viaduct winter league rnd 2

Travelled down with Ron hardiman and Jason Radford again today, so it was a stop off at cannards well for breakfast, Nigel ainscough reckons I ought to start giving the various brekkie stops a star rating out of 5, so today nige it was a 4, hot, tasty and cheerful staff, and quickly delivered to the table.
Back to the fishing and it was clients turn to do the team draw, and he didn't do a particularly good job, 110 for Ron, 76 for Leon who was standing in for Tim Clark, 103 for Clayton, 40 for me and peg 2 for himself. It's a peg that you would run to a few years ago but its not been to good of late with the pegs up each side of the island being favoured, but you never know, I never set up a waggler today as I was expecting the wind to be blowing right to left and by experience on these end of island pegs the wind tunnels through making presentation very hard, so I set up a lead rod for the island Chuck, on the pole it was a rig to fish caster at 5 mtrs and maggot over groundbait at 11 mtrs, a meat rig for 14 mtrs and a rig to fish down by empty.pallet 39 to my right.

Company wise I had Ricky mills to my left on 41 , and around the corner to my right was des shipp.
At the start I cupped in a ball of groundbait at 11 mtrs , some meat at 14 mtrs , corn and caster down to 39.
I started on the lead with a small piece of meat fished towards the island, no bites or liners , so after 15 minutes I switched to maggot on the hook, but 15 minutes more and still not so much as a twitch, that was up the bank for the rest of the match.
I started at 5 mtrs and began catching small roach, so a switch to the 11 mtr line was called for, I did get a few more small skimmers mixed in with the roach but no quality, des had moaned a couple of f1,s on by now, but Alan oram on 43 had taken an early.lead fishing a small feeder tight to the island, I tried the meat line after about 90 mins and had the float bury in the first three put ins , but nothing on the end, liners, roach who knows but that was it for now, back onto the caster and groundbait lines and the small roach and skimmers were still there, as the match progressed , I couldn't catch any quality, des began to build on his early couple of f1,s, with more of the same plus some small proper carp, Alan oram was still catching as was Nick Collins next to him, and there were some carp coming out further up the lake , even Mike Nicholls had a couple between trying to pull some branches off the trees on the island aswell as above his head, any way I needed to catch some carp on my long meat line, especially as Ricky had a carp towards the end to go with his silver's, and he had a few nice perch and a good hybrid aswell as an unseasonal small tench, I had a bite about 15  mins from the end a had a good fish on and off in a second, then I had an f1 5 mins from the end, went back out and hooked another just before the all out, but it came adrift about 5 mtrs out , bigger. I think it would only have giver me another point so not to much lost really, Alan oram won the lake with 44lb with des second withb39 and Nick Collins had 34.
1st on the day was richard aherne on 53 with 143.2
2nd Steve seager on 119 with 131.14
3rd Jason Radford on 113 with 119.17, who may have had a few more if he could have fished his peg on his own.
4th Andy neale on 66 with 113.4
5th Steve Tucker on 129 ish with 113.4
6th Craig Edmunds on 127 with 92.14
Silver's
Dave romain on 124 with 24.8
Ken rayner on 24 with 17.1

Tuesday costcutter acorn fishery

Travelled with Chris Fox today , so we had the breakfast stop at the bridge in yatton, and its ok, I can't understand why more anglers don't use it, its 1 minute from the fishery. Got to the fishery to find out that 14 were booked in, not to bad as the lake was completely frozen due to it being -6c during the night, but luckily top man Mark Bartlett had broken out the required swims , Ray got the draw underway and I pulled out 27, not to happy really , and Chris was next round to me on 24, also not to good at present. But fortunately Ray can't count, REDRAW, being from north of Gloucester he must only have 13 fingers, Mike Chapman lent him one of his so this time we had enough balls in the bag, out comes 34 and Chris 33, so either side of a bridge for us then, a bit more Ice breaking to tidy up marks handywork, then down to the rigs, as the picture shows, walks don't really come much shorter.

Three rigs today all to fish maggot so the business end on all rigs had a size 20 middy 8313 hook on .12. All rigs were as5 drennan floats, a couple of .2g for up the shelf against the bridge and for out in front, and a .3g for in the deep water against the bridge, the bait tray was very minimalistic, with a few maggots only.

 no worry about nuisance small fish as there don't tend to be many in here now.
At the start I fed several lines with about 10 maggots on each.
Starting buy the bridge I had a liner first drop, followed by a fouler which came off, then I had a goldfish, after 2oz won the silver's on Sunday I was in with a chance then LOL.
As the match went on it was a waiting game for bites, with the two bridge swims being the most productive. Chris had a few the other side of the bridge including an 8lb fish, but my side of the bridge seemed to have more fish as I was having small touches . Although the fish I did get were on the small side, about halfway through Lee Waller wandered round from peg 6 , he only had two carp and wasn't getting any bites, Phil Cooper over on 21 was also catching odd fish, Lee went back to his peg sat on his box and promptly started to catch fishing maggot out by the bridge and he caught well enough to the end to ensure the win, and it looked as though Phil was going to be second, third spot wasn't so easy to call as myself, Adrian Mercato on 5 and Andy gard on 22 had all caught , the weigh sheet below shows that indeed Lee won with Phil second and me third, with Ray(13 finger)bazeley winning the silver's with an all bream weight (lol) of 3 1/2 lb,

Off to viaduct Sunday for round 2 of the winter league, my turn on the match lake with a bit of spring and middle lake in the section, its supposed to warm up a bit for the weekend but I still expect it to be hard.

Landsend league rnd 2

Travelled down with Jason Radford and Judith today, i was hoping Judith was going to buy the food as she did last time, but she obviously understands all about lightning, so it was my wallet losing a bit of weight today, but the food was tasty as ever, well done di, you have got it well sorted.
I was on the speci lake today and fancied any of the corners or pegs 31 and 34, Judith refused to draw for me so I went into the bucket myself and pulled out peg 40, a nice corner for a left hander, after the cold weather there was a bit of ice breaking to be done but it was fairly thin so it was easy, but it left a myriad of small chunks bobbing about.

At least I could get around the end bank to net a lot of the pieces out, but with the wind blowing south easterly and just strong enough to blow everyone else's chunks into this end of the lake, and it did prove a bit of a problem for 3/4 of the match.

My only real option was to fish along the end bank due to the constantly shifting ice pack, so inset a caster and maggot rig for along the top of the margin shelf as some good perch and odd chub can be found, and the other rig was a pellet rig for 16 mtrs down the shelf, for company on had Adrian Clark opposite on 25 and Emma Drysdale next door on 39.
I started on pellet and lost a fouler first drop, and by the end of the first hour I had lost 3 more, mainly on and off in a second, but at least there were some fish here, during the same period Adrian was still to catch and Emma had had two carp, but that was the last bites she had, I switched for pellet to maggot after 2 hours and soon had my first carp, unfortunately it was one of the lakes smallest at just over 3lb, 30 mins later I had a better one of about 6lb.

But that was my last carp landed, I lost a couple in the wire straw cage on the end bank , several foulers and a double figure ghostie right at the net, which cost me in the end as my two carp and a micro perch weighed just over 9lb and 19lb won the section, I kept coming up off the deck but couldn't get a bite, but looking back I probably didn't give it long enough, bad angling really as I know the score to be honest.
The match was won by craig(trig) Edmunds on peg 13 with 151lb, there is no stopping him, he caught on pellet to begin with, followed by maggot off the deck then finished off with his trusty 8mm meat fed with a catty, easily beating Nick chedzoy on peg 15 into 2nd spot with 65lb, so a bit more money into the trig head tattoo fund , but it does look quite good, I'm sure you will all agree LOL.

The weigh sheets below show it was a bit difficult for many, but that's.winter fishing, some anglers were blanking till right to the end when a few fish began to feed.

Huntstrete silver's league

After the normal all you can eat breakfast at the maesknoll Toby carvery in whitchurch village it was the ten minute drive to the fishery, a full house again today with 24 fishing, I was in A section again today which is both banks at the top end of the lake, I wanted to avoid the two far end pegs if poss as they can be dire, I waited till nearly the end to draw and wasn't disappointed to pull 32 for myself, its the end peg in the section with and empty peg aswell, so all good, it won the section with a lowly 1.11 last match , but we had to break ice to fish then, although it was cold and frosty there was no ice, and one or two fish were topping, to my left I had the old Bristol angling icon that is Mike Jones, the end crap pegs were occupied by Steve tanner on 34 and opposite Paul barnfield was on peg 2, was he moaning , you bet he was.

As with the last match it was out of the sun in these swims and the ground stayed frozen all day, it was cold !!!!.
Only 2 rigs set up, a .4g as5 caster rig for down the right hand margin and a .5g as5 to fish maggot or pinkie over groundbait, where to fish was going to be a problem as the sun was causing the trees reflection on the far side to cause a myriad of colours making float spotting really difficult.

So I fed two lines at the start , one at 13 mtrs in front and another at 14 mtrs to my right towards the reflection of the island where I could see the float, both lines had one ball of groundbait with a sprinkling of pinkies and caster, I also started feeding a few casters to my right just down the margin shelf, it didn't take to long to get a bite and a 4oz skimmer was soon netted , soon followed by another, and the first hour produced several more but the size halved for some reason, as far as the match went it was quite enjoyable , the 1 to 4oz skimmers fed quite well with double fluro pinkie being the destination hookbait, I had my best fish down the edge on caster in the shape of 3 net roach and an 8oz perch, those 4 fish probably went 1.12 , so bonus fish at this end of the lake, Mike to my left had a decent perch of about 1.8 but he did struggle a bit. Only Dave Gillard over on 3 was catching so I looked to be winning the section, Paul barnfield tried moaning some fish on and he did manage 8oz of whitebait, but he was last but one in the section, as Steve on 34 took an early bath, weigh sheets below show it fished a bit better this time but thus end of the lake still seems to be the place to avoid, several anglers at the other end had bigger skimmers, but I'm not moaning as I weighed 7.5 to win the section from Dave Gillard who had 4.11, followed by Mike Jones who had 4.1.

Roll on Sunday , Landsend winter league, my turn on speci lake , so any corner or 31 and 34 would be my pegs of choice.

Viaduct winter league

As always this team's of 5 series is as popular as normal with 19 teams taking part, a big match these days.
I travelled down with Jason Radford and Ron hardiman today, and after the breakfast in cannards well which was nice, it was off down to the fishery, it was soon draw time, and its my turn for the first match, no4 ticket came out which gave us sequence of pegs putting Tim Clark on 113 , Clayton Hudson on 79, myself on 73 , Clint wojtyla on 43 and Ron hardiman on 5, a good team draw.
My peg 73 is a corner peg on lodge, its got lots of history and form, providing the carp were under the tree and along the bank to my right it could be happy days, as always it looked good.

Simple set up today , a bread dobbing rig for down along the right hand margin, and a meat rig to fish under the branches out on the end of the tree and out in front at 14 mtrs, both areas I never had a bite on, for company , and good company it is, I had to look at Nick Collins on the other side of the tree on 53, even he was going to fish to carp today , as silver's which he normally like to target aren't really an option in these pegs at this time of year and with the clarity of the water.

At the start I fed the two meat lines, then picked up the dobbing rig, I started at 13 mtrs and 10 minutes in and I was attached to my first carp, which I was just about to net when the hook pulled, bigger. It didn't take to long to get attached to another one which was safely netted, and at probably 12lb was a good start, in the next hour I netted 3 more, but that was it on the 13 mtr line, no more bites, so along to 14 mtrs, and a bit of a worry as I never had a bite there, so it was down to 16 mtrs, by now Nick was one fish ahead fishing the long pole and corn on the back of the tree, but I had a bit of a purple patch at n 16 mtrs catching several carp fairly quickly to put me back in the driving seat, but it didn't last , some of the fish were approaching double figures, but a few of them were on the small side, if you can call 6lb small. I looked to be doing ok and winning the lake as Nick seemed to be my biggest threat, and he was struggling a bit, the last hour I went to 17 mtrs and had a couple more carp, then Nick started to get some big fish on the wag and corn fishing into the bay behind the tree, and on the whistle he was playing a fish and I was sure it was the one to give him the edge over me but he didn't agree, and after safely netting it he was admitting to about 85lb , and I thought I had about the same, and it was close as Nick had 96lb to my 94.2, so that last fish was the decider,  mind you it didn't help that his last 4 fish went about 55lb.

First on the day went to Colin dyer on 102 with 15 carp for 154.11

2nd Tim Clark on 113 with 150.6

3rd Paul Greenwood on 77 with 111.9

4th Nick Collins with 96lb

5th me with 94.2

6th Mark wynne on 128 with 67.12

Silver's 

Sam Powell on peg 2 with 18lb

Team sheet below, with my team , future networks coming out on top

A bit short on photos today as Judith couldn't come (to much housework lol) but hopefully normal service will be resumed next weekend on the Landsend league, but before that its back to huntstrete for round 2 of the silver's league, hopefully I will improve on the 8oz I had last time.

Tuesday acorn costcutter

A disappointing turnout today with only 10 of us, but at least the breakfast was good in the the bridge in Hatton. With so few anglers on the bank it was likely the fish would back off into the quiet spaces, Ray soon had the draw balls ready, and after Mike Chapman was first into the draw and pulled out ball 40, the inform bridge peg, I dived in next and out comes number 13, hopefully not unlucky for me, for company I had ed wynne on 15 and Keith Ray round on 11.
I soon had plenty of rigs made up to fish several places around the swim, from down to 12 pallet, a couple of places in the middle off to the right , and a couple of places at the bottom of the far shelf, in front and again off to the right, and a rig for up on the far shelf, once sorted I tidied my swim up so as not to look like a travellers camp.

Hmmmm still a work in progress, but it is better. Isn't it ?.
As for the fishing, the less said about that the better, Mike Chapman on 40 and Andy France the other side of the bridge on 6 both caught from the off, everyone else sat there motionless, and that didn't change for basically the whole match, during the match I had an f1 and 2 tiny carp down by pallet 12, and 2 goldfish and a 4oz skimmer from the right hand bottom of the island shelf to the right, and that was all the bites I had, Mike had odd fish to the end , but Andy peaked to early, letting Mike overhaul him to come out top on the day with 28lb.
And had 24lb and rich lovering on 25 was 3rd with 14lb, silver's went to Mike laird on 9 with 3lb something, I didn't get the results as I fished on for an hour as I couldn't believe there were no fish in the swim, or area as both ed and Keith blanked, and they both know the venue well, as I said finished on for an hour, and indolent know what it was but I began getting a bite every put in on the 13 mtr line to the right at the bottom of the island shelf, I wasn't doing anything different now to what I was doing during the match, I think it was more to do with time of day and reduced light levels, but I probably put over 28lb in the net in the hour between 3 and 4, all very strange as I can honestly say I never had a liner or missed bite during the match, then the swim is all of a sudden its solid, who knows where they were for the previous 5 hours, the swim was now full of f1,s and carp, debuggers.
Ed wynne took the picture of my after match catch, we had no answers , also Lee Waller watched for a while, just so he could see some bites.

Off to viaduct this weekend for the first round of teams of 5,s, and me along with 94 others will be hoping to draw peg 130, but they may well move or spread out, let's hope so, or even better its frozen over meaning everyone can only fish pole length lol.

Landsend open

15 booked in today, not a lot but with several matches on in the area it wasn't really a surprise, breakfast at the fishery was as good as usual, and the banter in th a cafe was good. The food tasted even better than normal as Judith managed to get the combination right on her purse and paid , shock horror.
I let Judith draw for me and fancied a peg anywhere on lake 3 as its been fishing the most consistent at the venue, but with Mike letting us put 10 on number 3 and 5 on one side of lake 2, so o it comes peg 15 stuck to her MIT,  I havnt fished this lake for ages and the General consensus was that the fish seemed to have relocated to the other end of the lake, but I wasn't convinced as 15 has always been a good peg , and it was the end peg today so even better.
I set a rig for each side to fish maggot for perch about a mtr off the bank, a meat rig for down under empty peg 14, but apart from a couple of liners I never had a proper bite down there.
A rig to fish banded 6mm pellet at 14 mtrs to the left, and another rig for 16 mtrs to my right for maggot over micros. I was just about ready in time , and Judith reckoned my swim looked like a travellers camp, I thought it looked ok myself.

At the start I went on the perch rig to my left after feeding the long lines, I soon had an 8oz fish in the net followed by a several more of various sizes, but as is normal with the perch here they very rarely queue up, I was soon going out on the banded 6mm over hard 4,s, and I didn't have to wait long for a bite, which settled in a nicely coloured 4lb common, so a good start.

I tried the right hand maggot over micro line but it only produced odd small fish, the left hand pellet line was my most productive with some better skimmers aswell,

so I just kept swapping between the inside perch swims and the 14 mtr pellet line, putting a odd skimmers and carp in the net, with some perch top ups from the inside, by the end I had 5 carp including a pretty ghostie.

And 18lb of silver's , which was top silver weight on the day and with the carp was enough for top on the lake and 4th on the day.

First on the day went to the old stager Adrian Jeffery on peg 51 with 88lb, he caught all his fish on triple maggot , so well done to him.
2nd Stuart Barnett on 58 with 47.4
3rd kev molten on 55 with 42.10
4th me with 38.7
5th Ken (cosmic) rayner on 42 with 31.4
6th Steve seager on 62 with 28.6
Not to bad really with ever one catching a few, and Judith is still improving with the camera.

Rnd 1 silver's league, huntstrete

I was looking forward to this series, with 24 fishing, not to bad for a midweeker, plus I had time to call into the maesknoll in whitchurch village , as its a Toby inn, its all you can eat and drink for 5.50, and very nice it was too.
Getting to the lake with plenty of time I had chance to look at the lake (bridge pool) and as expected it had an icy lid on it, I wasn't to upset as I like ice hole fishing (normally), a draw at the closer end would be nice as these pegs are more consistent in the colder months, so into the organisers (Chris rolfe,s) new draw bucket and out comes 33 aaargh, one from the end on the far side, which also meant a day sat in the shade as the sun doesn't get high enough this time of year to get above the small hill behind these pegs, for company I had Dave Gillard on 34 and much practiced Paul barnfield on 31, opposite and filling the rest of the section was Mike Jones who once came second to dickie Carr in a competition as to who was the most fanciable, ( to the opposite sex) , Paul Dicks and Steve tanner on 2/3 and 4 respectively. I soon got a channel broken in the ice to 14 mtrs as it was an easy break.

I had a quick walk round to take a pic to show how cols our bank was in comparison to opposite, the frost stayed on the ground for the whole day, I fact all the gear behind us also got a coating of frost during the day.

Now for the fishing, well not to much to report on that front, in fact I had 5 bites all day , I lost the first small fish after about 15 mins as it managed to wriggle off with a bit help from the ice, the next three bites in the next hour resulted in 2 small skimmers and a roach, the next bite I missed and that was my lot for the whole match, Dave to my left had one small roach, Paul to my right had a dozen small fish and the three opposite all blanked, Paul won our section with 1.12, and I was second with 8oz, as expected the further down the lake you went the better it got with callum dicks coming out  on top with 60 small skimmers for 9.2, all very hard, us anglers in the shade had to endure constant freeze ups with us needing to clear the ice every 30 minutes minimum, not ideal really when fish were hard to come by, weigh sheets below.

Something for a change

As the title says, something of a bit of a change, after a go at some lrf fishing in Cornwall back in November, when I blanked and Judith caught a wrasse, we were keen to try and catch some perch drop shotting or soft plastics, so new years eve saw us turning up at cheddar reservoir , to cut a long story short we worked our way all around the large expanse of water, trying different colours and weights but apart from lots of weed we had a nice walk walk but nothing else.

There were a few pike anglers out but apart from one who had a 9 and 13lb fish no one else had a touch.
In a desperate attempt to catch something we got back into the van and headed off to the north drain, normally ok for a few jacks, but it looked to have a bit to much colour in it, and after an hour of trying it probably did as all we had were a couple of old Lilly stems.

Still it was a nice day, we saw a barn owl on the moors , plus a couple of egrets and the obligatory her on, you can't beat being outdoors, I just don't get these computer games etc, if you get out and look about there are so many interesting things to keep you interested, well there is for me anyway, there is a whole generation coming through that are going to have some serious rsi with there thumbs.
New year's day and despite the heavy rain we ended up on the kennet and Avon canal at Dundas aquaduct planning to try some drop shotting for perch between the aquaduct and limpley stoke bridge, so with our lures selected, a white one for me while Judith went for a translucent blue wormy thing off we went, it took a while to catch, but it was first blood for me with a small perch, much to Judith disgust, you can't quite see the middle finger in this picture of first blood to me.

It didn't take long for Judith to get on the score board, with her own micro perch, which she was pleased with, and after yesterday's blank , anything was an improvement.

It was never manic but its certainly interesting try in to get the lures into various nooks and crannies and the takes are quite impressive for such small fish, I can see it getting a bit addictive, the fish may have been small, but they weren't to easy to fool, but when we did get one they were lovely looking miniatures, and as we were using barbless hooked they all went back with no damage

as I said I can see this becoming a bit addictive, and the same set up will be good for lrf fishing on the coast ,
Cost of outfits aren't to bad and the lures and weights are cheap, so pop down to veals in Bristol and have a look, its a type of fishing the whole family may enjoy as its an active part of the sport as it seems you need to keep on the move to get the most out of your day.