sunday open stafford moor fishery

we havnt been here since the christmas match in december so a visit was long overdue, the journey down was enjoyable as tim clark and me were entertained with how life should be according to deans world, i will leave it all to your imagination as those of you that know dean will understand why i cant write the details on here LOL.
we stopped at exeter sevices for breakfast and i cant really put into words what it was like just to say it was probably the worst breakfast food i have ever had it was virtually inneadable and we all left some , the people at moto should be totally ashamed of the shit they are serving to travellers plus 3 meals with drinks cost nearly 35 quid, so we wont be going back there and i wont reccomend anyone else ,anglers or non anglers please do your best to give it a wide berth.
onto the fishery and by the time we got there i was feeling decidely sick and was looking a bit green, into the draw bag and out i come with 36 tanners, i still draw fliers for myself, dean was 0n tanners 13 and tim on woodpecker 8, all good draws.
plenty of advice for my peg with the general concencus being that you had to cast a shallow wag towards peg 1 and wait for the carp fest to begin, i was told to ignor chucking the wag down the end bank as the fish tended to be small. i set up a deep and shallow rig for the pole to fish at 16 mtrs at the end of the bridge and that was my lot. beginning on the wag i expected a bite first chuck so after 30 mins without a bite i was beginning to worry, but then again no one else was catching, andy seery walked round and told me to keep at it as they will turn up, but i think they were alreasdy there as carp were moving everywhere but seemed to not want to eat, then chris haines from frome who was on 32 wanderded down to see how i was doing as he had only had one bite but he gave me some indigestion tabs which started to work after a little while, i stayed on the wag for 2 hours but after 3 bites and 2 fish in the net a change was called for, so it was the small fish down the edge then. by now the wind had picked up and the line was blowing against the bridge so when i did get a bite there was to much bow to pick up and i missed the bites, perhaps the lead would have been a better option but even the lead slingers were struggling a lookon thepole produced 1 carp then some silvers so it was back on the wag and a couple more carp but it was fishing very hard, it wasnt till the last hour that the pole line began to give up a few carp but the wind was making life very hard, i was quite happy to end with 12 carp which went 85.6 for 7th on the day, nearly winning the section but that went to paul bamforth on peg 1 with 93.2.
1st on the day was paul(plumber)morris on 17 woody,s with 146.10 all caught shallow on the pole, he also went 10lb over the 75lb net limit
2nd frank hayhurst 36 woody,s 125.8
3rd mark hayman 28 woody,s 106.14
4th kev osbourne 3 woody,s 98.12
5th paul bamforth 1 tanners, 93.2
6th big ben 25 tanners 91lb

weds open , landsend fishery

16 fishing today so we used the match lake and the carpark bank of the speci, martin lenaghan drew for me today and he handed me peg 19 which is probably the best all year round peg on the lake, the last weds match we had here was won on this peg by anton page with 279lb so hopefully the fish would be obliging today, walking to the peg it looked as though it was going to be a slapping/stalking fish fest as the surface was littered with fish sunbathing or going round in small shoals perhaps thinking of having another spawn, who knows, for company i had mike nicholls on 21 and ray bazeley on 17 , niether of which are far bank long pole merchants as they struggle with the old artheritis, so the far bank was all mine then, not to many rigs today, a meat rig for the margins but i never got it wet apart from plumming up, and a slapping stalker rig which was a j range j13a(i think)which is a fat top bristle float with the spring eye on it making it very strong and at .2 it was an ideal float for throwing around at fish, i would like to say i had an interesting match fishing properly but all i have done for the biggest part of the match was slap the pellet in front of a cruiser and sometimes it would take it and sometimes it wouldnt, i hooked my first carp in under 10 seconds and had 13 by the end of the first hour so it wasnt particularly difficult all you had to do was make sure the pellet landed about 6 to 12 inches in front of the fish and ensure the pole didnt cast a shadow across the fish, and that was my match from start to finish, i fed pellet to the corner of the island but fished most of the match fishing between 8 and 13 mtrs, i didnt go to the island till the last hour when the cruisers seemed to dissapear a bit, and i had a few there so by the end of the match i thought i had about 60 carp in 5 nets with some good fish up to 10lb ish plus some smaller ones aswell, the fish generally average out at just over 5lb but the few bigger fish may make the difference as the venue record stands at 342lb caught by anton page off peg 31 last year fishing the same way, i didnt really have a clue as to what weight i had except that it was over 250lb and probably more than my previous best of 270lb, so i was more than happy to weigh 351.10 which is the new record for the venue and first on the day
2nd anton(ex record holder)page 227.13 peg 31
3rd dean malin 161.3 peg 5
4th tom thick 158lb peg 24
5th martin lenaghan 129.5 peg 11
6th dave roper 100.13 peg 15
silvers
anton page 28lb, f1s and chub on pellet to the far side peg 31

chilton trinity, wildmarsh lake

30 booked in for todays match which was a bit of a suprise as its not a bagging water (yet !). i had one no show which is a bit annoying especially as i even had a call at 6.20 sunday morning trying to book in but as i was limited to pegs i had to refuse him, the person in question new the evening before but didnt think it important to let me know, thats one for the bottom of the invite list !!!!!!!!!!
back to the draw and with a hot day (at last) forcast a draw on the carp pegs around the back of the island would be favourable as with the bright sunshine i thought the skimmers may not be to cooperative, kev molten drew for me and handed me peg 3 on the island, due to the angle you are sat at on this peg you cant see much of the rest of the venue, in fact the only person i could see was andy bryant on the other side on peg 58 so it was going to be hard to gauge what was happening.
with tha lake still at top level i had about 8 ft of water out at 14mtrs so i set up a 4x16 rig for banded pellet with an 18 b960 hook on .14, a 4x14 paste rig(yes you are reading right)with a 14 9313 on .16, a meat rig for the left hand margin under a tree and a caster rig for 4 mtrs. starting on the caster rig i managed 2 small roach in the first 10 mins, so that was going no where, there was a bit of fizzing going on at 14 mtrs where i had cupped some 4,s so it was out with the banded 6mm hard pellet, but that only produced a couple of iffy wobbles on the float, so it was onto the paste, first drop in and i fouled a carp just off bottom which came off, then for the next 90 mins i had several good skimmers and a small golden tench then the fizzing slowly stopped and that was the end of my skimmer sport, halfway through and a look on the meat line in the margin and the first(and only)bite produced a 2lb barbel, 4 hours in and with no bites i went for a bit of a wander and chris fox on peg 10 on the island had 4 carp and a few small silvers, but he was being entertained by martin lenaghan on pek 40 who was losing carp in the weed bed to his left, and by the end he was admitting to having done 23 fish losing loads of rigs and some elastic to the norfolk reeds (good for trade i say), back to my peg and i had 2 more bites on the paste in the last hour which gave me 2 carp for about 10lb so i thought i would have about 25lb, and as i couldnt see any one apart from andy i never had a clue as to who had caught what.
considering this is more of a traditional lake and the big yellow ball in the sky made for difficult conditions but the weights werent to bad really.
first on the day went to paul locke on peg 22 with 58.12 which was 6 carp for 24.12 and 34lb of skimmers all caught on paste at 13mtrs
2nd went to mike west on 14 with 57.7
3rd anton page on 11 with 38.11
4th tony rixon 30.14
5th dave roper peg 6 30.13
6th dean malin peg 42 28.4
silvers
paul locke 34lb paste
tony rixon 20.8 paste
nick collins 20.3 on something called casters

wes open , acorn lakes, paddock

the good weds turnouts are continuing as 25 booked in today which is a nice number on paddock lake as it means everyone has an empty peg on at least one side, i let mat tomes draw for me and he handed me peg 13 which won the match the day before with 80lb ish, on meat at 4 mtrs, trouble was i had to contend with des shipp on 12 which is an end peg going into a corner and with the wind blowing into it the peg was always going to be good, and he took a bit of pleasure pointing out the fish mooching about on the surface and in the edge(writing on the wall then). i,d planned on a bit of a caster attack today so with that in mind i set up a .5 fig with an 18 6313 on .12 for 4mtrs and a 4x10 with a 16 6313 on .14 for over and down the edge, also a meat rig for 10 mtrs with a 16 8313 on .14 for 10 mtrs, i had john dursley (taunton,s finest import lol)on 15 who was going for an all out meat attack. at the start i began at 4 mtrs on caster whereas des went straight over on meat and john began at 4 mtrs on meat, the first hour was a bit slow for me and all i had was 2 smallish carp and a handfull of skimmers ans allready i was behind the anglers either side, by now i should have gone to the meat line as there seemed to be a fair bit of fizzing going on, so what do i do ,i go the far side and try and catch on caster there, and that was a bit of a disaster as by the end of the 2nd hour i had only added another 4 carp and a few more silvers, so i dropped back onto the 10 mtr line and the first 2 drops produced a skimmer and a carp. although i was starting to catch a few i was still behind john and des so i started feeding meat over the 4mtr caster line and it wasnt long before a few bubbles started to appear, so i changed the hook on the silver rig to a 14 6313 and basically spent the rest of the match on that line, feeding meat by a tosspot after every fish (or when i remembered, its an age thing)and i caught quite steadily up till the end of the match and with john suffering a long dry spell i managed to go past him, but i was never going to catch des as by now he was fishing 13 mtrs tight in down his margin with whole worm over caster and his peg was getting stronger towards the end with the fish ripping his elastic out, i could also see anton page on 1, nick collier on 36 and chris davis on 5 catching well so with first place already booked the minor places were all to play, as expected des shipp won with 179.1 peg 12
2nd was me with 139.2 peg 13
3rd chris davis 133.2 peg 5
4th anton page 124.15 peg 1
5th nick collier 115.13 peg 36
6th john dursley 106.2 peg 15
silvers
dean malin 51.15 peg 9, mainly skimmers with a couple of tench on caster at 4 mtrs
2nd phil harding 50.8 peg 31
the lake fished very well with the average weight being over 66lb and thats with 5 dnm,s so the average would have been closer to 70lb if they had weighed.

avon angling open , vidaduct fishery

33 booked in today so we had the use of cambell and lodge with 20 on cambell and 13 on lodge, with it being an any method match most still wanted a draw on cambell, so i let the gimp draw for me as he normally pulls carp pegs to waste, today was no exception, shame he still did it for himself as he got 64 which is on the monk on lodge and gave me 124 on cambell which for some reason doesnt seem to produce the same as the pegs around you, and to make it worse i had anton page on 123 and tom mangnal on 126, 2 of the most inform slayers at the mo. at least the wind was off our backs so it would be comfortable if we had any rain.
rigs today were 3 pellet jobs, a 4x14 with a 18 b960 on .14 for skimmers at 3 mtrs and a shallow and deep rig for 14 mtrs both with 16 hooks on .16, plus 2 wags one deep and 1 shallow but apart from losing a fouler on the deep rig it was a non starter so thats the end of that .
starting at 3mtrs i went off to a flying start and i reckon i had about 25lb of silvers in the shape of good skimmers and a couple of tench in the first hour, trouble was anton and tom were both on about 8 carp each both catching shallow, and once you get behind 2 anglers like that you are never likely to catch up, my only chance would be to take them out with a 16mm donkey choker and my strongest catty but i must have left the 16mm,s at home so that was never going to be an option, even the silvers option went as by the end of the first hour i could only get small roach and tiny skimmers on the banded 6mm over loosefed 4,s which is as good a method as any for the quality silvers, i had been feeding 8,s on the 14 mtr line so i went out on the shallow rig but couldnt get a sensible bite even though there was plenty of fizzing going on, out with the deep rig and 3 lost foulers i was now so far behind tom and anton a change of plan was needed, i switched to feeding 4,s quite heavily and had a good skimmer so the silvers may be back on NOT as that was the last silver i caught i ended the last couple hours fishing shallow with either a 6 or an 8 in the band and began catching reasonably well, so i ended up trying to win the section by default as anton and tom caught steadily right to the end so that was going to be first and second in the match, so it looked like a toss up between alan oram on 119 and me for the section, i reckoned i had about 120lb at the end which is still a good day even though anton was admitting to about 240lb and tom 180 but i new they had a fair bit more, it turned out anton was a bit over the 70lb limit in his first net so that was 4lb lost his next 2 nets were ok but his 4th net was well over ,in fact he had over 90lb in it meaning he lost the whole net so he ended up 2nd with 193.2 instead of 290 ish, meaning tom mangnal ended up winning with 242.12 off peg 126 mainly caught shallow,
2nd anton page 193.12 peg 123
3rd craig edmunds 162.14 peg 59 and 60 lol
4th tony rixon 138.6 peg 124
5th alan oram 126.7 peg 119
6th shawn townsend 119.9 peg 66
silvers went to shawn with 31.15
buff that pound up shrimphead
i,m running a match on wildmarsh at chilton trinity next sunday so book in at the shop if interested on 0117 9517250

weds open landsend fishery

16 fishing today but we only used the match lake as it fished so well with 15 on it on sunday, the chances of a repeat performance today were unlikely, but you never know.
as roger andoniou normally draws for me we had a bit of a change today and i drew for him and gave him peg 5 so he was quite happy as he tends to draw 24 a lot so it was nice to give him a bit of a change of scenery. after the way it fished after the weekend a draw between 18 and 22 would be nice but ray white pulled me 15 which is ok and shawn townsend had 101lb off it sunday and its always capable of throwing up a good weight be it silvers or carp, for company i had northern exile of 35years, ray bazeley on 15 and cockney reject adrian jeffery on 13, with the weekend slayer anton page drawing peg 10 and looking totally confused about things as it looked as though he may have to actually feed something to encourage fish into his peg and tom mangnal on 8 was doing the same.
3 rigs for pellet, one stalker/slapper rig, a 4x10 for on the deck on top of the shelf against the island and a 4x14 fir 6 mtrs all to fish hard 6,s over loosefed 4,s, and a 4x12 meat rig for the margins.
right on que as the match began the wind picked up making all but impossible for the anglers on the favoured pegs further down the lake to slap there rigs around properly so our more sheltered end was looking better all the time, the first 45 mins were spent stalking/slapping but with very few fish showing it was never going to be method today, i did get 1 and bump one and sneak two more during the match but i dont think there were enough fish at this end to make it viable , also the 6mtr line which can be good for quality silvers was only giving me roach which is always a bad sign and with not even a bubble coming up i can only guess that the skimmers had probably followed the wind and were at the other end of the lake, or they were just being to sneaky for me today.
most of the match was spent against the island, the carp were slurping up the bank but with the sun behind us causing the pole to cast a shadow the fish would dissapear so the deep rig against the island was the best rig , i did hook 5 fish on meat down the edge but lost 3 in a snag with the last one snapping the elastic pulling for a break (.20 is strong), i ended up with 16 carp and a few silvers for what i thought would go about 80lb.
first on the day went to tom mangnal on 8 with 102.10 catching on caster down the edge in the last half of the match, he also had top silvers weight on the day with 22.10 tom lost 7lb for being over the net limit but he didnt need it so nothing lost.
2nd tony rixon peg 15 with 87lb
3rd mike nicholls 79lb peg 1
4th adrian jefferey 70.12 peg 13
5th tom thick 70.5 peg 21
6th nigel bartlett 56.10 peg 24

float only league, rnd 4 landsend fishery

full turn out of 40 today and i really needed a good draw as a section win was what i needed to keep me in contention for the league plus i was still in the knockout and was drawn against steve seager, i let steve draw for me and he handed me peg 3 on the match lake which section wise was only realistically worth 3 rd in section, that is unless i get a silvers angler each side on 1 and 5, but no such luck as tom thick was on 1 and even bob gullick on 5 would have to do something really bad not to catch(lol)
at least manged to draw himself a not to good peg on lake 3 (66)so at least my k/o hopes may still be alive.
there seemed to be a few fish on the top in the open water pegs and quite a few in groups following each other which makes you think that another spawning may be on the cards, this weather may be just as confusing to the fish as much as it is to us.
rigs today were mainly pellet rigs, a 4x14 for hard 6,s over loose fed 4,s at 5mtrs with an 18 b960 on .14. a couple of rigs for over against the island ,one for slurpers at 6 inches deep and one for on the deck against the islandboth on .16 with an 18 b960, and a mear fig for the left hand margin by a bush on .16 with a xedion txr 14 on the end.
starting at 5 mtrs on hard pellet after 10 mins i had 1 good skimmer and a carp in the net and by the end of the first hour i had 3 more carp and some more skimmers plus a tench, by now i was already behind bob on 5 who was trying to catch silvers but the carp were getting in the way so he decided to give in and fish for them, tom on 1 was having a temper tantrum and threatening to pack up as he was doing his best to drag the island closer but he soon settled down and began stalking a few and they were better fish so my 3 rd in section was looking like it was a certainty, i stayed on the 5 mtr line till the end of the 2nd hour but the area was now lifeless so a switch to the far side was called for but that was a bit of a non starter, you normally see fish against the bank but there seemed to be only odd fish moving and apart from two lost foulers i couldnt get a bite, a look on the inside meat line ended with a 7lb carp then no more indications , by now tom was ahead as he was getting odd fish shallow and i new bob was dtill catching as he is a right chatterbox when he is catching, also anton page on 19 was sacking and tom mangnal on 21 was getting a few so that seemed like first and second on our lake at least taken care of,
the last couple of hours of my match were spent switching between the far side and the margin meat line getting odd carp and a couple more decent skimmers by the end i had 12 carp and some good silvers but as expected i ended up 3rd in section with tom having 107lb and bob g having 120, i was suprised to have 104lb which included 31lb of silvers which was enough for second in the silvers today and with steve seager dnwing at least i was into the k/o final along with shawn townsend,niel mercer and craig edmunds so up against three draw bag merchants like that a flier peg is going to be needed at the sedges in the next round,
1st on the day was tony page on peg 19 with 279lb of shallow caught carp feeding 6pts of 6mm pellets
2nd tom mangnal 152lb peg 21
3rd bob gullick 120.11 peg 5
4th mike nicholls 116.9 peg 18
5th clayton hudson 107.8 peg 34(again)on worm and caster, which included the top silvers weight of 36.12
6th tom thick 107.5 peg 1
i will get the list of people who are in contention up on here by the end of the week

acorn weds match on paddock lake

it shows how popular this venue is when you get over 20 fishing and today was no different as i had 25 names so a decent match was on the cards.
the oldest angler on the planet in the shape of roger andoniou drew for me and handed me peg 16 which is on the back bank straight, for company i had travelling partner dean malin on my right and toothy legend anton page on my left so no easy day today,
the three of us were all going to fish differently with dean mainly targetting the middle, anton going for the soft pellet approach to the far side and me , well the normal hard pellet was going in, i did want to bring some casters but i sold them all and as it turned out they would have been useful, i set up several rigs for across which included on the deck close in, 2 inches deep for in the grass, half depth and one for on the deck about a mtr off.
to say it was a difficult day would be an understatement as i had no problem getting fish up into the shallow water but they were hard to hook in the mouth, although i went over the bridge before the start and cleared the spiky grass away i dont think i did enough and i never cleared the dead stuff off the bottom as i was constantly catching dead stuff on the hook. then the ducks turn up and push a load of the cut stuff off the bank and onto the surface as they set about eating the overshoot of my pellets, the fish dont mind the ducks, in fact i think they like it as the water gets churned up and coloured and you can see tails amongst the wedded feet, the main problem was that when you got your pellet through the mess i couldnt lift and drop as the pellet would get stuck up on a bit of crap, so once the bait got to the deck i had to leave it but all that did was result in foulers, i did get a few in the grass but i never really got in contention during the match, i could see mike west on 5 catching and i thought i glimpsed mike nicholls on 31 sneaking some out, by the end i reckoned i had 60lb and i wasnt to far out i weighed 59.5, dean had 50.9 and anton ended with 59.7 so there possibly wasnt enough carp in the area to do any damage or we were just rubbish, anton did get some late fish on caster towards the end as did mat tomes on 13 and it turned out mike nicholls fish caster down his edge for over 100lb, so perhaps i will keep some casters for myself next time.
1st on the day was mike west with 112.5 off peg 5 on meat to the far bank at the start then paste down his left hand margin
2nd chris davis on peg 7 with 105.12
3rd mike nicholls peg 31 with 101.10 which included top silvers weight on the day with 36.2 which looked like a real mixture of all the species of silvers which inhabit the lake
4th nick collier 86.2 peg 38
5th tom mangnal 85.10 peg 26
6th mat tomes 82.3 peg 13

short pole match at viaduct fishery

cambell lake was being used today and with 20 booked in it looked like a good day was going to be had, after a good brekkie at lillypool cafe we got to the fishery at just gone 9 and were greeted bt fish spawning again with carp, tench and bream all seeming to be having a go, so perhaps it wasnt going to be so good after all.
i let fishery owner steve long draw for me and i ended up with 123 in my hand which is another corner peg which usually responds to a long pole approach up the left hand margin but with only the topset and three more sections allowed that wasnt going to happen, steve told me that an angler had 70lb of skimmers on paste at 3mtrs last week so i went to the peg quite happy.
not being the biggest fan of paste fishing i decided on a pellet approach so i set up a 4x12 rig with an 18 b960 on .16 for banded 6,s over 4,s its an approach that has been quite effective recently so i expected it to work today, that is of course as long as the skimmers havnt swum away, also a shallow pellet rig was put together but with a 16 hook on for banded 8mm(more noise) and a meat rig for the margin.
at the start i began feeding 4,s at 6mtrs and meat into the margin, it didnt take long for the fizzing to start but it was hard to get a proper bite and by the end of the first hour all i had to show for my efforts were a few small skimmers and one carp, looking down the lake i could see carp being caught with mike nicholls on 111 seemingly catching well, but i didnt realise he was losing lots , dean on 135 was netting a few as was andy bryant on 112.
the end of the second hour and i had added a couple more carp to the net but it wasnt electric by any means with the skimmers obviously far more interested in either making or eating spawn, so by the halfway mark a switch to feeding and fishing 8,s seemed to improve things, foulers were still a problem but at least i was now getting more fish on the end, a look shallow produced 1 fish and the pellet was being battered around by small fish , the best rig seemed to be something with only 3x10,s down the line and fished at full depth and keep lifting and dropping , the meat line in the margin only gave me 2 carp, one tench plus a few better skimmers, but again small fish battering the meat into a marble shape were being a problem.
by the end it was impossible to predict who had won as most seemed to have caught well, all i knew was that it wasnt going to be me !!!!, walking down to help with the weigh in sean townsend on 128 was admitting to 180lb so he looked a clear favourite, and with dean on 135 reckoning on 150lb there seemed only the minor berths up for grabs,
1st on the day went the way of sean with 191.12 caught mainly on meat into the corner by the spit
2nd dean malin 165.15 peg 135 with pellet shallow being the best
3rd craig edmunds 139.8 peg 120 with a late run of fish shallow down the edge
4th paul elmes 136.12 peg 127
5th tony rixon 115.14 peg 123
6th phil harding 110.4 peg 129
silvers
john bradford 19.12 peg 116 with a mixture on worm and caster
i think the spawning upset the fish today as they were hard to pin down for most and a lot of the carp had very little slime on so they obviousy had more than eating on there minds but still a very good match none the less, again proving that you dont need to fish in the middle of the lake to catch fish, especially on well stocked lakes such as cambell, and i have run short pole matches on landsend and i know that they run a topset series at the sedges and they are always close run things, also the joints dont seem to ache as much the next day