Shiplate farm main lake

20 booked in but due to trigger caning it on Saturday nite he was in no fit state to come so only 19 pegs needed. Just for a change I had the last one in the hat , which was a good move as I ended up on 15 which is the end peg on the far bank, and I had the wind off my back. For company I had fabio on 14b and I had to sit and look at Clint wojtyla opposite on peg 1. Not to many rigs to set up today , in fact only two would do, a .5g for 6 and 13mtrs for maggot over ground bait  for skimmers and hopefully a few of the lakes better bream, and a 3x14 for corn over micro to my left in the hope of a few carp,  the skimmer rig had a 18 middy 6313 on .10 and the carp rig had a 9313 on .14 , at the start I cupped in two balls with a few casters at 7 mtrs and 3 at 13 mtrs and some corn and micro to my left at 13 mtrs.
Starting with single maggot at 7mtrs my first bite came from a small roach ,and my second bite was from an angry carp which didn't take to kindly to being hooked somewhere other than in the mouth, hence a slightly straitened hook and no fish, so a new hook then next drop and a slightly better roach then a 3lb bream followed by some small skimmers, by now mat tomes on 14a had caught a carp on the feeder but that was his only carp he had ,  so it wasn't long till he was back on the pole. Of the anglers I could see on the far bank no one was catching much and with the wind blowing into them I wasn't to surprised , our bank was fishing better mainly down to the presentation, about halfway through mat had 3 good bream in a burst and I had another 3lb fish again at 6mtrs but it was a bit slow so I went out to 13 and had some more small skimmers, I had a few looks on the corn line but only had 2 skimmers there , with not a sign of a carp, in fact there were hardly any carp showing  on the lake at all. With 2 hours to go I had to go for a toilet break,and with mat tomes was top on my way round to the loo with about 20 lb, getting back to my peg I went in at 6 mtrs with a single maggot and the float settled and went straight under and I had a 5 lb bream so. I was one good fish behind mat but I never got one all. Could get we're small skimmers on the 6 and 13 mtr line , mat never managed another quality fish but Clint ended up with  2 carp and 2 good bream plus some bits for mid 20,s
1st on the day was Clint wojtyla on peg1 with 25.10
2nd mat tomes. 23.12 peg 14a
3rd tony rixon 18.12 peg 15 which was top silver weight on the day
4th mike Nichols, 15.7 peg 14
5th chris fox 12.4 peg 13
6 th nick collier 10.2 peg 12
Wednesday I have a match a chiton trinity , woodland lake 9 draw , if interested ring me on 07974807941

Stafford moor Xmas match

Not too many booked in today ,only 22, so we were spread over tanners and woodpecker with the bulk on tanners, I fancied a draw on woody,s between 3 and 16 as there would be a lot of protection from the really strong westerly wind that was blowing, so into the draw bag and out comes 34 on tanners, lovely I had the gale blowing in and slightly across and unless I only wanted to fish the pole at 4 mtrs max it was going to be a none starter ,so I left it in the van. I didn't realise andy was doing a silver prize so I had no silver bait with me anyway. So all I took to the peg was a wag and a lead rod, it doesn't take to long to set up either so with a pellet attack my only choice I had a 16 to .16 on the wag and a 14 to .18 on the lead rod, I would like to make this an interesting read but all I can say is that I had one bite on the  wag and a bite on the tip in the first two hours which put two carp in the net , then I had to wait till the last 5 mins for my next bite which I netted on the whistle to give me 3 carp ans a 4 oz skimmer I fouled in the dorsal fin winding in for what I thought would be about 18lb, the only angler with 4 carp on the lake was les Williams on peg 3 so the lake was going to be tight, the lake had fished really bad and woody,s hadn't faired much better as it was Steve hay man from Taunton had won on peg 16 woodpecker catching a few down the edge, I haven't got the weights yet as andy didn't bring them up the pub where we were having a very nice chile, second was mal king on 3 woody,s , third les Williams on 3 tanners, fourth was me with 22.9 on peg 34tanners , fifth Paul Burkett on 34 woody,s and Kevin molten was sixth on 32 woody,s.
The wind was the main factor I think contributed to the poor returns as it was impossible to get ant presentation apart from on the tip but the fish have responded better to the wag approach recently, but who really knows, when andy let's me have the full result I will put them on here, it should be tomorrow nite

landsend loyalty match sunday

only 19 fishing this match even though a few more had paid there 15 x £1 ,s over the year and some had nearly paid enough but chose not to top up to fish,
into the draw and i fancied any peg on the match lake as the speci has been hard of late except the corners and the island ends ,i let dale howsen draw for me and i ended up on 29 which is nearly smack in the middle of the island , not good, i had ed wynne on 27 which was about as good as my peg and the bridgwater stud muffin ,mike west on 31 which is the corner of the island and with the likes of tom mangnall, kev molten, craig"trig" edmunds on the favoured corner pegs , it was looking as though a pickup was going to be hard to come by, various baits fished over micro,s have been working well at this fishery so i set up a 4x14 rig with an 18 8313 on .12 for 14 mtrs at the bottom of the far shelf and to my right at 16 mtrs, a margin rig to the empty pallets each side but they produces a bite even on caster so the less said about that the better, and a 4x12 rig for caster against the island with a 18 9313 on .14 .
after feeding all lines i began on double maggot over the micro lines but the bait wasnt reaching the bottom with small roach intercepting them on the way down, a switch to 4 and 6 mm expander gave me the same nuisance fish, so out with the corn and after a long wait, another roach, i was now beginning to think there were no carp in this peg, especially as the 3 afformentioned anglers in the corners and mike west on the end of the island already had at least 1 carp in the net.
i went to the far bank with double caster and had a couple of roach so a switch to corn which normally gives you a carp didnt even appeal to the roach, i was now convinced that there were no carp in the swim , by now tom was doing it "gamangnall" style catching shallow on banded 6mm hard pellet over loosefed 4,s out by the aerater and with kev molten on 32 catchind odd carp and mike west trying to the strike the heads off anything which entered his peg with a small ammount of success so i decided to just fish caster at 6 mtrs and by the island and the rest of the match was quite enjoyable with bites from small roach nearly every put in , i did get 2x 2lb perch off the island and a 2lb plus hybrid at 6mtrs , one carp did turn up on caster against the island but it was just a passing tourist as it was hooked no where near the mouth judging by the size of the scale that came back, at the end i had a quick look in the net and thought i had about 14lb so i was pleasently suprised for the scales to go round to 18lb and a lake silvers win which was worth 50 quid so i was happy, the lake and match was won by tom mangnall on 33 with 94.2 , mainly taken shallow at 16 mtrs by the aerater.
2nd making it a tom tom first and second was tom thick on peg 13 with 65.12
3rd adrian jefferey 50.11 on peg 21
4th kev molten 48.3 peg 32
5th and first out of the money was craig edmunds 5oz behind with 47.14, i got to say that kev only had one silver fish and that was a 5oz roach how MINT is that trig
6th alan oram on 17 with 44.3
silvers went to fish and fields finest in the shape of martin pettiffer on peg 11 with 19.10
and finally even though i hates christmas i hope you all have a nice one and a healthy and enjoyable new year

landsend wednesday open

14 fishing so we were all on match lake, i let mark poppleton draw for me today and i was more than happy with peg 21, its a good peg all year and it has shown plenty of form recently, for company i had fabio on 19 and jim jenner on 22.
only 3 rigs today, a 4x12 for over against the island for caster so it had an 18 6313 on .12 line, a 4x14 for maggot over micro,s at 13mtrs in front and at 14.5 mtrs to my left towards peg 29 again with an 18 hook on .12, and the last rig was a 4x14 for caster at 7 mtrs with an 18 hook on .10.
after feeding micros on the 13 and 14 mtr lines and caster at 7 mtrs and against the island, i started on single caster at 7 mtrs i had to wait 10 mins for my first bite which was from a 4lb carp so a good start, fabio had also caught on the same line and jim had one at 13 mtrs, i stuck with this line till the end of the first hour but never had a bite in this time, so i put a decent pot of caster in and went across to 13 mtrs with a single maggot where i had a skimmer and a carp then i lost a couple, so i went up on the shelf against the island and had 2 carp on double caster, but apart from a lost fouler later in the match that was my lot against the island, my main catching area was the 14 mtr line towards peg 20 with most fish falling to single red maggot with some of the carp taking it on the drop, fabio hadnt set a rig towards 20 but he soon did when i started catching and for a while it looked as though he was going to overtake me but i had a better last hour than himto keep me in front, as far as i could see i seemed to have done enough but it turned out mike west on 11 had also caught quite well so the scales would have to call it , in the end my 15 carp and few silvers went 77.10 beating mike into second with 77.4
3rd philip(fabio)harding 46.10 peg 19
4th mark poppleton 44.11 peg 24
5th martin alexander 44.5 peg 13
6th aaron britnell 40.2 peg 16
7th adrian jeffery 38.13 peg 15
the silvers didnt really want to feed today with adrian jeffery needing only 9.3 to take first in that, mainly with the help of 2 unseasonal tench.
the best thing about today was that no one picked up using prawns although fabio did get a carp and a perch on one.

chilton trinty, open match woodland lake

21 booked in which is a nice number on this lake but with one no show due to being an oversleeper we went down to 20, which is still ok.
jason radford pulled out 2 tickets stuck together so i took the one stuck out and ended up on peg 9 which is just about in the middle of the far bank, i would have liked to have had an empty peg on at least one side to give me more chance of catching down the edge, but it wasnt to be as i had alan oram on my left on 10 and martin rich on my right on 8 , so with the water being a bit clear i didnt expect to catch down the edge, and thats what happened as i missed a bite but it looked like a liner any way so i wont mention the margins again, my othe r rig as i only set up one as it was the same depth wherever i fished, so i decided on 3 areas , one at 5mtrs where i would feed only caster, then 13 and 16 mtrs out in front where i was going to feed a mixture of 2 3 and 4mm softened pellets, my rig was a 4x18 float with a 18 middy 6313 hook on.12 on the end, starting at 13 mtrs i had to wait 15 mins for my first bite which resulted in an 8lb mirror gracing the net, followed by a 7lb fish about 30 mins later with a few small roach in between, so far it was all close as several people were on 2 carp , with rod"this is the worst peg on the venue" wootten, on 31 beginning to catch on hard banded 6mm pellet, martin mcmahon on 32 who was slinging a method feeder into cliff jenkins peg opposite but had still managed to snare one, and bridgwaters lady ga ga tribute act in the shape of mike west on 29 beginning to make the most of an empty peg each side starting to catch on that most popular of winter baits, PASTE,
the wind had now picked picked up and was blowing straight into our bank and with the sun being out and the ripple it was making presentation difficult with the rig coming back under the pole tip plus the nasty light was making the float hard to see, i tried putting a float on with a fatter bristle on but it didnt seem right so i reverted back to my original rig and increased the eyestrain, by halfway through i was still on 2 carp plus a few silvers, but martin mcmahon had begun to catch on the pole down the edge into empty peg 33 (take note chris fox as you always seem to draw here),it was like sat watching the three stooges with mike rod and martin all catching odd fish right up to the end, i did get 5 more carp in the last half but it was never going to be quite enough to compete with the pegs opposite and thqat was how it ended with martin mcmahon winning with66.10 of peg 32 with all but one of his fish falling to maggot over micros in 3 foot of water down the edge
2nd was rod wootten on 31 with 50.14 on hard 6mm over 4,s at 14mtrs and at the bottom of the shelf to his right
3rd mike west on 29 with 48.15 on paste
4th tony rixon 45lb peg9 on dead reds over softened pellets
5th kev molten 43.12 peg 2 on maggot over micros
6th dave evans 42.12 peg 15 on corn down the edge
silvers were won by venue regular andy hembrow off peg13 with 8.8 of small skimmers

landsend weds open and beaten by a prawn star

only 9 hardy souls today as a couple cried off, i.m not really suprised as it was the first ice breaking session of the season, luckily it wasnt to thick at about 10mm. tom thick handed me a peg out of the draw and i ended up on ken rayners favourite peg number 17, i would have preferred a corner as these tend to have shoals of resident small carp and some good silvers in ensuring some definate bites even in the coldest weather, but 17 would have to do, it took me about 30 mins to clear a nice big channel to 13 mtrs which is far enough in these conditions, the anglers closest to me were alan oram on 19 and trigger double aaron britnell on 13, with so few anglers on the lake it seems the fish have to many places to hide , but you always get some bites even on the coldest days. it was an easy set up with only one 4x14 rig with a 18 middy 6313 on .10, it would do for each side of the channel at 11mtrs for maggot and caster and at 13 mtrs against the back of the channel for maggot over a few micro,s, there isnt to much to talk about really as bites were really few and far between, i think mainly due to it not being cold enough for long enough for the fish to aclimatise and settle in the cold water plus the empty pegs dont help with fish that dont want to feed just keeping out of the way, i di hook 3 carp over the micro line landing 2 for 13.13 plus 1 perch, 2 good skimmers and a handful of small roach giving me a total of 20.11 for 2nd on the day, i really do enjoy this type of fishing at landsend as there are always bites to be had with quality fish making up the weights genarally.
1st on the day was phil(fabio)harding coming first on peg 1 with 7 small carp and a good perch for 21.2 with a few falling to his favoured bait at the moment , aldi,s finest prawn.
i think he is hankering after some sponsorship from captain birds eye.
2nd tony rixon 20.11 peg 17
3rd alan oram 16.14 peg 19
4th john(turkey)thompson 11.1 peg 24
5th kev molten 6.10 peg 7
6th aaron britnell 6lb peg 13
silvers
tony rixon 6.14
kev molten 6.10

landsend league round 2

my turn to be on match lake today so with andy power in attendance standing in a sub for bob gullick i let him draw for me, and he gave me peg 3 which is halfway up the first island on the right hand bank, i had an empty peg each side then adrian jeffery on 5 and stuart barnett on 1but you cant really see either of them as the trees hide them , all you see are the poles sticking out, back to 3 and its really one of the mre consistent pegs on the lake, not often a winning peg but always a possible framing peg. with a strong right to left wind blowing and for the speed to increase i decided to keep it like craig edmunds today, that is simple. so 2 rigs a 4x14 with an 18 6313 on .12 for soft pellet at 13 mtrs to my left in the middle and caster down the edge to my right at 3 and 11 mtrs ,both areas were the same depth, and a 4x14 with a 18 6313 for caster at 11 mtrs in front.
after feeding all lines i started on single cester out in front on the 11mtrs line and was soon catching small roach, i did expect some good perch as there are plenty in here over 3lb and with the water being clear i thought they may show but it wasnt to be as all i could get were odd perch up to 8oz, i did manage a 2lb ide on mny topset by the nets but that was all i could muster there, the left hand margin was ok as i hooked 8 carp there losing 2 due to being fouled, 1 fell off near the net and the other stole my rig when the line parted be the connecter, bad knot down to user error methinks. 2 of the carp were good ones about 8lb a piece and 2 smaller ones plus my double figures of silver were going to go over 30lb , but as far as the lake money my best chance of picking up was going to be with the silvers , amd thats how it turned out as my silvers went 13.5 for top silver weight on the lake , my 4 carp went 24.4 for a total of 37.9, the 4 lost carp cost me winning the lake, the 2 foulers dont really count but the 2 lippers would have put me second on the lake , mike nicholls on 21 won the lake with54.13 and steve seager was second with 45.15 and adrian jefferey had 44.3, so it was close with 1 or 2 fish making all the difference.
overall 1st on the day was nick merry on peg 40 with 63.11 ,catching his fish on caster up towards the straw cage on caster
2nd alan oram 61.5 peg 32
3rd mike nicholls 54.13 peg 21
4th clint wojtyla 52.11 peg 31
5th steve seager 45.15 peg 19
6th adrian jefferey 44.3 peg 5
silvers
nick merry 18.2
tony rixon 13.5
aaron britnell 10.10 peg 11

shiplate farm, main lake

17 fished today so a good turnout again for a wednesday , matin lenaghan pulled 2 tickets and gave me the choice, just for a change i took the wrong one and ended up on 13 , while martin had peg1 stuck to his mit, a peg i really fancied today as its got a really long margin to a wooden jetty and an island out in front and with no wind on the peg and the sun warming the shallow water it looked even better, any way thats enough moaning about the draw i was beginning to sound like bob gullick.
13 isnt a bad draw as there is a big bush in the water to my right and you have open water in front, trouble was i had to sit and look at des shipp opposite which is normally a bit off putting as the flash of fish coming out is somewhat off putting , perhaps today was going to be different.
i only put together 2 rigs , a .75g to fish straight out at 9 and 13 mtrs as it was the same depth (6ft) with an 18 6313 on .10 and a .5g rig for down by the bush in 4 1/2 ft with an 18 9313 on .14.
at the start i cupped in 2 balls of g bait at 9 mtrs and 4 at 13 mtrs and potted some caster and corn down by the bush, after several attempts during the match by the bush i never had a bite ,so no more of a mention about that.
starting at 9 mtrs i had a small roach straight away then my next bite 10 mins later had me attached to a fish i would have sworn was one of the big slabs that inhabit this lake, and they go to double figures , but it turned out to be a 6 1/2 lb carp , i was a bit dissapointed really, then i had a run of small skimmers and roach on dead reds or single caster but they were on the small side, des had started on a small open ender and was getting a small skimmer everychuck and after a quiet start martin on 1 was now getting carp on corn over micro,s down towards the jetty in about 2 ft of water, even 15 big white geese having a clean up in his swim wasnt putting them off, as the match went on my swim never really got going with only small fish finding there way into the net, steve kedge was getting silvers including a big bream and des was still catching on the feeder, going into the last hour several people were catching carp, with nick collier on 15, dean malin on 8 , rod wootten on 3 and of course martin on 1 and with des now switching to the pole as the wind on that side had eased a bit and getting roach and skimmers every drop it looked like the silvers was slippng away, i needed some big bream and luckily i had 2 for about 12lb in the last hour but the way des was catching i really needed another one but it wasnt to be, i ended up with 17 10 of silvers and the 6 1/2 lb carp for 24.2 but i thought des would have about 20lb of silvers but he was admitting to 13lb, he,s a bigger liar than me as he had 20.2 to win the silvers.
1st on the day was martin lenaghan on peg 1 with 89.6 with all his carp falling to corn over micros fished 16 mtrs down by the jetty
2nd nick collier 51.14 on peg 15
3rd dean malin on peg8 with 38.9
4th rod wootten on peg 3 with 34.15
5th tony rixon , 24.2
6th steve kedge 21.6 peg 14
anyone interested i have a match at chilton trinity woodland lake on the 16 december , ring me at the shop to book in on 01179517250

viaduct silvers league ,final round

i didnt need to scrape the ice off the van this morning so that was a good start, fabio arrived on time and we went and picked anton page up then off to lillypool cafe for the normal excellant breakfast, there were a few in there as fry,s club were at shiplate and there was an open on landsend , but even when they are busy the food is always piping hot and well cooked, off across the somerset levels and most of the fields are still under water with the north drain still over its banks.
got to the fishery and got at the front of the draw queue as i seem to be drawing well in this series and drawing early means all the good(and bad)pegs are in there to draw, a draw on lodge was always going to be favoured as you get plenty of bites be it from roach or skimmers with the latter being the target fish, into the tin and out comes 62 which is the third peg up on the right hand side of lodge and as far as the section goes it was a fair peg with at least a top 3 in section being on the cards, but i needed a section win to get me near the top overall or a second to keep me in the money. i must say i was a bit dissapointed to see tim pallant on 59 and steve kedge on 69 and both in my section, i needed to beat them both and win the section and that would put me on the same points as them so it would be down to a weight countback.
i set up 2 4x14 rigs and a 4x12 all with a 18 6313 on .10 with my main attack being dead maggot or caster over g bait, at the start i cupped in 1 ball at 6 mtrs and 2 balls at 16 mtrs at 10 and 12 o,clock angles ,i also put about 50 casters at 16 mtrs at 2 o,clock for perch just in case they made an appearance, but they are a bit thin on the ground in this lake, starting at 6mtrs with caster was a bit of a none event and after 40 mins i had only had 1 bite which resulted in 1 x 8oz hybrid , which at the time was looking good in the section as kedgy was catching plips on the wag and tim was not doing to well, but he was soon into a decent skimmer, i went out over the caster line and was suprised to find myself attached to a 2lb skimmer first put in but suprise turned to dismay as it dropped off at about 4mtrs, not the sort of fish you need to lose on a hard day.
after that the small roach turned up but at least i was putting something in the net, tim was by now up to 3 skimmers so he was leading the section with kedgy second , but about 2 hours in i had a sudden burst of skimmers on the 10 o,clock line putting 5 in the net in no time at all with the biggest going about 2lb , i hoped it was the start of great things but it wasnt to be as i had one more of about 12oz towards the end ,it was clear tim had won the section and i was hoping for second as i had beaten steve between me and tim, glen calvert was the dark horse on 64 as he had sneaked out 3 goob skimmers by the monk in the last hour and he was admitting to 10lb which was about the same as me, as expected tim pallant won the section and the match with 21.5 , i was second in the section with 11.14 and glen had 11lb so it was close
tim took his winning catch on pinkie fished over groundbait at 13 and 14 mtrs
2nd was steve mayo lookalike des shipp on 96 with 17.3
3rd nick ewers 16.9 peg 94
4th jon grey 15.14 peg 124
5th anton page 12.7 peg 116
6th tony rixon 11.14 peg 62
league
tim pallant 7pts 142.6 £300
steve kedge 7 pts 131.12 £200
steve mayo 7pts 127.17 £150
tony rixon 8 ptrs 142.1 £120
anton page 8pts 117.15 £80
fastest loser
bob gullick 8 pts 117.14(1oz lol) picking up nowt but he was full of excuses, cut off by 121, shallower than the pegs around it blah blah blah ha ha ha ha
it was a well run enjoyable series and i,m sure there will be the same if not more fishing it next year so make sure you get you names in nice and early

weds open landsend

17 fishing today so mike let us use the match lake and the carpark bank of the speci lake, tom thick drew for me and handed me 15 whilst keeping 19 for himself, he is so selfish, dale howsen was on 15 at the weekend and was last on the lake with 13lb so i wasnt to confident,i set up a far bank caster rig ,a corn rig for each side in the margins, a meat rig for down the middle and a soft pellet rig for 14 mtrs at 2 and 10 o,clock angle, for company i had martin lenaghan on 17 and fabio on 13 , i started on the meat after feeding all lines and stayed on that for 45mins with only a couple of wobbles on the float but no proper bites , so that was ditched and it was out on a 4mm expander over soaked micro,s , fishing at 14 mtrs to my right i lost 3 good skimmers in the next 30 mins, so i switched to the left at the same distance only to lose a decent carp of about 8lb after playing it for several minutes, before i new it we were 2 hours in and i was still blanking, martin had taken a couple of skimmers and carp as had fabio, i thought fabio was using bread but it turns out he was fishing PRAWN up the end bang and was getting odd carp and perch so i was well behind, i had no bites down the edge on corn over caster ,also the fasr bank only produced a couple of small roach, at least i was off the mark, i tried a piece of corn over the micro,s and was rewarded with a near 2lb tench but that was my only fish landed over the micro,s on each side, fabio was still getting bites on the prawn so i wandered up and scabbed a few , but i was quite relieved not to get a bite on them, then with 90 mins to go my peg kicked into life with chub and good perch on the far bank and carp down my right hand margin on treble caster, i was torn between the 2 lines . i ended up hooking 7 carp in the margin landing 6 with one palletising me, and some nice silvers over, my carp went 26lb and silvers 16lb for a total of 42.6 for 5th on the day and 3rd in the silvers no money but an enjoyable day in the end , luckily beating captain birds eye to my left and martin(blakey)lenaghan to my right , and i got my quid back off des shipp, as he had 27.8 , admittidly it was all silvers but a quids a quid
1st on the day was tom thick on 19 with 75.8 , 13 carp plus a few silvers on his favoured soft pellet over micro,s
2nd dean malin 48.8 peg 22
3rd tom mangnal 47.5 peg 11
4th chris davis 43.12 peg 1
5th tony rixon 42.6 peg 15
6th martin lenaghan 39.4 peg 17
silvers
des shipp 27.8 peg 40
steve kedge 21.8 peg 34

landsend individual league round one

35 have booked in for this popular league and all turned up and paid there monies so that was a good start to the day .alan oram pulled 2 tickets out and gave me the choisce ,so i ended on peg 35 which has a lot of form over the years for silvers and carp, there had been a knock up on this lake the day before and the silvers had been won off 36 with 34lb of perch, i,m not to sure that these fish appreciate two days of batterings so i wasnt holding my breath about them feeding again, there can be a lot of chub on these pegs but they have been noticable by there absence recently, i had kieth builder on 36 and nigel bartlett on 34 who was going for silvers only and with beany on 33 which was the winning peg from the day before it was going to be interesting, i set up rigs to fish soft pellet at 13 mtrs , a caster rig for 14 mtrs left and right at the bottom of the far side shelf and a small rig for meat and corn against the island, as usual i fed all areas at the start and went in with a 4mm soft pellet at 13 mtrs and was soon attached to a 7lb carp which was safely netted, a good start but after a further 90 mins and with only 1 small roach added i was switching to the 14 mtr caster lines but two small roach in the next 20 mins had me reaching for the far side meat rig , by now my confidence was dissapearing, as nigel to my left and kieth to my right was just netting a carp from his first bite, even beany who was on the banker peg had nothing up to now, the fish seemed to have moved as the far side of the lake at the other end was producing as trigger on 26 was getting bite and trying to lie about the weight he had but adrian jeffery next to him on 25 was counting the clicks on his counter so we all new what he had,
first drop on the far bank and i had a bite on meat and got back to my topset really easily and the fish felt lip hooked but it fell off as i took the topset off, bugger, not what you need on a hard day, and that was my lot on meat and corn on the far bank, i had to wait till the last hour for any more action when i had started using caster on the far bank and i had 3 good perch and another carp , i had swithed to caster about halfway through but it wasnt till the last hour that any fish arrived, as i half expected the perch didnt really appreciate the battering jamie parkhouse gave them the day before , like wise dave beany westcott on 33 was suffering after tom mangnal clattered the carp there the day before, so it was a hard day with my 2 carp plus silvers going 21.12 which was only enough for me to beat 3 others and they were the 2 to my left and kieth to my right, so i think the fish just had a bit of an away day, trig won the lake with 75.4 on 26 fishing soft pellet at 14 mtrs.
1st on the day was mark poppleton on peg 11 on the match lake with 104.10, using 4mm soft pellet over micros at 14 mtrs towards the aerater to net carp steadily throughout
2nd mike duckett 82.11 on peg 22, fishing banded 8mm pellet
3rd tom thick 60.8 peg 17
4th tom mangnal 60.6 peg 3
5th bob gullick 60.1 peg 68
6th mike west 54.1 peg 20
silvers
was a tie with mark brennan on 31 and tom thick on 17 both with 17.8

weds open at shiplate farm

14 were booked in but martin alexander decided not to bother even though he had made it to the fishery, which was an achievment in itself as most of the roads leading to the fishery were like rivers, i bet there isnt going to be a hose pipe ban next year, but then again with our local water companies being owned by france (i think) or spain (possibly)who can tell where our water is going to end up, it must be bad as owner steve was busy at his house trying to stop the water entering, it was about 1 cm from going over the step, he has never seen it so bad,
with no pleasure anglers about (cant understand that)steve let us use hawthorn and west pool so with every other peg being used there was plenty of room, i ended up on peg 13 west pool, which is the aerater peg so i was happy as its been a good swim lately, for company i had jason radford on 15 and des shipp on 11, so obviously having an excess of pound coins in my pocket i soon struck the nugget side bet with england and preston innovations finest and began assembleing my kit, as it was still falling out of the sky i only set up 2 rigs a 4x12 witha 18 6313 for the far bank and a 4x14 with the same hook for down the middle and at the bottom of the slope close in, one rig does both as its the same depth, i did contemplate going to clear some of that stupid spiky grass away so i could get tighter in but i thought the fish would be happier in slightly deeper water , wrong. easy bait options at this fishery at the moment with maggot being the easiest option, so at the start i cupped in some micros and maggot by the aerater and to the far bank and began feeding a few maggots and casters at the bottom of the nearside slope, starting down the middle i was soon behind as des had a carp straight away off the far bank, a fluke i thought but no he goes and does it again, so i went across and had a couple of small fish then a small carp but it never really happened for me and i was soon falling further behind with des and jason both catching carp on the far bank with maggot on the hook, also further up the lake andy curry was catching on meat as was ziggy and with the silver ace in the shape of steve kedge a blank day on the money stake was looking very probable and thats how it finished with me 24lb and a severe battering all round , but i did manage to cut des,s ass on the silvers front with 9.4 to des,s 9lb but with him only fishing for them for the last 45 mins i had a narrow escape there aswell lol
1st on the day went to the frys slayer , andy (ruby)curry on peg 7 west pool with 78.8 of meat caught carp down the middle
2nd des shipp 67.8 peg 11 west pool
3rd ziggy slowinski 64.12 peg 3 west pool
4th jason radford 59.2 peg 15 west pool
5th steve kedge 35.4 peg 9 west pool
6th dean malin 25.14 peg 3 hawthorn
7th me 24lb
silvers steve kedge 25.4
landsend individual winter league starts on sunday , i still have 2 spaces so if anyone is interested ring me at the shop on 01179517250 for dates and details

viaduct silvers lge rnd 5

early into the draw tin and out pops peg 60 which is on lodge lake , second peg up on the right, the pegs on this bank are on a public footpath and its the access point for the low numbers on spring lake and the match lake, serves me right reaslly as i took the piss out of the anglers fishing on the k and a canal about bank walkers and bikes on the tow path, ok so we never had any bikes but the foot traffic was was quite heavy at times, for company i had mike nicholls on 59 , thats the 3rd time so far in this league so a hat trick of ass whooping would be nice. i set up a wag but didnt see any serious use so no more of that then, the pole rigs were a 4x14 with a 18 6313 on .10 for 5 mtrs and 16 mtrs out to the right as it was the same depth and a 4x16 with the same hook and line for straight out at 13 and 16 mtrs, at the start i cupped in 1 ball of g bait at 5 mtrs , 2 at 13 mtrs and 2 at 16 mtrs out to the right at about 2 o,clock angle, starting at 5 mtrs on single caster i started getting 1oz roach straight away ,as was mike who was fishing to hand so he was catching quicker than me , i did try feeding short but it was to close and i would get 1 or 2 fish then they seemed to back off, so i really stuck to the 5 mtr line as i was getting bites every chuck, but they seemed to be slightly smaller than mikes, and halfway through moke was winning the section with about 5lb but his catch rate was dropping , i,d had a couple of looks on the long lines but they only gave me the same size roach as the 5mtr line , i did get a 1lb skimmer there but going into the last 90 mins the roach were slowing up so most of the remainder of the match was spent out on the 2 16mtr lines, i lost a big eel during this time when it snagged me on the way in, it was the last fish i expected to hook today after the frost and the clarity of the water, i was gutted as i was still behind mike at this stage, but waiting at 16 mtrs with single caster on did produce 2 more reasonable skimmers which put me in the driving seat as far as the section was going as there were only small roach being caught in our section, opposite on the form pegs which are 68/69/70 and 71 there were some good skimmers and roach coming out, but they werent in my section so i wasnt worried, i weighed 10lb 110z which gave me the section win i needed to keep me in the hunt for the overalls, mike was second in the section with 7.15.
1st on the day went to 15 year old joe mcmahon on 121 with 24.13 of mainly skimmers over groundbait so well done to him
2nd tom thick 19,6 peg 94
3rd nick collins 17.4 peg 68
4th john gray 13.2 peg 112
5th mat tomes 13lb peg 71
6th steve mayo 12.12 peg 90

avon angling open , chilton trinity, woodland lake

21 booked in for today so not to much spare room , unless you were on an end bank or near it , its always a good start to the day with the ever smiling misha in the hut making cups of tea and coffee for all , this continues to be one of the best maintaned fisheries about with misha and her dad john constantly working to improve things,
i let misha draw for me and she handed me peg 15, nice peg with a long margin to my left as peg 16 wasnt in as its a sort of corner peg and we would be pole fencing if both pegs were used, i had fabio on 17 and trigger on 14 so with good andlers around me it was going to be an interesting day, even though we had a frost i still expected it to fish ok as its 8 ft deep and i didnt think the cold would have penetrated to any extent(wrong), i set up a margin rig for my right to fish meat , it was a 4x14 impact 6 with a xedion 18 on .14, also set up were 2 rigs for out in front at 13 and 16 mtrs , one was a j range , forgot the number bit it was a 4x18 with a wire stem with a 18 9313 on .14 the other was a 4x16 j21 with a 18 6313 on .12, at the start i cupped in some meat at 13 mtrs and some soaked micros at 16 mtrs, i also put some meat at 8 mtrs down the margin,
by the time i had finished feeding fabio was playing an 8lb fish he had snared on the shallow rig , which was something i thought would be a non starter, and he had another before i had a bite, . i had begun on meat at 13 mtrs and it took me over an hour to put a smallish carp in the net and a small skimmer, trig by now had also had a carp on meat shallow but that was all they had up in the water, i went out to 16 mtrs with double maggot over the micros but never had a bite which is very strange on this venue as small roach tend to be a real problem , but not today.
with no bites occurring i had plenty of time to look around but no one was catching , silvers or carp, except for nigel bartlett opposite who was blip bashing and tom mangnal down on peg 2 all on his own who was getting odd carp, but with the sun out it was a lovely warm day , and with the banter flying around it was an enjoyable day,
a look down the edge gave me a bite on meat but the carp came off so i refed ,had a quick look on the long pole lines but with no bites it was back down the edge , no mistakes with the next bite and a 4lb carp was safely netted shortly followed by a 1 1/4 lb tench an d that was thew end of my bites in that spot so i refed at 14 mtrs up the edge towards the empty pallet with corn and went back out in front but apart from a few skimmers nothing was happening, trig had taken a few more carp but was struggling as was fabio, he peaked to early.
it had turned into a proper grueller with bites and hooked fish at a premium, i did manage 2 carp on corn up the edge at 14 mtrs but going into the last 15 mins i was still behind fabio and trig, out of desperation i went out on the light rig with double maggot at 16 mtrs over the micro and couldnt believe it when the float buried and i had a 7lb fish, that was the only bite i had on maggot all day , and it helped me to beat both fabio and trig, both of which seemed a bit gutted, in fact it helped me into 3rd spot and last in the overall money.
1st was tom mangnal 66.1 peg 2 , he had 10 carp and 8lb of silvers all his fish falling to maggot and caster
2nd mike(what idiot pegged it like this)nicholls with 44.4
3rd tony rixon 32.6 peg 15
4th craig(trigger) edmunds 29.3 peg 14
5th phil(fabio) harding 28.5 peg 17
6th bela bakos , 27.9 peg 25
silver
the top blippy basher who is nigel bartlett 9.9 , mainly whitebait on single caster or maggot on his topset

avon angling weds open shiplate farm

20 fishing today so steve and carol let us have the use of west pool and hawthorns so most had an empty peg on one side at least, even tom mangnal was here due to the fact he was asked by a couple of the regulars at summerhayes to stop going there LMARO,
i let mrs brown impersonater (bob gullick) draw for me and he gave me peg 4 on hawthorns, not a peg thats been doing to well lately but you never know, i had ziggy slowinski on my left who is taking great pleasure in having a bottle of beer side bet with fabio and to be honest if he wins many more fabsy could be the main stockist of the bridgwater polish offy. on my right was jason bird who was glad the gimp couldnt make it at least his pole was still in one piece.
bait choice was easy today as the maggot has been doing the business so 3 rigs to make up two 4x14,s one for down the middle ,one for the margins left and right as its 4 ft deep there and a 4x12 for about 1 mtr off the far bank in about 2 1/2 foot of water all had size 18 6313 hooks on .12 line.
after cupping some soaked micro,s and maggot at 9 mtrs in the deep water and some at 11mtrs up on the shelf and some on the angle to my right in the same depth of water and fed some caster each side in the margins, i started on a single maggot on the 9 mtr line but it was very slow and it took me about 10 mins to get a bite which i of course missed, but a small skimmer was soon in the net followed by a small perch then a couple of ruffe, not a good sign. i had a carp after about 45 mins, but that was the only carp action i had in the deep water, over on the shelf gave me one small chub, so i pushed the rig up to the right and i had another carp first drop, so i refed and went back in front but again no bites so back up to the right and another carp was on the end but no more bites ,so back to the deep water and a few more skimmers and a few roach graced the net but as far as silvers were going it was a none starter as trig up on 8 had taken a big bream so i was never going to catch enough smalls to compete with that and then he had another so that was todays silvers taken care of. a look to my right hand margin produced another carp then i bumped one so i went back across to the far side,and by moving between the far side and my right hand margin i kept a few fish going , ending up with 16 carp and a few silvers for 45.5 for no brown envelope today
the west pool was the place to draw with dean malin making a welcome return to fishing ang winning with 87.8 off peg 2 fishing maggot over maqggot along his far bank
2nd was his team mate pete sivell on peg 12 west pool with 84 , catching carp the same way
3rd adrian jeffery 67.6 on west pool 11
4th tom mangnal 63.14 on west pool 13
5th rod wootten 63.10 peg 8 west pool
6th craig edmunds 59lb on 8 hawthorn pool which also gave him the top silvers weight of 16.1

viaduct silvers league , round 4

i needed a good draw to keep me in contention, but out of the draw tin comes peg 66 which has been a draw of death with it recording 2 lasts and a last but one so far in the league, trouble is this is a flier carp peg where you catch down to the tree,s to the left and being the narrow part of the lake the skimmers rarely stray to this swim, i still didnt see any reason to change my attack so i was still going to base my attack around g bait , caster and dead maggots, so i set up two j range 21 floats ,one was a 4x14 and the other a 4x16 both with an 18 middy 6313 hook on .10, a quich plumb around revealed about 4 1/2 foot of water all over the swim so i could use the rigs any where i wanted to, at the start i cupped in 1 ball at 13 mtrs and 2 balls at 16 mtrs straight out and 2 at 2 o,clock towards 67 which is left out, i also put a ball on the edge of the tree,s but that was wasted as nothing came over it,
i then started on the edge of the bush to my right a i had a small hybrid straight away then no more bites , so it was out to 13 mtrs and i was getting a small roach bite every chuck but they were on the small side, after a bit of this i felt i could catch them a lot closer so i dropped a ball of g bait at 5 mtrs and then i had a good run of 1 to 2oz roach for about an hour before that line died, then both joe mcmahon on 64 and lee wherret both had a good skimmer so i went back out to 13 mtrs and had a few roach before i had a skimmer of just over a pound , then only small roach again so i refed that line with another ball and went out to 16 mtrs in front and after a few small roach i had 3 x 1 1/2 skims in 3 drops which got me back into the section hunt as both lee and joe had had some quality fish but i felt i wasnt to far behind , then i bumped one which you dont want to do on a hard day on a difficult peg and suprise suprise the swim went quiet apart from the small roach, over to the 2 o,clock line but that was quiet then i bumped another when the maggot folded over the point of the hook so that was 2 lost , back to 13 mtrs and i had another one so i was still in the running section wise but lee and joe both had some more fish including some 3lb fish so i was now behind with lee definately winning our section going into the last hour i had 2 more in 2 put ins at 2 o,clock then tragedy i struck to earl on a lifter and bumped another , by the end i new lee had beaten me but i thought i just had the measure of young joe but it wasnt to be as i had 15lb, joe 17 and lee 20 so a third in section for me, i now need 2 section wins to stand any chance of getting in the overalls at league end, those 3 lost fish cost me second but they felt the same size as the 7 i had so first place would have probably been safe,
1st on the day went to steve mayo on 69 with 45.6 of skimmers over g bait
2nd dave roper 24.14 on 96
3rd paul elmes on 71 with 22.13
4th tom thick 21.15 on 130
5th lee werret 20.14 peg 62
6th phil cardwell 18.13 peg 72

weds open landsend match lake

poor turnout today with only 10 fishing, it may have been the forecast which was promising heavy rain which kept people away but luckily they got it wrong as we had no proper rain till the drive home.
aaron britnell pulled 2 tickets out and offered me one, i,m glad i took the right one as it was 19, the last time i drew this i had 350lb stalking them off the top, no chance at this time of year for that to happen again.
after the weekend when the first 2 caught on meat that was going to be my first choice of baits, so i set up a 4x14 with a middy 9313 on .14 line for 4 and 7 mtrs and the same rig was ok to use in front of peg 20 for soft pellet over micro,s,at 14 mtrs, i set up a 4x12 rig with a xedion size 18 on .16 line for meat down the edge, i aso set up a 4x12 for caster over by the island on .12 line with a 6313 size 16 hook on
starting on the 7mtr line i missed a bite first put in, which was a good sign, i,m not going to waste to much time about the match as apart from a carp at 14 mtrs and a small carp by the island the match was spent on the 4 and 7 mtr line apart from a few forays down the edge which yielded 6 carp ending up with 24 carp for what i estimated would go about 130lb, the scales went 144.14 for first on the day with all the fish falling to 8mm meat fished over the same
2nd adrian jefferey on 22 with 69.6
3rd ziggy slowinski on 15 with 52.10
4th fabio 51.11 on 13
5th aaron britnell 46 .14 which included top silvers with 24.8 off peg 3
6th adam caswell 46.5 peg 11

sunday open landsend fishery

what a difference 24 hours makes to the weather, yesterday at viaduct we had clear skies and a frost with a biting northerly wind and this morning it was mild with a westerly breeze and lots of rain. we had 24 booked in for the match so we were spread over match and speci lake, mike duckett pulled two tickets out stuck together so i had the one sticking out, it turned out to be 31 which is a peg which you could nearly guarantee winning off 18 months ago but i cant remember a winner coming off it since anton page broke the lake record off it, he must have really upset them !!!!
for company i had rowan atkinson body double to my left in the shape of dave westcott and bathampton reject niel mercer to to my right, normally i like to fish this peg tight in to the far bank but with the plants on the island collapsed over a bit plus there was a piece of line going across the gap between the bushes stopping access.
so i set up a pellet rig to fish at the front of the bushes with a 16 b960 on .16 for banded 6 and 8,s over loosefed 4,s, a 4x12 for corn the my right by the empty pallet beany and me had to share but i wont talk about that any more as beany and me never had so much as a roach there. also put together was a 4x14 rig for 13 mtrs for corn over micro,s with a 16 6313 0n .14.
starting on the corn line i managed 1 f.1 and lost 2 in the first hour so that was a bit of a waste of time , so i went across to the bushes with pellet but apart from a couple of liners i couldnt get a bite there , by now beany and fabio on 29 and 28 respectivley were catching odd carp on maggot and caster fished tight over to the far bank, also niel on 32 had a couple of carp and some good perch down the end bank margin
so with half the match gone and with 1 f1 in the net drastic action was called for, i normally carry one of those frangle gadgetts which is a very sharp angled blade which screws onto your cupping kit allowing you to cut any offending pieces of line away but needless to say it was no where to be found in my kit, its my own fault for not having one as vic bush markets them under his mosella/ avalon brand and its a piece of kit any one who fishes snakey type lakes shouldnt be without. so i went out with my cupping kit and after a bit of tugging and pulling i managed to get the line out of the way, so i cupped in some casters with a bit of corn then made up a 4x10 rig on .16 with an 18 exedion hook on the end, i had to fish it on a very short line with about 6 inches of line between the pole tip and float as i needed to fish tight to the bank under a bush to get bites, first drop on double caster cave me a small rudd so the rest of the match was spent on corn, my first carp was probably 11 to 12lb shortly followed by a 16lb common which as i netted i went blind as my brollie decided to shut by its own accord again, thats the second time this year perhaps its time to go for a new one, but it gave alan oram opposite on 33 a giggle.
i ended up with 6 carp 2 chub and 1 f1(i wont mention the small rudd as small one are a waste of time i hate them) which weighed 53lb ish.
1st martin pettiffer 108.5 peg 5 mainly catching on meat in the gap between the 2 islands
2nd was the wincanton pensioner dave roper o 16 with 104.2. its nice to see dave has got a new full time carer in the shape of nick collins who is obviously taking his new job seriously.
3rd philip(only his mum calls him that)fabio harding with 81.4 peg 28
4th dave "beany"westcott 77.15 peg 29
5th mike west 65.14 peg 1
6th paul elmes 62.2 peg 15
top silvers went to paul elmes with 20.8

silvers final at viaduct fishery

with 43 of us spread over cambell, cary and lodge there was going to be plenty of room, after a good breakfast in woody,s cafe at the fishery it was into the draw tin and out comes peg 70 for two weekends on the trot , needles to say i had a bit of stick off most in the queue, as i had won off it with 46lb of skimmers the week before and it has been the most consistent silvers peg for weeks, so i wasnt complaining , but as we know different days bring different results, and with the colour dropping out due to an overnight frost and a chilling northerly wind, nothing was going to be cut and dried. i didnt see any reason to do anything different so i set up 2 rigs both with an 18 6313 on .10 , one being .5g and the other 4x12 just in case a lighter approach was needed, another plus with this peg today was that the cold wind was at my back, the people behind me on cary had it smack in there faces and it was cold, for company i had steve jackson on 71 and dave white on 69 , on the whistle i fed 3 balls at 11 and 14 mtrs just like last week and half expected a similar but slightly cooler response from the skimmers but it never happened it was just a case of trying to get a bait to the bottom before a small roach nailed it the best bait to avoid the small roach seemed to be pieces of worm but the roach even nailed that, i did get bites all match but mainly from small fish , i had 3 better skimmers and quite a few handsize jobs but i was never going to win today i thought i had about 10lb and i was convinced dave had beaten me but he lost several good skimmers which cost him dear today, dave weighed 13.14 but i beat him by 4oz to win the section he was gutted lol.
1st on the day went to the ginger one , Andy power on 114 with 7 tench plkus bits for 23.13
2nd anton page 21.2 peg 125
3rd paul greenwood 17.12 peg 96
4th gay o,shea 14.4 peg 112
5th tony rixon 14.2 peg 70
6th dave white 13.14 peg 69

practice silvers match for the silvers final on sat

back down to viaduct again and with only 12 fishing we would have plenty of room as we were spread over cary lake. weds matches have been poorly attended all summer whereas the thursday cost cutters have been really popular ,says it all really, people aint got the money.
back to the draw tin and aaron britnell insisted on drawing for me and he handed me peg 77 which was an end peg today and on the way down i said i really fancied 78 so one peg away would have to do. still keeping it simple on this lake (well all lakes really) just 2 rigs , a .3g for caster down the edge with an 18 6313 on .10 and that would do for a lighter rig on the long pole as it was only 6 inches deeper out at 13 mtrs,
the other rig was a .5 affair with the same hook and line for 13 mtrs straight out and at 11 o,clock angle at 9 mtrs, i only chose these 2 areas as it was the same depth so i could get away with the same rig for both.
at the start i cupped in 3 balls on the 9 and 13 mtr line and started feeding some casters down the right hand margin at 5 mtrs.
starting at 9 mtrs i started with a carp on first drop in as did several other anglers, then i bumped off a good skimmer and the small raoch arrived next. a switch to double caster did get me some small skimmers but it was a bit slow, no noe seemed to be catching to much, as far as i could see aaron on 80 and trigger on 101 were catching but it was mainly small skimmers, most of my match was spent at 9 mtrs with skimmers drifting in and out of the feed, there were fish on the 13 mtr line aswell but the 9mtr line was just as productive so i reckon 75% of my weight came from there, the margin gave me a couple of perch with one of about 1 1/2lb and some roach but the carp arrived so i binned that line, i was still catching fish at the end of the match and i nearly put in my qouta of 2kg of g bait with the fish responding to it really well , as to whether it will be the same on saturday ,i dont know as we are possibly going to have 2 frosts and the days are going to be bright so it will be harder me thinks.
i had a look in my net at the end and it felt like i had 40lb plus in it so i new that would be there or there abouts as far as i could see, scott russell on 97 had been catching well at 5mtrs in the last half of the match on caster but a slow first half would be the difference. i was first to weigh and my net went 42.5 for first on the day
2nd scott russell 35.1 on peg 97, the slow start did cost him
3rd craig edmunds 31.3 peg 101
4th nick ewers 28.11 peg 85
5th aaron britnell 28.6 peg 80
6th tim pallant 27.11 peg 88
today i was next to mike west who was on 78 , normally being next to mike means that you have to put up with his endless phone calls about work . but not today ,he as discovered that the samsung galaxy111 my be an all singing all dancing piece of wonderfull technology but he forgot to download the app that makes it float as it fell out of his pocket and went straight in, but at least he had a quiet day.
there is an open at landsend on sunday 9am draw book in with me at the shop or with mike at the fishery on 07977545882

viaduct silvers league round 3

i needed another good draw today to make sure i was going to stay in contention, and i didnt dissapoint myself when i drew 70 on lodge lake , which is nearly as good as 100 on cary, that drsw was left to paul greenwood today so it would be interesting to see how the in store proffessional would do off it today !!!!!
for company i had the old ronnie master ,mike nicholls on 69 and the genial welshman and firenzee consultant on 71, so good anglers either side was going to make it interesting. i only set up 2 rigs today ,both .5g affairs with 18 6313 hooks on .10. one for 6mtrts and the other for 11 and 14mtrs, there was only about 6 inches difference between 6 and 11mtrs but i set up two rigs so as i didnt have to keep changing depth, the plan was to feed 3 balls of g bait on each line , start at 6 mtrs then swap between all 3, on the all in i fed all lines and began on caster at 6 mtrs and by now mike was already swinging his 4th roach in. i stayed with thge short line for the first hour but i was having trouble getting through the blips, miuke was in his element with the little ronnies dropping into his net, by now it was looking as though his boast about taking it easy on me wasnt going to happen as i reckon i had less than a pound in the first hour, so out to 11mtrs and it was small roach again, after about 10 mins on roachletts i had a good perch of about 1 1/2 lb, but the small roach were still a problem, i opened a tin of corn but that gave me no bites at all, by now andy had taken a couple of skimmers and mike also had one but he was still blip bashing, i put double caster on and had a couple of good skimmers at 11mtrs, and to be honest the next three hours went really well with good skimmers and bream responding well to regular top ups, and during this period i pulled well away from andy who had been catching skimmers aswell, it was all going well till about 75 mins from the end when my swim died and andy began catching well, in that last period i had 4 skimmers for aboout 6lb whereas and was getting good fish , it seemed as though the main shoal had shifted peg as i was getting small roach problems again which is a bad sign . on the all out i had a quick look in the net and thought i had 45lb plus ,andy was abmitting to 40 lb so it would be close, the scales arrived and my net went 46.12 for first on the day , andy was only one fish behind with 44.4, i di keep reminding him about the one that jumped off lol, he wasnt bitter MUCH lol
1st tony rixon 46.12 peg 70
2nd andy neal 44.4 peg 71
3rd paul faires 35.6 peg 103
4th richard aherne 32.12 peg 68
5th john green 30.15 peg 126
6th dave roper 30.10 peg 130
oh i nearly forgot paul greenwood on 100 possibly the finest skimmer peg on the venue last in his section with 16lb, just goes to prove flyers dont always go

sat and sunday at viaduct fishery

saturday first of all and it was the all winners final with 1000 quid first prize, so a good draw was needed as the standard fishing was high , into the draw tin and out pops 90, which is the top right hand corner peg as you look at the lake, with the wind blowing into i half fancied it even though the wind was chilly, i had dave roper opposite on 94 and andy lloyd next door on 88, i think andy must have won the lottery as he actually bought me a cup of tea from the cafe, thats the first one ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i set up a wag to fish at depth out towards an overhanging bush, a meat rig for down the edge at 14 mtrs , a pellet rig for 16 mtrs down the edge but the less said about that the better as i never had a bite on that, i also set up a rig to fish banded pellet at 14 mtrs straight out, but that only gave me one small skimmer, so after an hour i had a look down the edge on meat but never had a bite so i refed it and went out on the wag, it was about now that tom mangnal on 97 hooked a good carp and seemed to lose total control of it as it ended up in 94 attached to dave ropers tackle who duly netted it and put it in his net, but he did give tom his float back, i had a bite first chuck on the wag and safely netted a near double figure carp, looking down the lake i couldnt really see to much going on there were odd fish being taken but no one was setting it alight, the last half of the match was my best as i ended up with 12 carp and about 12lb of silvers for an estimated 120lb, but that was not going to be any good today as dave opposite had 14 fish from his margin, also paul greenwood on 105 and nick merry on 100 had also caught well, as it turned out , fishery boss paul greenwood on 105 had 18 meat caught fish from his margin for 188.7 for the £1000 first prize
2nd and not far behind was nick merry on 102 with 171.7
3rd roy worth 164.8 peg 114
4th dan white 152.2 peg 78
5th dave cockayne 151 peg 127
6th ashley tompkins 139.11 peg 126
and my estimate of having 120 was good today as i had 120.2
SUNDAY OPEN
on cambell and cary againtoday and i wasnt to sure as to where i wanted to draw , but i wasnt best pleased to pull 130 from the tin, no good for silvers and it has been hard for carp since the temp dropped and waking up to a frost this morning wasnt going to help. mike nicholls drew on saturday and really struggled, ending up with about 50lb , just a few carp on the drop, i thought i would do it differently to him so i set up a meat rig to fish at 14 mtrs and a wag to fish banded 8mm straight out in the middle, niether of which mike had done on saturday, i had dick bull on my left and chris fox on my right, the first 90 mins were spent on the meat at 14 mtrs and it gave me 4 carp and a skimmer, opposite on 110 roland lucas was catching well on the wag fishing pellet to the end bank although the fish were of a smaller size , up past the spit on 128 trig edmunds was catching and i expected tom mangnal to be doing well on 126 , the rest of my match was spent on the wag and i ended up with 24 carp in the netfor what i thought would go about 120lb again, the lake had fished well with both trig and tom admitting to 160lb and with part time mugger pete wild over on 116 also admitting to 150lb ish and roland ending up with 34 carp my best chance was going to be a section win by default.
1st on the day went to tom mangnal with 184.8 of mainly wag caught fish on pellet
2nd craig edmunds on 128 with 180.14 , he should have won but he was about 10lb over in his nets, he should chuck his counter away
3rd roland lucas 146.12 peg 110
4th pete wild 145.12 peg 116
5th t rixon 133.1
6th les williams 123.4 peg 99
silvers
steve kedge 32.2 of caster caught whitebait on 114

weds open chilton trinity, woodland lake

only 11 fishing today so we had every other peg, well nearly, i let misha draw for me and i ended up on peg 9, for company i had roger andoniou on 7 and kev molten on 10.
i set up a shallow and deep pellet rig to fish hard 8,s and 6,s at 13mtrs both had a b960 size 16 hooks for banded pellet, and a 4x14 rig for meat down the margin to my right for meat so i had an 18 xedion hook on .16 line.
at the start i cupped in some meat down the edge and some hard 6,s at 13 mtrs, and went out on the deep rig with a hard 8 in the band, it took a while to get a bite but by firing some 6,s over the top by the end of the first hour i had 5 average size carp (4lb) and a skimmer, the only other person i could see catching was ryan summerhayes on 23 who had sold his soul to the devil and was catching carp on the method feeder with a boilie on the hook !!!!. by the end of the first hour i started getting liners so i went out on the shallow rig and had another 20 carp in the next 3 hours with some fish going nearly 10lb, fabio on peg 2 was catching well on meat down his margins also tom thick on 14 was catching shallow as was ryan over on 23 (he must have lost his feeder). with 2 hours to go my fish did a dissapearing act and all i could manage shallow in the last couple of hours were a couple of tench, i did get a couple of carp on the deep rig and 1 down the edge, but my swim had died and its hard to understand why, it could be wind strength change or it was just there time of day to be somewhere else who really knows, fabio kept catching down his edge right to the end so i thought he had beaten me, and he did with 124 .11 and first on the day
2nd was me with 116.12 but i fell foul of the fishery net limit curse again as i had 78.12 in one net and 34.5 in the other and with my silvers 12.7 it would have given me 125.8, hey ho lifes a bitch then fabio claims the hollow victory quid(like i,m bitter but no one to blame but myself)
3rd tom thick 108.8
4th ryan summerhayes 85.1
5th jason radford 73.4
6th john bradford 54lb
silvers
steve kedge on 25 with 30lb of roach on caster fished close

silvers league , viaduct fishery, round 2

into the draw bag early and out pops peg 100 on cary, a good peg for skimmers. for company i had mike(silverfox)nicholls on 101 and bob(chattyman)gullick on 99.
i set up 3 rigs today. a .5grm and a .3 grm for caster, dead red maggots or small pieces of worm both rigs had an 18 6313 on .10, the lighter of the 2 was on a slightly longer piece of line so as i could start by fishing caster to hand at the start of the match, i also set up a 4x14 with a 16 6313 for chopped worm at 6 mtrs or bigger pieces over the groundait at 11 and 14 mtrs.
at the start i fed 2 baqlls of grounbait wit a few casters and some well chopped worms at 11 mtrs and 3 more at 14 mtrs, i cupped a reasonable pot of chopped worm and caster at 6mtrs then began on the topset to hand with caster, but after 20 mins and only 4 small roach that line was binned. out to 6 mtrs with a piece of worm, after a couple more roach a carp was hooked and duly lost, by now bob gulliick was out at 14 mtrs and was getting some skimers with some better samples amongst them, on my other side mike was struggling with the roach not wanting to play ball at this stage also his g bait line at 11 mtrs wasnt yielding any thing of note except for carp, i went out to my 11 mtr line and was soon catching skimmers , mainly on the small side , between 3 and 5 to the pound, whereas bob,s fish were of a better stamp but less of them so by my reckoning as well as bobs i was falling behind, i started on caster but soon changed to single dead red as it seemed the fish preferred it , i did try small pieces of worm but it wasnt as good as the maggot, i spent most of the match on the 11 mtr line only occasionally going out to 14 mtrs , i fed quite a bit of g bait feeding a ball everytime i had a couple of roach on the bounce, i even ran out towards the end and i had to scrounge some off mike to see me through to the end of the match, the last 90 mins of the match went a bit strange with the fish going as bit wierd, the skimmers were in the swim but not on the deck, but if you came off the deck you couldnt get a bite, mike by now was catching really well down his margin on caster , getting big skimmers and hybrids , by the end i thought bob had beaten me but i had beaten mike , but i nearly got that wrong as bob weighed 36.14, i new i had beaten that and i weighed 48.10 ,what i didnt expect was for mike to put 46lb on the scales, that was close, i new he had caught well but his catch was a suprise even to him.
as it turned out cambell had fished hard with carp being a real problem so i won on the day with 48.10 on peg 100
2nd mike nicholls 46lb on peg 101
3rd anton page 43.4 peg 70
4th bobby gullick 36.14 peg 99, less time chatting and more time fishing may help you bob, but it was funny to have you believing you had beaten me right up to the end, but i did think he had over 45lb, you really need to make less of a meal about the fish you are catching lol
5th steve kedge 36.5 peg 121
6th andy neale 35.10 peg 77
i got to mention the 2 foulers i landed a 2 pounder hooked in the anal fin and a 3lb fish hooked in the gill plate, plus the 5 fish i landed on mikes groundbait in the last 30 mins that probably went 10lb, thanks mike

weds landsend open

its good to see the weds opens being reasonably well supported and with 20 in attendance today its still good, those interested i am going to trinity on woodland lake next weds so again book with me at the shop on 01179517250.
back to today and kev molten drew for me and handed me 24 which is the corner peg on the match lake, not a peg i would have chosen as its had no real form of late except for pete wild winning the lake silvers off it last sunday ,but that was only with 22lb.
you normally catch smallish carp up the right hand margin but they can be on the small side as it seems that the bulk of the fish are little dark residents that live in the peg all year long, so i set up a 4x12 rig with a 16 b960 for banded pellet at the top of the shelf, also a 4x12 for corn in the left hand margin but less said about that the better as it was total non-starter with not even a dip off a roach on the few occassions i tried it.
the last rig was a 4x14 with a 16 6313 0n .12 for soft pellet over micros at 10 o,clock angle and for corn straight out both at 14 mtrs. with some good anglers on good pegs it was going to be hard to get in the coin today unless the flyers didnt fish, as they some times do or is it dont ?.
starting on soft pellet over the micros , missed a bite(liner)first drop then had a 3lb carp, the first couple of hours were spent on this line where i had several skimmers and 4 more carp, the corn line gave me 2 more smallish carp in the next hour but i wasnt really going anywhere as mark poppleton on 19 was catching carp, as was tim clark on 17 judging by the number of times i could see his yellow elastic stretching out beyond the bushes. the speci lake seemed to be fishing hard judging by the banter. the last half of the match was really spent fishing up the edge but that wasnt fishing to form as when you feed you tend to get liners as the fish move up from the snags and onto the feed , but it probably took an hour to start getting bite but the peg was getting stronger towards the end with me adding another 9 carp and a couple of good skimmers to give me 15 carp and about 15lb of silvers for about 70lb, i thought mark poppleton on 19 had won as he seemed to be catching all day but was only admitting to 70lb as was tim clark no 17 and blast from the past(and still a ginger liar) aaron britnell on 5 and with no one having anything of note on the speci i thought i may sneak in the money.
1st on the day was mark poppleton on 19 with 70lb, oh no sorry he actually had 106.6 catching carp shallow and on the drop towards the far bank cover
2nd aaron britnell on 5 with 70lb, oh no he had 96.4
3rd tim clark on 17 with possibly 60lb oh no he had 83lb, but i can let him off as he aint allowed to go very often so its rare for him to see fish in these numbers especially in his net
4th tony rixon peg 24 , 78,14 (like ive never lied about my weight lol)
5th steve kedge peg 1 64.4
6th adrian jeffery peg 3 57.7
silvers
craig edmunds on peg 40(it was rested on sunday)with 37.14 which included the lakes 5.10 f1, with most of the fish falling to soft pellet over micros

sunday open landsend fishery

a good turn out with 35 fishing so we had a bit of room as mike let us use 3 lakes,
i let chris fox draw for me after he pulled 31 for himself which is a good peg, then he pulls me 36 which is a nice peg on the carpark bank of the speci lake, its good for silvers aswell as carp so i was a bit torn as to what to do, so i sut up a 4x12 rig for soft pellet to fish at 11 and 1 o,clock angles over micros with a 16 6313 on .12, a 4x12 for corn at 5 mtrs to my right at the bottom of the shelf with a 18 xedion hook on .16 ,and a .2 j13a float on .16 with a 19 b960 for hard 8mm pellet over cupped 6,s to the far bank,
tackling up i had a proper senior moment as instead of putting lube down the topset i gave it a squirt of super glue ,it just dont work the same lol, can i really expect more of these cockups as i get older, hmm.
at the start i fed all lines and by the time i picked up the soft pellet rig there were blows over the micros, going out with a soft 4mm on the hook i was soon netting a good f1 followed by a skimmer, the first couple of hours went ok with more f1,s and skimmers over the micros, but the soft pellet didnt work as well as a piece of corn, even though i wasnt feeding any on this line, the thing with corn is i think is that its a nice visual bait and the fish readily accept it as a natural food source as loads gets thrown in.
into the third hour and a look at the 5 mtr line gave me one more skimmer and 2 carp including one common about 18lb, its a very recognisable fish as its very long, i have caught this fish 3 times myself over the years and have weighted it in for others on several occasions, so its probably not the brightest of fish, the final part of the match was spent fishing pellet to the far bank where i had several chub and 10 more carp for what i was hoping would go 100lb but i wasnt sure so i admitted for a bit less.
the speci lake had fished hard with our side being the better side to be on, on the opposite bank was craig (trigger) edmunds who considers himself up and coming but today he was like his hair line which is come and gone, he gave me so much stick a couple of weeks ago when i only weighed in 11 lb at acorn, isnt it funny how things come and bite you in the ass , well i would like to let everyone now that he only manged to put 9.12 on the scales lol.
1st today went to tom mangnal on peg 5 with 127.8, catching carp to the island on worm
2nd tont rixon 113.13 peg 36, and that was after trig didnt add my weight up properly
trying to diddle me out of 5lb, he was very bitter by this time.
3rd 15 year old sam elliott on his first visit to the venue with 108.6 on peg 21
4th dave evans on 65 with 73.14
5th reg elliott (sam,s dad) with 69.7 peg 42
6th fabio harding 68.4 peg 7
31st as there were 4 dnw,s craig edmunds with 9.12 on peg 26
silvers top weight today was me with 27lb
those interested i have an open booked for viaduct in 2 weeks time on cambell and cary and possibly more if we get the numbers, book in with me at the shop on 0117 9517250 or at the fishery on 01458 274022

avon angling weds open , acorn fishery

with 17 fishing and no sign of any pleasure anglers bev let us use more pegs than i initially asked for, and the weather men were right again with a forcast of heavy slow moving heavy showers, and they were slow moving, so slow in fact that a cloud sat over us for over 4 hours with stair rods falling out of it, the lake level came up 2 inches during the match.
i had the last ticket and ended up in peg 24 which i have had before and its not to bad a peg, i had mike west on 22 and tom thick on 26, and he is becoming a bit of a nemesis for me and today wasnt going to be any different.
i decided on a bit of a corn approach today so i set up a couple of rigs for the far side, one for tight in and another for just off in about 2 feet of water,with 16 6313 hooks on .12 line. a 4x10 caster rig for the margins and a .5grm for caster at 4mtrs.
at the start i began on the 4mtr line with caster, after feeding the other lines, tom went straight across and i said to him he would get a bite in the first 5 seconds, i actually got to a count of 8 before his float went under and that set the scene for the match really with tom catching steadily throughout.
my caster line gave me a couple of carp and a few skimmers but it died by the end of the first hour , so it was across i went , on the slightly deeper rig to begin with but it soon became apparent that the fish didnt want to be in the deeper water so it was up into the shallow water, kindering a few pieces of corn and a sprinkling of soaked 3mm pellets, and i did begin to catch but i was to far behind tom to cause a threat to him so a minor placing was my only option, the only other person i could see catching was jason radford on peg 1 who was catching on paste, the last couple of hours was spent between the far side and the margin caster swim, with the latter being the most productive but the fish were on the small side. by the end i had lost count of the numbers of fish i had caught but it was probably between 35 and 40 carp for about 100lb, tom had 67 carp so 200lb was looking on the cards for him, he also was catching well on caster down his margin in the last hour so thats another battering from him, but he,s not a gloater, but after watching him today he is a bit of a gurner when he,s netting fish, so make sure you keep an eye on him next time you draw next to him.
1st tom thick peg 26 202.5
2nd tony rixon peg 24 106.11
3rd jason radford peg 1 106.1
4th rich coles peg 10 77.12
5th mat tomes peg 6 77.9
6th ziggy slowinski peg 5 67.8
silvers
today was a tie with the 2 oldest people in southwest match fishing
john(the gimp)bradford and rich coles both with 15lb on the button, both feeding caster close in

silvers league, viaduct fishery round 1

i think obout 45 were fishing today so we were spread over cambell, cary and lodge lakes which is nice to see. i wasnt to sure as to where i wanted to draw but i can tell you i wasnted to dissapointed when i opened the ticket to reveal number 126 on cambell looking at me ,it is a good silvers peg and john bradford won the silvers off it on thursday with over 60lb of skimmers, catching on small pieces of worm over groundbait, for company i had newly returned to the sport steve kedge on 125 who had spent the whole summer commercial mackrell fishing in dorset and smiling dave roper on 127, and with nick collins on 128 it was going to be an interesting day, yet again the weather men got it right with strong easterly winds which was cold and lots of rain,lovely.
i set up 3 rigs , a .3 with a 18 6313 for caster on my topset, a .75 g for 11mtrs over gbait, a bit heavier than i would have liked but with the strong wind blowing in and across i thought it would help again with an 18 to .10. then a .5 worm rig for 5 and 11 mtrs with a 16 6313 on .12, at the start i cupped in 6 balls at 11 mtrs, some w&c at 5trs and began feeding a fer casters on topset range, i did put some casters and finely chopped worm in the g bait aswell but not to much, dave to my right also fed some g bait and worm but kedgey fed just w&c on various lines which i thought a bit dangerous as the carp love it, shows how much i know .
starting on my topset i had a couple of quick roach then i lost a tench and that line went dead, so onto the 5 mtr line with a piece of worm on, a small perch was followed by a good skimmer then no bites so a bit more w&c and out over the g bait at 11 mtrs on single caster which produced a few skimers but only odd better ones. by feeding and rotating around the feed areas i cant complain about the number of bites i had but i was struggling for quality with no tench whereas both steve and dave had several and nick collins on 128 went from last in the section to 2nd in the last hour netting 7 tench in that period, i did manage 1 tench on my topset but that was my lot as far as tench went, kedgey was flying towards the end with good skimmers and tench catching on small pieces of worm, as was dave on my right but he was catching on caster as well as worm, the fish i was getting on worm were the same size as the caster fish and with no tench coming my way the best i could hope for was 3rd in section and thats where i ended with 25lb, dave won the section with 32lb and nick collins was 2nd with 28lb, i did lose a couple of good flying bream which possibly would have given me 2nd in the section, but thats fishing , steve kedge luckily was in the next section and he had 44lb so definately a chip shop sausage today being battered all round, obviously i got something wrong today as all around me caught tench late on but with them all doing it differently you just dont know really do you, the highlights of the day was sitting opposite mat tomes on 115 putting in a fine show of carp fishing , whatever he did he hooked a carp lol, also clyaton hudson on 66 lodge lake somehow managing to step off his platform and into the lake , its much easier and safer to use a plummet matey.
i dint get the full results but phil cardwell on 69 lodge lake (i think) had 56lb of skimmers on w&c
2nd was tim palant on 80 cary with 52lb of skimmers on caster over g bait
3rd steve kedge 44lb peg 125
4th stuart barnett 43lb peg 100
off to landsend next sunday for an open so if anyone is interested ring me at the shop on 0117 9517250
also on weds we are at acorn fishery for those who want to brave the rain

silvers open , viaduct fishery , cambell lake

firstly i got to say well done to our ceck angler gabriel(i think)who won the acorn open open on tuesday off the peg i failed badly on (38) on sunday, i bet he,s glad i rested it so well ha ha ha.
back to viaduct and i was a bit suprised to see only 11 booked in especially as the silvers league starts this weekend and there are 46 booked in for that at the mo.
into the draw tin and out comes 123 which is up in the top left hand corner and has a lot of form for tench and skimmers, for company i had the gimp on 125 and our polish buddy ziggy slowinski(is that better zig)on 126 , both swims being good silvers pegs. i managed to get the gimp to have a quid but on present form even that wasnt going to be easy. i set up 4 rigs, a pellet rig for 5mtrs to my right at the bottom of the slope, and a margin caster rig both of which were non starters so no more of them then. a .5grm rig for 4 and 11 mtrs for caster over groundbait with a 18 6313 on .10 ,and a 4x14 impact 6 with a 16 6313 on .12 for chopped worm and caster to my left at 4 mtrs at the bottom of the shelf, at the start in cupped in 7 balls at 11mtrs and 3 at 4mtrs and some messy w&c at 4mtrs to the left. starting at 4mtr with single caster in soon had a small skimmer followed by a few more then the roach turned up over the g bait making it hard to get a bait to the bottom, i think a heavier rig will be made for the weekend with the bulk well down to try and crash through the rubbish(silverfox dream fish), by now there were some bubbles coming up over the 11mtr line so i shipped out to this line and missed a couple of bites, which i think were liners, so i put double caster on which gave me 5 good skimmers in quick time then it went quiet, i think carp were coming over the feed and unsettleing the silvers also the bubbles stopped so i cupped in a couple more and came back over the close line but the small roach were still there, so down on the c&w line and i had 3 tench then i hooked a snag which i pulled off the deck and the swim never came back to life so in cupped some more at ii mtrs down the left again at the bottom of the shelf, i didnt want to go to close to the margin a there seemed to be plenty of carp mooching around and i didnt want to waste any time or hooks on them, back out to the 11 mtr line and a couple more skimmers before it went a bit slow again so a couple more balls and down the edge on the worm, the only person i could see catching was ziggy on 126 but i think his elastics were a bit harsh as he lost several good skimmers during the match, and the gimp was catching carp lol but he did get some skimmers and tench towards the end of the match.
on the 11 mtr line down the left i had 3 carp in the first 3 put ins but on the 4th put in i had a tench followed by 2 more before the swim died, so in refed and went back out over the g bait i had a couple of skimmers but bites were hard to get, i was getting moverments on the float so i think the skimmers were there but i dont hink they were feeding properly ,possibly due to the bright sunshine and flat water on our bank, by the end i had another 5 tench down the left giving me 10 tench and several skimmers for what i thought would go about 35lb, when paul got to me ziggy was winning with 32.13 but my net went 41.8 for first on the day with ziggy coming second,
3rd was chris fox with 25.12 on 112
4th john bradford 25.10 peg 125
5th dick bull 16.10 peg 115
6th paul blake 15.10 peg 111
now looking forward to sunday , hopefully with more anglers on the bank sunday carp wont be so much of a problem as most people caught or lost loads today, i had 10 myself, its amazing how hard you can pull on .10 without it snapping,

avon angling sunday open, acorn fishery

now the trauma has subsided i will do my blog, the end












just joking, 48 fished today so we put 39 on paddock and 9 on the old canal, the match would be won on paddock but i had a sneaky feeling that the silvers winner would come off the old canal, and for a consistent weights affair the canal looked best, i let re patriated aussie stu barnett draw for me , i ended up on paddock 38 which was 2 pegs from where i failed miserably on weds and stu had 3 on the canal,
i,m not going to waste to much time on my match as i was shit, started on caster and had a few skimmers, that died ,went out on soft pellet had 1 skimmer and a small carp, tried paste, no good , i did manage to mug a cruiser which was about 7lb, and that was really the end of my match as i weighed in 11 lb for last in the match of people to weigh in. luckily 10 never weighed so i wasnt last overall (smacks of desperation methinks), on my left martin rich had a few carp on paste and on my right nigel bartlett had 15lb of silvers and he worked really hard for that, all i did was run round in ever decreasing circles until i dissapeared up my own ass, so this was one to forget, what was interesting today as far as paddock went was that the pegs everyone expected to win never, the weights came off pegs you wouldnt really pick,
1st went to glen bailey on peg 2 with 111.10 on paste
2nd alan oram 104 on peg 7
3rd tim ford 98.10 peg 27
4th bob(mammy)gullick 81.3 peg 21
5th mike nicholls 80.13 peg 30
6th craig edmunds 80.9 peg 1
silvers
tom thick 32.10 peg 5 on the old canal, skimmers on soft pellet over micros
those interested i am running an open on landsend on sunday 30 th september, book in with me at the shop on 01179517250
back to the match and as it was a short pole match, top set plus 3 more maximum it fished very consistently so i will be doing more but not till next summer now,
right now i have done the blog i will leave it to mr anon to have the last word in the comments lol x

acorn fishery topset and 2 sections only

with 22 fishing there was still plenty of room for everyone, although i did cram a few together in the good areas and as results went the fish still seemed to stay put in the better swims, i let trigger draw for me today and he handed me peg 36, this peg blows hot and cold and it has been more cold than hot of late. craig edmunds aka trigger was in the shop on tuesday saying that he thought the venue would respond to a heavy maggot feeding approach as the carp are coming up in the water for pellet and caster and with not to many small rubbish fish to snaffle the bait it may be a goer. why oh why did i talk him out of it, probably as i had already decided to do it myself (wish i hadnt)so with trig on peg 1 and fishing caster it would be easy to keep an eye on him, especially as he was giving me a hard time for talking him out of maggot drowning then doing it myself.
i put together a .5g rig for on the deck with a 16 6313 hook on .12 a 4x12 for up in the water with a 18 hook of the same pattern and a down the edge 4x12 rig for corn with an 18 9313 hook on .14 line.
just before the start kieth turner over on peg 26 loose fed his 4 and 5 section into the lake and even the fishery staff armed with rakes couldnt retrieve them , that kind man trig did offer to get in after the match and try and get them, and he did and he got them straight away, i think the videos are on tim fords blog and possibly mike nicholls blog aswell fairplay to trig i say, kieth did eventually get down to fishing with just his topset down his margin and he caught over 40lb giving his son shane a severe beating off the next peg,
i would like to say the mag attack worked really well but it never and by the halfway mark i only had 3 small carp and a handful of skimmers, much to trigs ammusement as he was getting a skimmer every put in, fishing on the deck and up in the water.
sat in this peg you can see all the good pegs and most were catching with mike nicholls on 12 mike west on 13 and fabio on 15 was catching ,also mash on 9 was getting plenty of action but he was missing a lot of bites and losing a fair few, and over on bridge peg 21 glen bailey was also catching, with the exception of fabio the rest were all catching on paste , fabio was catching shallow on paste,
with 2 hours to go i ditched the maggots and spent the rest of the match in the margins, even that was slow but it did get better in the last hour and i ended the match with 66lb but that was no where near a pick up, with mike nicholls winning the paste race with 117.11 off peg 12 on mainly just his topset
2nd glen bailey , 99lb peg 21 on paste
3rd philip(fabio)harding, 98.3 on pellet shallow
4th mike west peg 13 on paste
5th mash 90.7 peg 9 on paste
6th chris winstone peg 5 0n paste
i think it may be a paste attack at the weekend as we are back here again on sunday for a topset and 3 sections only, and with 50 booked in it should be interesting with no areas for the fish to hide in, and with everyone fishing the same distance the fish will come to the anglers, these short pole matches do seem to throw up consistent weights as its the same for everyone.
silvers on the day went to craig edmunds with a nice net of skimmers for 43.12 off peg 1
2nd in silvers went to john bradford on peg 11 weith 29.8

sedges brick lake

20 fishing today so no empty pegs , a quick chat with owner jamie revealed that it had fished hard on saturday with the top end of the lake fishing the best probably due to the wind blowing that way, so with a favaoured draw at the top half of the lake i let steve seager draw for me, after he had drawn 10 for himself which is the top left hand corner of the lake with the wind blowing in, then he draws peg 4 for me which is ok for skimmers but even then you generally need to be a couple of swims up to be smack on, i had decided on a meat approach as the skimmers and carp have been responding to it on this lake, so a 4x18 rig was assembled for 5 and 14 mtrs as its the same depth with a 16 middy 9313 hook on .14 and a 4x12 for the margins with the same hook and line. and a 3ssg pellet wag for out by the rope which runs down the centre of the lake, for company i had the evans brothers each side with steve on my left and dave on my right, at the start i cupped meat in at 5 and 14 mtrs then went straight out on the wag with a banded 8 on the hook, you can sometimes get a couple of mug fish early on, but not today , i fished it for the first hour for only one bite which i missed, there were a couple of fish taken by odd anglers on the wag but it wasnt happening for me or most others, only adrian jeffery on 8 was catching odd fish on it but he had to chuck into the gimps peg to get a bite lol. well the gimp wasnt useing it,
onto the pole and my first bite at 14 mtrs resulted in a near 14lb carp, dead handy methinks, then it was skimmers all falling to 8mm meat, it wasnt fast and furious but it was interesting, you would catch a couple of fish then they seemed to back off and you would have to wait for a while to get another bite, the 5mtr line gave up about half a dozen skimmers and one carp but most of the action was out at 14mtrs, adrian jeffery looked to be doing the best as he was swapping between the pole and pellet and the wag catching odd carp and skimmers right up to the end, alan oram on 7 had been catching skimmers on paste and meat and with paul elmes, mike west and fabio all catching it was hard to tell as to who was winning but by the end it was the old stager adrian jeffery on peg 8 who came out on top with 97.1, its nice to see the old boys doing well occasionally
2nd and at the other end of the age scale was paul(beever)elmes with 77.01 on peg 6
3rd and back up to the top end of the ages was mike west with 71.6 on peg 11
4th phil(fabio)harding 68.5 peg 12
5th tony rixon 67.2 peg 4
6th alan oram 43.13 peg 7
silvers
me with 36.8
alan oram 32.12

weds open landsend fishery

only 13 of us today so we only used the match lake, mark poppelton drew for me and handed me peg 7, which is a peg i seem to draw quite a lot, i wasnt to upset as it is a consistent peg which seems to get better in the last half of the match, fabio kept up his drawing prowess by ending up on 19 again, he was hoping to put right what he cocked up last time he was sat on this flier, and with in form paste head mike west on 22 it looked as though he was going to be the man to beat , fabio came round to see me and i had to make him a paste rig as he cant see to thread the line through the float rubbers, but of course he dont need glasses does he !!!!!
i set up a meat rig for 5mtrs, which would also be alright for meat in the left hand margin as the 2 lines were the same depth, the business end had a 16 6313 on .12 .
a paste rig as if you cant beat them you got to join them havnt you which i planned to use up to empty peg 8 and the bottom of the far side shelf as again it was the same depth.
and a couple of pellet rigs for over to the island both with a 18 b960 on .16, in the last couple of matches tom thick has done well just kindering pellets and leaving the catty alone so i decided to do the same but fish about 2 feet off the bank to try and draw the fish off the island instead of chasing slurpers, you can catch by slapping the rig tight to the island but this peg has an overhanging bush about 3 feet off the water making slapping a bit perilous so another good reason to try and draw the fish off the island, after feeding all lines with a cup at the start i began at 5 mtrs on meat and it took about 15 mins to get my first proper bite which ended up with a 2lb skimmer in the landing net ,then it flipped as i was putting it into the net and i dropped it the wrong side of the net DOH. i spent the first 90 mins on the meat line and had a couple of carp and another skimmer, although there were signs of feeding fish on this line proper bites were hard to get, by now fabio was catching well on the paste rig i made for him, as was ziggy zowinski on 21 who was catching on pellet over to the island, but disaster struck for ziggy when his 14mtr section snapped in half when he lifted into a bite, so that was basically the end of his match as he was flying when it happened.
back in my swim and a look over the paste lines gave me 2 over at the bottom of the island shelf but down by the empty pallet it seemed to be full of nibblers, back to the 5 mtr meat line and i had 2 quick carp then no more, by now it was about halfway through(where does the time go )so with 6 or 7 carp in the net it was over to the island kindering 4,s and fishing a banded 6 and i started catching straight away (why i left it so long is a mystery)by feeding a few pellets after every fish i managed to end the match with about 25 carp for about 120lb, fabio looked like todays winner as he had a really good spell with big fish on paste down the edge, on a rig he had assembled himself, and those big fish really made the difference as he put 4 on the scales for 36 lb which is big fish for this lake,and they helped him to a match winning 146.13 off 19
2nd was me with 135.12 off 7
3rd tom mangnal 125.14 on 18
4th mark poppleton 111.14 peg 13
5th ziggy zowinski 109.2 peg 21, the snapped pole cost him methinks
6th rod wootten 91.3 peg 11
silvers
rod wootten 18.01
roger andoniou 16.13 peg 5

chilton trinity wildmarsh lake

it was meant to be the first round of the teams of 4,s today on this venue but due to a couple of teams dropping out at the start of last week i decided to abandon the league. but with the venues booked for this year i decided to run them as opens on the venues instead, and with 29 booked in today it was a reasonble match.
bela bakos pulled 2 tickets out at once so i took the spare off him and ended up with peg 60 which is along the road bank, not the best of swims but there is always a chance of some good skimmers and carp, normally on paste at this time of year. for company i had the somerset ,( put another pot in) paste angler mike west on 59 and dean malin on 62, to win or frame today i thought you would need a draw at the other end of the lake by the reed beds or around the island , but with sensible section payouts(£45) at least there was a chance of recouping some expenditure,
i set up the paste rig for 14mtrs and a rig to fish other baits over the pellet line as i thought it may be worth a few fish if the paste wouldnt go, i also set up a margin meat rig and a shallow rig to slap around in the pellet fizz, at the start nearly everyone started by cupping in some pellets , and most people had instant fizz, but in 6ft of water, this area seems a bit shallower than other parts of the lake, and in the first 5 mins both mike and me were both playing carp as was tom thick on 57, there seemed to be a few fish in our three swims as by the end of the first hour i had 2 carp and a couple of good skimmers, mike was up to 4 carp and tom was catching silvers quite steadily, but to my left dean was struggling with only a couple of skimmers and it got worse the further along the road bank you went,
after the initial burst things went a bit slow, although the pegs were still fizzing you couldnt get a sensible bite, up in the water on the drop just off bottom, meat paste,soft and hard pellet, paste it didnt seem to matter, soft pellet was ok for small skimmers but the larger skimmers werent playing ball and it was looking like it was carp or bust just to win the section, tom on 57 was still catching odd skimmers so it was no good trying to play catch up as my skims were to small. word came around the bank that the island pegs were fishink ok with adrian clark and steve seager doth catching a few, and i could see alan oram on peg 3 on the island catching some good fish.
back to my swim and it was going to form as the middle of the match and it was going to form as the middle period was rubbish but it did pick up in the last hour with me catching a couple more carp and losing a few , so i ended up with 4 reasonable fish plus a few silvers, but with mike having 7 carp it looked as though he would win our section.
1st on the day went to adrian clark on peg 3 with 14 carp for 63.5, catching on paste down the edge then later on pellet on the lead fished across to the far side reeds
2nd steve seager on 39 with 56.3
3rd alan oram on 3 island peg, 53.14
4th mike west on 59 . 39.3
5th tony rixon on 60 35.4
6th jason radford on peg 7 with 31.12
silvers went to tom thick on 57 with 19.5 of skimmers on banded 6mm pellet