts went a total of 53-14 which was good enough for 5th place and one off the money but more importantly (for me) it meant another pound coin from Alan Healey and another lesson for 2-pegs Taynton who was well and truly "chip-shopped" as his other neighbour Matt "chatty-man" Challenger came 3rd with 85-1 caught mainly on paste down the edge, so I went home happy.
The match was won by Darren North with 96-2 all caught shallow with pellet and Chris Gay was one fish behind with 92-2
Mr Jones took fourth with 64-10 so the 2oz rudd I chucked back never cost me.
The silvers was won by Lee Waller on 29 with 7-13 of skimmers.
Ryan Radford was 2nd with 5-7 but wasn't in the pools allowing Simon Belcham to frame with 5-4 of whitebait by default.

Full Result:

1. Darren North (14) ......... 96-14
2. Chris Gay (13) ............. 92-2
3. Matt Challenger (7) ...... 85-1
4. Rich Jones (11) ........... 64-10
5. Steve Burgess (10) ...... 53-14
6. Ryan Radford (20) ....... 46-15
7. 2 Pegs Taynton (8/9) .... 42-4
8. Chris Szakacs (2) ......... 38-10
9. Ron Hardiman (32) ....... 35-2
10. Adam Caswell* (24) ...... 32-12
11. Mark Radford (27) ........ 24-8
12. Lee Waller (29) ............ 21-14
13. Ross Baker (23) ........... 11-4
14. Sim on Belcham (23) .... 5-4
15. and 2 dnw's 

 

 Silvers:

1. Lee Waller (29) .......... 7-13
2. Ryan Radford (20) ...... 5-7
3. Simon Belcham (17) ... 5-4
4. Ross Baker (23) ......... 4-4

 

 

Next week's adventure is on the new canal at Ivy House and it's a long while since we've been there so should be interesting.