Viaduct winter league rnd 4

Clayton did the team draw today, and he pulled us a did of an indifferent set of pegs, me on 118 on Campbell, when all the carp seem to be at the other end of the lake,

Clint wojtyla was on 85, a good peg that has been more cold than hot this winter, Ron hardiman on 56 , again not a peg of choice but it can throw up a few carp on the waggler, Tim clark had a stand in as he was in his sick bed, so Richard Gillett stood in for him and was on 24 spring lake, a good silver's peg with the chance of a carp fishing out towards the island, and lastly, Clayton was on peg 9, which is pants, but to be fair Clayton seems to have the worst drawing arm of anyone I know, so it was no surprise to me he had this peg.
For company I the old stalwart  Steve Jackson on 119 and the genial trev senior on 116, 117 is not put in for this series which is dead handy, so I set up a dobbing rig to fish bread at 3/4 depth down by the brambles.

Also a meat rig for down by the pallet, a caster rig for about 11 mtrs as the wind was strong and gusty, and a lead rod for hair rigged meat or bread,
On the all in I fed a few balls of groundbait at 11 mtrs then went down the edge on the bread rig.
It started well with a carp virtually straight away, not particularly big, it was one of the smaller resident fish that can frequent these type of pegs, the match progressed slowly with odd bites down the edge , never manic but interesting enough to keep me going , I was doing ok section wise till about 90 mins from the end, when Nick ewers on end peg 123 began to catch a few , throwing the lead to the end bank, I ended up with 10 carp for about 50lb, but I new nicks fish were of a better stamp, I did have one fish on the tip and 2 late ones on the pole at 13 mtrs with meat, and they were my biggest fish, but as expected Nick won our section as his fish went 66.11 to my 57.6, but to be honest it was a bonus to catch as the fish seem to prefer the other end of the lake at the moment.
Top weight on the day went to mark leader on form peg 113 with  101.2, catching mainly on the lead , but he did have three good fish late  on meat at 7 mtrs
2nd mash on 131 with 95.3
3rd Scott cousins on 111 with 88.1
4th mat Parsons on 100 with 87.5
5th Bob Giles on 18 with 84.14
6th Ben hagg on 68 with 82.1
Silver's
Bob Giles on 18 with 28.12
Alex nadin on 19 with 23.10
Glen Reynolds on 3 with 22.10
Last day of the veals sale tomorrow , also the shop will be shut on Wednesday for the day for stocktaking.

Tuesday costcutter acorn fishery

Breakfast at the bridge in yatton again , and its nice, so a good start for the day.
Got to the fishery to find a really low turnout, which was a bit of a surprise as although it was damp and windy, it was nice and mild, so the 5 of us got the draw sorted, peg 5 Mike Owens , 6 Adrian Mercato, Lee Waller on 22, me on 34 and ed wynne on 37.

Been using the map z30 box for over a month now and I must say its a nice box, very stable and sturdy, also the new Preston rig roost is a proper piece of kit, I was never one for roosts before as I always found them to get in the way, but the Preston one seems ok and I've had no issues of it being in the way, it probably helps as my map side tray has two support legs with a couple of positions ,so you can get the legs on even on narrow platforms , and the roost goes onto one of those.
That's enough advertising for now, back to the fishing , and that was hard . Normally its possible to catch a few fish in the open water , but not today, every fish I caught was against the bridge , and that wasn't enough as Mike on 5 caught quite steadily and Adrian on 6 had a good second half, although he had a bit of a torrid time with lost fish, but as normal he still came up smiling.
Mike won on the day with 59lb catching on soft pellet over micros just off the far bank in a couple of feet of water.
2nd Adrian on 6 with 46.2
3rd me 26.9
4th Lee Waller 13.9
5th ed wynne 13.5
Only thing was that I had top silver's weight with 4.13, just edging out the acorn silver's ace ed wynne with 4.11.
It's not really silver's a there were a few goldfish in the nets, all very colourful.
Don't forget the Veals sale starts on Friday and finishes Monday, only 4 days this year, but plenty of bargains to be had though.

Landsend league rnd 4

Got to the fishery in plenty of time to enjoy one of di,s 4.5 star breakfasts, which again tasted even better as Judith paid for it.
It was a random draw for this round , and as Judith drew me a right flyer last time (13) I let her draw my peg again, but her drawing arm fell right off, as she pulled out peg 46 on lake three, probably the worst peg in the section, if not the lake, but as I had plenty of room I fancied it for a few , never really expecting better than 3rd in section which wasn't going to be good enough to keep me in contention for any end of league monies, realistically only a section win would be good enough, for company I had trig Edmunds on peg 42 and me old mate Clayton Hudson on 51.
A few rigs were assembled, a maggot off the deck against the island, meat rigs for down the middle at 14 mtrs each side, and one for down the margin, then a hard pellet rig for on the deck if the maggot off the deck rig didn't work.
At the start I went straight across to try and get an early mug fish on the maggot, and I did hook one first put in, shame it obviously wasn't close to the mouth, although it stayed attached for a while I was of the opinion it was coming off and it did, so back out but no more bites, so I went to the corner of the other island to my right which is in front of 45, and after a few minutes hooked one properly which was duly netted, n these fish have nice colour this time of year due to the clear water, it wasn't a big fish, probably about 5lb.

But apart from a small perch which fell off that was the end of the off the deck rig, so o it onto the pellet rig but apart from a couple of skimmers and an f1 that was a waste of time , by now Mike duckett on peg one was winning the silver's and be eating me , trig was on 1 carp , Clayton had had a couple and rod Wootton on 55 had caught a few, so a few carp would make all the difference, I would like to say it went to plan, but it never, I did hook a carp on meat to my left down the middle, but that fell off for no apparent reason, and that was my only indication on those lines each side, I did have earned slight glimmer when I had a couple of carp on maggot fishing in the shallow water in the gap ,but apart from a few small roach that was it, but never mind I always had my banker swim in the margin fishing meat, but I had to wait till about 30 minutes from the end to get my first bite, and that was from an f1, not the much needed carp I expected.

And that was it, match over, series over, last in section with 20lb, Mike duckett on 41 had 23lb including 16lb of silver's.which was top silver's weight on the lake, trig was second on the lake and second in section with 51lb, me with 20, Clayton had 27 then lake and section winner was rod wootten on peg 55 with 78lb, well done matey.

Top weight on the day was the caught by the irrepressible Bob gullick on form peg 13 on the match lake with 156.13, catching mostly on meat at 14 mtrs, and second was Nick duckett on 7 with 129.14 also on meat, plenty of pics today as Judith was with me , sporting her new muck boots in a very fetching pink.

All the weigh sheets are below, the venue didn't fish as well as expected, but two warm days aren't really enough to warm the water enough to make the fish feed well, as some of the weights show.

Huntstrete silver's league

After the 4 star breakfast at the Toby carvery , very nice it was the ten minute drive to the fishery, my turn in C section so pegs 12 to 19, into the draw and I pull out peg 15, very good as its been the most consistent peg in the series so far, that's according to Mike Jones who was to my right today, his day didn't begin to well, as when he got to his peg he needed a pee, it was only then that he realised he had put his trousers on back to front, so the zip was at the back, how I love fishing with old people LOL.
On the other side was steve(shreck) tanner who has taken great pains at every opportunity to remind me that he beat me into second place in the section last round, today should be different as my peg has a lot more form, time will tell.

As we were pegged on a corner peg it may have been awkward as I'm left handed so our poles may come to blows as we shipped back, but luckily I had two of the mosella 70cm flat rollers which are probably the tallest flat rollers on the market , extending to 5 feet, so I went really high and Steve went really low, all good then and no carbon collisions.

Back to the swim and only two rigs, a 1gram drennan as7 which seems like a nice float as I've used them a few times now, and the other was a .5g as5 for close in in 6 foot of water, hooks were the new guru f1 maggot hooks in a size 20 on .10 line, at the start I cupped a couple of balls of groundbait at 13 mtrs on 2 lines at 11 and 1 o'clock angles, and fed a few casters close. Beginning no the 11 angle I had a bite after a few minutes which resulted in a 10 oz skimmer hitting the net, good start, I think Mike Nicholls on the peg opposite was on his third skimmer and was soon playing a tench, so a good start for him but luckily he wasn't in my section. As seems normal with this venue, its hard to string to many fish together and you need to keep feeding a bit and moving around between lines to keep odd fish coming, and you need to catch quality fish, with skimmers being the fish of choice, luckily I managed to catch a few and looked in a strong position to win the section as the match progressed, the first half was the best with it getting virtually impossible to get a bite on any of my groundbait lines , I even tried opening up new lines but the fish had disappeared, about 90 mins from the end I cupped some casters close to the island in 6 foot of water which was 14 mtrs away, and did get some good roach towards the end of the match, with several going 8oz or bigger they weren't to be sneezed at, by the end I had double figures which was going to be more than enough to win the section, but not the match as John (frugal) fuidge was going to win as he had 22.7 of quality skimmers off peg 8.
2nd was Steve Dawson on 32 with 18lb
3rd Dave wride on peg 3 with 15.15
4th me with 14lb
5th des shipp with 13.5 on peg 10 with 13.5
6th Chris rolfe on peg 28 with 12.14
On the whole it fished better than the previous rounds , but I'm not to sure Paul barnfield on peg 19 would agree, he couldn't even moan any fish on, and boy can he moan, he makes des shipp sound like an amateur , and that's an achievement.
Weigh sheets below.

Viaduct teams of 5,s

After a 3.5 star breakfast at cannards, it was off to the fishery, Ron hardiman drew for us today and I did tell him I wanted peg 8 on spring as it was my turn for that lake today, but that honour went to bung hole billy, des shipp, so we were fishing for second on the lake today as peg 8 was sheltered from the wind and there are always resident fish down the margin.
I was on peg 4 with me old mate Nick Collins on peg 5, so good company.
The wind was coming in and left to right and as it was from the north east it was cutting us in half.  I set up a waggler to fish corn at about 20 mtrs , a pole rig for various baits over groundbait at 13 mtrs, and the obligatory lead rod for this peg as its got an island Chuck, but recently the carp have been a bit noticeable by there absence.

At the start after feeding the pole line and firing a bit of corn out to the wag line , it was out on the bread on the lead, a couple of liners in the first two chucks gave me a bit of hope , but that was the end of the tip movement.

A look on the pole line revealed small roach and skimmers, so I gave it about 45 mins for about 1 1/2 lb , a quick look on the wag revealed a nasty trip going with the wind, so that was chucked up the bank never to be used again, so back out on the lead but with corn on the hair, well bigger me if it didn't go round and an 8lb carp was in the net, then Nick had one just after of about the same size, also on corn. Virtually next Chuck I had strange twitchy bite which resulted in a hybrid of about a pound, which was blind in one eye.

I would like to say I went on to catch several more carp but it wasn't to be , I had to wait till about 45  mins from the end to get another bite and that was from a pig ugly 10lb common, it had a face like it had been chasing parked cars.

Unfortunately Nick went on the catch three more carp, and des a expected.in his sheltered corner ended with 7, Nick ewers over on 16 had 6 aswell, but with des having a near 20lb fish he looked to be in the driving seat to win the lake, and he did with over 70lb, which I think was good enough for 4 th on the day, but he decided not to the overall pool as he thought the pegs on spring offered no chance of a overall placing, he did do the silver's pool but but peg 8 offers no chance of a silver's pickup. The two nicks, ewers and Collins came second on the lake both with 52.2, and to my right James Allen on 3 had two carp also but his went 23lb plus his 4lb of silver's meant I was beaten both sides, this winter seems to be the worst aquatic bingo I can remember at this venue, the weigh sheets below will give an idea of how hard it was today on many of the lakes.

Tuesday costcutter acorn fishery

After a decent breakfast in the bridge in yatton (3.5 stars), where I was joined by Adriano mercato, Lee Waller and Mark poppleton so the banter was fair, it was off to the fishery, only a dozen today which was a bit disappointing as its the last mild day for a while if we can believe the met office. It was soon draw time which Ray bazeley takes control of with his ball bag of doom.

Adriano was first in the queue to enter rays ball bag, I waited till near the end and pulled out rays number 1 ball, not really y to happy as it hasn't been producing much recently, but as fishery boss Bart was telling me , they have fins and do move, we will see.
I took a while to get ready as the swim has a lot of options, too many for my liking to be honest.

 Margins each side , a couple of empty pallets to fish to, 2 and 35, far side and various places down the track, main bait (well only bait) was maggots, normally its possible to keep rotating round the swims picking off odd fish, never spending to long in one area, but today it never happened atall, I did get odd fish but they were on the small side, with my biggest going about 3lb, I was never in contention today, especially as Mike Owens on peg 5 had a few nice fish, especially towards the end from his margin, he ended up the winner on the day with 35.5, so well done to him on a difficult day.

2nd was Mike Chapman on 22 again with 25lb
3rd Mark poppleton on 12 with 22.14
4th Lee Waller on peg 9 with 21.13
5th (our) Mark Thomas on peg 6 with 18.11
6th was me with 17.2
Silver's winner
Ed wynne on 37 with 2.1 lb made up of a mixed bag of roach and goldfish
Oh well off to viaduct on fSunday and there may be chance the ice breakers will be out again, either way it's going to be very cold.

So simple Gonuts Landsend league

Third round of this well run league with 36 anglers, ably run by Ken rayner and his blue money tin, also the sponsorship from and seery and his so simple products is much appreciated by the participants, thanks Andy.
Judith bought me breakfast at the fishery, cheers love, and in the ainscough star rating it gets a 4.5, piping hot and very tasty, well done di.
My turn on the match lake today and I got Judith to draw for , and as normal she didn't disappoint and pulled me out flyer 13, trig won the last round off it with 150lb, so after a quick chat ,it was off to the swim, its another corner swim with an aerater out in front , which when on has pushed utensils out of the peg meaning there is a nice deep trench slightly off to the right, at 5 1/2 foot deep, its the deepest part of the lake.
Trig caught on maggot at 14 mtrs in the trench , then later on meat on the deck in the same place, and he had a couple up the left hand margin on pellet, I also put a rig together for corn down to empty pallet 14, but although I tried it a couple of times I never had a bite on that line. so the necessary rigs were assembled and in was just about ready for the start, the all was
Called and I went straight out into the trench at 14 mtrs about 18 inches off the deck, the float settled then after a couple of seconds went under with a 6lb common taking a liking to the triple maggot on the 18 middy 8313 hook on .16 sensas feeling line,

After that the match pretty much went to plan, I never fed anything on that line for over three hours, I just kept lifting and dropping and moving the rig around the area picking up odd carp, a few fish appeared in the shallow water off the end of the island about halfway through, so I got off the box and made up rig to fish in the 12 inch deep water out by the island, I was surprised to get two fish on it before they spooked off, there were odd fish there on and off for the rest of the match, but they weren't interested in feeding, and they were definitely a bit pole shy in the not to coloured water, as expected the off the deck maggot rig got harder so I fed some meat there with a couple of hours to go, leaving it to settle I went down the left margin in about 3 foot of water, I had a coupe of fish from there including the biggest of my fish in the shape of a common which probably scraped double figures.

I had a few more on the meat towards the end to end up with 23 carp and 1 f1, I thought I had about 110lb , Judith reckoned on it being about 122, so we had a quid on who was the closest, well I owe her a quid as I weighed 132lb , which won the lake and was first overall, beating trig into second place with 104lb off peg 55, second on my lake and third overall was the consistent Gary o,Shea on peg 15 next to me. Weigh sheets below.

As expected at the halfway stage trig Edmunds is winning with max points, there ain't no stopping him.
Judith took the pictures today, and she seemed very comfy with a dustbin foot stool.

Off to acorn Tuesday then back to viaduct next Sunday for the team's of 5,s. I'm on spring lake and with the weather meant to be going cold again by the end of next week, it should be interesting.

Huntstrete silver's league rnd 3

After a nice breakfast which I give 4 stars in the ainscough rating, venue was the Toby inn  in whitchurch, eat what you want for 5.50, and with the wind due to be blowing at up to 40 mph, the extra ballast maybe necessary.
My turn to be in b section today which uses pegs 5 to 11 on bridge pool, after having to endure the coldest part of the lake in the first two rounds , today the wind and rain was going to be blowing in and across from the left, into the draw and out comes b5 which is in the narrows behind the island, in the previous matches it hasn't been to bad , but only down to odd better skimmers, literally , the anglers in these swims only had one or two fish , but they were enough to give them good points as 4lb was a good weight in the first two rounds, so today I was hoping for some of the same.

 The wind wasn't going to disappoint , as it was already gusting really strongly, and being behind the island didn't really help as it couldn't make up its mind as to which way it was going to blow, left , right and even occasionally from behind. I decided on a line at just over 10 mtrs towards the island , which to be honest was about as far as I could fish , given the wind, I set up a 1g drennan as7 float which has a nice long steel stem and it was certainly stable , and fish very well during the day, and a .5g as5 for just down the margin for perch hopefully, but it wasn't to be as although I tried it several times only a half ounce specimen showed up, so no more on that one, to my left was Dave Gillard , who only set up a feeder rod as he didn't want to jeopardise his pole, the other side was Dave Wilmot who was the first person in a section.
The whistle went and I cupped in a ball of groundbait on two lines on the long pole line in two areas, 11 and 1 o'clock angle and a ball at 4 mtrs, as it turned out the 1o'clock line was not used much as I seemed to have dropped the groundbait on top of a branch, lol, I did try opening up a new line slightly shorter but never had a bite there, so most of the match was spent on the 11 o'clock line , I had a skimmer of about 1 1/4  after 15 minutes, it fought like a small carp, mainly due to the fact it was hooked in the pectoral fin. But that was my last fouler, I caught odd small fish burning the match, plus a couple of better skimmers , but I had four in the  last hour .all on treble fluro pinkie also lost one aswell, which would cost me, I thought I had 8lb ish, and thought Steve tanner on peg 8 had easily won the match . With possibly Paul dicks on 11 being second, I was first to weigh innate section and was surprised when my net went 10.10, but as in expected Steve tanner, beat me with 11.5 and Paul dicks was third in the section with over 9lb, so quite tight then. First on the day was Mike Nicholls on peg 19 with over 28lb , so that's two wins on the trot, he had 4 tench, some good perch and quality roach, all on caster at 6mtrs and down his margin, all the weigh sheet below.

Off to Landsend on Sunday for round 3 of the winter league, I'm on the match lake Sunday so a draw towards the top of the lake would be nice.