sunday open, chilton trinity, woodland

21 fishing today which is a nice number on this lake, as always we were greeted by misha, with a smile and a cup of tea/coffee, always a nice touch. It was good to see a couple of the regulars back and fishing today in the shape of mike west and tom mangnal, they have spent recent months fishing a winter league on a venue I cant mention as I, m banned lol,
I let misha draw for me and she handed me peg 10, which is halfway up the far bank, normally a good area, for company I had gordon canning on 9 and martin rayat on 11.
I set up a margin meat rig,  a couple of hard pellet rigs,eone for on the deck and a shallow one, both for 13 mtrs, and a meat rig for 5 mtrs.
At the start I began on the depth rig with a banded 8mm and fired 6, s over the top, I also fed some meat down the edge and at 5mtrs,
I had a couple of small indications which I put down to liners, as this lake is 8 foot deep the carp tend to come up when on most other venues they are hugging the bottom, so it was out with the shallow rig,  by now martin mcmahon opposite was playing a shallow hooked carp, but all I could manage was 2 x 8oz roach, so back on the deck, but it took a while to get a bite, when I did it was a 5lb carp, we all expected a good day as the temps were due to reach 20c, but I think the water is still to cold for it to switch on just yet, the match never really got going for moast , but there were odd fish being caught all round the lake, my match was hard, I ended up with 7 carp, 3 down the edge on meat, one at 5mtrs also on meat and 3 on hard pellet on the deck at 13 mtrs.  Which included a 14lb fish , oh and one 12oz skimmer, at the end it looked to be between 3 people, paul elmes on 3, mike nicholls on 17 and tom (eye ball paul) mangnal on 29, toms peg especially got stronger towards the end so he looked to be favourite,  and that is how it ended with tom coming out on top with 73.8, tom caught mainly on hard pellet on the deck or just off, but he did have a couple shallow aswell
2nd paul elmes with 69.8
3rd mike nicholls with 65.4
4th leon hubbard on peg 6 with 58.12
5th me with 51.2
6th craig edmunds on 24 with 46.9
silvers went to martin rayat next to me with 18.14 of skimmers on soft pellet.
off to landsend on weds so ring me at the shop if you fancy it
01179517250

weds open baitech viaduct

After travelling down with andy curry and picking tom thick up on the way, it was down to the A1 cafe on the castle cary road out of shepton, and it was a very nice breakfast aswell, nearly as good as lillypool.
We got to the fishery and we were a bit disappointed to find only 7 booked in, so with all of cambell to use we would have plenty of room, into the draw tin and out comes 125, the only peg with and angler next door,  luckily for me it was the gimp on 124, so at least his casters would keep the ronnies out of my peg, on peg 127 was young geraint powell from pontypridd,  who is a very competent angler, although there arent to many youngster coming through in oir game now the ones that are here are very good.
I was a bit lasy today and only put two rigs up,  one 4x12 for gard pellet on the deck or on the drop at 14 mtrs,  and another for the meat line at 5 mtrs, at tge start I fed some meat on the short line, then shipped out to 14 mtrs with banded 8mm, feeding 6, s with a catty over the top, I had a carp after a few minutes, as did geraint, but he was feeding 8, s. There isnt to much to talk about as there werent enough anglers on the bank, enough to say that geraint kept catching steadily all through , but I was a bit nip and tuck, tom over on 112 had a slow start but from the halfway he really began to give geraint a run for his money, my peg seemed to have some decent silvers in it as I was getting some good skimmers and tench, towards the end most people were catching on the short meat line, and geraint wss getting one a bung down his edge on meat over groundbait, keeping his nose in front of tom, by the end I had 26 carp and my silvers, but it was never going to be enough,  and so it proved with geraint winning with 248.4
tom moaned himself into second spot with 222.1
3rd was me with 196.10,  but I did win the silvers with 38.5 so at least I got my pools money back
4th paul greenwood 170.13
5th andy curry 122lb
6th john dewberry 104.15

emerald pool fishery, avon angling open

Another nice brekkie in lillypool cafe , fisrt thing, it was good to see mark bush in there, obviously his weight loss plan is going really well as he was treating himself to a lillypool large one , you carry on like this and you will be a shadow of your former self mark .
back to the fishing and with 30 fishing,  we had 16 on sapphire and 14 on ruby, I waited till the end and had the last ticket, I ended up on 16 which was the end peg on the far side of sapphire, at least I had the wind from behind, I had bob the bread price for compa8ny on 15 and tim clark just round the corner on peg 1, I only set up 2 rigs, a .2g pellet rig to fish hard pellet and a same size rig for meat down the edge by the reed bed to my left. At the start I began on banded 8mm over loose fed 6, s at 5 mtrs, and began firing some 6, s to the island which was a comfortable 10 mtrs away, it was a slow start with only 2 carp in the first 45 mins , although I did lose a couple of foulers, so I switched my main attack to the island,  it looked good but there were lots of dead reeds under the surfade making it hard to get  clean fall with the rig, by now gordon Cannings two to my right was starting to catch steadily on meat at 5mtrs,
I was getting plenty of indications and odd fish, bit the catty feeding was keeping the fish in the reeds, so a switch to kindering seemed to help, most people aroumd the lakes were catching but Gordon seemed to be doing the best, I did catch steadily but it was nefer quick enough as gordon, tom thick on peg 3 and bela bakos on 4 seemed to be catching quicker,  as for hiw the other lake was doing , it was impossible to tell, only the scales would say at the end.
in the end it was gordon cannings meat attack which edged it, as he weighed 87.12, catching all his fish on meat at 5 and 6 mtrsa off peg 14
2nd and just behind was bela bakos on peg 4 with 86.11
3rd tom thick on peg 3 had 85.10
4th mat tomes on peg 28 with 80.8
5th dom sullivan on peg 20 with 78.4
6th craig edmunds on 19 with 76.4
it was another good close match with plenty of fish caught , and when you consider there are hardly any fish caught over 4lb , it all makes for nife fishing, my fish went 65.9 for 9th overall but I did get my section by default,  so that paid for the fuel and pools, lol

weds open , emerald fishery

I can see this venue becoming a firm favourite with anglers in this area, its got several lakes , all stuffed with fish of all species,  its been popular of late for silvers only matches on emerald main lake , wger weights above 90lb have been recorder lately,  but for today's match with 20 of us fishing and it being an ordinary match with carp counting , alan let us use sapphire and ruby lakes, so plenty of room, I waited for the last ticket in the bucket, I wasnt to worried where I drew as I had never fished either lake, so peg 19 came out, which was 2 in on the far bank of sapphire,  I had dave Blakemore on 20 and mark leader on 18, but with no one having any real idea as to what to expect, I planned on an out and out pellet attack,  so I set up a rig to fish at depth and a shallow rig and a rig for meat down the edge.
at the start I began on the depth rig with a banded 8mm pellet over loosefed 4, s, most people including me started at 6 mtrs, and most stayed there or closer, my first fish was an 8oz goldfish then some small carp and tench obliged, 30 mins in and I was reaching for tge shallow rig, that produced a few carp but they didnt stay shallow for to long,  I was soon catching some sensible sized rudd,  but I didnt really want them as kedgey opposite was catchimg roach steadily, so tgat looked to be the lake silvers sorted.  I went back on the depth rig, but I spead the shot to try and get some on the drop aswell, I ended up having an enjoyable match catching small carp fairly regularly,  a switch to 6mm feed pellets seemed to help aswell,  but I stuck with the 8mm in the band.mat tomes seemed to be a clear leader for most of the day, catching on his topset and one , fishimg 2 lines one with meat and one with pellet, snd he caught well on both lines,  tom tgick just round the corner from mat was also catching well on pellet.  Mark to my right fished meat all day and I thought he had beaten me, I had more fish byt his seemed to be a bigger stamp, sapphire seemdd to be the lake to draw , as ruby seemed a bit harder but still looked to be plenty of fish comimg out, my margin meat line wasnt a complete waste of time as I did get 6 slightly better fish on it, the lakes fished really well with mat tomes up on 15 maintaining his lead and coming out on top with 129.2
2nd was me with 110.3 peg 19
3rd mark leader 104.2 peg 18
4th tom thick peg 16 100.6
5th steve tucker peg 4 on ruby with 90.13
6th steve kedge on 12 with 87.3 and he had the top silver weight of 40.6 of mainly roach caught close on caster.
it was good fishing with us catching 1,318lb of fish caught giving us an average weight of 65 1/2lb , brilliant sport by any standards.  Looking forward to sunday already,  when ee are down there again but with 30 booked it may not fidh quite the same

landsend , sunday open

With 16 of us fishing,  and with mike duckett fishing he let us spread around the match lake and the left hand bank of number 3, so plenty of room,  I had a quick chat with rob Wootten, in shipham cafe (which still knocks spots off other cafes,  even those which even do liver). And the lake had fished well on Saturday with 150lb winning and 47lb won the silvers, but he did say the water was very clear, so I was more than happy to see the water had coloured up overnight, all turned up on time so did the draw and had the last ticket,  so I ended up with 19 stuck to my hand,
its a nice peg with lots of form, I had martin lenaghan on 21 and adrian jeffery on 17, the wind was gusting through the gap in the island and swirling round making presentation hard, I set a meat rig for 7 mtrs, a margin rig but never had a bite on that with corn over caster and corn, so no more of that then,  and also 2 rigs for pellet over towards the island, one on top of the shelf and one at the bottom of the shelf,
the first hour of the match was ok and I had 5 carp off the meat line,  which was as good as most and better than a few, after 90 mins I had only added another one carp, so things had slowed, martin by now had switched to pellet across to the island and had begun to catch well. I had to do the same,  but the wind was making it difficult,  with the rig getting blown off the shelf and along the lake, but I was getting plenty of indications,  catching carp and f1, s on hard pellet, but I was never catching as fast as martin,  but I had a nide day, I tried the meat line a couple more times but no joy,  so most of the match was spent over towards the island, most fish falling to the shallow rig but I did get a few on the deep rig, adrian gave the meat line a bit more patience tgan me and was rewarded with a good finish as did trig over on 5, I think I ended up with 19 carp and 20lb plus of f1, s, martin looked like an easy winner as he had at least 30 carp so I thought he would have 150lb , but we heard martin rayett up on peg 42 had a good weight, but it turned out to be not quite enough as martin, s fish went 155.2 for first
2nd was martin rayett on 42 with 131.3 of meat tempted carp
3rd was me with 125.9
4th shaun townsend on 11 with 115.5, which included top silver weight on the day with 32.4 , of skimmers, f1, s and tench
5th adrian jeffery with 113.2
6th chris davis on 41 with 97.3
it was good to see so many fish caught today as the fishery has had a hard winter with fish hard to come by,  many thought that the fishery was suffering from some type of predation,  but after seeimg so many fish caught today, I, m beginning to think we may just not be good enough to catch them sometimes, after all tgese are wily old fish tgat have seen it all, making them hard to catch, who knows, if only we could see under water , but none of us can.i think the average weight wss nearly 90lb, roll on summer, and I dont think that will be long coming as the grass snake's were out in force today.

ivy house, Wednesday open

I can see this venue becoming very popular with anglers from as far apart as oxford and bristol, andy and karen are doing plenty of work improving the fishery and the amenities,  and the breakfast is tasty and the post match coffee and biscuits are a nice touch,  only 12 of us fishing today, whereas the day before on the costcutter there was over 20, bit of food for thought on that one,  costcutters are fine as long as you can cover your costs when you pick up.
into the draw bag and out comes peg 6, its a nice swim in the corner of the lake where the causeway bank goes over to the island, it used to have plenty of bushes and trees along the bank, bit andy seems to be getting the full use from karens chainsaw as all the tree's are now missing from the banks as the reed beds as andy has been busy with a digger and pulled the lot out,
the form peg has been 46 in the last few matches, so andy left it out today and put in 45 which leon hubbard was on and the ample frame of mark poppleton was on 47,
I set up .5g rig for maggot and corn and a couple of hard pellet rigs , a 4x12 for 16 mtrs up the edge and 16 mtrs to my left and a .4g ome for hard pellet at 16 mtrs straight out.
It took 25 mins to get my first bite which wss on maggot over micros at 11 mtrs, which was ome of the small stockie carp, I had a couple mre fairly quickly but the bites where very iffy,  a change to corn helped as the bites became more positive, mark on 47 was catching well on the pole as was andy lloyd over on 12 who was fishing the wag and hard pellet,  bites were a bit hard to come by, but by swapping between the 5 limes that I was feeding I managed to keep getting odd bites and most of the fish fell to banded 6mm pellet over loose fed 4, s , I also had 6 dood skimmers on the hard pellet, and with mark and andy catching to the end , silvers seemed my gest chance of an envelope,
and thats how it panned out with my 6 skimmers going 16.9 for first in tje silvers
1st went to mark poppleton on 47 with 77.8
2nd fishery owner andy lloyd with 50.12
3rd terry rok 42.3
4th me on 6 with 33 13
5th leon (sheare) hubbard on 45 with 31lb
6th jw on 31 with 25.13
still got a cou9le of spaces for landsend on Sundays

Post winter league

I must a big well done to steve and Paul for running a good league, hopefully t will be just the same next year, although I do think we may see one or two teams pulling out next year as some were struggling to fill the teams towards the end of the series. The banter during the whole series was good with no real arguments, people seemed to be resigned to the fact that if you start catching a few you just got to put up with leads arriving from all over the place into your garden, well done to the frenzee team for winning with a good score, and all the boys from across the water seemed to be a really nice lot , entering into the piss taking and enjoying it , although people really want to do well no one seemed to take things to seriously(there were a couple of exceptions) so it was proper friendly "but"(that's all the welsh I know lol), I had reasonable league till the last match, but you can't beat the draw, I had a first today, I have been fishing at viaduct for longer than a care to remember, but (there's my welsh side again)today I caught a gudgeon !!!! Which I didn't think was going to bode well, at least I never had a Ruffe as this normally spells disaster, roll on the spring series which starts in April, and with no silver pool , it's overall weight only I think it will be only a pellet and meat approach, "simples" . Ye right

viaduct winter league, final round

Goimg into this last match, I had an outside chance of getting somewhere in the overall individuals, but the team had no chance, I was on match and a bit of spring lake section today, I really needed a good draw , with 42 being favourable or pegs 2 to 5 on spring . But no I go and pull team draw 7 which put me on 39 which along with 6 on spring it is a peg you really need to avoid , it has a nice margin but for some reason it seems devoid of fish, also it doesn't have an island chuck which I think is essential on this lake, for company I had fabio on 52 and ken rayner on 40 so there was going to be a good chance of doing a good impression of a chip shop sausage and getting battered all round, I set a wag rod to fish towards tje trees at the end of the island, a margin rig just in case and a rig for out in front at 14 mtrs, at the start I cupped in a ball of g bait on 2 lines put some caster and corn down the edge, then started on the wag with a bit of corn on the hook, I reckon it took me all of three casts to throw the wag into the tree and lose it, so that was the end of my wag fishing for the day, by now fabio was playing a carp, so the writing was really on the wall straight from the start , in fact several people were catching odd carp , I would like to say my swim got better but it never, I did gat 4 better skimmers and 2 f1, s but I was looking at 1 possibly 2 at best points. The lake ended up being won by big john(tin leg) moody on 42 with 90lb and I think that was probably good enough for second on the day, and as it turned out the only person I beat was leon hubbard who was unfortunate enough to draw peg 6 he had 10.15 and I had 13.1, so thats the end of that for another year, I think one of the frenzee teams probably won the league so well done to them, full results and weigh sheets will most probably be on mike nicholls blog, I couldn't wait to get home so I didnt wait,
next weekend there is an open at landsend fishery so if you fancy it book in with me at the shop on 01179517250 or with mike at the fishery on 07977545882

emerald pool silvers match

I had 16 booked in for this one so it shows hiw popular the venue is, after a nice brekkie in shipham , where we had the company of mark poppleton who comes all the way from devizes to fish, at least it took the piss taking pressure off ken rayner, off to the fishery which is only about 20 mins from the cafe. Dom sullivan had already pegged ot so all I had to do was collect the pools, that was done by 9.45 so we had the draw , I didnt really want a peg at the top end of the lake as its shallow and we had a bit of a banging frost, so where does mike nicholls pull a peg for me, yep, up on the top bank looking back down the lake, only just over 2 foot of water , whereas the other end of the lake there is over 4 foot of water, for company I had venue expert dom sullivan on 11 to my left and barry fitchew to my right on 13, I only set up 2 rigs, both 4x12 slim patterns with 18 middy 6313 hooks on .12.
The plan was to start on soft pellet over micros at 7 mtrs and feed a caster line short at 4 mtrs, hence one of the rigs was to fish to hand over the close line, but with it being so shallow I only managed a few fish on that line during the day,
at the start I began on soft pellet on the 7 mtr line , but never had a bite in the first 5 mins , and with tom thick over on 9 and other people at the other end also datching from the off, I wa soon slippimg a single red maggot on, and that was the bait I stuck with for the rest of the match,  I never felt I was competing as there seemed to to many fish being netted and flying through air, even barry to my right was catching steadily, puttimg hybrids and odd small tench in the net , myself and dom were struggling and mark poppleton around the corner on 10 was doing his best to make us all look like champio s, then again a couple mre shot on his float may of helped, as I think the fish may have needed to turn up mob handed to pull his perch bobber under,  I cant say I never had many bites as I did, unfortunately a lot were from rogue carp , fantails , and f1,s which many confuse with crucians, so thats why nothing with carp in the name counted, even a couple of goldfish had to ne returned, I think I put back 13 or 14 carp and 12 other types of lesser carp,  I did manage to catch 35.13 of hybrids snd a few small tench but it was never going to be any good,
the only money I was going to win was a quid off dom,
1st on the day was tom thick with 67.4 of mainly skimmers, hybrids and some small tench on soft pellet
2nd steve tucker with 53lb
3rd timmy ckark with 45lb
4th jt, john Bradford and harry muire with 39.14
5th barry fitchew with 38.6
6th ken rayner with 36.8
there was about 600lb of fish cqught between 16 anglers today and with hardly a fish over 1lb caught its certainly good fishing

viaduct winter league rnd 4

• This is the penultimate round in this popular amd well run league, and 95 fish ot so it is a good match, it was my turn on lodge lake today, which I don't mind as its a float only section, mainly due to the shape of the lake which is triangular, I fancied drawing a corner peg as the carp normally shoal up under the bushes in these swims, so into the draw and out comes draw sequence 8, which put me on peg 56 which is in the middle of the carpark bank, not to upset as it has been producing some carp on meat on the wag, and some skimmers on caster over ground bait. So I set up 10 inch drake peacock wag with a 16 b960 on .16 for hair rigged meat , a 4x14 pole rig for skimmers and a .2g for down to my left with meat to the empty pallet,  
• at the start I cupped in some groundbait at 14 mtrs for the skims,and some caster amd meat down to the empty pallet, then threw out the wag with a 10mm piece of meat on the hair, I didnt have to wait long as I had a bite first chuck which ended with a near 10lb carp safely in the net,, followed by a slightly smaller one by the end of the first 30 mins, in all fairness that was my day mapped out for me really, I did try the skimmer line on the pole,  but only had one small roach, which was strange as skimmers were rolling all over the middle of the lake, but no one really strung any together as 10lb was top silver weight on the lake, also after a brief look down the margin with no indication that was also binned, so I spent the biggest part of the match on the wag and meat, I ended up with 11 carp amd a tench for what I hoped would go 80lb plus , so I was pleasantly suprised when the weight was called out at 101.11,  it wasnt enough to win the lake as dave romaine up on the monk peg had 14 carp amd a tench on meat at 16 mtrs towards the end bank for 113lb,
• 1st on the day went to chris Sandford on peg 115 with 166.8 of meat caught carp on the lead
• 2nd mike williams on 116 with 160lb
• 3rd dave romain on 64 with 113.2
• 4th tony rixon on 56 with 101.11
• 5th adrian jeffery on 86 with 101.2
• 6th dick bull on 80 with 93.8
• silvers
• clint wojtyla on unfancied peg 12 on spring lake with 25.6
• the team had a better day today coming joint 4th with 60 points so now we have reached the dizzy heights of joint 14 in the league, I think we may have left it a bit late to moint a push for the top, we re only about 80 points off the top lol