Over 55,s and disabled

Back to huntstrete again today for the start of this year's popular matches for the over 55,s and disabled, 12 minutes from my door to the fishery, that makes a change. Only 19 fishing today which is a few down but at least it afforded us a bit of extra room, I got quite early into the draw bag and pulled out peg 28, definitely a run to peg, it's got an end of an island to fish to, and the f1,s and carp run around the islands in this lake, it's a long way off 16/17 mtrs, but with no wind today it should be quite easy.

I only set a meat rig rig for 5mtrs, and two pellet rigs for over towards the island, one just off in about 2 foot of water, and the other up on the island shelf in 15 inches of water, the island does have a nice look to it, even if there are a few branches and bits hanging off the it.

The short meat line was a waste, only.one bream, and only.one fish on the shallower island rig, all my sport was on the slightly deeper rig, I fed 6mm hard pellet via a catapult and fished a banded 8mm on a b960 size 16 on .16 line. And I've had an enjoyable day catching small carp and f1,s, it wasn't hectic, just nice and steady,  In the end I thought I had about 90lb, but the scales.told a slightly different story with my nets going just over 103lb .

. The lake as a whole has fished a bit hard , I don't think the bright sunshine, no ripple and a slight frost helped., Mike nicholls came.second from peg 16 with just short of 37lb.
Top silvers.went to hughie(eggo) Evans on peg 31 with 18lb, catching roach and some.skimmers up in the water.

The weigh sheet s are below, and also I am running a match on Shiplate farm next Thursday on West pool, ring  or txt me to book in, it will be a 9am draw.

Ivy house, heron lake

Haven't been to ivy house for a few months, so with nothing else on it was the ideal opportunity, took Jason to buy my breakfast, and very nice too, always tastes better when someone else has to pay for it LOL.
Heron is a new lake Andy has dug fairly recently, and he had filled it with thousands of small carp, a few.hundred bigger.carp and lots of f1,s, which I was told were.the fish to catch to do well as they are 5 times bigger.than most of the carp, which average 2 to 5oz,
I got into the draw queue early and pulled out 17, not the best of draws by the seem of things but I was told by several people that some of the better carp seem to like this area, but it didn't sound as though there were many f1,s around this end of the island.

I set up a rig for maggot.over groundbait at 13 mtrs, a method that has been producing on this lake, a pellet rig for 16 mtrs, where I managed to get into the shallower water.towards the island, Andy has a 16mtr limit at the fishery, and there is a ban on long lineing aswell, which was a shame.As I could have easily reached the island with another extension, also a maggot rig for the same.16 mtr line, and a small waggler to fish  near the island.
At the start I began on the 13 mtr line with maggot, but after 15 minutes I had only had one fish, so I switched to the banded pellet at 16 mtrs, and began catching small carp straight away, but they were tiny, but feeding hard 4,s and banding a 6 at least I was catching well , but Gary etheridge on 21 was flying , catching f1,s, which were 4 or 5 times bigger than my carp. And it never improved for me as the fabled better fish never showed and I never had any f1,s till the last hour when I managed a few on maggot, in hindsight(I hate that word) I should have switched to maggot earlier as I may have had a few more, but I don't think it would have mattered to much as Gary caught to the end, so he was always looking like the winner, and he was as his net of all f1,s went 88, pushing Ryan shipp into second who had 67lb from peg 3.

The full weigh sheet is below as normal, shows there were plenty of fish caught , even if most were very small, hopefully they will grow on, quickly I hope.

Huntstrete silvers match

Last match in this series run by Dave gillard, well.done matey. Only money to be won on the series was in the k/o, and today.I was in the final against Mike jones, a sneaky old boy from back in the day when he was certainly one of the main men on the cicuit, not just locally but known nationally, he even came second in a good looking male.angler competition to that well known male model dickie carr, I hope the vote was rigged lol.
We.were.allowed to draw first as it was the final, Mike pulled peg 7, then I go and pull out peg 8, so a proper peg to peg battle,

 and with Mike nicholls on 6 there was certainly a few.years on the bank between us, well more them to be honest.

I only set up two rigs, a .6 rig for skimmers , hopefully, at 5mtrs and 2 lines at 11mtrs, 11 and 1 o'clock, and a .4g shotted.to fish more on the drop in case they fish wanted a falling bait, on my left was Steve tanner who always insists on a quid, and I hate to disappoint,
At the start I cupped in two balls on the two longer lines with casters in and one ball at 5mtrs, and began feeding some caster over the short line. I had only just  finished feeding and both Mike's were landing decent skimmers, I went out and had a 1oz sample, that wasn't scripted.
It certainly.didn't pan out to be a fish fest today, odd people were getting a.few, of the anglers I could see Mike nicholls was getting odd better skimmers on soft pellet then later in the match he had a run on pinkie, also Steve Dawson on 15 was catching steadily with fish of all sizes, no matter what I did, I couldn't string any fish together, it was a case of having  to switch between all my lines nicking  odd fish, nothing big , my biggest skimmer was just over a pound, I even had to catch some roach halfway up the shelf to my left on my topkit just to keep putting something in the net, I only did that as Mike Jones had odd fish doing the same, Mike also had 5 better skimmers in the edge , but it wasn't enough as at the end I had 15lb+ to his near 9lb, overall steve.Dawson won with 28lb,

Dave wride was 2nd with 25lb off unfancied peg 18 and Mike nicholls had 24lb, so it fished ok, weigh sheets below.

As far as the tanner quid goes I had to put up a road block in the car park as he was trying to make a break for it .

Landsend league final rnd

Back to my favourite venue for this last match of this series, as always well run by Ken rayner, but of a sad day .today as the cafe is shutting at the fishery, so I will give it a 5+, it was nice while it lasted 😢.
I was going into today in the final of the k/o against rich heatley, and lying second in the league behind Paul elmes, I needed to win my lake today and hope Paul finished lower than 5 th for me.to win the league,
So into the draw tin and out comes 66 for me up on lake three, I like this lake as the fish normally move about a bit meaning there are lots of pegs capable of winning off, for company I had Lee Williams on 68 and Lewis Jones on 62, and opposite I had Gary o,Shea who was standing.in for Bob gullick.

As you can see I had the ends of two island to fish too, so that should be ok, also Mike has done a lot of work on this peg taking out the reed bed to my right so hopefully some fish would be down there.

I only made two rigs up, a .2 sensas foam bodied thing that seems extremely strong, it would do for the right hand margin, and shallowing up about 4 inches I could fish about halfway along the left hand island, the other rig was a 4x12 wire stem float to fish meat in the island gap towards each island , and the same.rig would do for 6 mtrs and down the left hand margin as it was the same depth.
at the start I fed some meat towards each island, some pellets down the right hand margin, and some.meat at 6 mtrs and down the left side, I also fired a few.pellets along the left hand island.
I started across by the left hand island, and hooked two carp in the first two drops, both fouled and they both came off, and that was the last of any action in that spot for the whole match, so I switched to the right hand island and managed to land a couple from there,  it that was the only two bites from that spot, I cupped in a bit of meat at 14 mtrs to my right in the middle, and had two fish from there, it was hard to get more than two fish off any line in the early stages, Gary opposite was also having a couple but again he couldn't get them lined up. I went into the right hand margin and had a couple from there, then nothing, so across to the left against the island, and I managed a couple from there aswell on banded 8mm, back into the right hand margin, and another one from there , also on banded 8mm. I had a few.fish from the two pellet lines , also a couple on the 6mtr meat line towards the end, it's hard to see what's happening in this lake as you can't see anyone, I thought it was going to be close between me and gary, and after.the match it turned out we had done ok so it was going to be between him and me for the lake win, I had clicked 71 lb, but I think I had missed a couple of smaller fish in the count, the weigh in started on the far side and as expected.gary.was.top.weight with 65lb when they got to me, I put 78lb on the scales, so I did miss a couple ,  but I got the required lake win,

Silver,s on this lake was won by Lee on 68 with 23lb of mainly f1,s well.done

Top weight overall on the day went to Steve seager on peg 16 with 140lb+
As for the league Paul elmes did well Off 28 to come second on his lake, so securing top spot in the league, so second will have to do, but I did win th k/o so that was ok, weigh sheets below.

Also a big thanks to Andy seery who again sent up some of his so simple pellets, liquids and waters etc, for the winners and framers,  always appreciated matey.

Plantations silver,s match

This is the last one for now at this excellent silvers lake, the carp and pleasure anglers take over from now on, so we won't be back till next winter, breakfast in the bridge was still very nice as long as you body swerve the sausages and have extra bacon, (4.5).
Got to the car park to find we only Had 11 fishing which is a shame as the fishing is so good. I whizzed round and pegged it, trying to make sure I could give most people a bit of respite  from the 40 mph winds, so it meant all the best bank was empty just in case a pleasure angler turned up, most unlikely in this weather.
I drew.for mat culpin and handed.him 2, which is permanent peg 19, then he drew for me putting me on 11, and peg today , and it was.permanent peg 39, for company I had me old mate.Ron hardiman to my right, to my left was the empty end bank, which normally holds plenty of carp, I hoped they would stay away !!!

I only set up two rigs, a .4g drennan wire stem float double bulked to fish over groundbait at 9 mtrs, and a 4x12 for roach at 4 mtrs, and if necessary the lighter rig would do for over the groundbait line.
On the whistle  I cupped in three balls at 9 mtrs.and began feeding caster short.
It was a slow start , slower than normal.
Ron was  hooking  carp and I did remind him a couple of times that this was a silvers match, ha ha .
I shouldn't have.said it to him really as it wasn't long before I had the same problem,  I was getting a few.skimmers over the groundbait mainly on caster but a few on maggot.aswell, I thought  i as doing ok at one stage, but the carp became a real nuisance, short line , long  line, they seemed to be wherever I fed.
And it certainly upset the swim, making catching the required silvers very difficult, as the match went on it became clear that Mark broomsgrove on 8 was.doing the business, and further along that bank John fuidge and steve Rolf were catching, as far as I could tell as I couldn't quite see. By the end I had over 20lb but had  hooked 18 carp, and maybe spiked a few more, there were plenty there as to my left along the end bank they were showing all day.
I started at my peg with the scales and put 24.8 in the net, but that was no good today as mark(venue expert lol) broomsgrove had 43.8 of skimmers.and roach a proper nice net of fish, well done.

John fuidge was second with 39  and Steve Rolf had 38, and apart from a couple everyone else had over 20, it's a really good silvers.lake, and to be honest the carp fishing for small to med size carp is also very good.
I have sunk to new depths today and had to hand over a quid to mat culpin, ouch that hurt 😂😂😂😂😂😂.

The weigh sheet below,

Landsend individual winter league rnd 5

This is the penultimate round of this league, only one no show which was a surprise as the weather was going to be a bit blustery (50mph westerly) again, but after one of di,s  last breakfast as they are shutting the cafe as if the end of this month, it will be missed, 😟. A 5 today.
A few rigs today, two .4g pc slims for the right and left margins, one for meat and one for pellet, a meat rig for topset and one which as much as I could hold in the wind, and lastly a first for me, I set up a straight lead to fish on the end of the island, in all my years fishing here it's the first time I have succumbed to dark art , but it was a case of neccesaty as I was doing well in the league and I needed good section points.
I had Russ peck opposite on 24 so it looked as though we would be sharing the island, after fishing the winter league at viaduct he soon learnt it was acceptable to cast your lead wherever you liked, lol, but he was good today.
I started on the short meat line, but it was impossible to hold still, Russ began on the tip and was soon playing his first carp on meat, so I put down the meat rig and picked up the lead rod, put a 8mm hard pellet in the band and plopped it on the end of the island.

A little video just to prove I did it, aaaaargh.
I didn't take to long for me to nearly lose my rod, carp one in the net, next chuck another, then I lost a fouler, then nothing, so I have it a few minutes more, then went down the right hand margin, and apart from one more on the tip, one on the short meat line the rest of my match was spent in my right hand margin fishing topset and one with banded 8mm pellet over hard 6,s, catching odd carp up to about 9lb, I needed to get the rig as far under the branches as I could, it is still 3 foot deep right to the bank, and it's a bit of a banker for a few fish normally.
Russ continued to catch a few on tip,  it as the match went along it soon became apparent that now McMahon on peg 16 was catching well short on meat as was Bob gullick on peg 19, also Stu Barnett on peg 5 had begun to moan on a good run of carp short on meat towards the end, , I don't think anyone was to upset to here the all out, as I had spent most of the day having to look directly into the game my eyes felt like they had been shotblasted, I can't remember another match that I have had to look into a wind that was that strong for the duration of the match, our lake was won by Bob gullick with 148lb, and he didn't even need the ten pounder he had before the start on a bare hook.

How McMahon came second with 125and I was third with 93lb, that was also too three in the match on the day.
And I had to give Bob gullick his quid back from the last round, oh well swings and roundabouts as they say .well.done bob.

The weigh sheets for the three  lakes are below, and it fished ok to be fair, and it's good to see there is a lot of work going on at the fishery with Mike employing a permanent helper which will be good. It's already beginning to look better.

Huntstrete silvers match

Back to my doorstep fishery again for this match, it's a nice fishery with lots of options, after.My normal bacon sandwich stop on the way I was pulling into the gates just 12 minutes from my door, the weather was meant to be carp again with winds gusting to nearly 50mph and a bit cooler than of late, and that's just what we got. We had three no shows today for various reasons so it was decided to leave one peg out of three sections, never an easy choice, but we did it on results and weather conditions, that done it was time for the draw. I got in quite early and saw peg 3 on my disc, not normally a peg of choice as this far end last the top island has been hard with 10lb being the best weight from the peg so far, and that was by Barney in the last round, so perhaps it would be ok , as for the wind I was a bit more fortunate than most as one as at the top end and I had less ripple and dave then the pegs further down the lake, although the actual wind was horrendous, and it rained at odd times, but there is a parking bay right behind the peg so at least all my kit could stay in the van so it stayed dry and never blew away, unlike some others, poor old Mr Nicholls , he lost all his bait boxes with his quarter pints in, never to be seen again, also his groundbait bowl with his normal dusting across the bottom shot off lol.

Rigs were kept to a minimum today a 1g drennan as7 for two lines ,one at 11 mtrs (hopefully) and at 9 mtrs(possibly) and a .6g drennan as6 for topset and two(realistic).
On the whistle I cupped in two balls of groundbait with some casters on the two longer lines, and one on the short line. Starting on the 11mtr line I had to wait a while for my first bite, and that was a 4 oz skimmer, but the wind was increasing all the time and it became an unviable line, so back to 9 mtrs which I could occasionally hold steadyish but no bites, so I was soon back on the short line, and I was soon getting bites from small roach, then after.about an hour I started getting odd skimmers, not big ones but fish up to 10oz.
I had a good couple of hours on the short line with small fish on caster, also I was lucky to have the trip against the wind, which always  helps presentation, as far as I could see I was getting more sport than most, also we took peg 4 out as it's been hard, also Harry Muir on 5 had to leave so I had plenty of room, the only other angler I could see catching was John fry on peg 8.
I did manage to have odd goes at 9 mtrs where I did get a 1 1/2 lb skimmer and towards the end I had three of the new small tench the club have stocked recently, also I had three f1,s, I had the scales so started weighing in at 15 back to my peg, and there quite a few skimmers caught along this bank with John fry doing the best with 21lb so well done to him, my silvers went 18.15 and my f1,s went 4lb for a total of 22.15, Alan oram had the top overall weight on the day with 24lb about half and half silver,s and carp, weigh sheets below.

Viaduct winter league rnd 5

This was the final match in this popular  series, my turn on the match lake today with a few pegs on spring and middle, apart from possibly 37 on middle the rest would be best avoided. So Clint went in to do the draw and ideally hoping for a swim on the match lake for me, and he did me ok coming back with 43, it's on the left hand bank, second peg in on the island, normally a good pole and wag peg , but with the wind meant to be gusting up to nearly 50mph and coming from a more southerly  than westerly direction, meaning it would be coming from the right, for company I had Craig Horton on 42 and Steve Tucker on 44.

I was going to keep it simple.today, only bait on the table was a tub of 8mm meat, confident of stupid , only time would tell.

That's a big bait tray for very little bait lol. I set up a wag and a straight lead, and also a pole rig (4x12) to fish meat at 5 mtrs, that was about as far as I wanted to go in the wind, Steve to my left did set up to fish 14mtrs, but struggled when he did try.
On the whistle I began on the wag, and twenty minutes in I had three good f1,s in the net, but the wind was making it impossible to feed or even cast a float to where I needed to be , I did persevere with it and if the wind allowed the float to stay close to the island I could get a bite, so it was a case of trying the wag when the wind would allow , but switch to the tip when it got to bad, i felt the wag was giving me.more bites  but the lead was  easier to fish, I had been feeding the the short pole line all match, and had tried it a few times during the match, with only two skimmers.to show for my efforts, then with 20 minutes to go, some fish arrived when I had three decent carp and an f1 , I didn't want it to finish, I new I had done ok on the match lake, but unfortunately I had a good view of the Edmunds on 37 who had had 6 carp and twenty  pounds of skimmers, and today was The decider in our pound side bet as it was two a piece in the league, he weighed before me and had 86lb total,

 I thought it may be close, I had looked in one net and it looked like about 65lb and I had two decent carp in another net, but it wasn't to be as my fish went just over 80lb, close but not close enough .

So he got the shout 3 to 2 in the pounds, but luckily I had covered my bets by having a quid in every round with mat culpin, cheers Matty, well done trig.

Also trig was.second individual in the league behind Andy power, and his spotted fin team won the league beating the Preston innovations star.studded team into second by two point, all the weigh sheets listed below as normal, and as you will see, the corners on Campbell were the place to be, well done all the framers.on the day.