landsend weds

firstly we went boatfishing on sunday out of poole , we had a nice day as it wasnt to rough and we had a few nice conger up to about 70lb all of which we had in a one hour spell , we would have had more but the skipper wasnt up to the task of unhooking and returning so he moved us to another mark where we caught bugger all, he thougfht 18 big eels in an hour was enough for anyone , especcially him as he was done in, it was good to see all the eels go back alive apart from one which was kept for the pot, and with the weather being good i ended up with a head like a cherry ,mint.
bad day on monday as we had my old mate,s ed perkins funeral, it was good to see a lot of his fishing mates in attendance , a good send off for one of lifes true good ones, rip mate.
monday evening i was dragged kicking and screaming to the bon jovi concert at ashton gate , which i must say was rather good, although i must say it is a bit annoying sat in the middle of a load of screaming 50 plus women chucking there tenalady pads at the stage lol.
back to landsend and tom thick drew for me so i ended up with 22 for the day , a good draw but 21 is better , i had jason radford on that one for company and timmy clarke on (whats that i hear you all shout empty pegs all round). so a meat rig for the margins with a 14 xedion hook on .18. a banded pellet rig for 5 mtrs and 2 pellet rigs for over ,one on top of the shalf and one for halfway down the shelf, all with a 16 b960 on .18 (no change there then) i started at 5mtrs with a 6mm hard feeding the same, it took 20 mins to get a bite and that was a good skimmer, a few more followed then i pulled the band into a piece of 8mm meat and that produced a couple of crucians , but on the 90 min mark jason had begun to get a couplke of carp across so i ditched the 5 mtr line and went across on the halfway up rig and had 2 carp and missed a couple of bites so i went up on top of the shelf and thats wher i stayed for most of the match, i did get 3 carp down the edge on meat, but there were to many fish over on the island to spend to much time down the edge, i only fed and fished 8mm pellets over on the island as the fish get to preocuppied with smaller pellets sometimes making foulers more of a problem, well thats what i thought , but that seemed like a load of bollocks as i still fouled a load (lmao).
but i had enough as my silvers went 19.12 for top silver weight on the day and my carp went 88.6 for 108.4 for first
2nd went to charlie barnes,s secret plaything , tom thick with 89.3 on peg 18
3rd craig(trig)edmunds on 15 with 80.15
4th timmy clarke 57.2 peg 24
5th del(boy)howsen 47.14
6th jason(keptin)radford 47.1 peg 21
there was a tie for the default silvers , steve kedge and john bradford both had 17.12 so they had to share the money, trig also had 17.12 of silvers but he got in the overall
anyone looking for a match at the weekend , i am running a match on no 4 lake on sunday with the option to overflow onto no 3 lake so phone me at thge shop on 01179517250 to book in

acorn speci lake

owners son mark bartlett suggested we have a match on the speci lake , and with viaduct being a bit close to the glasto festival site people werent to keen to risk the traffic , even with the oky koky anglers booking in and out i still managed to fill the 16 pegs on offer, but with roger andoniou turning up on speck we had 17 but there is a spare peg in front of the cafe so there was no problem. everyone fancied a draw on the front bank as the wind was blowing in to it and we all thought the fish would probadly be following it so when dean drew peg 12 for me which was on the far side in flat water i thougth my chances of winning had all but dissapeared but with the lake being a bit of an unknowner as there are few matches held on it , you never know. there was a clevedon club match on it at the weekend and andy hembrow won that with 85lb on the spare peg on poled pellet down the edge and a lot of the other anglers gaught carp with a fair few being taken on the method feeder but with this being a float only match at the request of mark,as he thought it would fair it up.
the lake has a reasonable head of 4 to the pound skimmers so i intended to target them so at least i would be getting bites. i did set up a margin rig for meat and corn but the wind which was by now gale force blowing the marginal reeds over i couldnt see up the edge and when i could i never had a bite so no more of that then, i also set up a wag to fish pellet on the deck halfway to the island but that only produced one bite from a 6oz carp so no more of that then,
i set up a 4x16 j15 float with a size 18 6313 rig for the skimmers with most of the shot 15 inches from the hook and 2x10,s 4 inches from the hook so the lifters would be easy to spot, at the start i cupped in 8 balls at 13 mtrs then had 30 mins on the wag to no avail, dropping in on the pole i wouldnt say it was hectic but there were enough bites to keep the interest going , but they needed feeding as they would drift away but they would come back after each ball, to be fair i dont think i took enough groundbait, i put in 2kg but i think 3 would have been better as towards the last hour i ran out and the last 45 mins i was skimmerless i did try putting some caster and dead mags in but all that did was to prevent my bait getting to the bottom as a tiny rudd stopped it on the way down.
the only person i could see who had taken any carp was jason radford on peg 3 who had 5 on paste in his left hand margin for 26.10 and first on the day
2nd went to steve kedge on peg 15 with 25.12 which included top silvers with 25lb of small skimmers and perch
3rd mark bartlett 21.5 peg 16
4th t rixon 19.10 peg 12 my silvers went 18.6 to give me the silvers by default
5th r fogg 15.13 peg 4
6th m alexander 13.8 peg 13
i think we will have another match there but it will be any method as there were a lot of fish on the islands and they appeared to want to stay there

float only lge halfway mark

top 12
t rixon 21 pts 299.14lb
c edmunds 20 pts 166.7lb
m tomes 18 pts 193.12lb
c davis 17 pts 227.8lb
c hudson 17 pts 184.10lb
n collins 17 pts 104.9lb
e wynne 17 pts 104.2lb
s puddy 16 pts 129.10lb
d roper 16 pts 114.7lb
g etheridge 15 pts 168.12lb
t thick 15 pts 150.3lb
s seager 15 pts 120.8lb
knockout draw for the semi drawn by my mum
d roper v m nicholls
d malin v c davis
t rixon v bye
b gullick v d bull
seriously though it was drawn by a customer called dave carrol

float only round 3 chilton trinity

all 49 of us on wildmarsh today which can be a cruel lake as you need to catch quality silvers or carp to do well and as i had drawn craig edmunds in the knock out we drew for each other , he gave me 22 which is the same peg as i had a couple of weeks ago, when i had some decent skimmers and a small carp whilst trig emded up on 49 which hasnt been the best of areas lately but the wind had turned a bit so it might change, when i got to my peg i decided on the wag being a bit of a non starter as the wind was quite strong and blowing in and across, so much the same rigs as last time , a .75 with an 18 6313 0n .10 for 11 mtrs over groundbait, a 1grm rig with a 16 6313 to .12 for 14mtrs to fish soft pellet and corn over micro,s and a 4x14 for caster down the edge , for company i had bob gullick on 24 and dick bull on 21 .
after last weeks terrible attempt at balling it was out with the cup this week and it didnt take to long to put 10 balls in and at least they went into the right place all i put in mine were some casters and soaked micro,s , think bob did much the same whereas dick opted for chopped worm in his, i also cupped some micro.s with a few pieces of corn at 14 mtrs and then some casters down the edge.
dick started well with a couple of good skimmers on the worm but all me and bob could get were small roach, there were fish in my peg as i had some bubbles coming up and i di miss a couple of good bites which i suspected of being liners , so i put double caster on and swung the rig out past the feed and that began to produce with a few good skimmers ending up in the net after a couple of hours the 11mtr line never really produced mucc else for the rest of the match apart from small roach and as there were no bubbles coming up now i think the skimmers had moved off, i had an eel and some roach on the inside but the roach didnt seem to want to settle so i just kept swapping around the three swims and a did get 2 small carp and a few more skimmers on corn over the micro,s so by the end i thought i had the measure of bob but it would be close between dick and me with us both admitting to just over 20lb ,
in the end the match was won by chris davis on peg 40 which is a noted carp peg at the back of the island with 53.9 of meat caught carp from the margins
2nd was steve seager on peg 9 with 51.5 on his warm paste
3rd gary atheridge on island peg 10 with 28.1
4th mat (the new breed of mermaid) 27.14 peg 11
5th t rixon 25.14 peg 22
6th dick bull 23lb peg 21
silvers went to dick with his 23lb pushing me into 2nd in silvers by 8oz with 22.8, but the 2 small carp gave me the edge over him for the all important section win, giving me max points so far.
there were a few moans today but its a proper lake and not a heavily stocked commercial with some pegs seeming to be devoid of fish but thats the nature of the beast and the owners are constantly working very hard to turn it into venue to keep eveyone happy from the bivvy brigade to us moaning matchmen and i think they are getting there but it doesnt happen overnight
oh yes and as far as trig goes and the knockout he is history i think he had about 10lb off peg 49 ish even after his girlfriend ms jo shepherd txt me to let me know trig was going to cut my ass really bad, ye right.

landsend 2 plus 2

firstly eddy perkins funeral is on monday 27th at 10.30 at haycombe cemetry as far as i know all are welcome to attend.
back to landsend for another short pole match all we were allowed today was the top 2 plus 2 more so a nice easy day without to much stress on the joints.
roger andoniou drew for me and gave me peg 3, not the best of pegs of late and even the new breed in the shape of phil(fabio)harding only managed 11lb off it last week, so when an angler of his calibre (LOL) stuggles on it , it must be hard.
for company on 5 i had the legend that is colin golding and on peg 1 was non other than bridgwaters very own sex machine(as long as the blue pills keep working)mike west and due to the ammount of foliage around the lake these were the only 2 anglers i could see.
only 2 rigs today , a 4x14 rig on .12 with a 16 6313 for soft pellet, caster or maggot over softened 4,s at 5mtrs and for down the left hand margin as its the same depth and a 4x8 up in the water rig just in case , but that never happened apart from some small roach so i wont mention that again, and to be honest i havent really got to much to talk about . the first hour was spent on the soft pellet but that only produced 1 small roach and judging by the muttering from peg 5 colin wasnt fairing much better, whereas mike on peg 1 was doing ok with some good silvers taking a liking to his halal chicken luncheon meat (dont ask)i couldnt see what was going on but i could hear a bit of splashing so i new there were some fish coming out.
i know what i should have done and that was to just concentrate on silvers as i could get perch and roach down the edge plus i had 4 good skimmers from the 5mtr line and by the end i had 3 carp aswell but my 20lb of silvers and 15lb of carp was going to win zilch today
first on the day was dean malin with 77.4 on peg 24 on 6mm soft pellet over 6mm hard pellet feed
2nd was alan oram with 60.4 on peg 17
3rd mat ( one of the new breed) tomes with 58.1 on peg 12
4th mike(ga ga )west with 50.7 peg 1
5th phil harding 48lb peg 15
6th t rixon 35.13 peg
and the silvers were won by john bradford on the most inform carp peg in somerset 21
with 26.8

chilton trinity wildmarsh lake

got up feeling a bit subdued but after a good brekkie at the fountain cafe in st george and the normal world according to dean malin conversation i was soon feeling better.
i had 30 booked in today but with the rain and gale forecast for today i would be surprised if they all showed , but only one no show so that wasnt to bad, i let fishery boss misha herring draw for me and she handed me peg 16 which is a cornerish peg with a reed bed to my right going along the end bank.
3 rigs today a .75 with a 18 6313 to fish over grounbait at 7 and 13 mtrs , a 4x12 for caster at 3mtrs with the same hook and both on .10 and a 4x12 j2 on .16 with a 16 xedion hook for meat and corn down the edge.
i had decided to ball it as g bait seems to be the key to the silvers so i threw in 10 balls at 13 mtrs oh and 11 mtrs and 14 mtrs , i havent done that for a while and it showed , cupped some meat and corn down the edge and fed some casters at 3mtrs , starting over the g bait at 13 mtrs i ha bites straight away from 1 to 4 oz roach and apart from one 12oz skimmer thats all there seemed to be in front of me. so the bulk of the match was spent down the edge where i caught 6 carp , 5 on double corn and 1 on meat , my silvers went 5.1 and the 6 smallish carp went 24.5 for a total of 29.6 which was enough to win on the day
2nd was paul elmes on 57 with 26lb
3rd nick collins on peg 25 with 25lb which also included the top silver weight with 22.3 of skimmers and roach on bits of worm and caster over grounbait at 11mtrts
4th dave roper 24.10 peg 43
5th craig(trig)edmunds 22.12 peg 9
6th steve seager 19.6 peg 11

ed perkins

more bad news ,eddy perkins , a good friend of over 30 years finally lost his battle with a breathing disorder on saturday afternoon.
i met ed when my my family moved to whitchurch when i was 19 and he used to come over and go out drinking with one of my new neighbours, mike roussell and we hit it off straight away becoming firm friends, with all 3 if us being anglers we always had plenty to talk about, even after mikes untimely death back in the 80,s ed and i still made a point of going out at least once a week for a drink and a catch up,ed was also my best man when married judith in 83, and it was only him that stopped me doing a runner from the church as judith was over 20 mins late(but i,m glad he stopped me)
ed was a long time member of the fry,s angling club and was always one of the anglers to beat and that was never easy he had a love of running water and he was never happier than when he was running a top and bottom float through for chub, roach and dace.
i,m finding it a bit hard to put into words what this no nonsense straight talking man really meant to me, all i know is that i will miss him as will all his family and friends as he was an old school proper bloke who i always found kind and generous right to the core.
thanks albert(eddy) perkins

viaduct weds

with a strong south westerly with showers forcast a draw out of the wind would be nice , but it wasnt to be as a drew 114 which is a good peg but with the wind coming in and across from the left it makes the tow go in the same direction as the wind making presentation hard with float rigs blowing along and foulers being a problem , so i should have set up a lead but i havent seen my lead rod rod for over 12 months that was going to be a problemi set up 2 rigs for meat ,one for the margins 4x10, and one for 5 mtrs 4x14 both on .18 with a xedion 14 hook ,and a 4x12 rig for pellet at 13 mtrs with a 16 b960 also on .18.
after cupping in some 6,s at 13 mtrs and feeding some meat at 5mtrs and in each margin i began at 13 mtrs but with no real fizzing to speak of the signs werent good and it took me 35 mins to get a bite and land my first fish which was a good skimmer, and another hour to get my first carp, looking around no one was really setting it on fire, but with most getting odd carp i was already behind , the bankwalkers were saying thar jason radford on 119 was catching well on the lead and with mat tomes behind me on 76 getting odd fish it seemed all over apart from the shouting.my meat line at 5mtrs produced a few bream but the rig was blowing through even quicker there and the margin yielded 3 carp and a tench and with another 7 carp and a some more skimmers but that was no good today my combined silvers and carp went79.9 with andy lloyd winning the section off 112 with 92.14
first on the went to jason radford who managed to to stay off his phone long enough to catch 147.9 casting a pellet to the end bank on the straight lead
one good fish away on peg 80 was mash with 139.2 on pellet on the lead
3rd mat tomes with 130.2 pellet on the lead
4th craig edmunds 118.12 peg 123
5th chris fox 101.9 peg 132
6th dean malin 100.15 peg 127
silvers went to craig edmunds with 47.14 all on meat
hmmm now let me see where did i last see my lead rod

float only lge rnd 2 landsend

all 4 lakes were being used today and i didnt really mind where i drew as the form pegsd couldnt be relied upon to produce , and as the carp had been spawning yesterday it all might be a bit iffy. as i had drawn ron hardiman in the knockout we decided to draw for each other so i pulled a peg for ron and he ended up on 82 which was the end peg on lake 4 , johns water, then he drew mine and i ended up on 78 , same lake only halfway up, this lake was always going to be difficult to call as there had been no matches on there for a while as its a bit of a hike and clubs dont want to walk that far, but i think that may be there loss.
3 rigs today, a 4x8 for hard pellet over by the island in 10 inches of water on .16 with a 16 b960 hook, a 4x12 rig for 5 mtrs on the same line and hook , and a 4x10 rig for meat down the edge, at the start i began at 5 mtrs with banded pellet ,whilst firing 6,s to the island and fed some meat down the edge, the first 90 mins were a bit slow with only 4 small carp and a few skimmers at 5mtrs, but with fish showing against the island i had to give it a go, clint wojtyla had already gone over on peg 81 and was catching odd carp so the signs were good, i went over and began catching straight away, they arent big fish in this lake with sizes varying from 8oz up to about 2 1/2 lb and i caught fairly steadily right to the end on banded 6mm over 6,s , i did try down the edge on the meat a couple of times but only had 2 carp and a roach and it was abit of a wait for bites and with the carp climbing the island i left the margins and concentrated on the island right to the end, i needed an section win and i thought i just done enough as i thought my carp net would go about 60lb, as it turned out my 60lb actually went 93lb and with an 80lb net limit on this venue my total lack of ability to sort my weights out was going to cost me as the match was won by ray hayward on 51 (sydney,s)with 91.14 of meat caught carp fishing to the bottom of the far side island shelf
2nd chris davis 82.15 peg 42
3rd t rixon 81.6 peg 78(should have been 94.6. i am a tit)
4th tim clark 74.10 peg 58
5th mike baber 68.6 speci lake somewhere
6th andy lloyd 66.10 peg 41
silvers went to steve seager with 28.8 on peg9(i think)of mainly foulhooked skimmers on warm paste
FIRST JOB THIS WEEK IS TO BY A FISH/WEIGHT COUNTER LMFARO

wednesday landsend top 4 only match

after the success of the last top 4 match we had another one today and with 17 booked in it shows how popular it is. we had a bit of room to play with so we put 13 on the match lake and the first 2 on each side of number 3, as this was the seventh match in 8 days on the match lake i really fancied drawing one of the pegs on number 3, so i let tom thick draw for me as he never seems to be on a bad peg , and sure enough he handed me 68 which is on number 3 and a flyer as long as you can fish the long pole to the island and the weed bed to the left ,but with a top 4 only that was out of the mix, we just had to hope the fish were a bit peckish and would come close. with one of the new breed(yea right)in the shape of phil(fabio)harding sat opposite ,i was going to have my work cut out as he has been in a rich vane of form lately, but after watching him today he must have drawn on some garage fulls never mind the sheds.
i only set up 2 rigs , one for soft pellet at 4mtrs on .12 with a 16 6313 and a 4x14 impact 6 float, the other was a 4x10 impact 1 with a 14 xedion on .18 for the meat each side in the margins.
starting at 4mtrs with soft pellet and feeding softened 4mm it wasnt long before i was getting bites off small skimmers , hybrids and crucians but it wasnt hectic, but at least fabio was keeping us ammused as he was losing carp and moaning to himself non stop, by the end i think he had lost at least a dozen and landed 5 but we all get those days, even the new breed.
i had been feeding meat down the margins but at the 3 1/2 hour mark i still hadnt had a bite in the margins, and by now the 4 mtr line had died , so i put on a piece of meat on the 4mtr pellet line and had a carp of about 6lb, quickly followed by 2 more, then i saw a tail in the left hand margin so went straight in and had a carp, then i had one in the right margin, so it was meat till the end ending up with 10 carp to 10lb , 5 from the margins and 5 from the 4 mtr line for what i thought would go about 75lb, when the scales arrived my silvers and carp went 81.4 for first on the day
2nd went to martin lenaghan on peg 5 with 56.3
3rd dean malin 54.14 on peg 10 which also included the top silver weight on the day of 26.6 beating john(the gimp)bradford into 2nd in silvers with 24.4
4th tom thick 53.5 peg 7
5th mat(new breed)tomes 53.3 peg 24
6th dave roper 50.6 peg 15