Stafford moor fishomanic weekend

Travelled down on Friday with judith for this well attended Weekender, the object is to fish on the Saturday and come top3 in section to qualify for the Sunday final, 60 anglers , 20 on each lake, tanner's, woodpecker and oak.
First things first was a quick look around the fishery as there was a practice match on, and to be fair it was fishing really well, ended up on woodpecker chatting to Chris davis who was having one of his legendary mares, losing over 20 carp, not to mention rigs hooks and snapped elastic, but he did have a couple of new jokes.
Steve Shaw won the match on about peg 18 on tanner's with 260lb.
Stayed at the chez moi guest house in beaford which is about 10 minutes from the fishery, lovely place and a top notch breakfast, have it a straight 5 last time, and after a good night's sleep it had the same this time. Lovely.
Got to the fishery a out 20 minutes after the rolling 8am draw, into the bag and out comes 16 on oak, not to disappointing as it's a nice lake with a good head of carp up to 5lb, the peg was just over halfway up the far side, my section was the 4 pegs to my left going to the end of the lake, and opposite form Dan white on 5 going back up to peg 1 and with some good anglers in the section it was going to be tough to qualify, especially with the wind blowing straight at us, whilst the anglers opposite had it off there backs, coupled with occasional rain showers it was always going to be uncomfortable.

To cut a long story short , it was hard going with presentation being all but impossible to achieve, and with fan opposite on 5 and Sam Powell on 4 both catching really well on paste that was the top 3 sorted , third place was the only option, first three hours was ok with most people catching some, but at the halfway point the lake switched off, I only had 5 fish in that period, with some not having any, so I pleased to clinch that third spot with 67lb, behind Dan with over 140 and Sam with 120+, so into the final for the first time. Weigh sheets below.

Back to the b and  b where we met up with Brian shanks and Ron hardiman, who we had a good evening in the local for a nice burger followed by a cheeseboard, up a bit later this morning and got to the fishery ten minutes before draw time, and found myself at the back of the draw queue, and had to watch as most of the flyers came out at the near end of tanner's, Nikki miller on 20, and the irrepressible trig Edmunds on 1, that's done and used then, when I got there in I go with only.a couple of discs left in the bag, out comrs peg 9, oh well always next year, I did wander down to see trig and took a picture of the winner and his peg before the start.

Not much more to say really, I had a totally crap day ending up with 6carp for thirty two pounds and plum last in the match, one to forget, Steve ford to my right had 110lb but had a torrid day losing at least 40 lb and breaking several pole bits, to my left Sam Powell had 5 early fish on the conker and few more buying the day plus a lot of silvers to end up with 71lb, but as expected the other end was the place to be, with up and coming trig winning the grand with 193lb, it was a bit of a forgone conclusion really, he isn't blowing many, if any pegs recently , well done matey.

Well Judith and me.were.Soon beating a hasty retreat with a stop at burger king for a bit of comfort eating lol.

Must say it is as always a well run event with the coombes family doing a brilliant job. And the work is ongoing  all the time so I can only see the fishery going from strength to strength, well done  keep it up as it's a gem of a fishery. The only down side of the weekend was Paul  tidball having his van broken into on the morning and having all his rods and pole stolen, luckily the site  cctv seems to have caught the car on camera, so hopefully a good outcome.

Judith spent a  large part of the weekend sat in the van , watching the grand prix, only one picture of her, on the first day just before the Brolly blew away.

Mr and Mrs at huntstrete

Had my brother in laws funeral today so no match , some things are more important.
But we thought we may be able to snatch an evening at huntstrete as it's only 15 minutes up the road. We got to the lakes late afternoon and had a quick reccy, I fancied withy in the narrows around the island on the right hand bank, but unfortunately someone was already  there, so a swift retreat back to bridge and a short trolley push round to peg 24, only. 11 mtrs to the island, but we only intended to go about 8.5 mtrs as the island shelf comes out a long way and we would be fishing in a little over 2 foot of water, only.set up a .2g rig for banded 8mm over.loose fed 6,s,
Soon set up so had a go and landed a 4lb mirror straight away, so I got off the box and let Judith carry on, and she did, landing some nice carp and plenty of f1,s, plus the inevitable skimmers, also some nice roach up.to nearly a.pound.

I did manage to get an odd go on the box, and had a few.nice fish, these fish are certainly.nice looking healthy fish, but I only got to have short spells, as Judith was enjoying it to much.

Again I had to throw the bait away to make her pack up, the one last fish kept going on, in the end she managed.to share a nice double figure common right at the end, a very nice fish aswell.

 it was definitely fishing on the cheap, as we probably had 90lb of fish on about 2  quids worth of pellets,

This weekend we off down to Devon for Stafford moors fishomaniac weekender, should be good and the weather looks to be a bit cooler, so it should be more comfortable, also we are staying at a guest house which does the best breakfast ever, I have it a straight 5 on the rixster scale , me and Judith are hoping it's the same again this year.

Float only league rnd 4

Shiplate farm for this one, all lakes including the squircle, but first things first, breakfast, back to lillypool again today, and I wasn't disappointed either, so I will give it a 4.75, it was very good.
Got to the fishery in plenty of time, good to see steve has done a really good job on the fishery, trimming most of the bushes and trees back so all parts of the swims were fishable.
Got the draw underway on time, and I let John white draw for me as we always have a "friendly" quid, he had drawn 9 on the squircle,  and then he handed me 15 on west pool, the longest walk on the fishery, and probably the longest walk we have on any of our fisheries we use, 58 on Landsend is probably further, but it's always that bit easier walking to a good peg. Got to my peg with and hour to get ready, plenty of time. It's the end peg on the lake so for company I had Mark  "podge" Jefferies on 13, and I had to look at the back of Lee Williams on peg 15 on the main lake.

Rigs today were all pellets affairs, one for each side margins, to the right it was ten inches deep, and to the left it was 18 inches deep, a rig for the bottom of the nearside shelf slightly to the right, a rig to fish the end bank to my left, a rig for tight to the far side on the deck and a shallow stalking rig,
At the start I began on the deck rig slightly to  my right, whilst feeding all other lines, I had a skimmer quite quickly, then I saw a.tail pattern to my right in the shallow water, so dropped the margin rig in and soon had a 4 pounder attached to the end, that was the last action I had from either margin, I could see off fish moving in and out of each margin, but they didn't want.to stop and feed, also each far side on the deck swims.only produced a couple of squeekers, I spent 90% of the match with the shallow stalking rig, either lifting and dropping against the far bank or.trying to mug a cruiser as it went through, I used a .2g  drennan inline dibber for the first time today, and it was good, so will be getting some more for sure, there were plenty of fish about But they weren't to keen on giving  themselves up, by the end of the match I had clicked over.100lb , but I tend to over.click a bit, so I thought I had about 85, catching half against the far side and the rest mugged, mainly.small fish between a pound and 3 but with a couple of better fish to 9lb,all the better fish fell to the mugging approach., As far.as.I could tell I had won my.section and possibly The lake, I was last.to weigh in on the lake,.and.Mark jones.was.winning the section with 76lb, on peg 10 and Tom mangnal, on 7 was top on the lake with 89lb, my two nets went 110lb so that was ok then, the section win I needed to keep me in with any.sort.of shout.

The lakes.fished really.well with 14 weights over.100lb, and Gabe skarba on peg 2 on the main lake.running out an easy winner with 216lb, catching mainly against the island on banded pellet well done matey. Lee(I may have 100lb ) Williams on 15 main lake.was.second with 177lb, and Shaun Townsend on 13 Hawthorn had 156lb.
Lee also had the top silvers.weight with 31lb of skimmers, all on meat whilst fishing short for carp, nice.
As normal the weigh sheets are below, apart from West pool sheet, as I forgot to get a pic., Must say that was probably the hottest conditions I have fished in this year, been in the sun all day with no breeze, stifling don't really do it justice, it was.over 30c , Dave white had to leave early on 12 suffering heatstroke, it was bordering on painful, I drank 2 1/2 litres of water.during the match, and had to take some Nurofen with an hour to go as my.head was starting to bang.

Acorn costcutter, tuesday

I was meant to be going to Barston with Chris fox to fish a fundraiser match for the ladies England team, as they are.self funding and need all the funds they can muster to help them compete,  but our oldest dog is struggling, and last night and this morning she didn't seem to good, but she is 13 1/2 and that is quite old for the breed, (large munsterlander), so Judith managed to get her booked in with the vet at 12.30, so I decided to go to acorn, so if I needed to get home quickly it's only 30mins away , not.The 2 1/2 hours it would be from barston, felt a bit guilty letting Chris down on the morning, but some things are.more important, and he understood as he's a dog person aswell.
got to acorn in plenty of time.For the draw, and found 26 fishing, quite a few more than normal. Soon draw time and I got into Ray bazeley,s ball bag of doom early, and saw ball 7 looking back at me, a nice peg but with peg 5 in aswell, which is opposite and slightly to the left, I thought it may upset the far bank, in the  eat holes where I like fishing, but it was a nice short walk from the van !!!.

 its.a nice.looking peg with with a  good looking far bank, if not a tad shallow at about 6inches. But I don'don't mind shallow water.

And the left hand margin looked good, with nice depth of 15 inches close to the bank, just a topset and one distance away.

So rigs today were all pellet orientated, one for the far side in the shallow water, another for the left hand margin, another for the deep water slightly to the left on topset and two, and another about  five feet off the bank to my left,
The whistle.went and I went straight in on the down the track rig, there were fish there , but it was hard to pin them down, they were coming up in the water, but hard to catch, I had one carp, which I had shallow , and a few silvers, then going into the second hour they seemed to settle a bit and I began to string  a few fish together, but it didn't last, foulers.Soon became a problem again, it's all in the feeding,   and I got it wrong today that's for sure.
So I went across into the shallow water, and again had a steady run of fish, its.certainly interesting.watching a.fish with its back out of the water heading towards the hookbait, sometimes.they take it and sometimes they  don't,
I came back in into the line I had been feeding 5 foot off the bank, and had a couple of fish from that aswell, but it was too slow, I saw a tail pattern down the edge so dropped  the rig in and caught straight away, but it didn't last to long, after several fish, it went quiet, not surprised really as it's normally a.last hour job down the edge, so back across to the far side for a few more mud muggers,
I started feeding some pellets at the end of my nets with about two hours to go, it began fizzing very quickly, and to be honest all other lines were binned, apart from the topset line in front of my nets and left hand margin, the last couple of hours went very quickly, as I was catching from both lines, the match finished to soon for me as the peg was really strong towards the end, I thought I had 160lb plus, but with a few others catching well it was hard to call, Mike hill was first to weigh on peg 1, and had 166lb, well done to him, also on peg 37 d turberville had 160, and with tom(I can't lie straight in bed ) thick admitting to 150 it was all to play for, but I had enough as my nets went 179lb

, which was enough on the day, it's fished really well, especially as it's one of the biggest Tuesday matches of the year.
The weigh sheets below show how well it fished, some people struggled but it's the same on  every venue.

Off to the river wye.tomorrow with Judith to try and catch some barbel, but with the river low and clear, I think it may be a bit tough. Also dog permitting,

Short pole series rnd 2

Down to Chilton trinity for this match, never manic as far as the carp go. But always interesting and very fair, also being deep close in, it makes an ideal short pole venue, Judith came with me today, which is always good .after picking Jason up it was off to lillypool for breakfast, and it was very nice to, 4.65.
Plenty of time.to get to the fishery, arriving at about 9.10 , met by Tom who was on kettle duty, soon joined by his better half misha and daughter lily, a nicer family you would struggle to find.
Soon got the draw underway and I let Lily draw mine and she handed me 25, I would have preferred the other end of the lake, but it wasn't to be. For company I had Fred wojtyla on 24 , good to see a young angler on the bank, and I know Clint will do his best to make sure he does well . To my left on 26 was travelling partner Jason Radford, and as I said it's a fair venue and difficult to call so I am always happy whichever peg I,m on.
I was soon set up, a margin rig for each side to fish 8mm pellet over hard 6,s, and two more pellet rigs for 6 mtrs , one shallow and one for on the deck, nice and simple, but with a limit as to how far you can fish I  doesn't pay.to have to many options.

On the whistle I started out on the limit with the shallow rig, as sometimes.a couple.of early fish can be snared with the shallow rig, and I did hook one after  about 5 minutes, but for some reason it came.off a short while into the fight, such is life, I have it another 20 minutes shallow , but to no avail, so I went out on the deck over the same line, and was soon playing a.carp.which was safely netted.

Jason by now had a couple shallow, but it wasn't really happening for me, so I had to keep.playing around , trying shallow then deep just trying to to get odd fish, and I did , but it was never enough to keep up with Joe mcmahon, Vince and Ryan shipp keeping up the families good name, also Glen Bailey who I couldn't see but was getting some on his favourite paste rig, the margins didn't show any.life until towards the end when I had a couple down the left hand side.

Which included the biggest fish I had , probably.approaching 12lb,   most of the fish in the lake seem to have.grown on a bit with a good average.size, I only.ended up with 9 carp but but they went 80.15.

Top.weight today went to Glen Bailey with 116.lb  off peg 31, as I said paste was his favoured, (as always lol)method so well done matey. Dumping me.out of the knockout.

Glen Just managing to hold off the shipp threat in the shape of Ryan who was on 27 with 111lb, with Joe mcmahon being third on peg 8 with 110lb, it was a close match with 3 more.weights over 100lb and 93lb was sixth, close and fair, good to see.

The silvers.were.won by the old Silverfox himself , Mike nicholls on 19 with 28.7 of mainly whitebait, just how he likes it.

 just edging out the mosella supremo Vic Bush on peg 11 with 27lb of mainly.skimmers,

 so well done to those two aswell, a nice days fishing for most.As the weigh sheets below show, and the weather was lovely.aswell, not to   hot as a bit of a stiff breeze  sprang up in the second half of the match, keeping us cool.

Next Sunday it is the Shiplate round of the float only.league , just to let people know mark Jones won't be on site doing breakfasts, so make  other arrangements .

Just a bit of an update from steve.ace.who is currently having a good time in Norway after a very dodgy start with cancelled connecting flights. A brief right up below in his own words

Greeted with blue sky's and no wind we set off full of optimism after a brief discussion with a boat angler who exclaimed there were some nice coalies close to home. On arrival mini and I decided to work the lures for a couple of hours giving us maximum scope to work in without the hindrance of other lines. The next 3hrs or so were great fun with cod to double figures and odd coalies. Onto the bottom rods baited with blueys which I feel is the best allrounder we set our traps and sat down for some tucker. 5 mins in my zippy arched over and our favourite tune was being played on the ratchet, with clutch tightened I lent back into a solid thumping fish, a good scrap for a few minutes and we had deep colour , neatly gaffed in the jaw mini lifted the prize up the rocks, a solid healthy cod sent the scales round to 32.5lb., a great fish for July 🙂. Back on the lures we started to see bigger goalies appear these fish fight long and hard once they get into double figures. Mini had a pb of 12lb which surprised him a bit. Soon after I hooked a goodun which went 14lb . Followed by an arm aching 19lb beast , what tremendous sport they are 😃

Looks like Minnie and steve.are having a proper good time, these orange.And yellow plastics doing the business, available in veals fishing tackle on the third floor in Gardner Haskins above the garden centre, Steve is back in the shop on tuesday, and for  anyone venturing off to Norway in the not to distant future of would probably be good if you came in and had a chat.with him, as he certainly seems to do very well over there. So come in for a Few pointers and free info not forgetting the other knowledgeable members of staff who are only to willing to help .

Thursday over 55,s , huntstrete

With only costcutter,s really available on thursdays, I don't see much point in driving for an hour or more to win 30 quid , when I can just drive for 15 minutes and still win the same ammount, but of a no brainer really, plus I can go into the Toby inn carvery in whitchurch for a nice breakfast.
Got to the lakes to find 21 fishing, which is a nice number for bridge pool, Mike Jones was in charge today and tried to peg it so we all had a bit of room or and island to go at, so no moans today, didn't have to do the recording today so I wasn't early into the draw bag, but I wasn't to disappointed to see disc 30 looking at me , last time I was here I won with 90lb, mainly fishing towards the island which is over 18mtrs away, so another day waving 17.5mtrs around, and with temps probably going to hit 30c it was going to be uncomfortable, company wise I had Mike nicholls on 31 and bath legend Chris ollis on 29, both of which would really be more interested in the silvers population of the lake. My peg did look nice , just wish it was at least a mtr less to get to the island.

Rigs today were all banded pellet orientated, a shallow/mugger , a .2 to fish in 4 foot of water at 17mtrs, and another to fish the bottom of th slope in 7foot of water, bait today was 6mm hard pellet for feed and some 8,s for the hook, very minimalistic , but it's all you need at the moment.

As normal the match is split into two halfs, with a weigh in after 3hours so the carp can be weighed and out back !!!!. Rules is rules.
At the start I went across to 17mtrs and expected bites straight away, but  it was ominously quiet, but I did begin to get a few indications and soon had a carp in the net, I had a couple of fish shallow , but it never switched on, last time I had a lot of f1,s in the first half , but today they weren't playing ball so it was carp or bust, I had a few so at the half time weigh in i had 37lb, which was too weight in the first half.
I didn't see to much reason to change in the second half, so I persevered in the same vein, but it was even more difficult in this half, and it was extremely hot, I had left my water at home, I only had one small bottle , but luckily Martin McMahon had a spare bottle and as he was in the shade all day he let me have it, thanks matey.
I did manage a couple of muggers but it was hard , about an hour from the end I set up a heavier shallow rig and began swing it in against the reeds by the island, and this bought me three fish in the last hour, should have done it earlier to be honest, but by now the heat had all but done me in, the only other person I could see catching was Paul haines on 15, but I needn't have worried as my second net went 32lb and with my 5lb of accidental silvers I had 77lb to Paul's 2nd place weight of 59lb, it was certainly a  bit of an endurance test today with the heat, weigh sheets below.
Too silvers weight today went to Steve Dawson on 26 with 27lb of skimmers caught shallow on maggot in the second half, a brilliant weight on the day in hard conditions when most struggled to catch silvers, well done.

Float only rnd 3 Todber manor

Full house today with 40 fishing, so after a nice breakfast at cannards well 4.25. It was off for the 45 minute drive to the fishery, got there in plentry of time, fearing the worst as far as the weather forecast as they were giving 29c and Sun for the most part of the day, but they got it wrong as it was mainly cloudy all day and a brisk easterly helped keep it cool, nice.
I got Shawn kitteridge to draw for me and he handed me 77 on homeground, for company I had Paul elmes on 76 , the corner with the wind blowing into it, and Neil Mercer on 78, Neil asked for a pound side bet, rude not to really, and the rest of my section was taken up by Lee (woolavy) Williams on 79 and Adrian Jeffery on 80. Luckily for us the inform trig Edmunds was first peg in the next section on 81, but he would have  a fight on his hands as Dan white was first peg around the corner on 82.

4 rigs today, a shallow and deep pellet rig for 11 and 5 mtrs, a meat rig for 4 mtrs about halfway up the inside shelf, and a rig for pellet in the margin,
As you can imagine the banter was flowing all day along our bank, and some of it was harsh, but it was enjoyable.
I started on the deck at 11mtrs, and caught quite early, but after a while the bites went iffy , liners, so out on the shallow rig, caught some on that, as did niel, Paul was catching on the deck, Lee and Adrian seemed to be struggling, trig on the end was catching stocky carp regularly, I had a few shallow but it never seemed right, so back on the deck, switching between the 11&5 mtr line, Paul on my right was winning the section with about 2 hours to go, but then the wind picked up and some fish turned up in my left hand margin, and I had a nice  run of fish to 16lb, Neil had not fished the margin till now, but seeing me catch he was soon in there aswell, and with the pegs being quite right it was always going to effect one of us, and unfortunately it was me that stopped catching, and to make matters worse I could hear Paul putting a few late fish together, I only had two fish in the last 35 minutes, so at the end I thought Paul would win the section, and he did with 137lb, so well done matey, I was close with 136lb, but as I thought the last 30 minutes cost me dear.

Niel to my left ended up with 109lb, so the pound was mine, the picture below is him when the realisation of losing a pound hit home, the look on his face is one of a person that has had to give one of his kids away, LOL

The peg to peg battle between trig and Dan was good, but as you would expect trig came out on top with 179lb to dans 162, trig is on a right roll, he's doing it everywhere at the mo, so fair play to him, keep it going matey, oh and did I mention he won the match AGAIN, that is three wins in the first three matches in the series, I may buy him a learn origami set to see if I can tempt him away from fishing, ha ha .

As a whole the venue fished really , with 17 weights over one hundred pounds, with over a ton needed to win each section of 5, weigh sheets below.