Landsend league rnd 3

As always I looked forward to this series as it is on what is probably my favourite venue, especially in the winter as it's a working venue, where you need to keep thinking and often changing things about, certainly during the winter, today was better as Judith was with me to draw me a flyer .
Normal 4.75 brekkie was devoured and it was time for cosmic Ken to get his blue money tin out and get the draw underway. Going into this match I was winning the silvers, so a draw in the early pegs on the lake would be nice as the silvers seem to like this end of the lake , may be the depth, the prevailing wind goes that way ,or something else, who knows. Any way Judith goes into the bucket and hands me 58, a good carp peg but not really a silver,s swim unless the f1,s turn up, but it a rare day normally if they are at this end. And it's the longest walk on the match aswell, but it's a nice lake and very peaceful, even with Steve Sewell being my closest neighbour on inform peg 62, well it did win on Saturday with russ peck having over 100lb off it.
Got to my peg and found the normal resident robin waiting, I think every swim here as at least one .

With silvers being my main target I set up a .3g as4 to fish at 6 and 12mtrs, caster or maggot over loosefed caster on these lines, the other rigs were carp rigs, a pellet rig for off the corner of the island at 14.5 mtrs and to my right towards a dead weedbed  the same distance, and it's the same depth which is handy, another pellet rig for down the right hand margin by some brambles, and a meat rig to my left down the edge towards a tree.

You can tell Judith is overseeing me, how's that for a tidy swim,
At the start i fed all lines and started on the short caster line, 20minutes in and not a bite , hmmm, so out to the longer line, I did give that 30 minutes, and the only bite was from a carp which felt like it was in the tail, and I lost it somewhere around the other side of the island., I just couldn't get a silver, so I fed a few casters against the island , then went into the pellet line off the point of the island, by now Dale housen had caught a carp opposite me on 55. I soon had one of my own though, on banded 6mm , over hard loose fed 4,s, in fact I fed hard fours over all the pellet lines and fished banded 6,s, I went back in over the same line after a bit more feed and got one quite quickly, happy days then,

The rest of the match was spent rotating around my carp lines, , it was never earthshattering, only odd bites , but the bites were there to be had, but this swim certainly contains carp all year round, but today they seemed to be the smaller residents today as I ended up With , I thing 11 carp, I had two on meat to my left in the margin, two to my right, on pellet, two towards the weedbed on my right and the others just off the point of the island, by the end I had 59lb on clicker, so I probably had about 55lb, I thought Steve Sewell had beaten me easily, but it transpired he had lost more than he caught in the reed bed you need to fish up to, but it turned out to be close for the lake win, Steve had 61lb, I had 56/and russ "the corner" peck on 70 had 52lb, only one or two fish in it , I did lose two foulers and another one which snagged me on the end of the island, so I had my chances, then Steve has lost at least twelve, so swings and roundabouts as the saying goes, well done Steve you needed that after the previous round. Weigh sheets below.

Off to plantation main lake on thursday, so looking forward to that as it's a good mixed fishery lake, then it's viaduct winter league on Sunday, and it's my turn on match lake with a bit of spring and middle  thrown in for good measure.

Rolf,s rip off

Huntstrete bridge pool for this one , so only about 15 minutes from my house, and with a Toby inn all you can eat breakfast on the way it was a no brainer, so got to the fishery with plenty of time to spare, a reasonable turnout of 20,
Got into the draw bag and pulled out 24, it's a peg that looks ok but has been a bit off form lately, for company I had the pleasure off one of bath,s match angling legends Jimmy norris, on peg 27, I even got to look inside his aging seat box and was met with an aging selection of classic wagglers.

Complete with crumbling slotted foam.
To my right on 21 was Dave gillard,
Only two rigs today, a .6g as4 for the long pole to fish caster or maggot over groundbait, in about 7ft of water, and a .3g as4 to fish towards the island in about 4ft of water, straight towards it and just to the left of it. At 13mtrs

At the start I cupped in a ball of groundbait on two lines at 14mtrs, one towards Chris Rolf and another towards Mike nicholls.

I also cupped in some casters at the bottom of the island shelf at 13 mtrs.
It started really slowly for everyone by the looks of things, it took me a while to get my first bite and that was a micro perch , next bite was a fouled decent skimmer on the long line towards rolfy, shame it fell off, dropped back in and luckily hooked another straightaway, in the mouth so that got to the net, but apart from a few bits I never had another recent fish from any of the longer deep lines, but I did have an enjoyable match working for bites from my two shallower lines, plenty of roach bites and the occasional good perch, intact I landed 4 good ones but also lost 4, they just seem to drop off for no reason, and they did cost me, as expected it was hard for most, and I was winning with about 15 minutes to go, then my first groundbait market (Chris rolf) landed two decent carp on meat cast to the corner of the island, so I thought that had overtaken me, I wasn't to sure what I had but a quick look and it was probably 14lb or more.
When the scales for to me Jimmy norris was winning with 9lb+
So when I put over 16lb on the scales I thought I at still edge it,and

That was until Rolf put 4lb of silver,s on the scales then his two carp went over 14lb, so second would have to do then.
Weigh sheets below.

Off to Landsend on Sunday for the 3rd round of the winter league, my turn on lake three, I do like that lake, probably the fairest out of all during the winter.

Viaduct winter league rnd 2

Got to the pub in plenty of time for breakfast, which was very nice, (4.25). Got to the fishery and had plenty of room to park, so as it was my turn on lodge lake I parked as close as I could get, that is unless I drew one of the four pegs on cary that are included in the section. I wasn't trusted to do the draw after last time so Leon Hubbard was deployed to the queue, and he drew ok, Clint on 111, Leon himself on 77, me on 105(cary), Ron on 41 and Clayton on 3, so much better than last time , Dan white had this peg last week and had an early carp on meat , so I set up a waggler did to do that, no leads as it's a float only section, and as there are lots of small skimmers in the lake at the mo I set up a .3g drennan wire stem float for maggot and caster over groundbait at 14mtrs slightly to my right, for company I had Steve Jackson on 103 which Tim Ford did well off last week with 19lb of skimmers, so Steve was going to be targeting those at 13 mtrs, and to my left was Scott puddy on 107 which is generally good for a couple of carp, so that was his day sorted , especially as it got very little form for silvers, had to fish with a Brolly up today as the weather men said it was going to rain all day and they weren't wrong, it was pretty relentless.

I was actually complemented on how tidy my peg looked today, I will try and change that next time.
At the start I decided to give the waggler 30 minutes so after depositing a couple of balls of groundbait on the pole line I chucked out the meat, Steve to my right started catching skimmers straight away, but I sticking my guns as if I was going to share one it was likely to be early on, just before the thirty minutes were up I had a slow pull under on the float, but nothing on the end , but it did make me give it another 30 minutes, but no more excitement, so out on the skimmer line, and I had bites immediately, but they were hard to sort out, the small skimmers were coming off the deck, but it was never right trying to catch them by coming up a bit, by now Paul elmes on 102 was slaying it, fishing the waggler and meat at about 35mtrs, also Scott had landed a carp along with lots of branches, at least the peg will be clear of snags for the next angler in a fortnight.
It's amazing how fast the five hours go all of a sudden we were down to the last two hours and the hour wasted on carp at the start was making it hard to catch Steve up, who had been getting the small skimmers since the start, but he was suffering with liners and stupid bites aswell,
I felt the rig was wrong so with the two hours to go I made up a .2g drennan as4 and it made it much better, increasing my catch rate , but I was always to far behind, also I couldn't see how the rest of the section was doing, apart from Andy power on 73 who was dobbing bread to the corner tree fishing 19 mtrs . I've had plenty of bites and thought I would only have about 7lb , but was pleased when they tipped the scales at 11.4, and as lodge switched off a bit that was worth 10 points, Steve Jackson ended up with 15lb of skimmers, and Scott the other side ended with three carp for 30lb, but he wasn't allowed to count his 80lb of branches, Paul elmes on 102 had a steady match putting 18 good carp in the net for a match winning 170lb plus, all his fish falling to wagglered meat, pretty to watch.

Paul with a few of the fish from his winning haul
Andy power was second with 140lb off 73, 19 mtrs looks like he's work to me, I'm not sure it does your back any favours doing it that's for sure, it's a lot of pressure on your body that's for sure.
I was surprised to come 6th in the silvers today, so a small brown envelope came my way, every little helps.
All the weigh sheets are below.

Silverfox rip off

Mike Nicholls managed to broker a deal with Pete the lake owner to have a match on boyd valley lake in bitton, so after a help yourself brekkie in whitchurch in the Toby carvery, (3.75 no coffee and late opening) I did battle with the whitchurch village and keynsham rush hour traffic and got to the lake with 5 minutes to spare before draw time. 16 fishing so a reasonable turnout, I havnt been here for , well I can't remember how long, it's certainly more than 8 years, and it hasn't changed much, there were plenty of skimmers back then but I thing the flying black plague has taken care of those, but according to the people who fish it occasionally there are plenty of roach sonar least we wouldn't blank, it seems the far bank in amongst the reeds was the place to be, so into the draw box and out comes 13, right side then. For company I had Martin McMahon on my right and Andy gard on my left, with roach in mind I set a .8g as4 for 7 mtrs which was as far as I wanted to go as it was going to be a bit breezy and historically it isn't necessary to go to far, also a .4g as4 for 4mtrs and a meat rig for against the reeds.

At the start I cupped in two balls of groundbait at 7mtrs but began on the short caster line, gave it twenty minutes but not a touch, the only person to have a bite was Glen Bailey on peg 11 who had a carp on the long pole, so I went out over my groundbait line on single maggot on a 20 book on .10 , after about ten minutes I had a bite which resulted in an 8lb common being coaxed into the net, back out and a slightly smaller one was soon joining it in the net, shortly after that I had another , again a bit smaller, so after an hour I was winning as Glen hadn't added anymore , I would like to say I had a steady day adding a few more to my tally, but it wasn't to be, bites for everyone were at a premium, the last 4 hours of the match were extremely difficult, I had three more bites, two roach and a lost fouler, the expected roach fest never happened, people were actually fishing for fry  in the reeds just to get a bite, the only person to catch was Glen who did get two carp and a big hybrid on the pole but had a further 8 carp on the lead fishing across to a feed bed using maggot or bread for bait, so Glen ran out the easy winner with 54lb

but I managed second with my three carp and two roach going 17.11 and Mike Jones was third with 17.1.
Glen would have won the silvers aswell as his hybrid went 1.11, but the default win went to Paul barnfield took the honours with 1.1 of fry from the reeds winners picture below aswell as a weigh sheet, not to sure if I will be rushing back to this one, at least not for a match during the cold weather, as I think the gales and cold rain of the previous night possibly had an effect on the outcome.

Pooh

Well that title just about sums up our teams day , the best part of the day was definitely the breakfasts done by the royal oak in somerton, it was a 4 so that was ok, I just hope a few more support it next week,
Time for the draw at the fishery for this well attended team event with 90 fishing, I told the rest I didn't want to draw, but did they listen, no , so I go in to the tin of destruction and give us the folllwing, Clint wojtyla on 11, pooh. But he did have a hand reloading his trolley from an England international, when it all fell off.

Clayton Hudson on peg 1 pooh, Rob hardiman on 60, possibly ok, me on 88, pooh and team newby Leon Hubbard on 123 , pooh, I couldn't have drawn most of us any further from the carp if I had tried, I got to my peg and kept it simple today, a wag to fish meat for carp, I prefer the wag where possible as I feel it's possible to do more with it and search you peg without covering the bait with debris.

There was no wind today so the wag was always going to be easy to do, I also set up a silver,s rig to fish at 14 mtrs for the skimmers if they fancied a go, but with no ripple I wasn't confident, for company I had Scott puddy on my right on 87 and Phil Hardwick on corner peg 90,
I'm not going to waste any more time than I need to on this blog, Phil to my left caught off carp from the off on the lead cast along the end bank, then Jason Radford opposite started catching a bit later, Scott to my right and a small tench on the tip and a few small skimmers on the pole then he managed to share a 7lb carp on the wag and meat, apart from the fish along the end bank between 90 & 94 the main shoal of fish were further down the lake, with Steve Tucker on 77 and Martin Preston on 78 having a peg to peg battle, both fishing the wag and meat ,
My day consisted of a few bits for 5lb and 3 points, the team finished well last on the day with 13 points from 90, so that wasn't a dream start, oh well there's always next week, my turn on lodge lake section, which is the float only section, looking at the long range forecast , it looks to be getting colder next week from about the middle of the week, so that's going to be fun then. Trev senior was too weight on the day with a massive 215lb from peg 131 on Campbell, meat and straight lead, not feeding anything, Martin Preston was second with 150+ and Steve Tucker 3rd with 140+, and Paul elmes 4th with just over 100lb, and see shipp won the silvers off 118 with 25lb ish, all the weigh sheets below, a day to forget for me and my team, onwards and upwards it is then.

Saturday Landsend open

This is my last Saturday off now as due to some staffing changes in veals I will now be working on Saturday,s and having Thursday's off, back with the over 55,s coffin dodged matches, which is ok as they are a good bunch, but I will still have the choice of huntstrete, shiplate, Harescombe or viaduct, so that's ok then, only downside is not being able to have a day with Judith, which we have enjoyed with us both being off on Saturday,s.
But today I fancied Landsend as it's a favourite venue of mine, but at the mo it is definitely aquatic bingo with all the carp being at one end, pretty much the same as ever other venue this winter, so one of three pegs would do, 11\13or 15, so after one of di,s lovely 4.75 brekkie,s it was draw time, first into the tin and out comes 21, oh well another silver,s day it was then, the favoured pegs went to Steve seagar on 11, russ(van gogh)peck on 13, but in all fairness Mike duckett drew it for him, then Derek beard , one of the pawlett clubs finest was on 15.
For company I had mr duckett on 19 and Rob watts was on his favoured peg 24 LOL again.
21 can be ok for silvers , especially some of the lakes skimmers which seem to like this area.

So pretty much the same rigs as Sunday, a couple of .3g as4 rigs, one for 13 mtrs at the bottom of the far shelf, another to fish maggot over micros off to the right at 14 mtrs , one for under empty pellet 22, but it never have me a bite so no more on that waste of a book then, then another for the 6mtr line,
Got to mention the mosella bobble hats which certainly kept my head warm today, and for those who don't like the bobble it is detachable which is useful.

Well I've ended up having an enjoyable day, fishing caster on all the relevant lines, catching a few skimmers with a fair smattering of sensible roach and one good perch of about 12oz, the micro line only gave me 4 small skimmers, caster was definitely the way to go today, with a fairly positive rig, with a bulk and one dropper, it seems to working at the moment , especially on this venue, I ended up with 19.4 which was enough to win the silvers so definitely the correct choice on the day, even if my first fish of the day was a 4.12 carp, but that was the only one I hooked all day.

As expected the other end was the place to be, with russ peck on 13 winning easily with 117lb, catching nearly all his fish dobbing maggot around his peg without feeding, Steve seagar on 11 came second with 56lb and Derek beard was third on 15 with 53lb, weigh sheets below.

Off to viaduct tomorrow for the first match in there tens of 5 winter league, always popular and hotly contested, but I think it will fish quite hard, unless you draw on them, but with russ peck not fishing it , it has freed up a flyer for someone else.

Landsend league rnd 2

No breakfast at the fishery today as di is down with manflu, and with Mike not being able to even boil water there was no one there to do the cooking, it was a stop at lillypool for Jason and me, and it was busy as the mardons club was in there, and they were before us, but credit where credit is due, the two ladies behind the counter seemed to have it sorted, they had us all fed by 7.25 and it was nice and hot, so a definate plus 4.
Cosmic Ken rayner soon had the draw underway and I was fairly early in the draw, hoping for 11 or 14, but no such luck, peg 5 was to be my piece of heaven today,

so it was in all probability another silver,s day as the two beast pegs were occupied by the corner specialist russ peck on 11 and Alan oram on 14, also Adrian "the prawn"Jeffery on 16, which can also be good. Opposite on 18 was fishery owner , Mike duckett, who would be primarily carping, so I could keep an eye on him, just in case the main carp shoal decided to shift down the lake, but I never expected that to happen, so with that in mind I set up maggot dobbing rig for over to the island, but I wasn't to confident in that as it was only about 18 inches deep, a caster rig for about 12 mtrs at the bottom of the island shelf, one for maggot over micros to my right and in the island gap, (same depth), and another for the empty swim each side.
At the start after feeding all the relevant lines I gave it a go against the island , trying to snare an early one , but I wasn't confident, and after about 20 minutes of trying the rig was chucked up the bank never to be wetted  again.
Also the 16 mtr lines only gave me a small perch and a couple of plippy roach, I also only had one bite from a roach on the left hand swim, and nothing from the right hand side.
So I spent the bulk of the day on two lines at 12 mtrs , 11 & 1 oclock, and I had a nice day catching plenty of roach a few nice perch up to a pound , one f1 and two skimmers for a surprising 20lb exactly, so a silver,s approach was definitely the correct choice as the lakes have been hard today, as expected Alan oram didn't make any mistakes in on 14 ending up with 68lb for an easy lake win, I was second on the lake and won the silvers on the day.

So two days of silver,s fishing, most enjoyable.
Below is Alan with part of his lake winning net, catching mostly on meat I think, he did tell me but I forgot lol.

All the weigh sheets are below , and all lakes fished hard, well done to gary o,Shea who had over 80lb off peg 33 on the speci lake, catching mainly on maggot fished at 2 foot in 4 foot of water along the end bank, nice.

Todber manor silver,s league, final round.

I never fished this series due to clashes earlier on,  but I managed to get into this match as Bob gullick couldn't make it, and as he wasn't doing to well anyway, it was a case of just fishing for myself then, (no change there). I travelled on my own as Jason couldn't get in and we never had a dog sitter so Judith stated home,
I found myself listening to radio 2 with Tony Blackburn doing his sounds of the sixties, and I was singing along, Christ I must be getting old I New the words to most of the songs, aaaargh.
I was parked outside poppins cafe in Gillingham just before the 8am opening, shame it never opened till 8.30, so that's a big zero on the score today, very disappointing, so I was ripped off in waitrose for a bacon roll instead.
Got to the fishery about 10 minutes before the draw so plenty of time, John candy was in charge of the draw bucket , and I got in quite early, and out came 68 on ash lake , fairly happy with it, only trouble is there seems to be less roach in here , so it was to be primarily a skimmer day, for company I had Dave Roper on 66 and local boy Ben dukes on 70. Good company then. The wind was blowing right to left. And it was freezing, so I put the Brolly up as a windbreak, and I'm glad I did .
Only two rigs today, a .5g as4 for the short line, 2+2 and a .6g drennan wire stem pattern (can't remember the pattern) for 9 mtrs, due to the wind that was as far as I intended going, ready with plenty of time.

Pete neate shouted the all in, and I cupped in two balls of groundbait on both lines , and began on the short line, it took a while to get a bite and that was a plippy roach, I gave it 40mins but with only another missed bite I picked up the heavier rig and went into the 9 mtr line, I couldn't see Ben but Dave had already had three skimmers to my left, but I soon had a couple, and I was getting indications most put ins, I was catching a few but was always behind Dave at this stage, I persevered with the slightly heavier rig, but it didn't seem right, so I shipped out the short line rig, knowing I was going to be just about touching bottom, and I had two 1lb skimmers in as many out ins, I spent the rest of the match using this rig, didn't change the hook depth or anything, just topping up after every few fish, or if small roach became a nuisance, I kept feeding caster on the short line, where I did get 4 6oz skimmers, but most of the action was at 9mtrs, I honestly thought Dave had beaten me at the end as I reckoned he had 16 to 17lb and I had about 13. Dave weighed first and out 17.2 on the scales , then I went and plopped 18.12 on the weigh net, sorry dave,

It's been hard today as my weight was good enough for second, I was beaten by Chris albiston  on peg 40 homeground, well done to him as the wind was straight in his face, very chilly I suspect.

Full weigh sheets below

Off to Landsend tomorrow for rnd 2 of the winter league there, and it's my turn on the match lake, peg 11 or 14 plz.

Just a bit of pleasure

Happy New year to you all,
New year's day and a spare few hours so it would be rude not to get a few hours in on the bank, so after a 4.25 brekkie in the Toby inn in whitchurch Judith and me headed down to Landsend fishery, hoping it wasn't going to be to busy as I fancied having a go at the top end of the match lake, especially as it would be out of the wind, we got to the Carpark and was greeted by one van, which belonged to Rob watts, who luckily was sat on 21, so trolley loaded and we headed up to peg 14. Only a couple of rigs, one to fish maggot at just over half depth all round the peg, without feeding , and another for hard pellet on the deck slightly to the left at 13 mtrs. Shipped out with triple maggot lowered the rig in, turn round to talk to judith, looked back and no float, lol, first carp then, only about 4lb, but welcome,

 It didn't take long to get another one, to be fair I half expected it as this end of the lake has been the area to draw, and the best approach has been just dobbing maggot around at various depths except on the deck,
I let Judith have a go and she soon had a couple including the biggest fish of the session of about 8lb, not that she enjoyed it, as her face shows, bragging rights again !!!!.

So after that I chucked her off the box , had another 7 carp , 5 on maggot and two on the deck on hard pellet, along with a couple of decent skimmers, a nice hybrid and an unseasonal tench, so not a bad short session,

Off to Todber on Saturday as I have managed to guest in the last of the silvers league, then back to Landsend on Sunday for round two of the winter  league, I'm on the match lake so a nice draw please, top end would be nice, but with the wind going easterly the early pegs may be a bit more sheltered so who really knows.