Monday shiplate

John dursley has organised some Monday matches at Shiplate, so today I found myself at the fishery with 14 others, it was nice to catch up with Steve and Carol as I haven't seen them for months.

Onto the draw which was done by John , he pulled out peg 5 for me, a good area for silvers recently, so I thought that may be the way to go, but I hadn't factored in the strength and direction of the wind.

So this will be a short one, due to a proper schoolboy error by me, I couldn't catch any skimmers , there were a few carp down the edges and I did manage to share 7 or 8 in the last 90minutes, with some nice fish up to probably 18lb.

So by the end I reckoned I would have 75lb+, So I packed my kit away, pulled the top part of the nets up onto the bank and went for a chat, as you do, it didn't take to long for Burnham on sea,s very own caped crusader, John dursley, aka drennan man got to our side of the lake, 

we went to my swim and there seemed to be something missing, oh yes I know what it is, it's my net with most of my fish in, aaaargh, John page managed to find it in the lake but the only thing left in it was water, luckily I never had enough to do any good , and it is the first time I have ever lost a net without going over the net limit, as I said earlier a schoolboy error, 😂, I think John page won from peg one, not to sure what with as I was wheel spinning out of the car park before they had even weighed him.😯.

Todber manor, hillview lake.

Today was meant to be a float only league match on hillview and homeground, but due to the covid pandemic and the league being cancelled, I ran it as a short pole match on hillview only, so all 28 pegs were in, I invested in a bingo ball thingy to do the social distancing draw, and it went very well. Judith came with me today and helped by recording the names, she put me down with her pet name for me, as you will see on the sheet at the end.I'm fairly sure some of you will agree 😂

Anyway bingo ball number 54 dropped out for me, it's a peg on the farside of the lake, plenty of room , but with the strong wind blowing mainly straight in but slightly from the right , I new presentation was going to be difficult with wind and trip going the same way, I set up three rigs, one for topset and one straight in front, one for the right hand margin in 10 inches of water and one for the left margin where it was a bit deeper at 15 inches, starting in front, feeding 6,s and banding an 8, I was soon getting bites, but as expected foulers were a problem, I fed some 4,a down each side , and the right hand side soon showed signs of life, but the left for some reason remained barren for most of the day, I shallows up so my bait was about 6inches off the deck, which seemed to help, looking around there seemed to be elastic coming out of most topsets, but niel Mercer was doing the best as far as I could see, on peg 50, catching on topset and one , then topset only towards the end of the match, I had a good spell in my right hand margin, but the left only gave me one small resident dark carp, at the end I thought I had about 220lb, but that was miles behind niel aswell as a few others, so no chance of getting in the main frame, as it turned out niel won with 330lb+, followed by Martin rayet on peg 45 with 321lb, then Paul elmes on 48 had 298lb, I ended up with 243 for default section pick up, in all there was over 5200lb of fish caught which is phenomenal, and the fish are in brilliant condition, I didn't get round to taking any pictures, so all I've got is the sheets which are below .

Boat fishing

By way of a change I booked a trip out with Mike on teddy boy charters at minehead, he may be only 12 (22 really)but he has made a good name for himself in a fairly short time.

Only four of us on the boat today, due to covid 19 and social distancing, myself, judith, james, my youngest son, and lastly dan fowler, also a big thanks to daughter Lauren for helping us out by letting the dogs out for us X.

It was going to be an 8 hour trip, and very sociable start as we left the quay at 12 and were due back in at 8, the beauty of going out of minehead , especially if you are just after a days fishing is that there is no long steam, meaning more fishing time. So ten minutes after leaving the harbour, 

the anchor was down and we were fishing, and it didn't take to long for the ever present doggies to find our baits we did have a few.other fish, a day a hound and some congers(small), Mike decided a move down the channel may be a good idea, , so again after a short steam we had baits in the water, and the fishing was.good, nothing to big but we had allsorts, (not liquorice), small eyes , spotted , blonde and thornback rays.

We had several more hound,s , well when I say we, I mean they did, I couldn't catch one.

And just to cap it off , Judith had a good to add to her species count, even if it was just out of the egg.

Got to say it was a.lovely.day, unbroken sunshine and a flat sea,.along with plenty of fish, we did get quite a few.small conger.up.to double figures, and don't forget the copious amounts of doggies, I can see us doing this again before to long.

Avalon float only

Although the float only league was cancelled, I decided to run the remaining dates as opens, so today we were at Avalon, although the league was going to be a 40 peg affair, due to popular demand I ended up with 46, so all bar two pegs being used, I thought this may affect it as it very rarely gets this sort of pressure, also we had a fair bit of rain during the night which this venue doesn't like, don't ask me why it just seemed fresh rain upsets it in some ways, with the help of Vic we had a social distancing draw which went "fairly" well, I ended up with peg 6, not upset with that, for company I had niel Mercer on my right on 5, and newby, olly"ed sheeran" dark on 7.

Tackle for today was.a.pellet wag for the far side, a margin rig for the right hand side, and a shallow and deep rig for 14 mtrs, it's been torrid for me, as expected it was a tough one today for most me included , I've had terrible day, fished like a bit of an idiot to be fair, I've been palleted by 4 fish, which was a bugger, and lost 4 or 5 others , some fouled but a couple weren't, landed 5 but only small ones for 21lb, Noel to my right did well and came.second with 75lb, top on the day was old 4 pots , Glen Bailey with 88lb, all on paste, 

top silvers went to Mike "silverfox" nicholls with just under 30lb , lots of small.roach and a few better skimmers.

So it's not just Judith who beats me consistently, even partimers do it now LOL 😂

Weigh sheets below as normal, my next outing is a boat trip out of minehead on thursday, should be good the forecast is excellent, but with Judith in the boat I am expecting the worse, ha ha .

Not to much to report

Starting last sunday, Judith and me decided to give bossington beach a go in the game hope we may get a smoothie , but after the moderate walk to the beach we were faced with extremely clear water and bright sun with no waves, so a difficult day it would be then, as I said the water was very clear, it was more like chesil than the Bristol channel.

Soon had some.baits in the water, and we had a bit of a selection from peelers to sandeels, with rag and squid aswell, 

I would love to say we had it bang off, but all we had were a few doggies, well 5 to be precise, needless to say who had three of them, but I'm getting used to it.

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But it was a cracking day with lovely weather , and scenery along the Somerset and North Devon coastline is almost some of the best in the country

Thursday and I was back with the over 55,w and disabled at huntstrete on bridge pool, the organisers weren't to sure as to how many were attending , so all 34 pegs went into the bag, but with only 22 turning up, as expected some of the best pegs on the lake went empty, I had peg 7 drawn for me, more form as a.silvers peg so that's what I was going to base my attack around, ive.done ok with worm here so I set up.a rig to fish a couple of places, one topset and two and the other at 11 mtrs, also a hard pellet rig for 14 mtrs , and a margin rig as some good fish do show in the left hand margin, I had Harry Muir to my left and bridge pool silver specialist Paul Clayton my right . Harry to my left had a reasonable day, catching odd carp and f1,s on the method cast towards the island, then later on meat down his left hand margin towards peg 9, he did well and ended up with just short of 69lb, which have him third , second went to Mike nicholls on peg 6 with 70lb ish , but good weight went to get Bowden on 24 with 90lb, I ended up with 14.6 of silvers and one f1, for no good on the day, hughie Evans won the silvers with 19lb from peg 14. I didn't get any pictures as we had rain of biblical proportions all day, and I didn't get any pictures of the weigh sheets as I couldn't find my keys after the match so my.time.was.spent retracing my steps from The day but luckily I had a spare at home and Judith as soon there with the spare, shame the key was not for the van, for to blame that one on the seller lol, see you Sunday Mike west.😂😅😂.

After rummaging round in the van for the umpteenth time I found the lost keys in all the rubble under the drivers seat, that cheered .Judith up then 😂😠, onwards and upwards as the saying goes , Avalon on Sunday , should be interesting as I've nearly filled the la!e up, I got a few spaces.left so message.me if anyone fancied a go, it is float only though.

Acorn tuesday costcutter

Last visit for a while this venue as I will be back working Tuesday,s from next week as premier angling is Back open normal hours from next .Monday, that should make things easier, the support we have had for the click and collect has been phenomenal, so a big thank you for all who had supported us through these testing times, but we're not out of the woods yet so we will have some measures in place in the shop to try and keep our customers and  staff safe and well.

Back to acorn and Mike Chapman drew.peg 16 for me , it's about halfway down the back straight, happy with that, plenty of clear bank to fish against in the far side, so I set two rigs for a couple of spots across there, straight across was 15 inches deep, a couple of mtrs to the left and it was only 8 inches deep, hence two rigs, a margin rig which went mainly unused, as no fish came.into my margin, then a rig to fish maggot on the deck at topset and two distance, I had Gary Bowden on my left and steve lippet to my right. 

At the start I fed the margins (waste of bait), cupped some maggots into the short line then began firing hard 4,a to the far side and began with a banded 6mm across there, hard going doesn't really do it justice, the fish didn't seem to want to be over on the shelf for some reason, I had a couple but not quick enough to threaten anyone today, so a change was needed, luckily some fish began cruising about, so another mugging day ensued, not really complaining as I really enjoy this type of fishing, looking for individual fish and catching it, it's been interesting, I've had fish from anywhere , topkit to 14 mtrs, you got to keep your eyes on the water looking for fish coming into range, and a good pair of polaroids are essential, I did get a few on the short maggot line towards the end, and what was interesting was that I had a a couple of fish fishing pellet shallow where I was feeding the maggot, on the whistle I reckoned on about 150lb, which would be there or there abouts as it seemed.to have been quite difficult for most, my nets went 171lb which was enough for the win,

 Glen Bailey on peg one was second with 120lb, Anton page should have been second but he had over 70lb in one of his nets so he lost that one,  but he was still smiling.

Proper desperate Dan look there matey.

Top silvers went to ed wynne on bridge peg 21 , he's had a lovely day ending up with over 50lb of tench on banded pellet fished right to the bridge, well done ed.

Weigh sheets below .

Acorn tuesday costcutter

I havnt been here for a while as I normally work on Tuesday's, but with premier angling shutting on Tuesday's and Sundays till the 15 of June when we can hopefully get back to some sort of normality , and open 9 till 5.30, and I go back to Thursdays off, I got to say the shop has been very busy so thanks to all the customers who have made it so, always appreciated.

Anyway after.a nice breakfast, well a bowl of shredded (1.5) it.was.off.to the fishery for the rolling draw, 8 till 8.30, I got there at about 8.10 and was nearly last there, Mike Chapman was in charge as normal, so paid my money through the hatch and he drew for me, doh 39, not often in but as there were 28 there I think, it was a case of two pegs then a gap all round so everyone had an empty peg on one side, for company I had venue ace Keith ray to my left on bridge peg 40, and to my right on 37 was Lee massey. 

Before the start I went over the bridge and cleared.a couple of spots of the dreaded dougal grass so I could fish against the bank. So a rig.for that, another for shallow against the bank, one for topset and two and another for down my right hand margin, choice of bait today was pellets.with more pellets, sixes to feed and eights to go in the band. It turned out to be a hard match to be honest, only one on the deck at close range, nothing in the margin, a few.against the far bank, the biggest part of my catch came.from trying to mug odd fish as they swam through, most were moving to quickly, spotting a slow mover was.The way.to go, and even then only an occasional one would have a go,  it it was interesting, and as I havnt fished a match for a couple of months I was enjoying it, 

At the end I admitted to 95lb and weighed 95.1, the rest must have done my maths some good . 

Top on the day was.turbo tuberville  on 28 with 133lb, second was his travelling partner Zac Williams with 131lb on peg 13, third Mike nicholls had 107lb on 25 leaving me in 4th, but I will take that from that peg, 

On a different note I had been looking at some.of those weighing aids to help with social distancing, but Mark bartlett had it sussed , the mosella weigh sling fits nicely into a recycling bin , so £50 saved it is then. 

It fished a bit more difficult than it has in recent weeks for the pleasure anglers, but lake always respond differently under match conditions, weigh sheets below as normal.

Only complaint with the match was that there very little in the way of social distancing after the match with some time anglers and spectators following the scales, this really needs to be addressed to ensure peoples safety, the organisers and fishery may need to stamp on this fairly quickly.