Shiplate thursday costcutter

Back to thus lovely looking venue today for the match on the main lake, judith came along for the ride today and get some fresh air, trying to stop her going stir crazy with her broken arm, which does seem to be improving luckily, so a stop off in lillypool for breakfast, nice aswell, i just wish all these cafes would get there beans hot , most of them seem to like serving up up cool beans, but still a 4.8, nice food and good service, and the new open plan seating area is much better. Draw time and john lays the pegs out on the table for us to pick up, i pick up the closest and peg 15 is where im off to. Everyones peg of choice is zero, its a new peg to the right of one, at the entrance.to a a overgrown channel, peg one used to be the finest peg in somerset, but now zero has taken over , well known drawbag, but nice person alan quantrill had the pleasure(again)

i had intended to fish for skimmers today with meat as there had been some excellent weights at the weekend , but had a change.of heart after drawing here as the skimmers seem to be living over on the single digit pegs at the mo, so carp it was then, so a short meat line, two long pellet lines , one shallow and one deep, a margin for each side, that should do i thought for the pole , and a pellet wag to fish to the end bank.

i had the andr(ews)es sisters to my right in the shape of john and rory . All in was called and i started shallow at 14 mtrs slapping a pellet around, fully expecting to catch a couple of carp , but i did it for 30 minutes withoit a touch, so i came in on the short meat line just in case there were some fish short, first drop and a decent skimmer, and that was the only bite i had there all day, in spite of constantly trickling some meat in, and even dump potting towards the end trying to kick start something, i had been feeding the long pole line with pellet, so out on the depth rig, still no fizzing which was strange, two small skimmers.on that, then nothing, so i dumped a big pot of 6,s out there and picked up the pellet wag, first chuck towards the reeds and ive had a 4pounder, and after nearly an hour on that i never had another touch, so after losing my float to a reed stem i conceded , i now a small bit of fizz out long, so back out with an 8mm hard pellet, the float sat there for a few seconds , then was gone, i soon had a nice double figure common in the net, but again that was the only carp i had out there, i did get a few skimmers though, perhaps i shoukd have targeted the skimmers afterall. John to my right had caught a shallow carp in the first few minutes, but that was going to be his only carp of the day, out of desperation i set up a deep wag again to fish over to the reeds, same pattern, one bite one fish. By now even judith was calling me s&@t, nothing like a bit of encouragement from your nearest and dearest, and thus was nothing like encouragement, LOL. All this time alan was landing and losing fish over on zero. Good of him to be putting so many back, obviously trying to give the rest of us a chance to catch up a bit, he even missed his keepnet with a ten pounder, fairplay nice to some sportsmanship in the game. so with about 90 minutes to go i set up another rig to fish long down the left hand margin towards the corner, it looks nice, but a bit awkward to get in tight due to it being a tad overgrown, hopefully it will be sorted now as the owners have got john a helper as it is a huge task just for one person.

I had to settle on fishing out from the bank in about 2 foot of water, started to kick myself for not doing it earlier, as I started to get indications straight away, and the last part of the match was quite enjoyable, apart from having to fish to my left, as im left handed its always awkward , but i had 6 more carp from there, only small ones by the lakes standards, including a nice orange mirror carp,

I ended up with 9carp which went 50lb, as i said small, especially when I had a fish of about 12/13lb in the net aswell, and 5lb of silvers, so 56lb for no good today, alan won over on zero with 180lb, so well done to him, weigh sheet below and me grudgingly handing over the nugget, but to be fair its only one of his he is getting back.😆.

Three to go

A round up of my last three matches, firstly it was down to todber to fish homeground with the bristol massive who were staying at viaduct , they invited me along, which was nice, but i dont think they had any scales(ulterior motive lol), it was meant to be a 9.30 draw but due to an accident on the 303 i think it ended being about 10.30. The draw got underway with all hoping for peg 90, the best peg in the uk by far, that pleasure fell to that notorious drawbag , Martin rayet, and being a good angler that would be first place sorted.then, i pulled out 81 which is the left hand corner peg, always good for a days fishing. A plus for the day was seeing a pair of red kites , probably the furthest south and west i have seen them.

well as i said i was going to have a good days fishing, and i did, only 2 carp short in the first 30 minutes, so to slow there, out to 11 mtrs and shallow, had a few but two hours in and 30lb in the net, and with plenty being caught on pegs 85 to 90 anglers on our bank seemed.to be struggling, i had been feeding maggots in the left margin, and pellet in the right, so the last three hours were spent either side, i stopped feeding maggots and fed 6 mm hard pellets instead , and the peg was.getting better all the time, but it was always going to be to late, and so it proved, the pegs from 85 to 90 dominated with martin winning easily with 384lb, well done, i ended up with 240, which is good in any ones book, so no complaints from except me tennis elbow was a tad sore. A picture of martin with some of his fish and the weigh sheet.

Sunday and it was round two of the float only league, 40 fishing so we were allowed to spread the pegging over the 4 lakes, so a big thanks to fishery for letting us do that. Not to fussed as to where i drew, but was happy with 3 on hawthorn, big john andres.to my.right , and the slight john fry to my left, definitely opposite extremes. I was happy with the peg as i could get tight in to the far bank , i love rat holes fishing in very shallow water, love seeing tails and backs stuck up out of the water, a proper challenge, it turned out to be a hard day, i had two fish short on meat , and the rest across on the mud , ended up with 87lb which won my section and was top weight on the lake, best on the day was dan white standing in for trig, he had 148lb mainly down the edge , he was on peg 13 main lake, second went to tom mangnal on 13 west pool with 128, best silvers went to dave lewis on 7 main lake with 51lb of meat caught skimmers, well done all,

then today i went back to the sedges for the monday silver,s, and today.we.were.on the canal lale , a tough one for silvers and if anyone had 20lb, that should be there or there abouts, denise and jamie did the draw, denise drew out peg 52 for me and apologised, lol. Top right hand corner, historically not the best as far as silvers go, but it looked nice, plenty of features , even an aerater.to fish towards.

Ive had a tough day, had a few silvers, and i mean a few aswell in the first couple of hours then the carp turned up and evertime the float went under ive had elastic going all over, i did get.an eel.of about 12/14 oz towards the end, but the carp were rampant. Im going to have to tie some.more, 😬. I had 4.10 which won my section, but as expected it was won from the other end , where clive mills on 41 had 9.4, so a hard day for all as the weigh sheet below shows. Next monday and i am running a match at acorn, so get in tough if you fancy fishing.

2 nice days

Sunday and it was off Landsend for a small match on lake three, only 12 but a nice number on thus lake affording all a nice bit of room, breakfast at the fishery was very good, even if i was a piece of bacon short (lol). Sorted the draw and the general concensios, (well i dont think thats spelt right) was that i may aswell just push my kit up to peg 58 as i seem to draw it with lots of regulatory, so becided to let Steve seager draw.for me as he was.the loudest , and yes you've probably guessed that he pulled out peg 58, lots of groans except from me 😁.but it was never going to be cut and dried with some fishery regulars in attendance, and i had one the finest opposite on 55 in the shape of russ peck, just back from a rather non eventful week at whitacres, helped by his willing butler, adrian Clark. As always the peg looked good.

As is usual i set up rigs to fish various parts of the swim, ut apart from one fish up to the weedbed to the right every fish was mugged, i couldn't get a bite on the deck, but with the fish still spawning i wasn't suprised. Even though there were quite a few mooching about, they were.extremely difficult to catch, but as ive said on numerous occasions, these Landsend fish can be some of the most difficult to trick, they have seen it all, but i managed enough.

Ended upmwith 107lb, beating steve.seager on 42 who managed to moan over 80lb onto his hook. Silver,s went to chris fox on 70 with over 15lb of small crucians and f1,s.

Monday and inwas off down the m5 to fish the sedges silver,s match on tile lake. Thefe is a good head of skimmers in this lake , hopefully they had recovered from spawning and would be a bit hungry. Jamie and Denise did the draw and pulled out peg 22 for me, got to the swim to be greeted by dozens of carp on the surface , i just hoped they wouldnt become a problem.

I only.set up two rigs, both .6g one with an 18 guru fi maggot hook on .10, and the other one had a 16 same.patern hook on .12 double bulked. I am never a careful feeder , so at the start i cupped in two balls at 5mtrs, and three balls at 11mtrs, all laced with chopped worm and caster again its been a relatively simple day , swithching between the two lines, and catching a.fish or two off one line, then having to refeed and switch lines, and do the same again,although i had fed some worm, the best bait was without doubt triple dead.red. i thought i may have 30lb by the end , i was first to weigh and was pleasantly surprised to see the needle go round to 42lb, it wasnt till the scales.got to robert parker that i was threatened, but luckily his fish went 37lb, so a couple of nice days, of to todber on Thursday with some of the bristol old boys for a match on ash, looking forward.to that as ling as i dont have to do the weigh in,

Bit of a break

Judith and me have been in dorset this week, staying in a small beach hut thingy overlooking chesil beach at west bexington. Very nice and clean with everthing you woukd need ,even down to a some fishing kit in the cupboard, rod reel feathers etc.

And with a nice view of the beach and sea, so able to keep an eye on whats going on, just in case someone actually catches something.

I did have.a.go at chucking some bait out one evening, fishing with two rods, winding in after 15 minutes on eaxh outfit, only.to find the spiders were having a field day, stripping the baits, even eating the elastic aswell, must be a few about then 😂😂😂😂. i tried some fluff chucking as a few.mackerel were being caught. Another epic fail there aswell, with only a tiny whiting on a feather.

Went to beer on tuesday to go out in the self drives off the beach, lovely forecast, light winds tiny swell, and they weren't wrong jt was shaping uo to be a nice day, just hoping judith woukd be able to put up with it as her broken arm was making life difficult.

we motored out a few.hundred yards beyond beer head and dropped the anchor, put down a couple of rods with squid and prawn on the hook and then dropped some feathers over just to see if there were any mackerel about, so three drops and ten mackerel, kept 6 for bait and shook the other 4 off, the weather and sea were to good to be fair,

We had plenty of fish , dogfish and lots of small congers up to about 6lb, nothing huge or special, but on 30grm spinning outfits , all good fun, with the eels giving a really.good account of themselves, judith did manage a starfish doubke on the same hook, and she tok some convincing that they aint fish, even if the name does imply otherwise, and i had a small thornback,

We had over 50 fish between us, admittedly nothing very awe inspiring, but good fun on light gear, all fish went back ok, crushing the barbs down on the hooks makes life.easier for the fish and angler, judith managed to get a few fish up, but it became more uncomfortable as the day went on, but she didnt complain, so fair play.to her, when we got back in we went into the dolphin pub up the high street for fish and chips, and we couldn't remember ever havimg a better piece of cod, 5 star on the rixter scale

Bit late for these two

Been a bit pushed for time lately, with judith breaking her arm i dont seem to get much spare time after the cleaning, cooking washing etc, how judith managed to do it all and work full time is beyond me, so last weekend by way of a treat she accompanied me.to Shiplate for an open spread over the two canals, Judith did the social distancing draw and pulled out peg 9 on west pool for me, i had steve.seager to my right and lee Gregory to my left, 14 mtrs wide so not to uncomfortable,.there were some fish cruising about but to quickly as they were looking to spawn, but they never did on this lake, wheras on Hawthorn and the main lake they were having a bit of a pop, i set up a.rig for.mugging, only managed one on that, a margin rig, i had fish coming in but only had one there, steve.seager.had a few fishing back towards me to the empty peg between us, ut i couldnt see it due to vegetation, only one on the short meat line, plenty of fish on the far side, but i struggled to get one in the mouth, started feeding very carefully, foulers, upped the feed ,foulers, changed.from pellet to maggot, foulers, stopped feeding, nothing lol. I'm definitely putting that one down to bad angling, even judith was sat in her chair behind me taking the p%@s, i ended up with 6/7 carp for 30lb, the only reason i wasnt last on the lake was because mike hill packed up and left before the end. weigh sheets below, i walked back through the Carpark throwing pound coins up in the air for all to catch, at least that was how it felt 😂😯😂😂😂😂😂😂. Mat culpin was topweight on the day with 180lb off peg 10 on hawthorn, shallow on caster only feeding abojt 5 pints, alex murray(he's back)was second on the day from west pool 12 with just over 100lb.

onto thursday and it was back on the same lakes, stopped at lillypool cafe for breakfast and it was very nice, and they have done some alterations to the eating area, much bigger now and brighter,

The draw was a help yourself affair off the table, i picked up peg 7 on hawthorn, ideal to be fair, got to the peg and there looked to be plenty of fish mooching around so i thought a shallow / mugging day may be in order, so a couple of rigs for that, i had emptied my freezer of all the maggot and caster i had, so ended up with about 4 pints of rubbish to off load.also.a margin rig, a 5 mtr meat rig and a couple of pellet rigs for the far side.

Started.down the middle over the loosefed maggot !ine, and had a 7lb fish first drop, an bour in and i was on 3 fish, so not going to plan, althiugh the fish had finished spawning, they didnt seem to be in the mood to feed, most of my fish were caught on the far bank on 8mm hard pellet kver loosefed 6,s, not that i had enough, ended up with 82lb, whuch was second on the lalke behind john andres with over 90lb, and tom thick with 85lb, so close but one and two fish behind the people ahead of me, there were two weights over 100lb on west pool, paul faiers and aaron britnell being first and second, so well done to them, weigh sheets below.