Thursday costcutter at Shiplate farm

Oh well, another torrid day. Can't say to much about this match to be honest as very little happened. Breakfast at the fishery, then into the draw, peg 4 comes out, several other pegs I would have preferred, but it's not to be, although it has a bit of carp form, as have most pegs on there day, I decided on a silver,s day, so a caster rig for short to the bush to my right, and a positive rig for 11 mtrs with worm or maggot over groundbait with worm and caster in, also a deep and shallow pellet rig for 16mtrs, and a wag  for 25 mtrs again deep and shallow, also a meat rig for the left hand margin.

Well as it transpired, I probably did my silvers fishing no good at all, I cupped in a couple of balls of groundbait at 11mtrs with worm and caster in, a small ball down by the bush, and cupped some pellets out at 16 mtrs, fired some out into the wag line, and fed some meat down the edge.
Started down by the bush on caster, bite first drop from a small roach, and that was it , hmmm, tried the work line, had a couple of small fish and that was it there aswell, out to 16 mtrs on pellet, nothing there for now, by now Mark wynne over on 14 had landed 3 carp shallow, but no one else was doing any thing, not much more to say about today if  I am honest, I lost a few foulhooked carp on the pole and wag , I did have a small carp  down by the bush, and a tench, but it was a strange day as it was nearly impossible to get a  bite caster or maggot, very strsnge, and the only people to catch silvers of any more were the Wickham family, and they only fed meat worm and caster, definitely no groundbait, I did get one carp from the long pole line, and a few better skimmers. But t was no good today, the weigh sheet is below, Mark wynne won with 67lb off peg 14, and one fish behind was gary(ned)flinders on 15 with 62lb.
Out fishing a sea match tomorrow night, it's the league run by Steve ace up at Littleton, makes for a change, and I'm looking forward to it.

Float only league rnd 1

After a good breakfast at Landsend fishery cooked by Di and served up by olive, (4.9),me and Jason took the 20 minute drive to viaduct for this first match in the series, it was sold out again , apart from  one person cancelling in the week, but I will get a reserve in for the matches , so no drama.
40 fishing , so split between Campbell and cary, I must admit I feel I am due a day on Campbell, I let Gabe skarba draw for me and he handed me 116, I thought he said he couldn't draw, well not for himself, he was on cary 99.
Got to my peg , and I do have to say it is one of the better ones on the lake as 117 isn't normally put in.

I had Clayton Hudson to my right on 118, and the quiet man Paul faiers on 115, my section ran from me round to 123 , so in all fairness mine was potentially the best peg in the section,
I set up four rigs today, a pellet rig for up and down at 14mtrs, a pellet rig for on the deck at 6 mtrs, and a margin rig for pellet down to my right  , it did look proper sexy mind, and it's a bit of a banker for late in the match.

At the start I began at 14 mtrs on the  deck, it took about 10 minutes to get the first fish, but it was going to be a tough day , no problem getting bites , mostly liners , so foulers were a bit of a problem for everyone I could see, tried shallow but no good, couldn't get a bite shallow, but get back on the deck, and foulers again, I tried coming off the deck to see if that's how they wanted it, but never had a bite doing that, so back down again, I was getting odd fish , but was going nowhere to be honest, I did get one fish shallow, and it was my best fish at about 12lb, the short pole line never have me a fish, and I had to wait until the last 90minutes for the margin to start responding , then it was quite busy right to the end, if not a bit hair raising at times, a proper bit of hit,  hold and pull fishing, only one  piece of kit for this type of fishing , and it's the drennan acolyte carp margin pole , strong as you like, giving me plenty of confidence to pull as hard as I liked. I also invested in one of the new acolyte 3.6 mtr net handles, ideal for netting these bigger fish a bit further out when they pop up, again very strong .
I had 160 lb on the clicker so was pleased  to be fairly close as I weighed in 171lb , for the section win and 4th on the day, so a good start.

 Top  weight on the day went as I expected on peg 81, to Craig Edmunds,even he admitted his peg was black when he got there, and it was, as I had a chat with him before the start , and there were blows and fish all over his peg, but you still need to catch them, and as we know he is more than capable of doing that, so when he put 316lb on the scales, I wasn't to suprised, well done trig.

Weigh sheets below 

Acorn evening sprint

I had a bit of running around to do during the day , so this three hour evening bash was just about right, Judith finished work a bit early so she came along which is always nice, picked Jason up and got to the fishery with about 15 minutes to spare, so time for a bit of a chat, Matt culpin was in attendance and offered a quid side bet, rude not to I think, it did give me chance to explain to him that it's not penalty points he needs to be fishing for in the UK champs though. LOL.
Into the ball bag of doom, and out comes 40, definitely not a peg I would have chosen as in the main it has been a hard peg, even with it being a bridge peg, I did check all around the swim just to check Bob gullick was hiding somewhere.

Only had 6mm hard pellets for feed and some 8,s for the band, it doesn't pay to have to many options on these short matches, it pays to fish in a way you are confident, and I like my pellet fishing , and on the whole carp love pellets.
So only two rigs, one for the left on a topkit length by the bridge, and another for the far side in about 10 inches of water, and the same rig would do for the right hand margin, I drew next to mr culpin so I could keep an eye on my quid at least, looking across at the island I was looking at the back of Brian slipper on peg 4, which is a peg I fancied.
At the start I fed some pellets into each margin, but began on the far bank, hoping the carp would turn up in the margins in the  last half of the match, then went across to the far side feeding quite heavily via a catty .

It took about 15 minutes to get the first fish, and looking round , no one was getting many , and that was pretty much the evening panned out for most, it was a bit of a struggle, but I was catching odd fish from the far side so stuck with it for most of the match, I did try the margins a few times , but only had one carp and one crucian, strange really as the margins are normally your banker towards the end of the match,  it not today for most, the only person to get some from the edge was Chris fox on peg 35 who caught on worm over groundbait.
By the end I had clicked 65lb ,  it I do tend to over clock a bit so was hoping for just over 60, when the scales for to me Brian slipper was top with 59lb, so I was not surprised to weigh 71lb , those fish are a bit plumper than I thought, may was next to weigh, oh no he wasn't as he had snuck back his two carp, oh well going large again on the way home, thanks matey.
Chris fox was next up, and had 76lb , those margin fish were a bit bigger than he thought, and he was one fish away in his net from losing his net, so at the end Chris won , I was second and brian slipper was third, but won the silvers with about 9lb,
So not to bad then, except it rained for the whole match,  it it wasn't cold, should I really mention that Matt had first and second either side, to late !!!! John Howell was sat behind him all night looking for a few tips, I'm sure I heard him snoring at one stage.
Weigh sheet below. And I got to say , matt took the banter really well.

Portishead

With the promise of a good evening weather wise, Judith and me decided to go for a  bit of goby bashing in the marina, we did it a few times last year and it's a nice way of spending an evening, so armed with lrf rods and 3 quids worth of ragworm we found ourselves stood on the quay side, although we have caught on plastics, mainly small pieces of small isome worm, small pieces of fresh rag seem to out fish it down here, rig wise we tend to use a single hook paternoster with a fine wire size 10 hook, with a cylindrical dropshot weight on the end, we have found this type of weight doesn't snag up as much as conventional leads, also the fine wire hooks can be pulled out and bent back into shape to carry on.
It didn't take long to start getting bumps and plucks from these small fish, but as I've said before they can be a bugger to hook, Judith drew first blood with a common goby, they may be small but they are certainly no push over, ask Craig Edmunds who came down and had a go last year and probably missed 20 bites before he had one, they certainly can't be mugged, LOL.

It was more difficult than last year due mainly to the cold spring we have just come out of, but we had enough bites to keep us entertained, also being a busy place you are never short of someone to talk to, with lots of people of varying  ages  and nationalities all interested in what you are doing.
The only annoying thing is the strange people who think it is ok to speak on there mobile phones on loud speak, so everyone is party to there conversation, why dont they just move the phone the extra 6 inches and hold it to there ear and use it correctly, and I don't have to listen to there inane waffling, then there are the ones who insist on playing some rubbish music loudly from there phone so we can all (endure) enjoy it with them , rant done.
Any way as far as the fishing went , as I said it did get harder as the light started to go, then I had a surprise in the shape of a codling, I know they do get a few in there but I never expected that, and it gave a good account of itself on the light HTO rod.

And shortly after that I had a couple of decent flounders, and as you can tell Judith wasn't taking it to well  , she can be a bad loser , but probably not as bad as me lol.

The second one still had a lot of colour on its underside, whereas the first one was pure white .
Judith did redeem herself slightly right at the end with a nice little goldsinny wrasse, so that did cheer her up a bit, but not as much as the  maccy d burger and flat white coffee on the way home, so a good evening in good company and a few fish to boot, what more do you need, certainly much better and most definitely  more interesting than watching tv or trawling the internet,
Pop into veals for a chat , it's not an expensive branch of the sport to get into, but it can be addictive, be warned.

Viaduct spring league rnd 3

But late with this post, been a bit busy . Stopped for breakfast at the Toby in whitchurch for very with Judith and Chris fox before travelling down , chris,s wife Caroline also joined us for the food as it's only 3 mins from home for us, and it was ok , 4.2.
Still got to viaduct with 15 minutes to spare before the draw, Saturdays match fished quite well with a lot of mugging going on, so everyone was expecting a bit of a repeat performance,
Drew towards the end of the queue and wasn't to upset to see 86 on the ticket, would have been happier on Campbell , I'm not even sure where that lake is anymore!!!.
Steady wander up to the peg, with the normal chat with the serial flyer drawbags, got there with an hour to get ready, a few fish on the top but it didn't look quite right to be mugging to many.

Judith was happy as we were in the sun all day, last time we were in the shade with no chance of any warmth, totally different today, it was baking.
I was end peg in my section with the rest of it out of sight due to a big bush to my right, so no chance of being what was going on, but I fully expected to be beaten by several of those pegs, 74\77\78\81\85, unless I could get a run of muggers.
I set up a wag rod for 25 mtrs, a mugging /shallow rig, a deep pellet rig and a meat rig for short, which I didn't expect to catch on as it hasn't begun to work yet, and today was no exception, with only a few people catching odd fish on, so I won't be mentioning that again, I could see Chris fox right down in the bottom corner on 109 which could be ok as there was a fair bit of  scum  floating down there.
At the start I began on the shallow rig whilst keeping a look out for approaching water pigs.

It took about 15 minutes to book my first fish, which I mugged at about 7mtrs, but the book pulled at the net and my rig was up the tree, bugger.
And as the match progressed it became clear the fish weren't going to play ball today, there were a few caught early doors but the lake seemed to shut down for most, I can't right to much more to be honest, as not a lot really happened.
Apart from peg 90 'll the anglers I could see were sat there fairly motionless, lead , waggler , pole nothing was working, I could  hear plenty of splashing from the right hand bank, but as I couldn't see anyone I could only surmise I was getting battered.
I did end up with 5 carp for 56lb and 13lb of accidental skimmers, I had 2 shallow on the pole, one deep in the pole and two in the wag, I did lose a few foulers but that is the nature of the beast .

There were three weights over 100lb from some of the pegs I couldn't see, so that's my league done and dusted for this year, 

Too weight on the day was Paul elmes on 135 with 250lb beating the ever consistent Craig " trig"Edmunds into second with 220lb off 114.

Weigh sheets as always below.

Thursday costcutter at Shiplate farm

Before I give the rundown on today's disasters, a quick word about the float only league, it concerns mugging carp, now I for one have no problem with the method, but I've always done it from a seated position, the new way is to stand up and spot fish further out, and then dropping a pellet on it with up to 17.5 mtrs of pole, I did think about banning standing to mug, but  people have already paid I don't think it would be fair to implement a rule for this year, all I will do is put a stop to is  any one stood on there box to do it, on some of the venues we use the pegging is a bit tighter and it is definitely offputting for anglers either side especially if they are trying to catch closer in, so that's it, no box standing.
Back to Shiplate , and Mark Jones was doing the cooking and it was very good , especially as we had proper metal knives and forks, and China plates, so definitely a 4.8, well done mark.

Into the draw bucket and peg 12 comes out, so it was the far bank again, normally a good draw along here , but with the wind blowing along and into the bank, the trip was going to be going with the wind making any presentation very difficult, so with Mark Jones on 1 and ash Saunders on 15 , unless something special happened we were fishing for third or a silver,s pick up.
But it did look nice with plenty of open water in front and a nice bush in the water to my right.

So I set up a couple of rigs for caster or work over groundbait at 11 mtrs, a pellet rig for up and down at 14 mtrs, a meat rig for down by the bush, and a wag for pellet.
At the start I cupped in two balls of groundbait at 11 mtrs with some worm and caster in it, some pellets at 14 mtrs , some via a catty on the wag line, and some meat down by the bush.
It started off ok with a few skimmers on maggot or worm over the groundbait line, but it didn't last, soon all I could catch were small roach on that line, and even after several attempts during the match it never changed, also the wag was wasted , only one lost carp, the long pole pellet line produced one missed bite, and I had to wait till the last 90 minutes to get a few bites down the edge by the bush, where I had three carp, one tench and a couple of hybrids, obviously no good today as my meagre silvers went 8lb and my three carp went 19.2 for 27.2. As expected Mark won off peg 1 and ash was second off 15, with 110lb and 80 odd respectively, third went to Mike nicholls on 6 with 44!b, silvers were won  by Dave wride again with 28lb from peg 10, it seems a lot of venues are being difficult at the mo, to much tasty spawn for the fish to eat possibly, who knows, or it could be just a case that the fish need some proper settled weather, as we did have a very cold night again, who knows . Weigh sheets below.

Short pole series round 1

Todber manor on hillview lake was the destination for this match , and the series has proved popular this year with 27 booked in and paid for. Also we had some new anglers fishing , along with some old friends who have decided to have a go, we also had a junior in the shape of Freddy wojtyla having a go , and with his dad, Clint helping him out he should do ok, we could do with a few more youngsters fishing to help with the future of the sport, a quick word on breakfast, we stopped at cannards well , and it was ok, 4.25 on the rixster scale.
Everyone was on time or early so the draw was on time, I had the last but one ticket and ended up on 50, a peg I have never fished but these couple of pegs on this side of the spot have been hard, either end peg on here have been the ones to draw, these were occupied by Jason Radford on 49 and the other end on 53 was bob(where's my bridge) gullick, always going to be hard to beat him on that, but as with all the swims on this lake they are really accessible and comfortable.

 Anyway, back to the fishing, and I'd decided to go for an out and out pellet attack, rightly or wrongly, probably the latter to be fair, I set up a pellet rig for the margins, not a bite !, Another for pellet shallow, Another  none starter, and two pellet rigs for on the deck, one for 5-6 mtrs, pole length limit, and one for up the margin shelf at 3 mtrs in 4 foot of water, it turned out to be a difficult match for me with it being hard to string two bites together, Lee (woolavey) Williams to my right was hedging his best a bit and was silver bashing , and doing ok with roach , small skimmers and baby tench, and Jason was doing ok on pellet aswell, but I was proper struggling, I was feeding 6,s and fishing a banded 8, but things certainly weren't going to plan, and that was about as good as it got, I was catching odd carp but never enough to worry Bob on 53, or the anglers behind me on the other side of the spit, as they were doing ok,  it not as good as Bobby g.
It was difficult enough for me to stop using my clicker, I stopped on 24lb but by the end I thought image over 40 but certainly not 60, as for either side, I thought I had been beaten by both Lee and jason, but I managed to beat Lee but Jason had a 12lb common and he beat me by 4lb, I ended up 6th in the section of 9 as I was beaten by most people on the other side of the spit, but 52lb of small carp is still a decent days fishing.

As we expected Bob came out first today with 108lb , a low weight by this venues standards , but a lot of venues have been hard , due I think to the fish recovering from spawning.

Gordon(the lush) canning was second with 99.15 from peg 59 and joe McMahon on 45 was third with 88.15.
Silver,s went to Mike nicholls on 41 with 24lb .
Well done aswell to Freddy who stuck it out on a difficult day but had some nice fish.

Weigh sheets below, even though it was difficult, there were still plenty of fish caught, but being a bit harder made for a fairer match.

Over 55,a huntstrete

After breakfast with Judith , who wasn't able to come with me today as she had some housework to catch up on, it was the 15 minute drive to the fishery, soon done and the kit was out of the van and ready for the draw.
Got early into the draw bag as I was doing the recording again today, out comes 18, just at the bottom of the slope behind the van, so a nice short walk, it's not been very good at this end of the lake for quite a while now, but the wind has been blowing Thursday for a while now, so I was optimistic, it looks nice though.
A nice view looking up the lake from the slope down to the swim.

For company I had league organiser and very old person , Chris Rolf on 19, and opposite on 16 was the very sociable Bristol rovers fan, Dave gillard.
I had two good margins to go at , to the left was a nice bush which comes out quite a wag giving a lot of cover with two foot of water under it right to the bank.

The right hand side gave me a long margin going into the corner, but you can only go 11 mtrs down as there is a rope across the lake to stop you getting to close to a fish refuge !!!! The club have sunken into the lake.

The right hand margin  rig also did for fishing 16 mtrs to the far side,
I also set up a silver,s rig for 5 and 11 mtrs, it was a 1g rig , a bit heavier than I would normally use but with  the wind blowing from all angles I went for a bit of stability.
Mr Rolf blew his whistle to get us underway, I fed a ball of groundbait on the 5 and 11 mtr lines with some worm and caster in. Then fed some pellet to the bush to the left , and down the margin to my right at 11 mtrs, and some across to the  far bank.
I started on the 11 mtr line and had a couple of handsize skimmers in two put ins, ok start, then I  couldn't get a bite, I started on maggot, so I switched to a big bit of dendra, and was rewarded with three better skimmers of about a pound, I was happy with that, but again no more bites, by now Dave opposite was dropping a steady stream of f1,s in his net from the island opposite him, which is a comfy 11 mtrs away.
I had a few more skimmers by switching between the two silvers line, but as with everyone else, the silvers didn't want to settle, probably  down to recent spawning activities.
I did get a couple of carp from the right hand margin towards the end of the third hour, also an f1 from the far side, but that was my only bite  from the far bank, also the left hand margin which looked the best drew a blank.
I managed a few more skimmers from the short line, upping the loose feed here certainly seemed to help, I had a few more small carp down the right , also losing one around the refuge and another which totally did me in the marginal reeds, hey ho.
But I was pleased with the result as I had over 19lb of silvers which also included a tench, for a total of over 59lb, I thought Dave had easily won it but was surprised as he weighed 61lb, and Paul Barney barnfield on 14 won the silvers with just short of 22lb, so well done to those 2, as it turned out our end of the lake fished the best, so I think the wind probably did shift them a bit, also the new f1,s seemed to favouring the shallow water around the islands, but second was ok , weigh sheets below.

Viaduct spring league, rnd 2

Nice leisurely start today, and Judith came along with the promise of a day say in the sun, we picked Chris fox up at 7.50 and got to the Toby inn carvery in whitchurch village for the 8am opening time, breakfast is pretty much standard every time , so a steady 4.35 on the rixster scale, and we stilled managed to get to the fishery by 9.15,
Drew somewhere towards the end of queue and I pulled out 59, so so much for a day in the sun then, it's one of the few swims where it's shaded all day,
And withy he sun out it was going to be a good day for mugging a few, but due to the shade it's impossible to spot them until they are right on top of you.
So the mugging rig was assembled, along with a meat rig for 5 mtrs, a margin rig for pellet under the trees to my left, a pellet rig for on the deck at 14 mtrs, I also plumbed out by the aerator which is 17.5 mtrs and was surprised to find it over a foot shallower than the surrounding area, so I set a rig for that aswell, I never set up a shallow wag and that was probably a big mistake as it transpired, but I normally do ok mugging with the pole, but today was going to turn out to be different.
Also drawing next to my travelling partner meant  the writing was on the wall, even though he has been catching a few in recent matches be can be the grim reaper when it to carp catching. Before the start I had a quick chat with Clive barrow  who was  on 62,   he drew this peg the day before and fished for silvers, but did suffer some carp problems, so it may be ok.

All in and I fed all swims with relevant baits and began on pellet at 14mtrs, 30minutes in and not a bite, then I had a skimmer (4oz), but apart from a briefly fouled carp that was my only action from this line,
Andy (the white ginger  heron)power was stood up opposite on 69 swinging his shallow wag at fish as they swam by,

 from that side of the lake it's easy to spot fish due to the light and background reflection, but  our bank it's nigh on impossible, but Andy was catching steadily from start to finish, luckily he wasn't in my section.
I had Phil Hardwick on 57 who has been doing well down here , so it was going to be a difficult section to win, and with one of the Welsh wonders in the shape of rich aherne on 56 , and with Chris aswell, it was going to be a tough but fair section.
It soon became apparent that the fish didn't appreciate the pole waving about any where  near them, Chris followed andy,s lead and started to get odd fish on the wag, but the fish didn't seem to want to come into the shade where I was, I could see fish to my left the other side of the rope, and out beyond the shade in  front of me , but well beyond pole length, I did manage one on the mugger and lost another, but  it wasn't happening , so two hours to go and I set up a wag, still couldn't get a bite, Andy opposite was still slaying it, but Chris had all but stopped getting bites, I did hook one in the tail winding in which I duly netted, (ha ha ) and I did get one properly, I also had  two bite s out by the aerator, one 3lb bream and a smallish carp. Last hour saw a few turn up down the edge , but not in the numbers than can show up in this peg.

But the last hour saw me catch three more down here and lose a couple of foul hooked fish, Phil was having a Bit   of a mare, losing a few fish in a nasty snag under the trees to my left,

As  I thought it was a tough but fair section with rich on 56 coming top with over 80lb, and Chris next with just over 70, so third in section, not good but not a serious blow out, It may need it to be my dropper LOL, Andy won the lake with over 320lb but was still only second, crazy.  well done to aiden  boriuk on 123 who had 344lb , just look at the top twenty weights, there probably isn't a venue in the country capable of doing these sort of weights across three lakes., You got to take you had off to the long family ( steve,  mat and helen) for running and maintaining such and incredible fishery.

Overall weigh sheets below

Shiplate Thursday costcutter

Back to this nice well looked after fishery today , breakfast was being cooked again by Mark Jones in his mobile kitchen, and very nice aswell, 4.8, only down side was the fact that due to the current swing away from non disposable plastics , which is highly commendable by the uk, the rest of the world world needs to be on board, but as they say in asda, every little helps, so we had wooden knives and forks, but as I said the food was excellent.
Into the draw bucket and 13a comes out, not the desired 15 but with mike(drawbag) laird in attendance, no one was ever going to get it apart from him, for the second match on the trot. But 13a should be ok, and it's as close as I've ever got to the flyer, 11 is as close as I have ever got to it before.
Although it was nice and warm on our bank with the wind coming from behind, those opposite were sat with there coats on, so that combined with the day s before deluge of cold rain, I thought it may be a bit harder than we all hoped.
Set up loads today, a wag to fish at depth with pellet at about 30 mtrs, a margin meat rig, a 5mtr meat rig, a silvers rig for worm or maggot over groundbait with worm and caster in, and lastly a couple of pellet rigs for up and down at 14mtrs. The picture below shows a nice sunny scene, but for those day  in the wind it was a different story, I did hear Mike Jones on peg 4 phoning matron towards the end asking her to ready the hot water bottles.

As I feared the match was very hard for most, I started on the way for the first hour after feeding all lines with the relevant baits, after an hour with one liner I was back on the pole line, it still took me another 15 minutes to put my first fish in the net, which was a pound skimmer, and I had a few more more before it went quiet , so I refed and went out on the long pole pellet line, I thought I would have a carp or two from this line, but never had a bite on the deck , so went out with a shallow rig, and after about 10 minutes of swinging I had a carp of about 8lb, but that was my only bite on the pellet line, even towards the end and with some fizzing going on, I still couldn't get an indication out there, also the margin meat line never have me a bite, and it was the same with the 5mtr meat line, so most of the match was spent on the silvers line and the wag, only very odd bites from silvers, but when I did get one of was of a decent size, treble red maggot seemed the best bait, and I had three more carp on the wag, Mike laird on 15 caught a few as expected ending up with 76lb, but Lee waller on 14b ran him close with a late run on the paste for 72lb, but titch Williams won from peg 2 with 92lb, and Dave wride did what he does best winning the silvers from peg 10 with over 28lb, me , well my  four carp went 27lb and my silvers weighed 15lb which was enough for second in the silvers by default, I'll have it any way it comes LOL, weigh sheet below.