Three to report

Thursday and back to plantation main lake for a silvers match, but not before breakfast in the bridge, very nice(dont have the sausages, extra bacon)4.5. 18 booked in again showing how popular this venue is for silver matches, lots of fish to be caught all round the lake, obviously not all winning pegs but bites to be had in most pegs. Got the draw underway and I was given peg 28, happy days , a peg with plenty of form,

paul (des) faiers drew peg 38 again making it three times on the trot. I had glen bailey on my right on 27 and on form dave (magic)willmott on my left just round the corner on 31. I normally dont fish more than 13 mtrs, but glen was going to push it to 14, so i felt i had to follow suit, ive had a steady day catching skimmers, with a few better ones and ended up with 21lb, beating glen to my right, but got battered by dave to my left who won the match with 31lb, which included lots of nice roach, second was mat tomes on 19 who ran dave closest with 28lb, mainly skimmers, pics and sheet below.

Sunday and it was back to the same venue for ron hardiman,s silvers league. With Chris fox today, so we stopped at the Wessex flyer on the way, £9.5 eat as much as you like and all freshly cooked at this time of day, 4.65. Got to the lake, and nearly the first ones there. A quick mention for joe McMahon who picked up gordon Canning in fishponds, took his milo pole case out to load gordy,s and forgot to put it back into the van, by the time he realised his mistake, it was too late and the case was gone , inside hus map 901 , with 15 topkits , a map margin pole Along with a couple of landing net handles, so if anyone is offered anything which may be joes, let him know. Back to the match and i drew 24 for myself, had kev winstone on my left, so a good banter day, fed three lines , 5mtrs, 13 mtrs,and 14mtrs, short line was a blank, i had a few fish at 13 mtrs, but the bulk of my fish came at 14mtrs, mainly skimmers, the roach didnt seem to want to know again, i thunk i paid the price for not attacking my peg with enough groundbait at the start, kev put 6 balls on one of his longer lines, going into the last 45 minutes i probably had the edge over him, but where i had a couple of small skimmers, kev landed 3 decent ones , so at the end he ended up with 24lb which was enough to win on the day, well done kev, you fished well,shame about your rigs though 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂. Im not bitter. A close match today, martin rayet on peg 11 was second with 23, and i was 5th with just under 22lb.

Monday and sedges brick lake for the monday over 50.s silver match, breakfast was really nice , 4.8, draw not so nice, peg 16 cold string wind into our bank coming slightly from the right, so expected the tow to be going with the wind, the opposite bank looked nice with the wind off there backs, but put all the clothes on and got on with it, fed two pole lines with groundbait caster and pinkie, 5 and 11 mtrs, but started on the tip with a small groundbait feeder, 30 minutes and nothing in the net, so the pole it was then, very very slow and difficult to get any presentation, but ended up with 3.5 , which was 10 small skimmers and a few.plippy roach, but with jess jordan on peg 11 coming second with 4.8 i defaulted the section money. Kev on peg 3 won with 8.8, weigh sheet below.

Sunday monday

Ivy house winter league on sunday and my turn on heron lake section 1, normally guaranteed some bites on this lake as its stuffed with small carp and f1,s(😕😕). As it turned out the best bite of the day was in the wessex flyer in hengrove , the breakfast was spot on and you can eat and drink as much as you like for 9 quid, even took a couple of cakes as an after match treat. Had a terrible day but i wasnt alone, i ended up with 4 small carp for 3.10, on my right stu foale had 3 for 3.06 and jon howell on my left had 4 for 4.01, and with chris fox having 6lb on willow for no good we were soon on our way home. Well thats my league over and done with then, well.done to those who caught a few , considering how many fish are in these lakes it was frighteningly hard, but looking around other matches on other venues, everywhere seems to be having it tough, monday and i ran a silvers match at plantation main lake, 18 fishing which is about right, giving everyone a bit of room or a spare peg on one side, stopped (not stripped)at a laybye just down from the kingshead for a roll, and it was good. Got to the fishery in plenty of time, in fact everyone was there a tad early, so got the draw done , mat tomes drew.mine and i ended up on peg 11, i had it a couple of matches ago, its up in the start of the far end bay, probably not a winning peg but certainly worth a lesser placing. I had shay gilman on my left on 12, which is a bad peg to be fair, and tony ponting on my right on the point peg 8. the peg has a flat bottom from 4 mtrs out as far as you want, so elected.to fish one short line and two ling lines at 13 mtrs on different angles. i began on the short line after potting in two balls of groundbait on each of the longer lines and one small ball short, i had a couple of roach quickly, but after 30 minutes and not really going anywhere, it was out to the longer lines, there were some skimmers about but mostly of a small sample, 4 to 8oz, i could see john fuidge on 24 catchimg well, as was dave willmott on 5, and it looked as though they were having some better size fish, with magic dave seemingly doing the best, he must have been catching the most as the plantation heron kept trying to steal fish off him, he only succeeded once stealing a good skimmer from him, strange thing today was the absence of the roach shoals which inhabit this lake, it was a skimmer day. I kept swithching and feeding the two longer lines, and have had bites all day on and off, so i cant complain, todays spit the dummy went to paul faiers who drew peg 39 again and went to acorn for a "practice" , second prize went to mat tomes who drew peg one and did a brilliant des imitation, 😂. baxk to the match and i was happy.to come 4th with 21lb, dave willmott on 5 won with nice net of mainly skimmers which went 37lb,

john fuidge and 24 had 26lb and john dursley on peg 7 had 25lb. The lake fished as a whole with everyone having some bites, and it had been frozen over a couple of days before, weigh sheet below.

Thursday over 55,s etc silvers

Stipped off again at a local greasy spoon for a sarnie on the way. So got to the daves.crookes fishery in plenty of time, bridge pool.was.the lake today beimg used, and there was some cat ice forming in many areas, the lake has just been stocked with over 1000 f1,s which wasnt going to be good with it being a silvers match, although dave gillard does pay and accidental carp prize in every section. Thwre was 24 fishing today which was a surprise as it was bitter. It was my turn to draw quite a way down the list, but not to upset as i pulled out disc 6, the first peg on the island on the right right hand side, only drawback is that it can be a pain unshipping due to the closeness of the road, but providing the traffic is light it isnt a problem, i had aiden on my right on 5, that was going to be hard for him as he was cut off in the channel with peg 4 in aswell, and on my left was dave(diddly bonk) haines who was.going to do what he normally does and fish short to hand, so that freed up the longer !ines for me. Again simple rigs, a.6g slim patter for 6 and 13 mtrs, three areas for that, the 6mtr straight out, one 13 mtr line in front and another slightly to the left, and a .3g slim for 3ft towards the island for caster.for some roach and perch and hopefully no f1,s.

At the start i fed a ball of groundbait on the three lines with a few casters and pinkies in, the ice was even making a rig settle , it was a case of putting the rig in and pulling through the ice to get it in position, started.short for no response, so went to the first 13 mtr line, waited 5 minutes for a bite and hooked a skimmer, but getting it back through the ice made.it difficult, my line got stuck with the skimmer in clear view below the ice, and it came off, back out and had a micro perch, blank avoided. Back out to 13 mtrs and i was soon attached to another skimmer, lesson learnt from the last one and i kept the pole tip below the ice , breaking it as i shipped back, that worked, and i had a couple more quickly so i had to repeat the process, a slight breeze blew from the left and pushed the ice away, so the next few skimmers were no problem, i even had a better bream of about 31/2lb, obviously one of the main lakes legendary amphibious slabs that manage to cross the road 😂😂.i wasnt getting any f1 trouble up till now, unlike a few others who couldn't catch anything else, after my run of skimmers i was left scratching around for anything silver, i did have a few chunky roach from the island, and an f1, also the f1,s arrived on the groundbait lines, not in plague proportions, but on a cold day most bites from whatever is well received, at the end i new i done ok by what i could see, when the scales arrived.my fish went 15lb for top silvers weight on the day, and with my accidental f1,s i had a 24.8 total, normally i catch on single caster, but today single red maggot was the best, apart from the few roach from the island which came to caster hookbait.

john (Turkey) thompson had plenty of bites from the new f1,s on peg 27 with 40+lb, weigh sheets below.

Also i think kev winstone must have run out of pound coins judging by how he had to pay me today,

Silvers, silvers

Sunday and it was the ron hardiman silvers league, today was round three and we were on Campbell lake at viaduct fishery. Travelled with Chris fox again and we stopped at the brewers fayre in street for breakfast, very nice too, 4.7, even had a couple of choc chip muffins for after. Tthe match, all very civilised, ron got the draw underway on time, i wanted to avoid the carp pegs at the near end, but nope out comes 131, ice carp peg, then i drew 114 for ron and 126 for ryan jordan, it coukd have been worse , but luckiky martin rayet had that in the shape of 132, lee waller was on my left on 130, but all eyes wou would be on leon hubbard who was on 112 , and as 113 had won the silvers the day before, and it wasnt in today, we were all going to be fishing for second place. inset up a wag for meat , at 25 mtrs, three pole rigs, two .3g slim patterns one with an 18, the other with a 20, and a .2 slim again with a 20 hook, all guru f1 maggot hook,s on .10.

I fed three lines, one 5 mtrs with caster only, but never had a bite there , so not to be mentioned again, one at 11mtrs and another at 14 mtrs, really slow start, toom and hour to catch a plippy roach, lee to my left caught small roach quite quickly then started to get skimmers, as did mark cook on 129, and leon was catching early on, meat on the wag was a no go, i swit switched to caster on that, had a roach and a small scabby carp which i was sure was a skimmer till i netted it, then i couldn't see the float as the ripppe and reflection was terrible, i did start to catch a few skimmers halfway through, which cheered me up, but i was always behind, leon on 112 caught on and off for the whole match, mark cook caught early then just stopped, and lee next to me had odd skimmers on and off, poor martin on 132 had no chance , he ended up with a few small roach, i reckoned on 15lb but ended up with 16+, lee had 17+ but we were all loads behind leon hubbard who had 39lb, well done matey.

it fished ok really as the weigh sheet below shows, paul elmes was second off 127 with 28lb+.

At least i won my side bets only had two but if it keeps going like this i may have to declare it to hmrc, thanks lads,

Monday and back down to the sedges for the silvers match, really nice breakfast in the fishery cafe. Fancied somewhere about peg 33, so wasnt upset when i had 34 drawn out for me, for company i had somerset angling finest on ny left, sorry my mistake it was steve kedge 😂😂😂😂.on my right was the angler formerly known as chair bob, ow its just plain old bob pascoe, so not to much chance of a quiet day, as long as he dont start singing.

thought it may be hard today, hard frost , bright sunshine and no wind, i only set up one rig, a .8g bodied float witha nice sensitive nylon bristle, and a feeder rod , so at the start i fed three lines with groundbait and caster, one at 11 mtrs and two at 14 mtrs about 6mtrs apart, I gave the feeder 30 minutes, one bite fro a carp of about 7lb, the rest of the matxh was spent swapping between the three lines, and i had an enjoyable day, the weather was glorious, nearly warm. And the float kept going under, not ever put in but enough to keep me keen, i thought i haf 25lb and was only 4oz out, makes a change. Steve jackson on 29 was second with 18lb, , again it hasnt fished to badly considering it was a bit of a sick lake a while ago, well done to jamie for getting it sorted,

Oh yes and thanks mr kedge for the quid, always greatly appreciated off the next peg 😉😉😀😀

Plantation silvers match

Back down to kingston Seymour again for another match on the main lake at plantation fishery, still the best and most consistent lake for silvers we have in this neck of the woods, but with a couple of nights of minus 2 to 4 not to sure how it would be today, nice breakfast in the bridge in yatton, very nice as long as you dont have the sausages and have extra bacon instead, so (4.65), got the draw underway on time, shame des said he wanted peg 1 today, just to prove a point, he shouldn't have said it , as ,yes you probably all guessed it , peg 1 for him again, three times on the trot, i very nearly felt sorry for him, only nearly though 😂😂. ryan jordan drew.for me and handed me peg 32, nice peg on a bit of a point on the far side, although not been to good recently, but the peg is always capable of turning on. I had mark broomsgrove on my right, and gary bowden on the point over to my left,peg 38. i set up three rigs, a .4g for a double rig for 13 mtrs, straight out in the reflection of a tree stump, and to my right into the reflection of the island, a lighter .3g for the same.line and short, and another lighter rig to fish to my left and in front at topset and 2.

At the start i cupped in a ball of groundbait on the two longer lines and began feeding caster short on both short lines. Started short as sometimes if you catch short straight away, it can be really good, but not today, not a touch from either line, so out to the right hand long line, 8oz skimmer first drop then a roach , then a bit of a wait for another small skimmer, after.that it has been an enjoyable day, rotating round all lines, out of the longer lines, the right hand one was the most productive, and the out of the short lines the left hand one came good towards the end with some quality roach up to 8oz turning up, on the all out i thiught i had done ok, i was in a position to see much of the lake, to access what had been caught, i would have liked to have thought i had hight teens, i reckoned on dave willmott on 5 doing the best as far as i could see i started weighing on 1 with des putting 16lb of nice roach on the scales, got to dave willmott on 5 and he had just under 21lb, i didnt think I had that although it may be close, dave was still top when we got to me , luckily i had a good last hour on the short raoch line and my net went 22.10, for first, so happy days,

The weights were down today but that was hardly suprising as it was bitter all day, but everyone has had some bites and caught some fish. Weigh sheet below as normal.

A brief three roundup

Starting with Thursday, and the first round of the huntstrete silvers matches on bridge pool run by dave gillard, the weather didnt disappoint, it was forecast to be wet and windy all day, and it was, hence no pics, not even the weigh sheets as it was nearly impossible to read. Peg today was 15, end of an island if required at 16 mtrs, ut with the wind forecast i decided i woukd only go to 14 mtrs , which was about 2 foot up the island shelf, so a rig for caster there, another rig, for caster or maggot over groundbait at 611&13 mtrs, had an interesting day, the two longer groundbait lines seemed to be barren, i could catch roach from the short line, then later on the 14 mtr line towards the island, again on caster, i also haf a 1lb perch from that line, ending up with 12lb of silvers which was enough for first on the day, makes up for being soaked right through, including all my kit, charming. sunday and first roumd of the ivy house winter league, travelled up with chis fox, the rotation put chris on heron where he drew peg 7 and i was on willow, peg 28 for me today, bela bakos had a couple of carp from it last week in corn by the aerator along with some silvers, so a rig for that, i also set up a lead rod to the island, and a waggler as the wind was half sensible, well its been a match of two halves, fished the lead for an hour with varios baits for one liner, then the wag for thjrty mins and no bites on that either, onto the pole by the aerator, a couple of quick roach on corn then no more bites, so 2 1/2 hours gone and only two roach in the net, before the start chris telling was advising me that the roach could be more than a viable target as there were some nice one,s to be had. I shoukd have listened, so back to the van to get some caster,s, back in the peg make a rig and start fishing at 6 mtrs, it tok about ten minutes to get a bite, then i had a really enjoyable 2 hours catching some nice roach, ended up with 10.11 , not sure where that was in the section, and the fishery hasnt posted the weigh sheets, but no money and with chris only having 4lb there was no reason to stay, so back home in time for a nice roast tea, i do know john howell won my lake with over 90lb from fabled peg 23, well done . Monday and baxk down to the sedges for there weekly silvers match, brick lake today, but i dont Mind which lale its on to be fair, had a really nice fishery breakfast, (4.75), the covid safe draw got underway, and with all the others chatting in the Carpark i was first to have my peg drawn, out comes peg 2, been good recently for silvers so no complaints from me. Had steve jackson to my left, so the normal banter ensued. Last time here i made a mistake by not fishing a feeder at the start, so that was assembled with a small groundbait feeder on it and a 20 hook, only one pole rig a .8g bodied with a fibre tip, nice and sensitive with 20 f1 maggot hook on.10, to start i fed three lines with a ball of groundbait on each, one at 11mtrs and two at 14 mtrs at 11 and 1o'clock angles, i had a really slow start, well actually it was a non event start, it took 70minutes for my first bite, at 11 mtrs which came for a 1 1/2 skimmer. And after.that by rotating around the lines i had occasional bites from all lines, when i did get a fish it was a sensible skimmer, there didnt appear to be any small fish in the area, at the end i thought i may just have 20lb, i was first to weigh in and my fish went 18.11 which was enough to win, so happy days then, really enjoying the silvers fishing this winter, always a challenge, but always interesting.

Ok and should have been

Sunday and round two of the Landsend winter league, my turn on the speci lake, need a good draw to keep me in the running, baxk to doing a covid draw with mike in charge of the bucket of doom, ably assisted by ade who was in charge of names, my name got called out about halfway down the list and mike did me proud pulling 31 out for me, end of the island on the far bank , and more importantly the right end of the lake, for company i had long ashton,s finest stalker, steve seager on 32 and ex pat stu Barnett on 30,with the weather being so mild i expected to catch up on the island shelf today which was about 20inches deep, so a bread dobbing rig for over, also a pellet rig for the same if the bread didnt work, which was 16mtrs, and a meat rig for just off to the right in front of the island just down the slope, but that was 17mtrs, so a har day, luckily the wind was slightly from behind, so that would help.

Started on the bread, small.roach, followed by a nice f1, after that i couldnt get a piece of punch into the water without a small roach or Rudd taking it, so that was binned in favour of banded 6mm hard pellet over loose fed 4,s, the next couple of hours were pleasant, catching f1,s and a few carp, bit it didnt last, i did manage a couple of carp off the meat line twords the end, i thought i had 60lb which looked to be enough to win the lake . My 8 carp and f1,s went 62.15, with nick duckett on 35 coming second with 46 and mr.seager third with 43,

the weigh sheets below show how its fishing, and to be fair its on a par with most other fisheries in the area, and better.than some.

Its a bit of a longer walk to lake three, so its nice to see the fishery going out of there way to help get the older anglers there pegs, looked like bodecia and sparticus rocking up in the Carpark, not to sure who was who though.

monday and chris fox and me were off to acorn for a match organised by Laurie lang, 23 fishing, which is an ok number, again a covid draw with chris pulling out the balls and laurie doing the writing , my turn came and chris pulled out peg 21 for me, had lee waller to my left the other side of the bridge on 22, and mark broomsgrove on peg 19 to my right,

Fished it totally wrong today, fully.expected it to fish ok off the back of this recent mild weather, same as yesterday, i pellet was my.main attack, well that was a waste of time, i had one fouler hooked in the tough bit of the wing, so duly landed. The only other fish i had were three tench, 2 small and one about 2 1/2 lb, a skimmer and a roach, i think i blew my peg apart early on by feeding hard pellet, anyone who caught today, caught on maggot in the main, as i did in the middle at about 7mtrs, needless to say i lost nearly all my quid bets today, the only one i won packed up early and left, i wont say his name to save him any embarrassment, (was.that ok Alan quantrill), when the scales.got to me 55lb was winning with brian slipper on peg 6 having that, and with two 8lb,s and a five winning the silvers i put all fish into one weigh, bugger. Hadnt checked the payout properly, all winnings were by default, with section payouts better than the silvers prizes anglers with better silvers.weights were either framing or section winners, so john fry won the silvers with 4.5 , that would have been close, and lee waller came.second with just over a pound, definitely had that, so cost meself £30 minimum, not a life changing ammount, but would have paid for the day, my.own fault for not checking properly.weigh sheet below.

Xmas new year two

Up the m5 to Tewkesbury and hillview fishery for a teams of three event organised by yearly by niel mercer, sadly his dad passed away earlier in the year and was missed today, 😢. after a fishery breakfast, hmmm, i did our team draw, i ended up on lake 3 peg 73, what a crap.day.that was then, last year there were blanks on this lake, i thought it coukdnt be the same, how wrong could i be, it seemed as the the lake was totally devoud of any life, no liners lost fish or anything, i had 4 bites , 2 f1,s and a small carp down the middle and a small carp right across, my 4 fish went 5lb+ which was third on the lake, martin rayet on my left was second on the lake with a slightly bigger 5lb, and ron hardiman to his left on the end peg won the lake with 12lb, tim ford to my right who is no fool had one fouler, lake three was the place to be again, with joe McMahon winning the day with 80lb, helping his team to victory on the day, well done , again thanks to niel for organising the match, and paying for the lakes. Weigh sheet below, apologies for the crappy writing , for someone who works in the printing industry, niel your writing is worse than mine and thats abysmal, 😕😕

Thursday and back to plantation main lake for a silvers match organised by adam palmer, nice breakfast in the bridge in yatton, 4.65, as.long as you dont have the sausages and have extra bacon instead 😊. 19fishing which generally as mamy as.you want, into the draw and peg 11 for me, just into the bay at the far end, generally speaking a peg where a good day is about as much as you can hope for, especially as peg 12 is in today.occupied by mat tomes.

Simple rigs today, a .3 slim pattern bulked initially, but with the option of speading the shot if necessary, the other rig was a .4 bodied wire stem float, doubled bulked. At the start i fed a small ball of groundbait on the topset and two line, then one ball at 11mtrs and 3 ball's at 13mtrs, all with some caster and a few.dead.pinkies. starting short i had bites and indications, ut not really enough to get into contention, especially as chris fox on 7 was into decent skimmers straight away, and nick collins over on 19 was doing well aswell, apart from that i didnt really have a clue as to what was being caught, joe McMahon on peg 8 was.doing ok but not really well enough, there were three of us in the bay, myself, mat and ricky mills on 16, and there wasnt much between us for most of the match, all of us had to keep switching lines to continue putting a few.fish in the net, by the end it was clear none of us in the bay were going to threaten anyone , myself and ricky had 17lb with mat in the worst peg having 14lb, Top weight today was taken by jack jones on peg 27 with just over 30lb, well done, no picture sorry i never went round as i wasnt doing the scales, after.that there were two 29lb weights with chris fox having a few more ounces then nick collins, pic of chris below.

Again its been a really consistent match with all but two having double figures, again showing what a exceptional silvers lake this is, weigh sheet below, heres wishing you all a good new year, hopefully better socially than last year.