Weds open landsend fishery

After not fishing Sunday I was looking forward to today, but with a heavy fall of snow on tues night into Wednesday it was looking as though we may to be able to get there as we have to go across the men dips and past Bristol airport which had been effectively shut down by the weather,  a quick call to the fishery to see how the roads were and I was suprised to hear they had no snow on the Somerset levels on the other side of the mendips, our intention was to have a brekkie at shipham cafe but with 8 inches of snow in the village and a downed power cable in the village we had to turn round and make do with a breakfast baguette from the local filling station which for £2.50 wasn't to bad then after a bit of a detour we got to the fishery and there was hardly a drop of snow in sight  which was nice, although it had started snowing now and it did for about 4 hours and heavily but it never settled so it wasn't to bad, although shipping out with the pole made your hands cold as it was all to keen to pitch along the poles, I also forgot my waterproofs but I managed to shoe horn myself into mike ducketts bib and brace but I couldn't do the zip up, there was about ten pound coins in the pockets that mike said he has won off of various people and as he has had the clothing for over ten years that amount of coins is probably about right,
I had about twelve people booked in on tues night but due to the weather and a work I ended up with only 8,  now this small number makes pegging very difficult as there ends up being to many gaps in the pegging giving fish to many places to hide if they don't want to feed .
I drew for myself again today and ended up with 24 stuck in my mit, I was happy as the pawlett club match was won there on Sunday by Eric fouracre with 60 plus pounds on caster at 14 mtrs up the edge, also he fed nothing , which I just can't bring myself to do, I had for company today on 22 Martin (swinging door) lenaghan on 22 and the slightly overweight ginger ninja andy hembrow opposite on 1 , the water had come up a few inches over night due to the snow melting off the surrounding hills so the cold water influx might slow things up a bit.
I set up two rigs for the deep water , one for the bottom of the shelf for caster at 14 mtrs with a 18 middy 6313 on .12 and another for 14 mtrs out to my left for various baits over soaked micros with a 20 middy 8313 again on .12 both rigs were 4x14 j 21 floats. I set up a 4x12 impact 6 for up on the shelf just in case. At the start I cupped in some casters and micros in the various places but began at 5 mtrs on caster as you can sometimes nick a good fish or 2 early on , but not today, I never  had so much as a tremble on that line , so it was out to the caster line it took about 10 mins to get a bite and that was from a small perch and it continued to be a bit slower than I expected, both andy and Martin were struggling for bites , the only person catching was Adrian Clark up on peg 17 who was making full use of the 4 empty pegs to his left and was getting odd carp on maggot fished off towards the quiet water to his left. I would like to say my peg got stronger as the match progressed, but it never, I did get one carp from my only bite up on the shelf, but it was only about a pound, I had 3 more carp over the micros on maggot along with 2 skimmers and an f1, the perch were mostly unobliging up the edge with only small one being obliging, I had a tench up the edge but it was a struggle , it wasn't really a lack of bites but the fact the fish were to small with the quality perch seeming to have disappeared from the swim, catching small roach seems to confirm this, Adrian caught odd carp right through the match, and Aaron brittnell up on 11 was also catching quality silvers and a handful (5) carp, most people had bites even des" this is the worst peg on here" shipp managed to moan a few silvers and carp onto his hook on peg 7 . But there was only going to be one winner today and that was Adrian Clark on peg17 with 81.8 mainly taken on maggot over micros then a few on corn towards the end
2 nd Aaron brittnell with45.10 which included the top silver weight of 21.10. All his carp and silvers falling to single maggot over caster at 11 mtrs
3rd Alan oram 25.8 peg 5
4th tony rixon 23.2 peg 24
5th des shipp 20.3 peg 7
6th andy hembrow 17.9 peg 1
No sign of fabio,s name here and there won't be for the next six weeks at least as he fell down the steps leading up to his flat and broke his arm, he could go as its his left arm and he only uses that for his landing net, so he could probably get away with that.
Landsend league this weekend and I may have a spare place or two if anyone fancies it, also nick collier is running a pole only match at plantation next Wednesday , if you want to. Fish you can ring nick or give me a ring at the shop and I will pass your names on to him