Thursday costcutter, avalon

Firstly a request from mike duckett down at landsend fishery, he has applied for planning for an on site cafe ,so he would appreciate some positive comments on the sedgmoor planning dept wed site , so go to the sedgemoor district council, check the latest applications and use ref 50/15/00030 to find mikes application and leave a comment ,
I am running a match there n Sunday on match and number 3 lake so ring me at veals on 01179260790 or on my mobile 07974807941 to book in , it's a 9.30 draw fish 11 till 5,
Back to today we had 16 booked in so not to bad really, I let dave Poole draw for me and he handed me peg 23 which is the corner peg up in the top left hand corner, for company dave Poole drew opposite on 24 and I had Alan oram on 21, out and out pellet attack today , 6,s over 4,s on the long pole (14.5 mtrs) a right hand margin rig for the right hand side against a hay bale , another against the left hand end bank on the deck which was 4 ft deep tight in and a shallow rig for fishing in the reeds as last time I was here that seemed to be the way to go, I set up the pellet wag as I had the end of the island to fish to as 22 wasn't in, I should have known better as there was already a couple of wags about a mtr off the island , showing underwater snags were present , at the start I began on the 14 mtr line after feeding all other swims and firing some 8,s towards the island , bites were instant and I was catching hand size skimmers from the off, plus a few better ones up to a pound, after 30 mins I decided to try the wag but after three chucks it was now residing just off the island with the two others, I never made it up again, I went back out on the long pole line and had some nice skimmers/bream , it was a bit of a waiting game for bites but it was worth it, a quick look down the left hand margin at 12 mtrs gave me two quick carp and only small ones at that , and that was the last of my bites there , so I cupped in some at 16 mtrs along the bank and went down the the right hand side, I hooked two carp, landing the first and losing the second in a snag and apart from a skimmer in the tail that was the end of any action there. There were some fish along the left hand side but I entered a proper torrid stage of the match, every fish I hooked ended up snagging me , it felt like line running along parallel with the bank, as the fish were swimming back and fro but I couldn't get them past it, the deep rig was a no no and the shallow rig wasn't much better, , then about an hour from the end I landed a carp that had snagged me and it came in with a load of old heavy line wrapped around it and after that I hardly lost a thing , but I must have lost 20 hooks in snags and snagged fish , and I hate tying hooks, I ended up with 30.8 of skimmers and 42.5 of carp which was good enough for second on the day, two pots glen bailey was top weight on the day with 109 . 8 off peg 19. Catching some on paste and some on the wag
3rd ray white 59.5 on peg 3
4th Adrian jeffery on peg 30 with 57.4
5th mike nicholls on peg 5 with 56.4
6th Clayton Hudson on 7 with 55.9
Silvers went to mike nicholls with 36.12

Baitech viaduct spring series , round 1

55 fishing this series again this year , showing how popular this fishery is. It's a random draw for the whole series which I don't mind, it's to messy to make us rotate, we had the usual welsh contingent today along with a few new faces from this side of no mans land. Into the draw tin early and out pops 129 which is the peg next to the spit on Campbell , for company I had chris fox on 128 and ian exhall from Wales on 130, I set up a meat rig for 5 mtrs and at 1 o,clock angle at 14 mtrs , a pellet rig for for the same distance (14mtrs) but at 11 o,clock angle , a shallow pellet rig just in case and another pellet rig to fish on the end of the spit, and a depth wag for hard pellet. I never picked the wag rod up during the match, I kept an eye on the people who were trying it but all they were getting were liners and just catching fresh air on the strike , a couple tried the shallow wag but the fish didn't seem to keen to come up to shallow . At the start I began on the long pellet line , feeding 6,s and fishing a banded 8 on the hook, I lost a fouler straight away , then had a couple of big skimmers and a tench, but after a couple of fast liners I went out with the shallow rig and Hooked one straight away, but it came off as I was about to net it, that was my last bite on the shallow rig, ian had also gone out on the shallow rig and did have a bit of a run of carp but I think he was feeding 4, s and using a banded 6, perhaps 6,s and 8,s were a bit to positive, all I could catch on the deck were skimmers so I switched to the long meat line , which produced a few carp and tench , but I was falling behind in the section with romainian dave on 132 catching well and ian was still having odd fish shallow , most people were getting carp but the early leaders were the trig Edmunds and bob gullick self appreciation society on 114 and 115 who had both come in early onto the 5 mtr meat line and were catching well, with bob doing his normal of talking ever fish into his net and trig moaning that he was always way behind (havnt heard that before ) and I think bob actually believed him.
It seemed that the meat was doing the business so I stuck mainly with that till the end , swapping between the long and short lines with the short line being the best , I did have three carp from the spit , along with some more skimmers , but I had a real misjudgement on what I had caught as I felt ian had well and truly beaten me , along with dave romain on 132 and possibly fabio on 131, but I made a right tit of myself , I miss counted my fish badly , I thought I had perhaps 20lb of silvers and 15 carp for perhaps 90 plus pounds, when I weighed in I had 33 lb of silvers and my 15 carp obviously spawned in my nets and became 20 for 118lb for 151lb with ian just beating me for the section with 156lb, I got a clicker and I really must start using it , and a lot of these cambell fish don't average 6lb anymore , but closer to 7 or 8, to say I was embarressed was an under statement , the match was won by trig with 230 lb on 114 with bob gullick coming a close second on 115 with 220lb , I don't know the full result as I didn't see the sheet but it think chris fox will have it.
This Thursday it's a match at Avalon and on Sunday I am running an open at landsend , so if you fancy doing either ring me at veals as I will be there all week this week on 01179260790 or ring or txt me on 07974807941 to book in. For either

Thursday coffin dodgers and disabled, huntstrete

Well this ain't going to take to long, after a nice all you can eat at the maesknoll carvery (3.99) it was off for the 10 minute drive to the fishery, into the carpark and the normal fossils relics and Chris Rolfe were there (he must have lost the viaduct post code from his sat nav, and not been able to reset it ),  after match organiser and the only person there older than god mike jones had finished his pre match speech, ably assisted by Martin Alexander it was draw time , I really wanted to avoid 19 again , and I did ,getting about as far as I could from it , ending up on 33 which was end peg on the far bank today. I really fancied it although I would have preferred a peg where I could fish to an island, I had fished peg 27 on Tuesday and in a little over 4 hours I had 30lb plus of silvers and 16 carp , the silvers at 5 mtrs and the carp against the island, everything on hard pellet, so with that in mind I set up a pellet rig which was ok for the 5 mtr line and three spots at 13 mtrs which was about as far as I fancied fishing as there is a 30 foot hill very close behind the peg making breaking down difficult , and as it's the same depth it never seems to matter, and as I was the end peg I set up a meat rig for the left hand margin to fish 5 and 11 mtrs along the edge, on the all in I fed all 4 pellet lines and some meat down the edge, starting on the 5 mtr line it took 10 mins to get a fish which was a small skimmer, I then had a short run of fish which included a 3lb tench and it all looked good for about 30 mins, then it stopped, out to 13 mtrs and no bites  I did catch an odd skimmer from the long lines , I was being careful (as much as I am able ) with e feed but nothing was happening so towards the end of the match I really started upping the feed on all my lines  which gave me a bit of fizzing on the long lines but it was carp as I was getting some indications which I think were liners, I did hook two carp in the last15 mins , one on the long line which stole my hook and another down the edge which came off , both foulhooked, then match over (thank god) and my measly 10lb was obviously not good enough, FairPlay to Glynn sage to my right , he plodded along on single red maggot over micros for a nice 27lb net of silvers which I think was enough to give him 3rd in the silver, the match was won by Chris Rolfe on 17 with 88lb I think , full results are on mike nicholls blog.
Walking around the lake there were a lot of letter B,s sprayed on several platforms , I asked John the bailiff  what it was for only to be informed they were to be dedicated bivvie  platforms, interesting that one as the seem to be removing as many carp as they can lol.
Next Thursday me and mike a running another one at Avalon again , so anyone who wants to come along ring me or mike at the shop on 01179260790 or text me on 07974807941.

Short pole series round 1

Back at chilton trinity again this year for this 4 match series where we are just allowed to use down as far as your number 6 section, all very fair, I thought it was popular last year with 24 fishing, but this year I am up to 28 fishing , so not to many empty pegs as there are only 34 on the lake, at least the fish wouldn't have to many hiding places, unless they decided to stay at 8 mtrs and beyond, only one no show , but that was down to family illness, and he sent his pools anyway , top man.
I let misha draw my peg and she gave me peg 29 which is the peg straight across the bridge , shortest walk aswell, for company I had Clayton Hudson on 30 and rod wootten on 28 but he was the first peg in the next section. My section was from me round to peg 6 on the far bank which was occupied by Pete nurse , and in between was Martin McMahon on 4, the gimp on 3, steve Seager on 2 and I felt the danger man in the section was Tim ford on 32 with some room around him, and with the wind blowing into his end I really fancied his peg for a bit of margin work, rigs today were a hard pellet rig  (4x18)  at the limit of the pole length , a meat rig for 4 mtrs(1grm) and a hard pellet rig for the margin to my left as I had a nice depth tight in of about 3 foot.
At the start I fed the three line and started at max pole depth on a banded 6mm over hard 4,s. I fouled and lost a carp first put in , then caught a few skimmers , but not really well enough to be a threat to the silvers pool, opposite in the flatter warmer water people started catching some fish shallow , especially bela bakos who was still trying to perfect his random slapping technique, by the halfway mark I had caught three carp, one down the edge , one at max length on pellet and I hooked an 8lb fish in the fin on the meat line , which came to the net like a kitten, opposite the anglers were catching well ,either shallow or down the edge, tim ford came up for a walk , moaning as he only had 1 carp and a few silvers, by now mr McMahon was winning the section but with a couple of hours left Tim and me began to get a  few down the edge , as did steve Seager, it wasn't hectic but I was getting enough indications to keep me interested fishing banded 8 mm pellet over 6,s, by the end I thought I had about 70lb, and as I was the first to weigh I wasn't to disappointed to plonk 77lb exactly on the scales, but I new Tim had beaten me as he was saying he had 90lb , he actually weighed 96.5, which was a good weight but I new mike nicholls on 15 would probably have more as he seemed to be catching all day, and that's how it turned out with mike winning on the day with 117.9 of peg 15, he had a lot of small roach n caster down his edge till the carp arrive , then he switched to paste over hard 4,s to keep the carp coming
2nd was Tim ford on 32 with hs 96.5
3rd Paul elmes on10 with 94.13
4th bela bakos on 12 with 88lb
5th trig Edmunds on 20 with 84.3
6th me on 29 with 77lb
Silvers
Dave Evans on 19 with 18.4
Chris fox on 27 with 16.5
I wad a bit concerned that we had to many on the lake but the weights today seem to prove that it may have been a good thing as the fish were all over the lake, and being no one could fish long there were no issues with people around you.

Thursday open , Avalon

Bit late doing this one , been a bit busy today, normally we would have been at huntstrete for this one but the fishery has been closed this week as the banks are undergoing a bit of cosmetic surgery, to rectify the massively undercut banks, I've seen a few pictures on the net and it looks good, it won't please everybody but something's just need doing to ensure safety of us on the bank, time will tell.
We managed to get 15 of us on the bank , some huntstrete old boys and some extras from elsewhere.
I let dave wride pull my peg and he handed me peg 40 which is the first peg on the second island right hand bank, a nice draw , with pellet on the pole , meat down the edge and a short pellet wag chuck to the island , about 23 mtrs away, so all rigs were assembled for those lines, for company I had stuart barnett on 42,who is soon on his way back to oz to live as things never really worked out for him over here, all the best to him then. On the other side on 38 was the irrepressible mike key ,
At the start I fed all lines and begun on the pole at 14 mtrs on banded 6mm over loose fed 4,s, after 10 mins and only a 4 oz skimmer to show , and with stuart playing his second carp on the wag I was soon putting the pole down and picking up the wag, and that's where I stopped for the rest of the match, catching odd carp right till the end, the right to left wind made it hard at times as the wag was blowing off the island quite quickly, so unless I had a bite quickly it was a recast very quickly, it was a hard day with lots of shoulder pain by the end , but it was worth it. As I won with 151.12, it was 23 carp for 138 lb and 13.12 of accidentals in the shape of.  Squeaker pasties , a skimmer , a chub some nice roach and a couple of decent hybrids.
2nd was stuart on 42 with 128.11. It was neck and neck till the last 45 mins when his swim dried and I managed a few more carp 2 of which were double figure fish.
Third was Alan jones on 37 with 97.10
4th Adrian jeffery on 28 with 76.12
5th Alan oram on 32 with 68.3
6th dave wride and mike jones on 23&20 respectively with 36.8
Silvers were won by mike on 20 with 25.10
Second went to dave wride with 23.1

Sunday open , landsend fishery

Back to landsend again this Sunday for a match I had forgotten I had booked till mike rang me weds nite to remind me , it was short notice but we still ended up with 26 again so mike let me spread over match and number 3 lake.
I let Martin lenaghan draw for me after he drew peg one for himself, and he handed me peg 3 which can be a tough peg and not generally one you want to draw on this lake when you have the likes of Shaun Townsend on 18 Alan oram on 19 Tim ford on 11 plus Gordon canning on 5 glen (2pots) bailey on 21 even steve Seager on 22  had to be watched, that was just on this lake and with Anton page, mat tomes, ken Rayner , Tom mangnall on lake three plus other venue regulars, lots of competition, (did I really say mat tomes in that lot).
Back to peg three and as mike had put a foot of water back into the lake I quite fancied it as the far bank has a nice shelf , and as there was I bit of depth over there now (18inches) I expected that to be ok for a few, better still there were some fish on the surface sunbathing or swimming round in small shoals, right up my street. Also the margin to my left can be really good, so rigs today, a stalker/slapper, meat rig for 5 mtrs and down the left hand margin (same depth). A pellet rig for the far side shelf and a hard pellet rig for 6 mtrs to my left and right for silvers just in case all else fails.
At the start I fed all lines with the relevant feed and went out with the stalker , and after 20 minutes I had three carp in the net, then it went strangely quiet in my swim , Gordon on three was now catching well against the island , even Martin on 1 was hooking a few , but even though he hasn't fished a match for a while as he has been asleep in a bivvie for most of the year so far, he doesn't seem to have lost The art of losing fish.
Towards the end of the first hour and only adding two more carp and the surface looking a bit barren I went on the 6 mtr pellet line on 6 mm banded pellet over 4,s, all the time I had been firing some 4,s to the far side and I could see a bit of fish activity against the island so I was confident of getting some from there, the 6 mtr line gave me a perch a skimmer and a 4 lb carp , and with not enough activity to keep me there I binned that and went across to the island on the stalker rig so I could fish against the far bank but off bottom, and I had a few on that, with the sun now putting some heat onto the water , I was now seeing quite a few fish so the next couple of hours was most enjoyable , targeting individual fish as they swam past, it's a style of fishing I enjoy as you aren't just slapping a rig around like a windmill on speed but actually picking out specific fish to target, it's quite satisfying to see a fish , plop the pellet in front of it and watch it suck it in. After a couple of hours of this the sun went in and so did the fish, I looked on the 5 mtr meat line , had a fouler first put in then no bites, down the edge and no action there either, so it was against the island on banded 8mm, I had some more there then towards the end of the match some fish arrived in the margin and I had 4 or 5 fish down there.
By the end I had 35 carp plus a few silvers so I reckoned on 180lb at least, the scales started on 1 and Martin had 88lb, then after several weighs my nets went 209lb exactly for first on the day , and I had been very good as I hadn't gone over the net limits .
2nd was Shaun Shaun Townsend on 18 with 171.10
3rd Anton page 160.14 on peg 50
4th Alan oram 133lb
5th Russ peck on 16 with 121.9
6th Gordon canning peg 5 114lb
Silvers
Paul faires on peg 24 with 30.2 of mainly skimmers
2nd in silvers was Tim ford on peg 11 with 26.1
Off to Avalon on Thursday for a bit of a cost cutter (£16) so give me a ring at veals on 01179260790 on Tuesday or Wednesday to book in or txt me on 07974807941 to book in

Thursday coffin dodgers, huntstrete

Before the fishing there are a couple more real pole offers at veals this week, both maver poles again firstly the enigma 1 pole package , was 799.99 now 499.99
Then the enigma 2 pole package was 999.99 now 549.99 both brilliant value for money at those prices.
Next Thursday mike jones and myself are running a cost cutter at Avalon, 9.30 draw , if anyone fancies it ring me or mike at veals on 01179260790 to book in or txt me on my mobile on 07974807941.
Back to the fishing and this is going to be one of my shorter blogs, after going to the lake for a bit of a session on Tuesday and catching 60lb of silvers off peg 4 on banded 6mm hard pellet over 4,s I was going to place most of my faith in that approach, all I asked was for a draw somewhere around the middle of the lake , into the draw bag ,out comes the yellow disk with number 19 on it again, that's third time on the trot, what's the odds on that. For company I had silvers ace dave wride on 18 and I had to look at mike nicholls on 21 who has been on that peg for the 4th time since Xmas ,
Needless to say , the hard Pellet tacti never worked, and I ended up with 8.12 of silvers, but I did save a bit of face with two carp down the edge which went 24.6 for a total of  33.2, no pickup for me then !!!!.
1st on the day was dave bacon on peg 30 with 65.8, which was 35.12 of bream and 29.12 of carp taken on a mixture feeder and pole
2nd Alan jones on 28 with 54lb
3rd ray (I've had a moment) bazeley on 27 with 44.4 , all silvers.
4th terry bruton on 6 with three carp for 38.11
5th me with 33.2
6th bob price on peg 2 with 27.8 of silvers on bread
All the carp caught today were relocated down into withy pool, the club are aiming to make bridge a silvers only lake, I hope it works for them, but having been around long enough to see other venues try it without long term success, I won't be holding my breath,  there are some good bream and roach venues across the country but it seems to me to be more natural larger lakes which succeed, all the local venues to us such as viaduct, landsend , sedges , Avalon, chilton trinity, I could go on , have large amounts of silvers, and a large head of carp, keeping all happy, there is a thought that carp have very short digestive systems which can't absorb all the nutrients from the pellets and boilies that are used in these venues, so there is still a a lot of nutritional value in there poo, so the skimmers and roach thrive on the carp waste. I,m no expert but a lot of commercial fishery owners seem to think this is the case, and all these venues hold a thriving healthy amount of both carp and silvers, I have been told by one of the bailiffs that. If it doesn't work they may decide to put some smaller carp back in.
This weekend I am running a match at landsend on Sunday, so if you fancy it ring me on my mobile or in veals to book in.

Sunday landsend fishery open

26 fishing today so mike spread us out over match and number 3 lake , I wasn't to fussy as to which lake I drew as both fished really well last week, so I wasn't disappointed to open up peg 18 , which is on the left hand side of the island gap on the far bank of the match lake. For company I had Shane caswell on 16 and bristols finest roofer bela bakos on 19. Also I could keep an eye on mike duckett on 15 as we had to fish the final of the k/o from the winter league.
It was a nice day and with a few packs of carp floating about the stalker rig was assembled, also a margin meat rig and the same for 5mtrs, also a pellet rig for over against the island.
At the start I fired in some 4,s to the island, some meat down each side margin and at 5 mtrs and threw a handful of pellets tight in to my left against the bank in less than a foot of water. I then started on the stalker rig and had a good start with a fish virtually straight away, and the first two hours went well with me having 18 carp in the net, then it went Pete tong, the main pack of fish seemed to move to my right and settle on peg 20 between bela and rich heatley on 21, with bela doing the best, not even feeding , just slapping a rig around , he went from struggling a bit to catching up my early lead and overtaking me easily, I had a few from my left hand margin rig on pellet, but in such shallow water the fish were very spooky, disappearing from the swim as soon as the pole went over there heads, I also managed a few from the island, but the fish didn't really seem to want to eat over there, by the end I had 26 fish , which looked ok but was a long way behind bela , also trig over on 7 had had a good last couple of hours catching on his short meat line, plus he had caught a lot of good skimmers earlier on on hard pellet down the track, so that was going to be close. I new I had the better of mike so that was 40 quid in the bank from he k/o,
Bela was first on the day with 216.12 which was miles ahead of everyone else, also it was his first ever double ton so well done to him, all taken on the random slapping method , those who know him will have to ask him about that one lol
2nd was me with 146.11 plus I had a crick in my neck from looking to my right.
3rd craig(trig)Edmunds on peg 7 with 143.12
4th rich heatley n 21 with 114.13
5th ken Rayner on 13 with 90.12
6th kev molten on 70 with 75.14
Silvers
Rod wootten on 22 with 54.15 of skimmers on hard 6 mm pellet over a mix of micros and 4,s fished at 5 mtrs

Veals silver league , final round

Before I say about my day , a message from steve long at viaduct fishery, anyone who fished last years spring series at the venue and wants to do so again this year , needs to give steve a ring on 01458 274022 to confirm, likewise if any of you fancy a go this year give him a ring to get your name on the list.
Also a few real pole offers going on in veals at the mo on the following maver poles
Series 1 sx was 450 now down to 295
Series 2 sx was 650 now down to 395
Series 3 sx was 989 now down to 595
Series 4 sx was 1259 now down to 695
Series 5 sx was 1529 now down to 795
Can't see them hanging around for to long.
Back to the fishing and after the gales we had to endure at the weekend it was nice to find nothing but a gentle breeze , into the draw and out comes 19 again , I had it last week when carp counted but it was only a silvers match today , and after really struggleing for silvers last week I didn't really go to the peg with to much confidence, but a week can change a lot of things. I set up a banded pellet rig for 2 lines at 13 mtrs , a caster rig for into the bay on my left and a margin rig for my right as I had a few fish on that last week , at the start I cupped in some hard 4,s at 1 o,clock angle and some soaked micros and 4,s at 11 angle, some caster and corn to my left in the bay and the same into the right hand margin, I also fed some casters at 4 mtrs in front as the left hand rig was the same depth, beginning on a banded 6 mm I never had a bite at the 1 angle so a switch to the 11 angle was called for, and for a few minutes I thought I was going to have a good day as I had a couple of 8oz skimmers then a near 4lb tench, but it was a false dawn as I couldn't buy a bite on a hard pellet, so I changed the hook for an 18 middy 8313 on .12 line and went onto the soft pellet and for a while things went ok with several more skimmers skimmers gracing the net, but judging by the banter it became apparent that the main body of fish seemed to be further up the lake, I did manage a tench on caster at 4 mtrs and a few half  tidy roach and perch from the margins but I was never going to compete with the pegs up the lake a bit , John smith was first on the day with 36.2 off peg 26 , catching on soft pellet or triple maggot over micros in most parts of his peg, all skimmers  and bream,
2nd Barry fitchew on 28 with 33.9
3rd dave bacon on 29 with 32.14
4th dave wride on 32 with 32.9
5th mike nicholls on 15 with 30.01
6th dave Gillard on 10 with 27.14
7th bob price on 24 with 25.11
8th me with 23.10
Considering it was flat calm it fished really well. Well done to dave wride for winning the series, and for for carrying me on his back to win the pairs,
Nice to see the old stager John smith winning the knockout , shame it was at my expense lol,
Off to landsend for an open on Sunday , should be good as the weather seems to be warming up.