Thursday shiplate

Back to a match om the main lake today, and a nice breakfast roll from the butty wagon all prepared by jess, well cooked and hot again. In charge of own draw today and i pulled out peg 7 for myself, i had an island chuck but that was never going to happen,

Also its a swim with a lovely left hand margin with an overhanging tree at 16mtrs, but i wasnt going to go that far as undoubtedly it would be beyound the boundary of the peg, so 13 mtrs that way.

For company i had silver ace pete zimniak on 8 to my left and alan quantrill on my right on 6 Rigs today , a silvers.rig for 7mtrs, to fish worm maggot or caster.over.groundbait. A shallow and deep pellet rig for 14 mtrs, a meat rig for 5 mtrs to my left at the bottom of the margin rocks, and a pellet rig for 13 mtrs to my left, again at the bottom of the rocks. after feeding all lines with the appropriate baits i started on the short groundbait line, whuch was a massive disapointment, after.an hour all i had to show for my efforts were two small skimmers and a roach, what was.worrying was.that there were no bubbles or fizz on any other lines. I did managed.a.foulhooked carp and a big skimmer in the next hour, looking around no one seemed to be catching much, alan had a couple of big skimmers, and pete.was.getting small fish, but at the start of the 4th hour , my meat and long margin pellet line began to come to life, i began catching big skimmers and then a couple of carp, so life all of a sudden was good again, also i had a few.carp from the longer margin pellet line, so the last part of the match was very enjoyable, including the skimmers and three tench i had i new i had well over 100lb, when the scales got to me alex murray on peg 15 was top with 99lb, my carp went 97lb and the silvers went 30lb giving me a total of 127lb, enough for the win,

nigel bartlett won the silvers from peg 1 with 36lb which is a good silvers weight from there, so alex was second overall and john andres was third with 80+ from peg 3, weigh sheet below.

Monday silvers match, sedges canal.

With this weeks match on the canal ot was a smaller match, only 15 i think, its always a bit more difficult than the bigger lakes, with 15lb seemingly a good target to win or frame, to be honest i enjoy it, it does you good to have a struggle from time to time, the lake is stuffed with fish bit they seem to switch off in matches, possibly the fish may get a bit spooky on match days, who knows. anyway denise and jamie did the draw and i found myself on peg 58, which is the peg at the end of the causeway between tike and brick lake, its quite a narrow peg only just over 11 mtrs wide, but i had no intention of going anywhere near the far side as i wanted to avoid the carp for as long as possible.

I set up a .4g wire stem float to fish topset and two and topset and four, as it was the same depth, also a .3g carbon stem for a topset line iether side of my net, also i know there is a good head of eels in here which hardly ever show but if i coukd sneak one or two it may be a proper bonus, so i set up a heavy rig to fish 9mtrs to my right down the middle. At the start I cupped in one ball of groundbait with some worm and caster in on the short line, and two balls on the longer line, started feeding caster on the two topset lines and cupped in some dead maggots on the eel line, starting short i had a small skimmer straight away then a short while later a better one, then i had a fairly good rhn of skimmers off that line, so i was doing ok as far as i could see, i had steve jackson opposite who was struggling, apart from steve i couldnt really see anyone else due to the reeds and foliage, so it was difficult to tell how it was fishing, the longer.line wasn't to good, i only had a golden tench from there and two skimmers, one of whuch was a bit lucky as the 2lb skimmer had a method hooklength in its mouth and my hook was through the eye of the swivel, how can anyone bust off on a skimmer.

Back on the short line i had another golden tench and some more skimmers, ut carp had begun to make there presence felt, my eel line was fizzing so i went over that and had a carp, i tried again, but thus time i had a good skimmer, followed by three more in the next three put ins, then back to carp, and i had no more silvers from there, and definitely no eels, just carp. I had the same thing on the left hand topset line, five good skimmers and a golden tench from that line quickly, then carp again, so the last part of the match was spent on the topset and two line where i managed a few more silvers but carp rocked up big time meaning the end of my match really, but knowing i had over 20lb i thought i had enough, when the scales got to me 13lb+ was winning so when i put iver 27lb on the scales i was fairly confident of not being beaten, and thats what happened, i had a nice day with single caster being the best hook bait by far today, even though i had put some worm in i never had one fish on it, weigh sheet below.

Float only final match

Landsend for this match, travelled with chris fox as normal, and we enjoyed a good fishery breakfast(4.65), got the draw underway on time, and a full house of 40 anglers, so. O empty pegs I needed a section win to stand any chance of hanging on in the overalls, this was going to be the closest end to the league ever, i let craig Edmunds draw.for after.pulling out 33 for himself, he then handed me 6, not a peg i have been on for years. And for company i had clint wojtyla to my left on 5 and tom thick to my right on 7, so no chance of a peaceful day, but ive been around far to long to be sledged by these two.

Only a few.rigs today, a pellet rig for each side of the iris plant opposite, it was.10 inches to the right and 15 inches to the left.

I also set up a meat rig for the short line, nice simple bait tray, pellets and meat,

started short to see if i could get any early mug fish on meat, but began firing pellets to the island each side of the iris. I had one fish on meat in the first hour, and never had another bite on it. most of the match was spent on banded pellet across to the island, i enjoy this type of fishing, watching the fish feed in shallow water, and trying to understand why they dont take your bait, but fortunately for me, enough did to give me.the needed sectuon win with 110lb, all the weigh sheets and relevant sheets below, showing how tight a finish it was, but thats how its meant to be, well.done.trig on winning on the day.and the league again, i thunk thats 4 or 5 times.on the bounce.

Twice the bridesmaid

Sunday and it was off to Todber on hillview for the last short pole match, the riverside cafe at west stour is open from 8 so chris and me decided to give it a go, must say it was very nice , bit we had to rush it as it took 35 minutes to get to the table, i did tell them they needed to speed up a bit, i think they took it quite well. Luckily martin rayet had gone on ahead and collected nearly all the pools money, thanks matey, so i got the draw underway on time, nearly, i let mark cook draw my peg and he pulled out 61 for me, an end corner peg but not much ripple, on my left was ex venue ace mr rayet(lol) and on my right was mat Sheppard,

Only set up two rigs, one for just past my nets on just a topkit, and a margin rig for each side, again only a topkit distance, both hard pellet rigs, danger man in the section was always going to joe McMahon on peg 58, the hot peg at the mo, and with the benefit of peg 57 not drawn due to no show, ( i wont say who it was though, ok aaron) he was going to be hard to beat, and so it proved, hes caught from the off and had a steady match, ending up just short of 400lb so well done joe, i was second and two keepnets behind with a few ounces over 300lb, lee macey lead from the first match , and although he had a bit of a hard time in this match he did enough to still.win overall, with his travelling partner martin rayet coming second, all relevant sheets below.

Monday and back to the sedges in bridgwater for the monday silvers match, on tile today and if necessary an overspill onto brick, so with 28fishing both lakes were in, denise drew out peg 35 for me on tile lake, its a peg between two big willows, so in the shade all day with a strong north westerly wind blowing in, so presentation was going to tricky, so back to the van to get my bump bar. Two rigs, both 1grm, one with a 16 hook and the other with an 18, groundbait was.the normal, sensas lake, thatchers original and some brown crumb, plumbed up to fish 5 and 9 mtrs as it was the same bepth, so on the hooter i cupped in two balls on the short line and 3 on the long line, started.short and had a nice skimmer first.drop, and another smaller one after a short wait, but it was going nowhere, so i went out to the longer line, and ive caught some decent skimmers on and off all match, a.few.on worm but the best hook bait by far was.triple dead.red maggot, i thought i had about 35lb which I hoped would be there or there abouts, but adie bishop on 9 on brick was admitting to the same, we were both out a bit , but he put 41.5 on the scales.to my 40.12, so secomd again for me, sheet below.

Shiplate thursday costcutter

Back to this love!y fishery for a match on the main lake. Good to see the breakfast hut open with jess still cooking a quality roll, 4.79.

John sorted the draw and i found myself on peg 12, decided to fish for silvers then carp towards the end , big mistake.. I really struggled, i think i had a fair few in the peg but all i can put it down to was the wrong groundbait possibly, all i had at ho!e was some margin carp stuff, and to be honest i have used it before and really struggled to catch silvers over it, i started fishing for carp about halfway through and had some shallow a couple on the deck and three from the margin in the last 30 minutes, ended up with 97lb for nowhere, but it was a close match so good in that respect, nice to see titch williams getting his mojo back and winning with 122lb

, just edging out westons finest rat catcher alan quantrill by a couple of pounds. And the silvers went to paul(well i never thought i had that) faiers with 39lb.

Weigh sheet below

Two days at the sedges

Sunday morning found chris fox and me heading down the a38 to fish pops pairs charity match for St Margaret,s hospice, a good cause. its a pairs match with one angler on brick lake and the other on tile, chris fancied a day on tile as he hadnt been on it for a while so that left me on brick for the same reasons, as normal jamie and denise did the draw, so i ended on 9 and chris on 37, both reasonable draws to be fair. I had phil clapp on peg 10 with his loopy spaniel, and one half of the slapper twins on my right in the shape of scott puddy, always pleasant . His partner ben hagg was next to chris on peg 38, first thing was to set up the pellet wag to fish towards.the central rope, ive always found on this lake that its possible to get a few.carp in the first hour on this. On the pole it was a rig to fish at depth at 14mtrs, and a shallow mugger.rig, just in case , a meat.rig for topset and two and a margin rig for under the tree to my right. My match sort of went to plan, i had three on the wag in the first 90minutes, i wouldnt normally give it that long but no one was catching much, then i had a couple on the 14 mtr on the deck ,and in the last coupke of hours j had 5 more on the short meat line along with 19lb of skimmers on meat, i ended up with 99lb which was second on the lake and second overall, jamie parkhouse was.topweight on the day off peg 11 with 112lb, scott on my right had 50+ poumds.for 4th on the lake, ben won tile.with 71lb meaning scott and him won the pairs with 5pts, after.that there were several pairs on 9 points, so it went to weight, so jamie parkhouse and paul homewood beat chris and me into 3rd, chris won the silvers on tile with over 30lb of skimmers and his two carp pushing his weght over 40lb, a njce event and there was £210 raised for the charity, so well done all , especially denise and jamie for organising it 👏👏👏. Weigh sheets below.

Sunday and i was off down the a38 but on my own today for the over 50,s silvers match on brick lake with an overflow onto tile if needed, which when i arrived after a pitstop in greggs was needed as 28 were fishing, an excellent turnout, i got into the draw queue early, but was a bit disappointed to have denise pull out peg one on brick for me, historically not a good skimmer peg, i tried to give steve kedge our pound side bet before he drew, he wouldnt take it , and certainty wasnt confident when peg 2 was pulled out for him, oh how i laughed,

At least we had a short walk, i wasnt going to fish any differently today, a fairly positive approach revolving around groundbait iver a couple of lines with some worm and caster in. Two rigs, one with a 16 hook for worm, and the other with an 18 for maggot or caster, at the start i cupped in one ball at 5 mtrs and two at 11, starting at 5 mtrs, never had a bite after 20 minutes, feared.the worse, went out to 11 mtrs, had a small skimmer, back out with the worm rig, and a.pound skimmer, i started.to catch , never hectic but enjoyable, then i had a bit of blow over the short line, , i had skimmers.there aswell, all.was.going well until the last 90minutes, when i only had two skimmers, one small one decent, i cant say it wasnt busy, it was, but the carp had found my bait, it was one a chuck till the end , i never landed any but by fishing .12 Hooklengths with soft hook, a managed to pull enough to open the hooks out, well that went well, i only lost three hooks during this carpfest. At the end i didnt know what I had, hopefully well over 20lb and maybe pushing 30. I was.first to weigh and was.really pleased.to put 34lb on the weigh sheet

, and my pound with kedgy was.safe as he had 18lb, as.i thought i was beaten on tile lake with weights of 37 and 39lb, also ade bishop on the other side of brick on 15 had 35lb, so 4 th off the peg i was happy with, at least i got some section money which went to paying for the day, so two nice days it was then, off to shiplate.on Thursday, then sunday the final round of the short pole match at Todber manor on hillview lake, best have a rsst before that one, weigh sheet from monday below.

Thursday costcutter, shiplate main lake

Back to this well stocked fishery today, looking forward to it even mkre as the food wagon was having its first days trading doing breakfast rolls, cooked by jess, and very good to, dont normally guve scores for rolls but i will as it was lovely, so a 4.70 on the rixter scale, good value for money, hot and quick so no complaints from me or anyone else who has a roll. as normal john got the draw underway and I pulled out peg 15, end peg on the far bank, good for carp aswell as silvers, company today was merv clark on 14b and across the water on 1 was dave cocayne who has been away for a while not fishing due to a nasty car crash, but good to see him back, hopefully his peg would produce today as zero wasnt in. 15 looked good as normal with a good left hand margin for carp, and it was a toss up whether to go for carp in front or silvers, i opted to start on silvers in front on worm over groundbait, and feed 6,s down the left at 14 mtrs towards the corner.

Its always a difficult decision on here as to whether carp or silvers are to be targeted, dificult to do well in both unless both targets turn up on the short meat line, but i do enjoy fishing decent pieces of worm, today it was difficult as a strong right to left wind was pushing the rig through, i had a few but was fouling a few , i stopped that as i thought i would be well behind the anglers on the other bank as the trip was against the wind making for good presentation. So the rest of the match was spent down the left fishing banded 8 over hard 6,s, catching fairly well but i should have done one or the other, oh well always next.time, i ended up with 140lb, which just short of 20lb was silvers, and my.margin carp were definitely on the small size as my biggest fish was about 8lb with the smallest about 1 1/2 lb, not enough of iether for a pickup, third on the day but only 2 paid iut in both, venue slapping expert gary flinders won on peg 13b with 190lb.

Co!in on peg 2 was second with 159lb , me.third and good to see peg 1 do ok with dave coco having over 130lb. Silvers.went to pete zimniak on peg 4 with 47lb of corn caught skimmers, well.done.

Sedges monday over 55 silver match

Back to this lovely fishery again today, on the canal today, never as well supported as the main lakes, as it can be a tough nut to crack, anyway denise and jamie did the draw and denise pulled out peg 47 for me, can be ok according to some so happy enough, the peg is just as the lake starts.to narrow so hopefully an area.the fish may congregate, a large.tree.to my.left which can hold a few.chublets and maybe a barbel.

the peg was basically the same depth all.over, so one rig to fish maggot or worm over groundbait at topset and one, 7mtrs in front and 11mtrs to my right in the middle, and another rig to fish caster on my left under the tree. But as it was the same depth as in front i could use it on the other lines aswell. on the all in I cupped in a ball of groundbait on each line but started.short, i had a few.skimmers.up.to just over.a.pound, aswell as a nice proper crucian, (not a dirty hybrid), but as expected i only got about 90minutes on that line before it died, maggot on the hook was best, but i had an invasion of motherless(sundace) minnows whuch made getting anything soft to the bottom, so i tried the 7mtr line and had a 2lb skimmer, but it was a bit to close to the reeds and carp soon turned up there, the 11 mtr line to my right was just full of carp, so that was no good, under the tree gave me.a bit of sport with some chublets and small roach initially, then i had a couple of barbel and a small tench, then the carp arrived there aswell, that was the end of my silvers for today, towards.the end i had a visit from roy worth, always a laugh, and he did try and help me, but i dont think the bomb on the pole was going to be very effective today. By the end i wasnt sure what I had, so was really pleased.to weigh 14lb exactly, which was good enough for joint first with john moore on 49, 14lb also , well.done matey, catch shot below, and the weigh sheet, steve kedge was third with 13lb so got my quid baxk from last week.

2 matches

Firstly last monday and i was off down the a38 for the sedges silvers match, always well attended and today was no different with mid 20,s fishing today, good to see the cafe is well underway, hopefully wont be to long before its finished, denise and jamie did the draw and i found myself on the same peg as my float only league a couple of weeks ago, 28 on tile, if im honest I dont mind anywhere on this lake , for company I had steve jackson to my left and rob eagle to my right, i fed two lines again today with worm and caster in groundbait, 5 and 11 mtrs, and ive had a nice day again, catching on both lines with a decent piece of worm on the hook or triple maggot, ended up with 39lb, missing out to steve kedge on 32 with 42lb, off down there again tomorrow, thus time its on the canal, always a bit tough, but always interesting

today andwe were off to todber for rnd 5 of the float only league, hillview and homeground being used today for the 40 anglers, and after the festival fished on the lakes during the week when anglers would have broken the 600lb barrier if the net limits hadnt been broken. So today with this in mind i reduced the match length to 5 hours, had a breakfast at the fishery, very nice . got the draw started on time, i got ricky mills to draw for me, peg 41 today then, happy as its a peg with a bit of room,

company wise it was ryan Jordan on my right and john white to my left, i was also in the last 4 of the k/o with the top 3 winning money, myself, vince and ryan shipp and tom Mangnal would be fighting for that. Only three topsets today, a deck rig for just past my nets in three foot of water, a mugging rig just in case anything came.within range of my topkit, and a margin rig in a foot of water iether side , all areas were going to be pellet only, hard 8 mm over hard 6,s Its been an easy day to be fair, i caught quite well in front if my nets for a while, then in the last couoke of hours the margins, were ok aswell, i had 5 nets in and clicked 55lb in each, overclicked a bit so reckoned on about 250lb by the end and wasnt to far out as i my nets went 252, so good for me . The all important section win and enoigh for second in the k/o behind ryan shipp and ahead of tom Mangnal. But miles behind the winner on the day, niel(the occasional angler) mercer with a few ounces over 400lb on pellet just in front of his nets,on peg 58. well done matey. Second was the irrepressible craig(trig)edmunds on homeground with 325lb on 81, exceptional sport but to much like hard work to do every week, hats off to john candy and his team for keeping the sport at the level it is, weigh sheets below