Tony Rixon's days out

frozen landsend weds open

2012-02-08T18:31:00.002Z

we had 14 turn up which is a good number considering there was up to 1 1/2 inches of ice on it so the breakers were out again, i began with 2 but after 4 chucks i was left with one as the chain broke and it didnt float so there was no chance of retrieving it.
i fancied a draw at the carpark end of the lake as it was only about 3/4 thick but no i let kev molten draw for me and i end up on 16 which is ok but the ice was at its thickest at this end, for company i had alan(meldrew)oram on 15 and the next agler to my right was tom thick on 18. i set up one rig again today a .3g rig with with an 18 middy 6313 on .10. after clearing a channel to 10 mtrs and to my left to th4e sunken tree between me and alan i plumbed up and was lucky to find the same depth out in front and down to the tree, at the start i cupped a few (20)mags and casters at 10 mtrs and fed a few down towards the tree. starting at 10 mtrs on single maggot i had a bite first put in which was a perch of about a pound,(yay no blank) its amazing that you can make all that disturbance and still get bites straight away, i had a perch and tom was playing his first carp on soft pellet, and he proceeded to catch odd fish all match so it looked like first place was taken from very early on in the match.
most people seemed to be getting bites which was a surprise as the general concensus was that 20lb would be a good weight but that seemed to be going out of the window very quickly. my second bite was from a carp which broke me under the ice as i think i got down to my topset a bit to early . the match for me turned into a bit of a waiting game for bites but when i did it was a reasonable perch and i even had an unseasonal tench of about 2lb, i had a 6lb carp halfway through and another down the edge on the final whistle to end up with 9 perch , 1 tench and 2 carp which was going to be no good in the overalls but i might get some silvers money
as expected from early on tom thick won with a very creditable 12 carp and 1 f1 for 82.5 and a very comfortable win
2nd and a long way behind was retired welsh electrician dave blakemore on peg 1 with 34.5
3rd was rave from the grave gary mewdel with 30lb from peg 3
4th adrian jeffrey 29.3
5th phil(fabio)harding 25.1 on peg 22
6th ed wynne 24.15 peg 12
silvers was me with 8.10 and i pushed the somerset silver ace, nigel bartlett into second with 6.5 on peg 24
my 2 carp went 12.6 giving me 21lb for 7th overall
so really it fished ok with some of the lakes better fish putting in an appearance ,but the silvers didnt seem to want to play ball.
off to viaduct for round 3 of the teams of 5,s on sunday but it may be frozen so the fishery is going to makea descision on friday, but wer have never had one cancelled yet so all those fishing had better be prepared with breaking devices.

shiplate farm on hawthorn and west pools

2012-02-05T19:26:00.002Z

fairplay to the 22 which turned up today as we were greeted with 1 to 11/2 inches of hard ice, we shouldnt complain really as its the first proper ice this winter, but after letting trigger draw me peg 10 on hawthorn it was still a bit of a shock throwing a 14lb breaker about , but i managed to clear a strip to nearly 12 mtrs which i thought would be far enough as its just about to the bottom of the shelf before the slope to the far side, paul elmes did a really good job with the boat by breaking out peoples pegs who were stuggling a bit, he did offer me but i refused as i didnt think the fish would be up on the shelf(doh).
i made up 1 rig a .3g rig with a middy 6313 size 18 on .10 and at the start i cupped in 5 maggots and 10 micro,s and then waited for a bite, and waited and waited, i cant right about my day as nothing really happened i did get 4 bites but missed 3 and shook a small roach off and suffered my first blank since i cant remember when , but it had to happen sooner or later, there were a few fish being caught on our lake with paul elmes on peg 2 leading the charge ending the match with 6 carp, all caught up the shelf adrian jeffery on peg 1 had 4 and a skimmer and the only other person with more than 1 was steve evans next to me who had 1 on bread and 1 on corn just fishing
his topset .
west pool was the place to be with craig(trigger )edmunds on peg 11 with 41lb all caught up on the shelf towards the end
2nd was kev molten on 15 west pool with 40.9
3rd rich lacey peg 6 west pool 27lb
4th sean townsend 7 west pool 23.13
5th paul elmes peg 2 hawthorn 23.3
6th andy bryant 12 west pool 14.4
silvers went to rich lacey with 12.2 of mainly skimmers at 8 mtrs on maggot
bob gullick struggled to find the venue this morning as his sat nav had him in the wrong place so he phones me to double check the post code which is bs24 0ny and he asks is that a zero or a nought i thought it was one and the same but his trotters indipendant traders tom tom obviously aint got a 0(zero nought)button , but he did manage 3rd on the lake so the 35 quid he won he can now afford to update his tom tom and he may even be able to find his way home.
OH YES AND DID I MENTION I BLANKED

woodlands lake at chilton trinity

2012-02-02T06:25:00.004Z

i think the cold weather and some work commitments kept a few away today as we only had 10 turn up, fobio and me stopped for brekkie at the gut buster caravan in bridgawter for a change and to be honest it wasnt to bad ,except the caravan was freezing as it had no heating but the food was tasty.
back to the draw and with only a small number here i managed to give everyone a bit of shelter from the biting north easterly wind, i was half expecting some ice so i had the breaker with me but the lake was free of the hard stuff, so that was good.
i let fishery boss ,misha herring draw for me and she handed me peg 7 which is the 2nd peg up on the far side, i had john bradford on 6 for company and tom mangnal on 9.
only 2 rigs today, a 4x12 on ,14 with a middy 8313 size hook on .14 for the margins as i had 3 foot but as i only had a small fish bite on it after several attempts during the match so i wont waste my finger tips by mentioning it again.
the other rig was .75g slim float with a 6313 size 18 on .10 for out in front and after a bit of plumbing around i managed to find areas at 6 13 and 16 mtrs with almost the same depth so i didnt have to mess around with the depth at all. at the start i fed casters at 6 mtrs and a mixture of micro,s dead mags and a few pieces of corn at 13 and 16 starting at 13 mtrs it took me 30 mins to get a bite and that was a small roach which dropped off ,and by now fabio on peg 11 had 2 carp at 13 mtrs , ed wynne on 10 had 1 as did tom on 9 but he was fishing the method with corn on the hook, after 2 hours i was well behind with fabio having 4 carp ed having the same and tom getting fish aswell, last match here the corn was the killer bait but all i had on it today was a good skimmer and a smallish tench so the corn was binned and it was onto the dead mag and by feeding some micro,s and dead mags after each couple of bites i began to catch small roach and more importantly odd carp were starting to show , by now fabio was still stuck on 4 carp as was ed but he did manager a couple more towards the end plus some silvers, unfortunately fabio didnt manage to land anymore although he did lose a couple in the last hour, it seemed as though the fish were happiest sat in the middle of the lake today as fabio had 4 on peg 11 ed had 6 on peg 10 tom on peg 9 ended up with 10, 9 on the method and 1 on the wag(he had to get at least one properly)and i had 7 .
as expected tom mangnal won with his 10 carp and 1 roach going 42.2
2nd was me with 7 carp for 32.4 and 6.15 of silvers for a total of 39.3 , did lose 1 fouler at the end which would have swung it for me but it was the only one i lost so i cant complain
3rd ed wynne 34lb peg 10
4th phil(fabio)harding 27.1
5th tom thick with the top silvers weight 9lb
6th nigel bartlett and second in silvers 7.5
ive got to say that this was the first match i have fished at this venue where the method feeder has won on the day, but at least tom was cheerful with it as he was coming under a lot of abuse during the day, we will probably be down there again in a fortnight but we may fish the small (ash) lake for a change which seems to have a lot of small fish in with an odd bigger surprise

viaduct teams of 5 round 2

2012-01-29T19:24:00.002Z

my turn on cary section today and if there was one peg i fancied it was 102 , but into the draw and out comes draw number 8, which put brian shanks on 118 , me on 85 , ron hardiman on 56 , clayton hudson on 40 and tim clark on 12 , not the best team draw and i arguably drew the best peg for myself again according to tim and ron. it was going to be a rare day for me as all i took the peg was a lead rod rod and a light wag rod (no pole)as the silvers werent playing ball and most were falling to caster over loose fed caster on the wag but with this peg being a bit of a carp peg silvers were only really to be for an emergency in case i was blanking to get a point, this lake is my least favourite during the winter as due to the shape it means lots of us would be chucking our leads to the same area of the lake which can cause some friction at times but today most of us kept to our own areas with only a couple of moans, the wag rod was assembled with an 18 6313 hook on .12 and the lead rod had a 5/8 lead on and a hook on .20 for popped up maggot to begin with, i scrounged 2 soft artificial floating maggots from lewis greenwoon on 87 one of which was threaded on the line above the hook then i put 4 dead maggots on the 16 xedion hook and launched it about 50 mtrs and i got liners straight away as did most people judging by the comments going round but apart from dave(the lead)white on 102(i wanted that one)who had 2 fish in the first 15 mins fishing meat on the lead(i think)well short of the aerater and even in his own peg.90 mins in and only liners and no proper bites on a vatiety of baits i had a quick look on the caster line but after a 10oz skimmer and a small roach so that was chucked up the bank(blank saved), back out on the lead and still liners so after 30 mins of that , i wandered up to 87 and borrowed a stronger wag rod off fabio and went back and put it together with a 4grm middy fat boy float with a xedion 16 on .16 for corn and maggot but after a few chucks it became apparent that it was to light to get the desired distance, so i changed it to a 10inch drake bodied waggler , which was much better cos at least i could launch it 40 to 50 mtrs and i think i hoked a fish second chuck but it came off halfway in which was annoying as it felt lip hooked but i will never know, i stayed on the big wag till the end of the match and ended up with 6 carp all taken on 4 mags on the hook, i lost another 4 foulers and missed a few bites which may have been small fish , but more likely liners , shallowing up never worked as the float was moving through a bit with the gentle left to right breeze so i left it slightly over depth to slow it down, my 6 carp went 59lb and three silvers(i had a ruffe)went 12oz for 59.12 but poacher white on 102 ended up with 9 fish for 90.12(well done)
the match was won by dave cockayne on 115 with 126.14 using meat on the wag and lead
2nd dan squires 111.3 on peg 8
3rd john danby 110 on peg 64
4th dave white 90.11 peg 102
5th nick(it must have been solid)chedzoy 87.5 peg 113
6th alan oram 78.5 peg 119
silvers went to des shipp on 61 with 26.11 of skimmers on caster at 16 mtrs
teams on the day
viaduct select 74
thatchers veterans 62
silver fox 61
viaduct allstars 61
thatchers pi 60
avon angling
somerset majik
moaning maggots and somerset angling all with 58 pts
overall
viaduct select 128
toss pots and somerset angling both 124
avon angling 109
thatchers veterans
moaning maggots and thatchers pi all 107

landsend weds open

2012-01-25T18:10:00.002Z

another good turnout with 17 fishing so we used the speci lake and the match lake pegs 13 to 24 so we all had a bit of room, obviously a draw at the top of speci would be nice on pegs 31 to 34 but what do i do. go and let fabio draw for me and i end up on peg 29, its a good warmer weather peg but not so good this time of year, with mike nicholls on 31 there was always an outside chance a few may mooch along from the end of the island as mike was never going to go past 13 mtrs so a few may sneak by.
i began with 3 rigs, one for the margins which i never had a bite on so thats the end of that, a 4x10 on .14 with a 8313 hook for corn and caster tight to the island in just over 2 foot of water and a 4x12 with the same hook and line for the bottom of the island shelf at 14 mtrs. i fed the island and the margins with corn and caster at the start and some micro,s and corn at 14 mtrs and 16 mtrs to my right still at the bottom of the shelf, the first hour went as well as i expected with 2 good carp for about 17lb, one at 14 and one to my right at 16mtrs and that was my lot as i started to get a few roach and miss some bites off the same species, so i tried corn up on the island shelf to no avail and each margin but the peg seemed devoid of carp, with 2 hours to go and no real action i decided to make a roach rig for 5mtrs just to stop the boredom, by now mike on 31 had a couple of good carp plus some good silvers and tom thick was getting silvers and odd carp on the scopex pellets and i could see fabio opposite on 36 catching silvers and losing carp as was bela bakos on 33 who was losing carp and with 1 hour to go was still carpless , but he did get 3 in the last hour fishing caster shallow against the end bank, back to my roach fishing and i was beginning to enjoy it as i was getting some nice fish between 2 and 6oz but then i got a reality check as i rammed a disgorger into my eye and chucked the roach rig behind me, i had a quick look on the corn lines but only roach there so i fed some casters up the shelf and fished there till the end where i had 2 chub and 3 good perch and lost another reasonable carp at the net and at the end i thought i may have about 26lb , but i weighed 28.01 for no good today, so thats the last time fabio draws for me
first on the day went to craig(trigger)edmunds with 60.7 on peg 17, with all his fish falling to soft pellet over micro,s at 14 mtrs
2nd mike nicholls 51lb on peg 31 again on soft pellet over micro,s at 13 mtrs
3rd tom thick 49.01 peg 25 on soft pellet
4th stu foale 48.5 peg 32 soft pellet
5th john thompson 36.4 peg 24
6th phil(fabio)harding 34.09 peg 36
silvers went to nigel bartlett on 22 with 26.11 on soft pellet at 14 mtrs then on maggot at 3 mtrs later on

landsend individual winter league round 4

2012-01-22T19:05:00.002Z

it was back to an open draw today and i got the draw bag specialist in the shape of clint wojtyla to draw for me and he didnt dissapoint as he handed me 32 which is a corner(again)on the speci lake and then drew 61 on johns water(lake 3)for himself, which aint the best draw but he did get 40 quid at the end for having the top silver weight on that lake.
the wind was going to play a big part today as it was a very strong westerly which blows back towards the carpark with only the far end of each lake having some shelter. i cant remember a match on this venue where so many tip rods were being assembled, even i set one up to fish corn out towards the aerater, i set up 3 pole rigs, one for caster at 7 mtrs against the end bank on a bit of flat bottom that anton page told me about with an 18 middy 6313 hook on .12. a .5g rig with the same hook but on .10, and a 4x16 fir with a 18 middy 8313 on .14 ror corn at the bottom of the shelf at 12 mtrs which was as far as i could go with the wind and even then i had to let it go from time to time, for company i had none other than fishery owner and local legend , mike duckett, on peg 31 who was moaning about his draw as it is a proper form peg but you need to fish out near the island but its 16 plus mtrs and the wind put paid to that, opposite i had dale housen on 33 and tim ford on 34 and i couldnt see anyone else. at the start i fed some casters at 6 mtrs and at 7 mtrs in the margin and some soaked micro,s at 12 mtrs at the bottom of the shelf up the right hand side. starting on caster at 6 mtrsd i hooked a goob perch first drop but as they seem to do it dropped off for no apparent reason, the rest of the first hour was hard and i only had 2 more perch of just over a pound and some roach but i was going nowhere fast as dale opposite was catching f1,s and carp on the pellet feeder, and tim also had a 8lb carp , but mike next door was still biteless, as dale was doing ok on the tip i decided to give it a go, 3 chucks later and only one liner i slung it up the bank never to be used again, so up the edge with corn over the micro,s and i soon had a 9lb fish in the net but it wasnt easy as you seemed to have to feed ,leave it alone for a while then go back over it and you could expect a bite so while the pellet line was settleing i went into the 7 mtr margin line which during the match produced 2 perch and 1 5lb carp but the wind was making it virtually impossible to get any presentation on any line, about 2 hours from then end i cupped in some micro,s at 12 mtrs in front as the wind was showing signs of weakening slightly and by switching between the right hand swim and out in front i had odd fish right to the end , the last couple of hours mike on 31 put his lead rod down and got the pole out to 13 mtrs and began catching better carp than i was but luckily dale opposite had stopped catching so i managed to catch him up , but with mike catching quality i was beginning to think he had beaten me by the end so the banter was exceptional, and with anton page watching and adding to the comments it made it an enjoyable day, at the end it was to close to call i thought both mike and me had caught dale up but it was going to be close between us two , but i managed to push the pole out to 14 mtrs for the last 15 mins and got a 5 pounder which anton thought would just give me the edge and he was nearly right , my 10 carp went 53.10 and mikes went exactly the same 53.10 but he only had 6 fish , my silvers went 6.5 which gave me a 59.15 total for first on the day
2nd was mike duckett with 53.10 on peg 31
3rd brian shanks 50lb peg 21
4th kev molten 49lb peg 68
5th dale housen 46.14 peg 33
5th bob gullick 45.12 peg 24
silvers went to phil(fabio)harding with 21.10 on peg 38 , mainly skimmers and f1,s on soft pellet at 11 mtrs
next round is on the 19 feb

avalon oops no it isnt chilton instead

2012-01-18T19:12:00.002Z

we were supposed to be having a pole only today at avalon which i booked with one half of the partnership before he jetted off to cuba for his hols, the only thing he said was that i should ring the other half of the partnership at the start of the week to advise him of numbers etc which i duly did on monday morning , only to be told he new nothing about it and that he wasnt to happy about us having a match without one of the owners in attendance and with one away and the other working there was no chance of that happening, also there top bailiff only works this time of year on a tuesday and thurseday so there would be no one there to sort the money out , obviously i cant be trusted to pay ,also a new one on me was the fact he was worried about bio-contanimation from wet nets as people might not dry there nets before putting them in the lake, obviously any pleasure anglers there dont need to adhere to the same rules as the match anglers as there nets would never be a bio-contanimation risk would they.plus i,m not to sure that net problems and disease,s are relevant in lower water temps, no doubt someone will let me know.
i had 19 booked in to fish today so obviously they dont need the money, but a quick phone call to the herring family and the match was re scheduled for trinity waters on woodland lake, and we were made to feel very welcome as always even had a small
birthday cup cake delivered to my peg complete with candle, mint,we lost a couple of anglers due to the venue change but we still had 17 and the lake only costs 80 quid representing good value for money.
tom thick drew for me and handed me peg 29 which is just across the bridge and 1 peg to the right historiccally not the best area as the pegs opposite and the corners are always favoured but i had an empty peg each side so you never know , as it was suppesed to get a bit breezy i made up a 1grm rig with an 18 6313 hook on .10 to fish maggot over micro,s, normally a good bet in the winter, at the start i cupped in some micro,s at 13 and 16 mtrs and fed some casters at 6 mtrs, all lines were the same depth so one rig does all, i fished the dead maggot for the first hour and had a couple of small roach and one carp fairly hooked in the tail, bites were very hard to come by although trig edmunds up on 22 had had a 9lb fish first put in and a couple more after the first hour so he was the early leader, adrian clark on 31 had caught one carp ,lost one and missed some bites on corn so i went down to him and scabbed a tin of the yellew stuff and put a piece on and it wasnt long before i hooked a carp at 13 mtrs , so that was my match sorted , i fed some micro,s an the 2 long lines and just swapped between the 2 , i ended the match with 8 carp, 5 at 13mtrs and 3 and a tench at 16 mtrs , i also had some small roach at 5 to 6 mtrs on caster,
my total weight was 44.5 for first on the day just edging out craig edmunds whose 7 carp went 42.9 off peg 22
3rd phil harding 31.4 peg 2
4th martin lenaghan 28.12 peg 6
5th john thompson 21.1 peg 9
6th ed wynne 20.13 peg 10
silvers went to nigel bartlett with 14lb off peg 27 using soft pellet over micro,s

viaduct teams of 5 round 1

2012-01-15T19:29:00.002Z

19 teams fishing this series so with 95 anglers on the bank there was going to be some dodgy draws in the hat, but not for me i ended up on 110 which is a corner peg on cambell, its a peg with a lot of form as a lead peg this time of year with the end bank being the usual catching area so i tookj the lead rod to the swim but never put it together, as the wind was off my back i set the wag up unstead to fish on the deck , towards the end bank and straight out in front with corn on the hook , also put together were two pole rigs, one to fish caster over g bait at 16 mtrs at 1 o,clock angle and the same rig to fish caster at 11 o,clock, also a rig for caster down the edge by some brambles as some good perch do show here.
i fed all lines at the start and started on the wag over to the end bank, 2nd chuck i missed a bite then the problems with mink started with the little furry buggers swimming out from the bank under water doing a circuit of my float and going back under the bank, so i dont think i was going to get a bite there, so 45 mins in and i put about 12 inches on the depth and cast out in front at about 20 mtrs, by now martin preston on 131 had a couple of carp on his favoured popped up bread and i promised i wouldnt say anything about him fishing in my peg but it seems like standard practice at viaduct (like i,ve never done it myself)as the shape of the lakes sometimes means its unnavoidable, i now had a good 3 hours when i put 18 carp in the net then the last hour the fish seemed to move up the lake a bit as both myself and martin never had a fish in the last hour, i dont think it was a case of good angling it was just that the fish were sat between me and martin as dave white on 132 didnt get a bite until he chucked into martins peg and jamie parkhouse on 111 definately had more indications if he chucked back towards me , so they must have been really shoaled up.
i new it could be tight between me and martin to win the lake as although i had 18 carp martin had 13 but they were of a much bigger size with several of his fish going over 10lb but i only had 1 of that size but my net went 106.8 to martins 13 fish net of 93.1.
first on the day went to ray hayward with 115.8 on peg 25 spring i think he had 9 carp up to 20lb on waggler fished meat
2nd ben bentley 110.13 on peg 3 spring
3rd tony rixon 106.15 peg 110
4th john howell 93.6 peg 97
5th martin preston 93.1 peg 131
6th russ peck 74lb
silvers went to brian shanks on 37 with 16.14
teams
toss pots 72
somerset angling 65
amigo,s 61
8th avon angling 51
and the stongest team on the day was tom mangnals handpicked team of superstars, teamsilverfox 33 lol(honest tom i tried not to do it but my fingers ran away with me)
anyone interested i am running a pole only at avalon on weds, why a pole only , well its my birthday so i will do as i like

landsend league so far

2012-01-11T18:28:00.002Z

points to date . these points are totals so far with the points in the brackets being the dropper which changes it all but only really counts by the last match
t rixon 7pts 99.6lb (3)
tom thick 8pts 203.14 (5)
craig edmunds 9pts 208.14 (4)
alan oram 10 pts (7)
mark poppleton 12pts (9)
bob gullick 14pts 157.01 (8)
mat tomes 14pts 92.11 (8)
silvers
nigel bartlett 4pts 41.8 (2)
martin pettifer 8pts 43.10 (4)
alan oram 9.5 pts 37.01 (6.5)
tony rixon 9.5pts 36.11 (6.5)
mat tomes 11 pts 42.03 (8)
paul elmes 11pts 37.8 (5)
any queries ring me at the shop

viaduct wednesday open

2012-01-11T18:03:00.002Z

with 24 booked in there were to be 7 on match lake and the rest on spring, i fancied a draw on match but ended up with 8 on spring , an out and out carp peg as its another corner (dont you just love it dci gullick) with a died back lily bed off to the rigfht in the corner at 14 to 16 mtrs, the peg has no form for silvers so it was a day for carp only, i set up a 4x10 rig for the margins left and right on top of the shelf in 2 foot of water , a 4x12 rig for the bottom of the shelf in the right hand margin up to the weed bed and a 4x12 for out in front to again with carp in mind , so all rigs were on .16 with a xedion size 18 hook on the end.
at the start i fed all lines but began out in front at 14 mtrs at 10 and 12 o,clock and fished the 2 areas for an hour but i never had as much as a twitch and even though i gave the top of the shelf swim several goes i never had a bite there so that was 2 wasted rigs ,
to cut a long story short i had 9 bites on corn down to my right at the bottom of the shelf at varying lengths of pole between 10 and 16 mtrs , ending up with 3 carp, 3 goldfish!!!! and 2 good perch(on corn aswell) for about 40lb
first on the day went to phil(fabio)harding on peg 43 match lake with 42.10 of mainly f1,s with a few small carp and 1 good tench all taken on double and treble maggot on the waggler towards the island
2nd was me with 42.5 peg 8
3rd chris fox 31.3 on peg 47 using his now favourite method of bread on the lead
4th nick collier 30.10 peg 19
5th nigel bartlett 25.2 peg 45
6th steve hutter and adrian jeffery both with 21.7 on pegs 52 and 24 respectivley
silvers went to anton page with 15.6 on peg 42

landsend individual winter league round 3

2012-01-09T07:05:00.002Z

my turn to be on the speci lake today and i was hoping for a draw on pegs between 31 and 34 so i was quite happy to have 34 drawn for me, a peg with form for carp and silvers as there is a bush opposite which normally holds chub, perch and carp, for company i had the very genial ken rayner on 33 and dave "beany" westcott on 35.
i set up 4 rigs , a 4x12 with an 18 6313 on .10 for caster at the bottom on the shelf towards the bush, a 4x14 impact 6 float for soft pellet at 14 mtrs towards the end of the island , a 4x10 for caster up the shelf on .12 with the 18 6313 hook and a corn rig for on top of the shelf which never produced a bite as far as corn goes.
after feeding all lines i began on the caster rig towards the tree, but it became apparent very quickly that the lake was going to fish very hard as i couldnt get a bite, it took me 15 mins to get my first bite which was a near 2lb perch and by the end of the first hour i had only had 1 more bite which resulted in another perch of about the same size, ken by now had one carp on 33 and beany on 35 was still waiting for his first bite. after 2 1/2 hours i still only had the 2 perch , anton page turned up for a walk round so i went up the shelf on the caster and had 1 small perch and lost another and that was the end of my bites there aswell, i think ken by now had 3 carp, scott puddy over on 31 was catching and losing odd fish , even the gimp on 32 had 3 carp .
with 2 hours to go thing werent looking to good even beany had managed to snare 3 small chub but that was the end to his sport.
the soft pellet line never produced a bite so i went for 2 new lines one at 14.5 mtrs towards the end of the island in about 2 foot of water and a swim by a small bush on the corner of the island , an area which can be very expensive on end tackle as there is a nasty snag there in the shape of netting from the old hay bale, but i had to try something, so i cupped in a few casters on each line , starting on the 14 mtr line i had a chub after about 10 mins so i fed a few casters there and after about 15 mins i had a carp of about 10lb so things were looking up but i was still behind ken , the gimp and scott but at least it was a start, i had another chub off that line so i put some more casters in and got the corner of the island rig out, lowered it in with boudle caster on and within a minute it had gone under and a carp of about 9lb was duley netted, i really needed another carp tok get myself back into conmtention for a money position on the lake as going into the last 45 mins ken had his 4th carp and scott puddy was landing more now, next carp i hooked was was one of the lakes double figure grassies which i played for a while and nearly netted but the hook pulled , i had one more bite at the end of the island which i think was a perck but it fell off on the way back , back to the shallow water and another chub was bagged then a couple of missed bites then 5 mins before the end i hooked a proper lump which took me till 14 mins after the all out to net but i wasnt to dissapointed as it was a 15lb plus common which i thought would propell me to second in the section, the gimp was playing one at the end and he landed his after the whistle but his 4 carp were smaller than my 3 so i thought i had him beaten, also ken on 33 was looking a bit defalted as he had just been moved from 2nd on the lake to 4th and out of the money, he did look miserable. as it turned out scott puddy won the lake with 62.11 off 31 i was second with my 3 carp going 37.8 and my 3 perch and 2 chub went 9.5 for 46.13.
most of the weights came from the match lake with mark poppleton on peg 7 scoring the top weight on the day with 94.14 , about 20 carp on corn
2nd tom thick 82.12 peg 11
3rd scott puddy 62.11 peg 31
4th bob gullick 49.10 peg 13
5th craig edmunds 48lb
6th andy hembrow 47lb
silvers went to paul elmes on 15 with 19.10
i will post the top 10 today or tommorrow and the next match is on the 22nd and its a random draw again

avalon weds

2012-01-05T06:36:00.002Z

not many anglers seem to be venturing out at the moment, probably due to the shitty weather, so with a strong westerly wind forcast we decided to use the left hand bank as this would give us a wind off our backs, shame no one told the wind as it turned into a strong south westerly blowing off our right shoulder and up the lake making pole fishing difficult.
after the stormy weather of the last week the lake had that milky grey which the fish dont seem to like, fabio drew for me and handed me peg 20 which was the end peg today, for company i had martin lenaghan on 19, my peg does have a small gap in the island which in warmer weather is good as the fish are always swimming through so as there is 3 to 4 foot of water in the gap i set up a wag for banded pellet but i couldnt get it to stay any where near the far bank as the wind blew it straight out(should have set the lead rod up but once a year for that is enough).
i set up one rig a 4x14 impact 6 with an 18 middy 6313 on .10 on the end to fish dead maggot/caster and soft pellet, at the start i cupped in 3 balls of g bait at 13mtrs and 4 at 16 mtrs with a few casters dead mags and micro,s in it and some soaked micro,s at 16 mtrs at 11 and 1 o,clock, starting at 13 mtrs with maggot on the hook it took 30 mins to get a bite and that resulted with a small skimmer, by now martin had caught a carp on the wag and hard pellet on the deck letting his float blow in against the end of the island but bites were slow on that so i think he decided to bolster his weight with a few squirrels as he threw his wag into the top of the overhanging tree then moaning as he lost the only waggler he had with him, who goes to a wag venue with only one wag!!!! . only an habitual lead slinger as far as i can see, i would like to say i took skimmers for the rest of the match but it wasnt to be,the 16 mtr lines were all but devoid of fish with me only getting 3 small skimmers off that line , i think presentation was the issue on those lines as the trip was going with the wind blowwing the rig across the bait to fast whereas at 13 mtrs the trip was going back against the wind so 95% of my weight came from this line . judging by the talking on the bank it was fishing very hard with only vince(slinger)brown having any success on peg 7 catching a few small carp on the tip on soft pellet or banded pellet , by the end he had 9 carp for an easy win with 37.11
2nd was martin lenaghan with 4 carp and 2 squirrels for 16.6 peg 19
3rd ed wynne 8.11 of silvers on peg 9
4th me 8.4 peg 20
5th tim clark 7.5 peg 5
6th leon hubbard 7lb peg 16
this has always been a venue where rain and strong winds affect catches as the bottom seems to kick up a grey suspension which the fish definately dont like, small roach are usually a problem here but today there were even unwilling to feed, so any small fish caught were skimmers

shiplate farm west and hawthorn pools

2012-01-02T17:48:00.002Z

24 fishing today so we had 12 on each lake which was ok as west pool had been extended by 5 pegs so peg that was is now peg 6, i let ron hardiman draw for me and he handed me the flier, peg 6 west pool ,nice,with only pegsd 2 and 4 in on the new part it meant i had an empty peg to my right then kev molten on 4 , andy france was on peg 2 on the new part which i didnt fancy at all and on peg 7 was simon belcham who was suffering from a bad back which meant he was unable to fish the long pole (it just gets better). steve the fishery owner had been along the far bank of this pool and cleared all the willows away , that is all except the bush in the water opposite me and it seemed to be holding some fish judging by the ammount of movement in the branches, not to mention the occasional tail showing and boils against the far bank, it was only going to be a micro and dead maggot approach today so i set up a .3 grm rig on .12 with a 18 6313 for 11mtrs and a 4x8 rig for over by the bush in about 15 inches of water. at the start i cupped in some micro,s and maggots at 11 mtrs and 14 mtrs each side of the bush, it was a very slow start at 11 mtrs and it took me 30 mins to get my first fish on this line in the shape of a 4lb carp and by the end of the first hour i,d had 4 carp and 1 small skimmer , but kev molten had caught and lost a few on 4 fishing over and back towards me so it was off to the bush then!!!
it must have taken me all of 30 seconds to get a bite which resulted in a small carp . so the rest of the match was spent switching between each side of the bush with double maggot on a middt 8313 size 14 on .14 , apart from my peg which was solid the rest of the lake seemed to be fishing hard with only odd carp showing and very few silvers , steve the owner wandered round and said hawthorn was being difficult aswell. i had a good day ending with over 20 carp for about 70lb ish , i wasnt to far out with my estimate as my net went 81.8 for first on ther day
2nd was chris fox on hawthorn 2 with 50.11
3rd steve wynne 38lb peg 6 hawthorn
4th phil harding 36.4 peg 14 hawthorn
5th martin mcmahon 32.4 peg 5 hawthorn
6th martin lenaghan 30.5 peg 11 hawthorn
silvers went to alan oram on 13 west pool with 10 .13 comprising of one big bream plus some smaller samples , again taken on dead maggot over micro
talking to steve after the match i hope i have convinced him to remove the bush as its holding to many fish so taking it out will hopefully spread the fish out along the lake

stafford moor xmas match

2011-12-29T06:28:00.002Z

due to the congested match programme leading up to xmas andy seery for the last few years has changed his seasonal match to post christmas so there was 40 booked in, but still there were a couple of no shows, its been a few years since i,ve fished here mainly due to the rising fuel costs (200 mile round trip)and there are the same size matches to fish locally, which is a shame as its a brilliant venue totally stuffed with fish of all species, perhaps andy could pick it up and move it to a field near exeter!!
i will probably try and fit in a couple of trips this year but my match calendar is already pretty congested for 2012, i travelled down with phil(fabio)harding and kev molten so the costs were spread.
the draw had already begun when we arrived and it was good to see a lot of the old faces still there , steve forshaw was there but his travelling partner mal king was absent due to ill health , get well soon matey .
into the draw bag and i was hoping for a blue disk which is a draw on woody,s , preferably between 3 and 12 which would mean the 25mph wind would be off my back, but no out pops a green disk with peg 1 on it which is about as far as you can get from the pegs i wanted to be on.
its a corner peg(square ass again mr gullick)with a long empty bank to my left which goes round to peg 36 and craig(trig)edmunds was sat on that, and for company on peg 3 i had brian shanks who is a regular visitor from bristol.
i set up 2 pole rigs , one for maggot at 3 mtrs if the carp didnt show, a .75 affair with an 18 6313 on .12 and a 4x14 rig with a8313 size 18 for corn at 14 mtrs towards the end bank at the bottom of the shelf, and last thing was a lead rod with a 14 b960 for hair rigged pellet , and no wag rod which i regretted by the end.
at the start i cupped in some 4,s mixed with corn at 14 mtrs and fed some maggot and micro,s at 3 mtrs .
beginning on the lead at about 45 mtrs and feedinf some 8,s as close as i could in the strong right to left wind i began getting some liners and in the first hour 4 smallish carp dragged the tip round to catch me!!!!!!!!!!!! and with brian only having 1 skimmer by now and no one really catching i thought i was doing ok, but apart from 4 people opposite and brian next door you cant see anyone else, the next hour produces 3 more carp on the tip and brian had caught a couple on the wag at depth on pellet and although the anglers opposite had taken a few on the lead and wag it was apparent the lake was fishing hard, halfway through and i had a look on the pole at 14 mtrs with a piece of corn on and first drop i had my biggest fish of the day in the shape of a 10lb mirror, next put in and i had a 2lb tench then the dreaded skimmers moved in, so i refed with a good cup of corn and pellet and chucked the tip back out which resulted in a few more small fish , but it was getting harder with no indications and trig who was opposite had been struggling was now getting bites on the tip , perhaps they moved ,who knows, back on the pole and i had another carp but the skimmers and roach were making it difficult so i decided to change it to a pellet line so i refed with 4, and 8,s ang changed the hook for a 16 b960 for banded 8mm, i threw the lead out but apart from a lost fish it seemes as though the fish had gone off the lead line , i think they moved back along the bank but it would have meant casting into someone elses swim to follow them, with an hour left i decided to get back on the pole and i soon had another carp on pellet, trouble was brian was now catching on the wag and he had even had 3 on the shallow wag and with them being bigger average sizes than mine i was beginning to slip behind, then a proper disaster, i lifted into a bite and the 14 mtr but snapped in half , luckily i managed to catch it as there a fouled carp on the end but all i landed was a scale, so i put a bit more bait in at 13mtrs but apart from skimmers it seemed a waste of time, out on the lead again but no bites ,back on the pole for the last 10 mins and i did manage another small carp and a skimmer. i think i ended up with 13 or 14 carp and a few silvers but with brain having less but much bigger fish i was hoping he would frame giving me the section by befault, it looked as though martin lenaghan was going to win on peg 32 on woody,s as with 90 mins to go he was admitting to 6olb and was still getting bites fishing the straight lead and pellet out to the island, and sure enough he did win with 86.2 giving himm £100 and a long weekend break in one of andy,s lixury lodges
2nd went to brian shanks on 3 tanners with 76.2 on the wag
3rd was me with 68.8 (perhaps the wag would have given me a couple of fish)
4th gary cross 67.10 on woody,s 10
5th adrian clark 53.2 woodys 6
6th p maton 47.10 27 tanners
silvers went to the weston super mare crimper to the stars john page with 32.4 on pine peg 24 with a mixture of skimmers tench and crucians.
the weights were a bit lower than expected mainly due to the wind making float fishing all but impossible for most which was a shame as the float had been out fishing the tip

avalon silvers match weds 21st

2011-12-21T19:36:00.002Z

i was suprised how popular this turned out to be as 16 booked in , with this venue it is nearly impossible to predict where its going to be won from especially in a silvers match. basically we used every other peg so we were on pegs 1 to 32, i didnt fancy any of the the three pegs on the right as the wind would be into you ,so i was pleased when fabio drew peg 9 for me and its a peg with some good silvers form, but then again all the swims seem able to throw up silvers, for company i had john(the gimp)bradford on 7 and ex bank manager and now bristols finest rock guitar pensioner and karaoke star jim baines on 9, after sundays match i decided on a mainly groundbait attack and fish dead maggotes over it , so i set up the .5grm rig with an 18 middy 6313 hook and a 4x14 rig for the margins to fish caster with the same hook but on .12 but i only had 1 bite on that which came from a small roach so that was a waste of time and wont be mentioned again, at the start i cupped in 3 balls of g bait at 13 nand 16 mtrs and some softened micro,s at 16 mtrs at 11 o,clock angle whilst the g bait was towards 1 o,clock.
starting at 13 mtrs over g bait with double maggot it took about 15 mins to get a bite which came from a small skimmer which i dropped off trying to swing, a few small roach followed in the next 45 mins but that line seemed to be going nowhere fast so i swiched to the 16 mtr line and had 3 good skimmers in 3 put ins before that line died so i refed both lines with another ball of g bait with a few dead mags and casters and had a look over the micro line but never had a bite so it was back over the g bait , jim was really struggleing only getting the odd bite , but he was only fishing at 13 mtrs and for some reason the fish dont seem to like coming to close so 16 mtrs seems to produce more fish, the gimp had started well but again only fishing at 13 mtrs gave him an early burst but his swim died after a couple of hours , it wasnt hectic sport but by switching between the 13 and 16 mtr line i had small roach and od goob skimmers up until the end and i thought i had about 16lb but it wasnt going to be enough as alan oram on peg 17 weighed in 24.01 of silvers mainly skimmers and one tench on maggot over micro,s(why couldnt i get a bite on that)he also had 35.2 of carp but they didnt count as it was silvers only
2nd was me with 18.4 on peg 9
3rd was nigel bartlell on 13 with 13.6
4th chris davis 10.11 on peg 30
5th stu foale 9.7 peg 26
6th ken rayner 9.3 peg 12
the token carp payout went to mike west with 13.5 on peg 20

avalon xmas match

2011-12-18T19:39:00.002Z

with 37 fishing today it was going to be a friendly affair, and everyone had an island or a corner to fish to and with that many pegs in the fish wouldnt have to many places to hide(hopefully), as i was holding the draw tin i let the bridgwater male model(vince brown)draw for me, so he handed me 28 which is halfway up the last island on the right hand side and kept 19 for himself. for company i had the chipping sodbury bit basher (chris derrick)on 29 and andy(the jacket)gurd on 27. now chris was always going to target the silvers as there was 65 quid and a hamper up for grabs whereas andy was going to be maily lead slinging as he is having trouble with his neck and is having problems holding a long pole , these pegs although throwing up accasional weights of carp(moreso in the summer)have more form for skimmers so i thought silvers would give me my best chance of a pick up, i only set up one pole rig which was a .5 grm rig with a 18 middy 6313 on .10 to use at 13 mtrs with maggot over groundait and the same rig would do for 2 lines at 16 mtrs at 11 and 1 o,clock angles, i also set up a wag rig to fish at depth with hard pellet but after several tries during the match it was a non starter as the facing wind blew it off the island quite quickly so i wont mention it again as i never even looked as though i was going to get a bite on it.
at the start i cupped in 2 balls of g bait with some casters at 13 mtrs and some soaked micro,s on the 2 lines at 16 mtrs, starting on double maggot at 13 mtrs i was soon getting bites off small roach as was chris next door and fabio on 30, it wasnt long before andy on 27 got caught by a carp on his lead rod and then les the chub williams lasooed one in the tail. i persvered with the 13 mtr line catching small roach then about 2 hours in i had a 3lb bream which kept me ahead of the silver anglers i could see, i kept trying the 16 mtr lines with maggot and soft pellet over the micro,s but all i had was a few small roach on maggot with no bites on the pellet at all i kept getting odd roach at 13 mtrs and no response at 16 mtrs so with about 1 hour to go i made 2 balls of g bait out of my remaining mix and put a ball into each line at 16 mtrs the 1 o,clock line onle gave me a couple of small roach but the 11 line gave me 3 skimmers for about 2 1/4 lb so by the end i new i had over 6lb but i was surprised to put 9lb of silvers on the scales to win the silvers so i went home with 65 quid and a second hamper in as many weeks.
first on the day went to vince brown with 48.4 of lead caught carp off peg 19 , he also took home £65 plus a 22 inch hd tv
2nd andy gurd on 27 with 15.8
3rd darren north 14.1 on peg 10
4th shane caswell 13.4 peg 24
5th chris fox 11.11 peg 48
6th john bradford 11.8 peg 9
silvers me 9lb
after the match we were treated to home made vegetable soup with crusty bread followed up with heathers home made mince pies, thanks to her and vic for a nice match it was just a shame the fish decided to shut up shop for the day probably down to the frost and several inches of fresh cold water being dumped in there

landsend weds

2011-12-14T19:00:00.002Z

only enough to use the match lake today but that wasnt a bad thing as the forcast was for very strong winds and heavy showers possibly wintry, they got the showers right as we had hail,rain and snow but luckily the tree,s around the lake gave us a lot of protection from the wind so we even managed to get brollies up so we stayed dry aswell. into the draw bag and out comes peg 10, not a peg thats usually in so no real form to go by , but steve seager did manage to to lassoo 45lb off it at the weekend but he did have to fish to the end bank on peg 12 but peg 12 was in today and the gimp was happily setting up for his 7 mtr silvers attack so the carp that live at 14 mtrs in this peg were going to be safe today, even though he did manage to lose 4 during the match.
i only set up two rigs today , a 4x12 impact 6 with an 18 middy 6313(hens teeth)on .12 for caster across at the bottom of the shelf and a micro pellet down the middle at 13 mtrs and a 4x12 rig on .14 with a middy 8313 on the end for corn down to the empty pallet(9),i cupped in some casters straight out at 11mtrs and to the right at 13 mtrs , some soaked micro,s to the left at 13 mtrs down the middle and some micro,s and corn to the empty pallet, starting on caster at 11 mtrs i was soon catching small roach and perch on single caster the first hour was ok even if the fish were on the small side, at the end of the first hour i did foul a carp which luckily was hooked in the side in the skin(mirror carp).that was safely netted and then it was back to the small fish, a look to my right on caster only produced two perch even though i tried it several times, by now the gimp had given up trying to catch carp from his end bank margin and had come down the shelf and was begginning to catch a few quality silvers, also kev molten had the odd carp off 13 but they were small fish,as far as i could see no one was setting it alight, although i could see mat tomes on peg 1 netting odd fish but i wasnt to sure as to what they were as he was to far away to tell and i couldnt hear to much splashing from the far side either .so what to do, will i go for silvers or try and get in the main money, as the latter was worth more, that was the choice then a llok over the micro line to my left down the middle with corn gave me a couple of funny wobbles so a switch to double maggot as i thought it was roach nibbling ended up with me attached to a 6 pound carp and it was fairly hooked in the mouth, i went down the edge with corn but never had a bite so i put in a good helping of corn and went back to the caster line where the small fish were still biting, going into the last 90 mins i needed more carp as kev on 13 had 7 in the net ,even though they were on the small side i went down to the empty pallet again for a last try as i hadnt had a bite yet down there even though i had tried a couple of times , and bugger me if the float didnt go under and a nice 8lb common graced the landing net, back over on the caster line and i did get another carp plus some silvers so by the end i had 4 carp for possibly 20lb and 10lb of silvers, i wasnt to sure as to what mat the shrimp tomes had , but he was first to weigh and his net went 24.3, my 4 carp went 24lb and my silvers went exactly 10lb for a total of 34lb for first on the day
2nd went to kev molten on 13 with 30.9
3rd alan oram 29.1 on peg 21
4th mat(new breed)tomes 24.3 peg 1
5th phil(fabio)harding 23.6 peg 17
6th martin(blakey)lenaghan 16lb peg 5
silvers went the way of john(the gimp)bradford 11.5 peg 12 on maggot over caster at 7 mtrs

landsend xmas match

2011-12-11T19:06:00.004Z

38 booked in for this popular match , there is no money up for grabs as the entry goes to prizes and post match food , i did run a £5 optional pool to pay out top 2 in overall and silvers, 34 went in it so there was £50 and £35 to fish for in both.
i drew for myself and pulled 19 on the match lake(nice)a ggod peg with lots of form but just lately it hasnt been throwing any weights but i cant say i was unhappy, for company i had dave(beany)westcott on 18 and fishery owner mike duckett on 21, the plan today was to fish caster for anything that swims so with that in mind i set up two 4x12 rigs , one for down the right hand margin towards the empty peg , one for 13 mtrs straight out at the the bottom of the island shelf and the same rig would do for 14 mtrs at 11 and 2 o,clock for soft pellet over micro,s and a 4x10 for against the island all rigs were on .12 with a 18 6313 hook on the end, at the aqll inm i cupped some casters straight in front at 13 mtrs and some soaked micro,s on the 14 mtr angles and fired some casters down the margin but its one of those lines where i didnt get a bite so i wont mention the margin again .
starting on caster on the hook i soon had a couple of small roach before a fouled carp graced the net then i lost a couple before i got one in the mouth, by now the out of practice mr duckett was some how managing to feed a steady stream of silvers into his net which had the effect of shutting thomas thick up on 22 who couldnt catch and mike was rubbing it in , i put on a soft pellet and went over the 2 o,clock swim and was rewarded with a 1 1/2lb skimmer ,next drop i hooked a good fish 8-10lb which i played for a while then it came off as it was approaching netting range in refed and went to 11 o,clock but never had a bite back to the caster line but i began suffering from liners and foulers so i went out with my far bank rig set just over half depth but even though i was fouling well off bottom i never had a bite on the slow falling rig so i went to double dead maggot on all 3 lines and at the end of the first half i had 9 carp in the net then it went pear shaped with no bites or liners , and to make matters worse kev molten on 7 had begun to catch on cornand even worse was that beany next door had started to catch on caster towards the island the last half only gave me 3 carp and only a few silvers so by the end it was going to be close on our lake , as expected the match was won by scott puddy on 33 with 15 carp for 89.9 on soft pellet and corn
2nd was me with 51.12 peg 19

3rd kev molten 49.8 peg 7
4th nick duckett 45.11 peg15
5th steve seager 44.9 peg 11
6th dave westcott 36.15 peg 18
silvers went to john grey on peg 3 with 16.4 on caster and maggot at 11 to 13 mtrs

avalon weds

2011-12-07T17:50:00.002Z

13 fished today so we used the left hand bank which was good as there were strong westerly winds forcast so we had it off our backs, i let fabio draw for me and he handed me peg 7 which is the last peg on the first island a swim which can produce silvers aswell as carp, i was sat in a tom sandwich today with tom thick on my right still smelling of scopex which he pumps his expanders with and tom mangnol on my left who was setting about assembling his array of feeder rods.i set up one pole rig today ,a4x14 impact 6 with a 16 6313 on .12 to fish soft pellet over micro,s , and a wag rod for pellet at depth towards the end of the island but the wind was blowing the float off the island and after a couple of tries during the match it wasnt right so i wont mention that again, a lead rod would have been ok but i left that to mr mangnol, a quick look on tom thicks peg revealed just one rig ,a 4x12 float which some think may be a bit light for 7 foot of water on a windy day but tom makes it work for him .
at the start i cupped in some soaked micro,s at 14 mts at 11 and 1 o,clock, 30 mins and niether tom thick or me had had a bite, so i took the 16 off and put an 18 on instead, by now tom mangnol had a 10 pounder and a couple of skimmers on the lead and corn at the island, both tom thick and me both had our first bite after about 45 mins tom had a good skimmer whilst mine was about 4oz(the writing was on the wall)and thats how the rest of my match was spent . on the pole with iether soft pellet or double maggot , i did go to 16 mtrs and i did catch a couple of carp there but the bulk of my fish came from the 14 mtr line, both tom thick and me ended up with 6 carp plus skimmers except tom thought he had over 20lb of silvers whereas i thought mine would go about 10lb, and as for mr mangnol i can see now why he sets up so many lead rods, its because he seems to use tree magnets instead of leads lol.
as i said the writing was on the wall early on and as expected ton thick came first with 60.3 which also included the top silvers weight of 22.6
2nd was me with 46.9 10.7 of silvers and 36.2 of carp
3rd alan oram managed to moan 6 carp and some skimmers on at peg 23 which went 33.2
4th mike west 27.2 peg 22
5th sean kitteridge 23.4 peg 3
6th mr feeder himself tom mangnol with boring days sport which went 18.10
any one interested there are still a few spaces left for the avalon xmas match on the 18th december book in with me on 01179517250

landsend individual winter league round 2

2011-12-04T19:02:00.002Z

managed to keep a full house today of 33 which is always good and with only 11 on each of the first three lakes we all get plenty of room,
i let the oldest person on my lake draw for so adrian feffery handed me peg 66 which can produce but with the lake being one section and with pegs 41 ,42 68 and 58 in the mix it could be difficult but after a word with rod wootten who fancied it (but then again he always fancies everyones peg but his own)also mat tomes told me that he had come second off it back in september so it must be good(i may have to invest in a pair of flip flops cos matty seems to have think i,ve lost my mojo lol).
only three rigs today a 4x14 rig for caster down the middle on .10 with the 6313 hook on the end, a .25 on .12 with an 18 6313 for soft pellet at 13 mtrs on an angle towards 67 and a 4x10 for pellet over and the same rig was ok for caster down the edge.
at the all in i cupped some caster at 6mtrs, some micro,s to my left at 13 mtrs and a mix of micro,s and 4,s over to the island, the caster line was giving bites but apart from one foulhooked f1 all it produced was small roach, aswell as the 6mtr line i was feeding some casters in front of the reeds to my right but that only seemed to have the same small roach in it. halfway through and i was going nowhere fast then i had a small carp of about 3lb on the caster rig at 6 mtrs and although i hadnt had a bite over to the island on pellet i thought that would be my best chance of some decent fish as it still isnt to cold and the lake was still well coloured and i had been feeding some 4,s with a catty since the start, i only had 1 bite on the soft pellet line which i think was a liner as there was a bit of a boil when i lifted the pole. i stuck mainly with the far line and the caster line down to my left and about 90 mins to go i began to get a few indication over by the island on pellet and with nick duckett opposite on 45 having 3 carp in the net mainly from his margin and dale housen on 68 having three carp and some silvers i needed carp to get up in the section, the whole lake was fishing hard with pegs 41 nigel bartlett and mike west on 42 not having a carp either, in the last 90 mins i hooked 3 carp by the island on pellet ,i also hooked a good fish(10-12lb)on caster down the edge but it was fouled under the chin and after playing for a few mins it came off at the net so i finished with 4 carp and a few silvers but i new that lost fish was going to cost me and it did as nick duckett won the lake with 33.2 and i was second with 26.14 but it wasnt hooked right any way but its still annoying when you have seen it several times and nearly netted it , just to show how hard it was the lakes silvers were won by nigel bartlett on 41 with a lowly 6.6
as expected the best weights came off speci lake with kev molten leading the charge with 112.13 off form peg 33 catching carp on pellet out by the aerater
2nd was craig(clamper)edmunds with 99.1 on peg 31
3rd bob(DCI)gullick 93lb peg 34
4th tim ford 71.3 peg 29
5th mat tomes 53.6 peg 13
6th alan oram 44.2 peg 5
top silvers on the day went to martin pettifer on 25 with 21.3
next round is in janaury lets hope the ice stays away and i get a draw between 29 and 35
landsend xmas match next week

landsend speci lake

2011-12-01T07:01:00.002Z

i think the weather may have kept a few away today as only 10 showed so we went onto the speci lake as it had a tinge of colour still, whereas the match lake has gone very clear, a draw at the left hand end pegs 29 to 36 would be nice as most of the fish seem to be happy at that end at the moment, so where do i draw , peg 25 which is an end peg at the other end, going back a couple of years it used to be a peg you would run to but for some reason the fish seem to have vacated the area in favour of the other end(thats the end to my excuses then lol)for company i had to look at mike duckett opposite on peg 40, back to tackleing up and with the chance of f1,s on soft pellet i put up a 4x12 rig with an 18 6313 for them , a caster rig for each side at 5mtrs for perch and maybe chub, and 2 pellet rigs ,one for 16mtrs towards the corner of the island(4x14 16 b960) and a 4x12 for 16 mtrs along the left hand margin as there is 3 foot of water, at ther start i began on soft pellet at 13 mtrs but i became apparent very quickly that small roach were going to be a problem as i was getting plenty of small trembles bur very few proper bites and when i did the result was a 4 inch roach after about 45 mins of that it was out to the 16 mtr line towards the island with a hard 6 over loose fed 4,s but that only gave me 1 fi and small roach again were nibbleing the pellet, i had been dropping a few casters in front of me at 3 mtrs so i came back over that line with a caster on the soft pellet rig and i did begin catching small roach with the odd fish to 6oz, but with nigel bartlett on 35 and tom thick on 36 the chances of me picking up any silvers money was about the same as my chances of main money either as fabio on 33 was losing and catching some , there must be a lot of fish in that peg at the mo as he was catching shallow out to the aerater as i had a couple of weeks before still strange for the time of year though , this time last year we were waking up to minus 10 and snow so i,m not complaining, even though i was well under dressed as i was shivering by the end of the mastch.
with most of the anglers at the other end catching odd better carp things were as grim as i expected and judging by the banter between tom and nigel the silver were odliging them both on there pegs .
i did have a ggod hour on pellet down the edge when i had 5 smallish carp(to 4lb) but the action was short lived as these fish are residents that live along the margin but there arent enough there to keep them coming and thats how i ended up with the 5 carp and some silvers for 29lb for no good, still there,s always sunday when i am on lake 3 for round 2 of the landsend individual league , there is a space in this section if anyone is interested and with each lake being paid out seperately you arent competeing with the pthe lakes
1st on the day went to phil(fabio)harding with 93.13 on peg 33, mostly shallow on 6mm pellet over loosefed 4,s
2nd nigel bartlett 65.5 peg 35 inluding top silvers of 43.8 of mainly chub on caster over to the island
3rd tom thick 57.1 peg 36 and he was second in the silvers with 45.4 of mainly skimmers on his scopex soft pellet approach
4th mike west 46.7 peg 31
5th nick duckett 46.1 prg 29
6th tony rixon 29.12 peg 25
the landsend xmas match is on sunday 11th anyone wishing to book in ring mike on 07797545882 or ring me at the shop 01179517250

plantatioin main lake

2011-11-27T17:42:00.002Z

this was a match organised by the cornish armed robber ,darren(nuddy)vowles and with 21 fishing this is the limit sensibly for this lake even though there are 42 swims on it there are to many corners so you would find yourself sword fencing with the anglers around you if they were all put in. into the draw and out comes 33 which is on the far sa side sat in a bay all by yourself, it can be good as long as the fish decide to go in there but the fish have been sat on pegs 1 to 8 mainly for the last month or so , so i didnt hold out much hope, rod wootten did say that i may catch some long up the left hand margin to the empty peg so i set up a 4x12 rig to fish banded pellet and soft pellet over loose fed 4,s, then a .5 rig with a 16 6313 for soft pellet over softened micro,s at 14 mtrs and a 4x14 with a 18 6313 for caster at 5 mtrs, at the start it didnt take long for the silence to be broken by the crashing of method feeders landing by the islands , i fed my 14 mtr line and fired some 4,s to the empty pallet and started at 5 mtrs on caster and i began getting bites from small(2oz)roach straight away, looking towards the empty swim i half expected ant and dec to appear from the bushes to tell me i was in the middle of a bush tucker trial as the swim had rats running everywhere taking the pellets which overshot the swim,
even though i started at 5mtr it only took 5 mins before i was down to my topset and still getting roach, although i did try the 14 mtr line that only produced 3 small skimmers and 2 tiny carp so that was a non starter as was the empty pallet which gave me a 2lb carp on soft pellet and some roach towards the end on caster so the match was spent on a topset(nice and easy)where i had plenty of small raoch along with one good skimmer, one crucian and a few good perch up to 2 1/2lb for a net of silvers that i thought would go over 2olb
1st on the day went to craig(trigger)edmunds on peg 7 with 94.7 of carp all caught on banded 6mm over loose fed 4,s at 14 mtrs
2nd was fishery ace rod wootten on peg 19 with 67.1 caught the same way as the winner
3rd kev molten 40.15 peg 27 again on hard pellet on the pole
4th steve seager 39.9 peg 5
5th adrian jeffery 38.6 peg 4
6th t rixon 29.3 which included the top silvers weight of 25.12 peg 33
2nd in silvers went to chris davis with 18.4 on peg 8

weds at avalon

2011-11-23T18:18:00.003Z

14 of us here today so we used a bank and a bit so plenty of room, i let roger andoniou draw for me again as he tends to draw fliers, its good to see some old boys out and about ,probably due to the nice weather innit rog. anyway his drawing arm was still ok as he drew 11 for me which is just on the gap in the second island, its a good wag peg aswell as pole so i set up 2 wag rods ,one for shallow and one for on the deck both with b960 size 16,s to .16 for banded 8mm, and with the weather still mild i fully excpected to get some shallow(wrong) and 1 pole rig which was a 4x14 impact 6 with an 18 b960 on .14 again for banded pellet but 6,s over hard 4,s, the islands do need a bit of a tidy up but then again with no one fishing tight in the fish seem to be coming off which makes it easier for everyone, but then again vic couldnt clean the islands as liegh must be applying for planning to turn the speci and syndicate lakes into marina,s as the boats are all on those 2 lakes(lol). for company i had tom thick on 9 so i had to put up with the sickly sweet smell of scopex mixed with the not quite so nice aroma of bullshit from him , and kev molton on 13 who didnt really speak all day, probably due to the fact that i couldnt see who it was there and i thought it was ray white so kev wasnt answering to the name ray.
starting at 16 mtrs with banded 6 over 4,s i hooked my first carp after a couple of minutes and i soon had a nice 9lb common in the net then next drop i had a 4lb bream, after the first hour i had 3 carp and the bream and i had missed a few bites , by now tom was catching skimmers on his soft pellet and micro approach and kev/ray had had 3 carp as well on banded pellet and i couldnt see anyone else due to the bankside growth, my swim seemed to be going quiet so i did my normal thing and upped the feed and things went from bad to worse with no bites , and when i did it was a fouler. about halfway through i left the pole swim and tried the shallow wag , i missed a bite first chuck then hooked one next put in which came adrift halfway back and that was the end of any bites on that , mainly due to the skimmy wind that started and was pushing the float through i tried the deep wag but that was hard to control so i shelved that for now and went back on the pole where i had a couplke more carp and skimmers but no where neat enough to worry tom as he was feeding skimmers and the odd carp into his net the whole time i did get three carp in the last hour on the deep wag rig but tit was to little to late as i ended up with 52.7 for 4th and no coin, first on the day went to craig(trig)edmunds on 19 with 90.6 with his fish being taken on both pole and shallow wag to the island
2nd was tom thick with 69.2 which included top silver weight of 39.15 on peg 9
3rd kev/ray molten 53.4 peg 13
4th tony (chip shop sausage)rixon 52.7
5th john(turkey)thompson 32.12 peg 3
6th martin(drive)lenaghan 24.9 peg 24
silver by default went to nigel bartlett on 27 with 24.4 of skimmers
hopefully we wil get a few more for the next weds in a couple of weeks as its a good venue where different pegs win each time and i dont think liegh will be succesful with the marina application

teams rnd 6 and last, viaduct

2011-11-20T19:37:00.003Z

we used match lodge and cary lakes today with one section on the 2 smaller lakes and 2 sections on cary , everyone fancied a draw on the match lake as it seems to be the best lake for a days fishing as there are plenty of skimmers, f1,s and smaller carp and with the mild weather still with us it looked like the best place to be . captain fantastic in the shape of andy bryant drew for us and the sequence of draws put me on 74 which is the first peg on the left hand side of cary, its an end peg at the shallower end of the lake but it has got the bonus of a large tree in the water to my right and it is a good peg in the summer but still normally good for a few carp even on the coldest day , so with pellets now not allowed on this venue i was pinning my faith on caster and corn, so i set up rigs to fish near the tree at 14 mtrs with a xedion 18 on .18(4x12), same for down the margin between the tree and the bank which is a bit of a suicide line and a light gig on .10 for caster each side at 5 mtrs as there have been some useful perch and hybrids showing in this peg and i set up a wag rod to fish corn out past the tree. at the start i cupped in some caster and corn into the 2 lines by the tree, fed some caster each side and fired some corn onto the wag line, starting on the wag no one was more suprised than me when i had a bite on the drop after 5 mins and lost a carp under the tree to my right, i thought that would be my only chance but 5 mins later i hooked another on the drop again but gave it less respect and netted a 7 pounder but apart from a slight wobble on the float that was the end of the wag sport until about an hour from the end and i had a 1lb skimmer, about halfway through i did get beaten up badly by a carp which took me under the tree and apart from some perch down the edge i had to wait till the last 15 mins to get me out of the mire when i had a 3lb carp on double caster out by the tree then next put in i had an 18.2 which pushed me into second in section with 36.5 but i was way behind the section winner , tom mangnol on 87 with 114.15
first on the day went to alan oram , dynamite baits with 183.9 on peg 96 of meat caught carp on the straight lead
2nd tom mangnol aa select 114.15 peg 87
3rd kev perry 106.5 thyers 106.5 peg 100
4th des shipp westerliegh 85.5 peg 68
5th clayton hudson avon angling 64lb
6th kev molton bynamite 47lb
silvers
des shipp 48.3 of pole caught skimmers on caster
TEAMS ON THE DAY
BMS 34
avon angling select 28
dynamite baits 28
westerliegh 25
charlies angels 24
thyers 24
avon angling 23
tims tarts 23
somerset angling 20
mats maulers 20
harriers 13
FINAL LEAGUE
BMS 57
mats maulers 49
thyers 46.5
dynamite baits 39.5
avon angling 37
avon angling select 37
westerliegh 35
charlies angels 34
somerset angling 32
tims tarts 21.5
harriers 7.5

weds practice at viaduct match and lodge lakes

2011-11-16T20:07:00.003Z

for those who want tickets the viaduct xmas match tickets are now on sale and the match is on saturday 10th dec tickets from the fishery on 01458 274022, also there is an open on cambell lake this sunday, again phone the fishery to book in.
back to today and this was run as a bit of a costcutter, only 17 quid instead of 25 so we had 22 turn up so only 11 on each lake, most people wanted to draw on the match lake so into the draw tin and out comes 64, the monk peg up in the corner of lodge lake, a peg which up until a few years ago was always rated as a match winning peg but it seems to have gone off the boil a bit , with the peg opposite being the more consistent as you can get right under the trees where the fish seem to be most happy, especially as the water has gone a bit clear, and with mike nicholls in this one (66)i couldnt see to many fish coming around to me , and thats how it proved to be with me hooking 5 in various places down the edge and landed 4 one of which went around the pallet and my nets but i managed to pass my topset under the pallet and my nets and still land the carp most of which was video,d by mike opposite so it may be on his blog. both mine and mikes fish were on the small side with my 4 plus 1 skimmer went 19.3 and mikes 7 went 41.5 and no coin for iether of us, the match was won by lee wherrett on 53 in the carpark corner of lodge with 92.3
2nd andy lloyd 56.7 peg 51 match lake
3rd phil harding 55.6 peg 59 lodge
4th steve woods 50.10 peg 50 match lake
5th mike west 46.13 peg 52 match lake
6th clint wojtyla 45.5 peg 48 match lake
silvers
rich coles 41.4 peg 47 match lake skimmers on the wag and caster
also avalon is running an xmas match on sunday 18 december , to book in you can ring me at the shop on 01179 517250

sunday open landsend

2011-11-13T19:57:00.003Z

26 turned out today so its another decent match, we may have had a few more but the poppy match was on the river today and it was good to see it being sold out with 120 fishing on the avon between keynsham and newbridge, i think paul haines won it on peg 4 at swinford with 30 plus pounds , tim fords blog will have the results.
back to our draw and anton page volunteered to draw for me and i was glad he did as he handed me 33 which is at the bottom of the steps behind the shop on the speci lake, i new it would be ok for a few as tim clark lost 19 carp on it last week, tim has now changed his name to tim salter which is the same as the manufacturer of weighing devices cos the firm and tim both seem to specialise in scales
back to my peg and only 2 rigs to make up, one for hard pellet on the deck and a shallow rig as tim fouled a lot so i thought they would come up, for company i had the bristol leg end andy bryant opposite who also seems to specialise in getting his fish to reverse into the landing net, and self professed silvers ace steve seager on 35. at the start i cupped in some 4,s at 16mtrs at 10 , 12 and 2 o,clock, the first couple of hours were hard with only 2 carp and some nice f1,s even the shallow rig didnt produce a bite during this period then after a couple of hours i had a bow wave when i struck on the deep rig, so i went out again with the shallow and i stayed on this till the end of the match catching 14 more carp on this plus some more f1,s all about 2 foot deep so i ended up with 19lb of silvers and 76lb of carp for a total of 95.5
2nd went to paul elmes on 38 with 76.9
3rd tony page on peg 5 with 74.5
4th alan oram 72.3
5th a clark 71.6
6th scott puddy 68.6
silvers went to silver ace steve seager on 35 with 35lb of mainly chub and perch on caster fished over by the island, he was like watching a well oiled machine

acorn dog bone lake weds

2011-11-09T19:43:00.002Z

i let fabio draw for me today and he gave me peg 15 and he ended up on 16 both reasonable pegs so no complaints, the beauty of this canal type lake is that you only need one rig as its nearly the same depth bank to bank so i set up a .2 rig on .12 with a 18 6313 hook and a 4x12 rig on .14 with an 18 8313 hook for bagging (just in case), with a severe lack of nuisance small (or any)silvers in the lake the bait today was going to be maggot, i started by cupping some maggot and softened micro,s at 13 mtrs and right over at 15 mtrs and fed some down the edge and at 6 mtrs in front , starting at 13 mtrs i missed a bite after 5 mins but by now tom thick on 13 had caught 2 carp and ha continued to catch for the first 3 hours fishing tight over using maggot over micro,s, after 3 hours tom was well ahead but his swim died and the last half of the match was very hard for him whereas fabio and me had a proper next peg battle with both of us catching odd fish right through the match both tom fabio and me all ended up with over thirty carp so it was going to be very hard to tell who won and it turned out to be a very close thing with tom thick just edging it with 74.11 peg 13
2nd and only a small fish behind was me with74.5 peg 15
3rd and slightly bigger fish away was phil(fabio)harding with 72.15 peg 16
4th ryan summerhayes 69.10 off peg 4
5th craig edmunds 42.14 peg 11
6th pete sivell 30.00 peg 8
silver were won by ryan with a skimmer and a roach for 2.4

teams of 4 rnd 5 landsend

2011-11-06T18:33:00.002Z

not to much to report this week, the team draw put me on peg 55 which is the top right hand corner on lake 3(johns water)its a peg which has shown a bit of form lately for carp so i was hopefull of a few fish, in set up a hard pellet rig for against the end bank , another pellet rig for out by the wire cage but i didnt really want to go there as its a bit of a tackle graveyard as the fish tend to bolt into the wire cage and break you, a soft pellet rig for 14 mtrs out into open water and a rig to fish caster down the edge , to cut a long story short i only had 1 roach down the edge, a few crucians and 2 carp on soft pellet at 14 mtrs and 4 carp down to the end bank all in all a hard day but we shouldnt really complain as it is november my net only went 33.13 for no good at all.
first on the day went to craig(trigger)edmunds on 22 with 86.9 caght on a mixture of soft pellet down the middle, hard pellet over and caster down the edge
2nd brian slipper 62.13 peg 29
3rd alan oram 57.3 peg 27
4th nick harvey 54.1 peg 50
5th mat tomes 49.15 peg 66
6th steve seager 48.12 peg 31
silvers
nick collins 26.14 peg 38 chub and perch on chopped worm and caster
teams on the day
bms 34
thyers 33
mats maulers 32
dynamite 25
somerset angling 25
charlies angels 25
aa select 22
tims tarts 21
avon angling 17
westerliegh 16
harriers 13
overall
bms 46
mats maulers 46
thyers 40
avon angling 32.5
somerset angling 30
dynamite 29.5
aa select 28
charlies angels 27.5
westerliegh 27
tims tarts 17
harriers 6.5

weds landsend match lake

2011-11-02T18:00:00.003Z

just on the match lake today . i put 23 in the hat instead of 24 as this peg has been hard of late , i let ray white draw for me and guess what peg 23 for me then. plenty of options as i could reach the corner of the island as well as the end the end bank on 24 so i set up a banded pellet rig to fish in 2 foot of water against the end bank and off the front of the island (4x12)on .16 with a 18 b960 hook. a 4x10 rig for caster down the edge as this has been working on all the lakes here,and a 4x14 rig for soft pellet at 6mtrs. starting on the soft pellet at 6 mtrs over micro,s it was very quiet with only 2 carp and 1 lost fouler in the first 90 mins to show for my efforts, i had been feeding 4,s across to the island with a catty from the start so i put a 6 in the band and shipped it across , i didnt have to wait long for a bite but only hooked a snag on the strike, one hook gone out again and the same result ,two hooks gone, so out with the plummet and instead of the front of the island i found the same depth just round the side of the island towards 22, the snag is the old plastic meshing that mike put some barley straw in to help curtail the algae, trouble is the plants on the island have rooted through the mesh and mike cant get it all out so it pays to stay away from it when you find out where it is, once i had found a clear spot i began getting odd carp, as was chris davis on 21 who was catching over on w and c.
the end bank produced no bites so 24 was still not producing also the caster down the edge only gave me one perch, so i stuck to the island for the rest of the match ending up with 18 carp for what i thought would go about 70lb.
i had bela bakos opposite on peg 1 and he had real struggle till the last hour when his margin sprang to life and he couldnt get the rig in fast enough with a bit of corn on , he ended up with 62.13 with most of that coming in the last hour, and chris davis on 21 had started catching down the edge and may have got closer if he hadnt trashed his rig with 10 mins to go and he ended up with 76.7 , but my net went 89lb on the button for first with chris second and bela third
4th went to fabio harding with 58.8 which included the top silvers with 26.10 of mostly ide on soft pellet at 7 mtrs off peg 7
5th dale housen 21.6 peg 16
6th ray white 21.2 peg 11

shiplate farm west and hawthorn pools

2011-10-30T19:19:00.004Z

both lakes full today so a good turnout, i waited till the end of the draw today for thwe last peg but there was 2 tickets left as dean was sorting out jason bird,s pole which the gimp had managed to skillfully run over in the carpark ,so i got the legend that is andy bryant to pick me one so i ended up with 13 on hawthorn while dean had 1 on west pool(andy you gave me the wrong one).
for company i had ray cooper on 14 and bristol docks ace john macey on 12
so plenty of people to have a laugh with and not forgetting martin alexander on end peg 15.
i set up a 4x14 rig for the nearside margin but thats the last time thats mentioned as i was biteless there.
a .5g for 10 mtrs in the deeps(6ft) and a 4x12 for over in about 18 inches of water all rigs on .12 with a 18 6313 hook to fish maggot on all lines, after feeding all lines with maggot i started down the middle on double maggot and had 2 carp in the first 2 drops good start but it didnt last as the next fish was a small perch then a couple of small skimmers but by the end of the first hour i had 4 carp but no one that i could see was really catching much,
it was about now that martin alexander say,s to ray , your doing ok arent you to which ray replies i,ve only got 2 carp ,martin say so you,ve had a few then , rasy replies no only 2 martin asks again so you got a few, no just 2 ray say,s ,oh martin says so you got 6, ray now shouting say,s i only got 2 , short pause from martin then he say,s well thats on the way to 6 then, it was like a 2 ronnies sketch, all we needed was some fork handles.oh yes and martin had left his hearing aid at home.
back to the match and it was a case of feeding the 2 catching lines and nicking an odd fish from each one, they didnt seem to want to line up on iether line , by the end i had 16 carp and a few silvers for what i thought would go about 45lb but they went 53.3 which was good enough for third on the day.
1st on the day went to dean malin on peg 1 west pool(andy should have drawn that one for me)with 39 carp for 141.14 for a new venue record ,catching on soft pellet over to the far side and maggot down the edge
2nd went to andy france on peg 1 hawthorn pool with 87.8
3rd tony rixon 53.4 peg 13 hawthorn
4th chris fox 47.12 peg 10 west pool
5th pete sivell 44.14 peg 7 west pool
6th john dursely 40.10 peg 10 hawthorn
silver went to john bradford on west pool 6 with 14.7 of skimmersd at 3mtrs on maggot

weds at avalon

2011-10-27T07:15:00.002+01:00

only 13 turned out today so we spread out on the far bank so plenty of room, roger andoniou was here again today and he normally draws crap for me so i was going to get someone else to draw for me but he beat everyone else into the hat(its supriseing how fast a pensioner with a bad back can move when he chooses)and handed me a peg which i was a bit reluctant to open but i did and there was number 24 looking at me which to all who know the venue will recognise it as proper flier(cheers rog) and its got an added bonus of having a 10mtr walk from the top carpark, so after wheeling(not to lazy then lol)my kit to the peg i set about tackling up, there is a big tree in the corner which looks very inviting but it pays to ignore that as its a rig graveyard with the carp getting into the branches ussually before you can react, the safest option is to go 14-15mtrs to the reeds on the end bank so i set up a 4x14 rig with a 16 b960 for banded pellet there and a 4x16 for straight out at 14mtrs for corn over 3mm pellet with a 18 8313 hook on .14.
after feeding both lines at the start i began on corn straight out in front and hooked a skimmer first drop which fell off on the way back, oh well, 10 mins later i was slipping the net under a nice looking full linear of 8-9lb, i stuck with this line for 90 mins and added some more skimmers to the net, after that most of the match was spent fishing to the reeds with banded 8mm as there seemed to be plenty of fish in the area but they were on the small side, as far as the rest of the anglers were getting on , i didnt have a clue as the lake is probably over 250mtrs long with plenty of trees on the bank so apart from roger andoniou on 27 i didnt see much and roger was catching a few on the straight lead over to the island on hair rigged 10mm pellet.
by the end i had 22 carp and 9 skimmers for 80lb ish i was only 20lb out as my catch went 99.4 which was enough for first on the day
2nd went to roger andoniou with 73.7 on peg 27
3rd phil(lets go quick before liegh turns up)harding with 68.14 on peg 35 fishing pellet on the shallow wag
4th tom thick on peg 40 with 60.7 which included top silver of 46lb of skimmers all taken on soft pellet at 14mtrs
5th ray white 55lb peg 38
6th craig(chip shop sausage)edmunds 45.2 on peg 37

round 1 landsend individual winter league

2011-10-23T21:00:00.003+01:00

had 34 booked but with 2 no shows 32 would have to do then spread over three lakes. i let trig edmunds draw for me so i end up on peg 3 on the match lake and trig ends up on possibly the best peg in the northern hemisphere, 42 on lake 3 , johns water.
any way back to peg 3 , clayton drew it last weekend and had 80lb off it so after a phone call it looked lioke it may be a soft pellet at 6mtrs approach and chopped worm and caster over, so i set up a 4x12 for 6 mtrs on the soft pellet over micro,s and the same rig would do for my right hand margin by a bush, a 4x10 rig for w&c at 13 mtrs and a 4x12 for banded pellet at 10 o,clock at 14 mtrs but i wont mention that again as i never had a bite on it.
starting at 6 mtrs on soft pellet the first hour was dire with only 1 carp and 1 crucian to show for my efforts , i went over on the worm line but that was hard with only a couple of reasonable perch before they dissapeared , i decided to stop feeding worms and began firing casters over ,this bought me a couple more perch and a good ide
there were odd carp showing on the far side but as is normal on this lake they do a dissapearing act when the pole goes over there heads so most of the rest of the match was spent at 6mtrs and down the edge, i had some good skimmers and crucians at 6 mtrs along with 2 more carp and another carp from down the edge for what i thought would be about 45lb, with a section on each lake you really need to end up in the top 3 or 4 in each match to do well but with beany westcott on 19 and adrian jeffery on 21 both having 11 carp i thought 3 rd was going to be my best result and thats how it turned out with beany winning the lake with 66.4 and adrian jeffery next with 55.7 and my net went 50.3
overall tom thick continues to do well winning with 103.10 off peg 41 on lake 3
2nd went to mark poppleton on 68 with 75.5
3rd alan oram 70.2 on peg 36
4th dave westcott 66.4 peg 19
5th craig edmunds 66 peg 42
6th paul elmes 58lb peg 55
top silvers went to me with 24.8 on peg 3

silvers final at viaduct

2011-10-22T19:08:00.002+01:00

35 turned up today to fish for the 750 quid top prize, with cambell and cary being used i wasnt to sure as to where i fancied but i know i didnt want to be on 119 in the corner of cambell, but thats where i ended up. i had a quick chat with howard webb who was on it on wednesday just so i made sure i did the opposite as he had fxxx all, for company i had bobby gullick on 118 who was upset with an earlier blog when i called him the shepton mallet pixey he pointed out that he didnt live there as i should have known as he had the right number of fingers i now know he hails from midsomer(murders)norton,
so with the quid side bet struck it was into action. i would like to say i had a good day of catching skimmers over g bait lioke i did on weds but the lakes mood had changed with the skimmers being hard to tempt, and to be honest they were always going to be hard in my peg as it has more form for carp recently , any way i wont waste to much time telling you how or what i caught as i ended up with 14 lb for no good, well done nick collier for winning off peg 94 with a mixture of perch and skimmers for 34lb, i,m not sure who was second as both andy power and gary o,shea both had 28lb ish and as for DCI barnaby on 118 he was beaten like a stepchild as he only had 9lb, if he is the best midsomer norton has to offer then that town is right in the mire(sorry bob it had to be said lol),
oh well off to landsend tomorrow for the first round of the individual winter league, and its a double or quits on the pound with the DCI

silvers only at viaduct

2011-10-20T07:13:00.002+01:00

21 fishing today so with 14 on cambell and 7 on cary, so plenty of room, i fancied a draw on cambell and thats what i got , 126 which is a good peg with lots of silvers potentially. for company i had dick bull on 127 and the world famous wheel barrow collector, colin dyer on 125. dick was convinced that the 6mm meat approach in g bait was the way to go whilst colin was on bare hooks all day as he knocked all his bait in whilst tackleing up, but the gimp came to his rescue with 2 pints of last weekends which was probably fresher than the stuff he knocked in.
i decided on the caster and g bait approach which has always been ok for me , so i set up a .5g rig for 11mtrs and 14 with an 18 6313 on .10 .
a 4x14 for 3 mtrs with the same hook and line for the 3mtr line and loose fed caster and a 4x10 for each side margin on .12 with the same hook, slightly stronger line as some good perch have been coming out from the margins. at the start i cupped in 4 balls at 11 mtrs and 2 at 14, fed some caster at 3 mtrs and each side, starting at 3 mtrs first put in and i had a 1lb plus skimmer, next drop a small roach, then nothing so a switch to single maggot but that was rubbish as all i had was a couple of tiny whitebait roach, i stuck with this for an hour and did get another better skimmer but i was going nowhere fast so out to 11 mtrs and missed a couple of bites before i connected with a 4oz skimmer, right species but to small then i had a carp, its supriseing how hard you can pull without busting .10 so with the 6 pounder duly netted and released i decided tput another ball in on each line as well as the 3mtr line and picked up the margin rig as colin had taken some good perch but i just had small roach, not a good sign as i didnt excpect to see those if there were any good perch there, so that was the end of that line the rest of the match was spent on the g bait lines fishing single caster catching skimmers of various sizes , but i think the bright sunshine and colder temps put the fish off a bit and the violent hail storm halfway through might not have helped ,i was glad i had my back to the wind.
the bites on cambell slowed right up in the last hour whereas some of the people on cary started catching some quality skimmers during this period including mash on peg 100 who ended up winning with 38.5 of skimmers over g bait and micro,s
2nd went to roland lucas on 102 with 31.15
3rd was me with 31.10, i dropped of enough 4 oz skimmers trying to swing them, so the landing net will be used more on saturday
4th gary o,shea 29.10 peg 110
5th tim pallant 27.7
6th s woods 23.5 peg 129
carp were a bit of a problem but not to bad as i had 4 and lost 4 but others had more

landsend individual winter league

2011-10-17T17:45:00.003+01:00

due to a double booking i have had to change one of the dates for the series, dates are as follows
23/10/11
4/12/11
8/01/12
22/1/12
19/2/12
11/3/12
the 13 nov had to be changed as it clashed with the carps silvers league at viaduct, if this date change causes anyone a problem please let me know asap as there are still a couple of dates i can look at if the dates change isnt ok for everyone ASSOCIATED WITH THE LEAGUE.

teams of 4 rnd 4 landsend

2011-10-16T20:21:00.002+01:00

to stand any chance of winning you really need to draw on any lake except for sydneys (no 4) so where does andy bryant go and draw for me , peg 81 on number 4 ,well done . for company i had trigger next to me on peg 83 and the gimp(mr bradford) on 78 , i could hear the roach shaking in there fins .and opposite the shepton pixy(bobby g)so the banter was going to be good.
this peg used to have a bush in the water which came out about a mtr but it was nowhere to be seen so i made up a pellet rig to fish in 2 ft of water a mtr off and swung a plummet about which revealed that the dead branches where now below the surface but i had found out where it was so i could fish around it, i set up a pellet rig to fish tight in in 8 inches of water just in case they came up on the shelf, a margin corn rig for each side at 5 mtrs tight in as i had 2 foot of water there, starting at 13 mtrs fishing banded 6,s over loose fed 4,s the first hour was bad , all i had to show for my efforts were 3 small carp which would probably go less than 2lb for the 3, trig next door had 3 aswell but his were bigger fish so i was behind already and trig was beginning to gloat as he was getting plenty of small skimmers on his soft pellet approach, the second hour was just as bad and to make matters worse bobby g opposite was nailing a few fish so things were looking bad , into the third hour and i looked down the edge and had 4 quick fish on corn before that went quiet, so iwent across into the shallow water and had one fish but it was difficult as the sun was behind me so the pole was casting a shadow and with only 6 to 8 inches of water to play with the fish were very spooky, the last couple of hours were my best as i kept knicking odd fish from my 2 margins and over as well so i ended the match with about the same number of fish as bob opposite (20 odd) but ours were on the small side whereas trigger and dean malin had less fish so it was hard to say who had won our lake ,as it turned out bobby gullick had 37.8 dean malin had 37lb and mine went 36.8 and as for trigger he got beat like a stepson again as he only managed 30.3 , he even got beaten by the gimp who had 32.4 so that was tight then
first overall on the day went to john grey on 41 with 88.4 taken on pellet from various parts of his peg
2nd lewis jones 86.10 peg 17
3rd clayton hudson 86.5 peg 3
4th ryan shipp 84.11 peg 22
5th paul elmes 79.12 peg 5
6th tom thick 74.12 peg 32
silvers went mat tomes on peg 11 with 27.7 which included a lot of skimmers
2nd was steve seager 23lb peg 27
TEAMS ON THE DAY
avon angling 33
bristol moyor shop 33
mats maulers 31
thyers 27
aa select 25
somerset angling 24
westerliegh 23
charlies angels 21
tims tarts 20
dynamite baits 17
harriers 10
OVERALL LAEGUE
mats maulers 37
bristol motor shop 35
thyers 30
avon angling 29.5
westerliegh 25
somerset angling 23
avon angling select 23
dynamite baits 22.5
charlies angels 20.5
tims tarts 13
harriers 5.5

weds costcutter at viaduct

2011-10-13T07:07:00.002+01:00

there is a whole week of costcutters at viaduct this week with all matches being 15 quid except today it was 16 as its a qualifier, so as its a cheaper one a lot of people were going to treat it as a practice for the silvers final next saturday including me, so into the nescaffe draw tin and out comes 85 , probably one of the best carp pegs on the lake but as far as carp on this lake goes its turned into a lead chucking job (like i will be doing that), i left that to titch williams on 86 who is widely reputed to have been mat tomes,s mentor in his early years before he got his flip flops and became one of the new breed. mike nicholls drew my peg on sunday in the carps silvers league and really struggled a bit only having about 25lb so it was not really going to be easy. i decided to attack it a bit and fed mikes whole allowance of g bait at 13 mtrs (10 balls)laced with caster at the start, i fed 8mm pellets at 16 mtrs at about 1 o,clock and fired some 8,s 16 mtrs down the long margin to my right, also as mike had had and lost several good perch close down the right i fed some caster down there as well, the silver rig for the g bait line was a .5g affair with an 18 6313 on the the end on .10, the margin perch(hopefully)rig was 4x10 with the same hook and line, and both pellet rigs had size 16 b960 hooks on .18.
by the time i had fed all my lines the 16 mtr pellet line had a fizz on it so i went straight over it and was soon playing a carp of about 9lb which was duly netted, but that wasnt the plan for today so i kept feeding that line hopeing to keep the carp off my silver line , but that didnt work as the first two fish i hooked were carp, and they didnt stay attached for to long, once i,d lost those 2 the peg started to give up a few small skimmers and a tench but it wasnt going well, but tlike a fool i stuck with it trying to get a response and although i was getting small indications i struggled to get any proper bites, with there being no tow probably didnt help, i stuck with the silvers for nearly 4 hours even the perch line in the margin only gave me one of just about a pound then the tiny roach moved in and i dont do that.
it was about now that i heard trig edmunds on 88 shout i,m in then there was a big splash and he was in right up to his neck, but you will be all pleased to know that he was ok and luckily he managed to to keep his head dry so the expensive dust he puts on the bald spot to conceal it was still intact when emerged.
so with two hours to go i went down the edge with 8mm banded and never looked back catching another 10 carp up to about 15lb, this is where the hindsight word comes into play again as there were signs of fish down there quite early on but i ignored them and spent far to much time trying for the silvers, when paul arrived with the scales i ended up putting 15.13 of silvers on and and my 11 carp went 116.8 for a weight of 132.5 which was top on cary but onlt 6th on the day so only the section money.
first on the day was s thornton with 194.10 which included 36.11 on peg 110 all taken on maggot at 6mtrs to his left(thats a first)feeding about 4 pints throughout
2nd andy lloyd 157.14 peg 126
3rd r garner 145.7 peg 127
4th nick ewers 137.11 peg 116
5th tom thick 135.5 peg 128
6th tony rixon 132.5 peg 85
silvers went to the bridgwater model vince brown with 38lb on peg 90 which included some big perch down the edge on w&c

avalon open sunday

2011-10-09T19:59:00.003+01:00

this is one of my real favourite venues as it is impossible to predict as to where the winner will come from, and today was going to be no different
normally any sort of method feeder with a short hooklength isnt allowed on this venue but vic agreed to let us use 3 inch hooklength,s as an experiment shame he didnt tell leigh before the day, but then again at least it gave liegh something(else lol)to moan about, i let the oldest angler on the bank in the shape of mike west draw for me and he handed me 27 not a peg or area i really like as its the widest pegs on the lake making wag fishing hard especcially with the wind blowing in and across, its a good 40 mtr chuck and with the awkward wind even 8,s were going to be hard to get over, but i set up the shallow wag anyway, i had half an inkling to target the silvers so i set a .75grm rig for 13 mtrs to fish caster over g bait with an 18 6313 on .12. i also set up a 4x16 on .14 with a 16 8313 for corn over micro,s at 16 mtrs.
at the start i cupped in 6 balls at 13 mtrs , a decent ammount of micro,s and corn at 16 mtrs and began firing some 8,s towards the island, starting at 13 with single caster i had a few bites and a some small roach and 1 skimmer in the first hour , but there were some bubbles coming up on the 16 mtr line so i went out with a piece of corn on, and i was soon into a decent carp which i got to my topset where it swirled and came off, bugger , i refed a bit more and came back on the 13 mtr line but it was no better with only more small roach, by now the method slingers were catching with dean on 22 making a lot of noise casting the banjo method to the island and splashing carp into his net ,also tom mangnal on 14 was catching on a mixture of method,lead and wag, so i went out on the corn line again and in the next hour i had 2 carp and a skimmer , even though there were signs of fish on this line i wasnt getting a bite , in hindsight(there,s that word again)i think paste would have been the answer, but i never set a rig up for that so it wasnt.
i fished the wag for the remainder of the match(about 3 hours)and managed another 8 carp with fish to 10lb down to 3lb, i thought i had about 55lb but i thought i would be miles off the pace as tom had 16 carp, dean was admitting to 18 small ones (ye right) martin mcmahon had 16(all method chuckers)
as it turned out martin mcmahon on peg 38 won with 76.01 on the feeder
2nd dean malin 71.12 peg 22 on the feeder
3rd tom mangnal 70lb peg 14 on a variety of methods
4th t rixon 64.8 peg 27
5th steve seager 62.10 peg 32 paste
6th ray cooper 47.13 peg 29 feeder
silvers went to shane caswell with 17.3 of skimmers taken on worm on peg 9

weds landsend match lake

2011-10-06T07:09:00.002+01:00

only a dirty dozen turned out today so we only used the match lake, i let the youngest angler there in the shape of ryan summerhayes draw for me and he handed me peg 1, its a peg that i havnt been on for a long time and it can be a tad confusing as there are to many options ,with a end bank margin ,a right hand margin under a tree, an island and the open water. i had bought 2pts of casters with me just in case i fished for silvers but i made my mind up to chuck them all under the tree to my right in the last couple of hours so i set up a 4x10 rig with an 18 xedion on .18,
a 4x8 rig for tight in against the left hand margin and the same rig would do for towards the island in front of peg 2 and a deep rig for the bottom of the shelf to the right,
at the start i cupped in some 6,s to the left in the deeps and against the bank and to peg 2 and sprinkled a few casters under the tree, starting at 14 mtrs on the deck with a banded 8 i hooked a fish first drop which came off at the net, and the rig went up the tree above my head, then i lost two foulers next two put ins and that was the end of the sport at full depth, i stuck with this for over an hour whilst i kept feeding my other lines, and by now i was already 3 or 4 fish behind adrian clark on peg 22 who was catching against the island on hard pellet, it took me 80 mins to put mt first fish in the net, a carp against the feft hand bank of about 3lb, but even there bites were hard to come by, so after a couple more i swithched to in front of peg 2 and had 2 more, but it was turning into a real grueller with bites all but impossible to get , the only person catching was adrian on 22 who was getting odd carp but regularly, i could also see ryan summerhayes on 5 getting odd fish and the gimp on 3 catching silvers but even they seemed to not want to feed. 90 mins from the end and with nothing to show on the caster line under the tree apart from 2 roach and a perch i threw 1 1/2 pints of casters straight in , left it for 10 mins then went over it with triple caster not really expecting to catch the rig settled and i looked up to watch adrian net another missed the bite so that was under the tree before i looked back, i did manage 4 carp from under the tree by the end but i was never going to catch adrian as he ended up with 25 carp but they were on the small side but it was enough to win as he had 87.12 all taken against the island on hard pellet
my 13 fish went 67.12 for 2nd
3rd ryan summerhayes 58.9 peg 5
4th martin lenaghan 38.14 peg 15
5th mike duckett 26lb peg 7
6th ray white 25lb peg 24
silvers went to phil(fabio)harding with 19.10 on peg 13 fishing soft pellet at 11mtr with soft pellet

teams of 4 rnd 3 acorn lakes

2011-10-02T20:11:00.002+01:00

with 33 on paddock lake ,everyone fancied a draw on the dog bone lake(its all in the shape)as there was only a section of 11 on it and it had been fishing well and with avon angling very own captain marvellous drawing for the team i had no worries and thats how it worked out with me ending up on peg 9 on the bone, i had mr flip flop himself , mat tomes on 8 and the bristol bagger kev davis on 10, i set up a 4x10 rig for banded pellet down the middle and a 4x10 rig for over to the far bank and a shallow rig for against the far bank, and a 4x10 for caster down the margin but i only had 1 each side on that so not to much time talking about that.
starting on the banded rig at 13 mtrs at an angle whilst feeding 6,s across it was a bit of a slow start with only a couple of fish whilst mat had about 5 on meat at 7 mtrs so i was falling behind, i went across to the far side on the shallow rig and began getting odd fish ,trouble was the sun was behind us and the fish were spooking away from the shadow, but by switching between the shallow and deep rigs i was still getting the odd fish and i think it forced mat to go to the far bank whereas i think he may have done better if he had stayed on the meat down the middle, about 2 hours to go i fed 3 big handfulls of caster at 5 mtrs then went over it after 10 mins and it was solid with carp and i had 6 quick fish on double caster then the fish came off bottom and i fouled a few so i left it and went back to the far side on the shallow rig and had a couple defore that went quiet but by switching between the caster at 5 mtrs and the far side i had a reasonable last 90 mins ending up with over 30 carp for what i thought may go 80lb, i had to weigh in both lakes , starting on paddock i was surprised how well it had fished with lots of weights between 20 and 60lb which considering how bright and hot it was i think it fished well, i wasnt to far out as my fish went 76.10 for first
2nd went to andy neale with 63.12 on peg 33 paddock
3rd nick collins 57.1 peg 40 paddock
4th paul elmes 56.12 peg 1 dog bone
5th tom thick 55,4 peg 22 paddock
6th mike nicholls 55.1 peg 5 paddock
silver went to john bradford on 10 paddock with 12,12
2nd kev perry on 4 paddock with 9,9
teams on the day
bristol motor shop 32
sensas thyers 32
mats allstar maulers 30
westerliegh 29
avon angling 28
somerset angling 26
tims tarts 25
dynamite baits 19
charlies angels 18
avon angling select 15
harriers 9
overall
mats maulers 28
bristol motor shop 24.5
thyers 22
westerliegh 22
avon angling 19
somerset angling 19
dynamite baits 18.5
charlies angels 16.5
avon angling select 16
tims tarts 10
harriers 4.5

all winners final at viaduct

2011-10-01T21:16:00.002+01:00

this was a winners match for all those that have won an open at the venue of ten pegs or more, with a thousand pounds up for grabs for the winner, but looking around at the draw there were a lot of good anglers to beat so a good draw on cambell would be nice but no , what do i go and draw peg 76 on cary, not one of my favourite pegs with it having more form as a lead chucking peg casting it towards the aerater on 78 meaning a cast past 77 is called for to reach the desired spot. so with the wind being not to bad i set up a wag to fish on the deck in that area, a pellet rig for the pole at 14 mtrs, a dapping rig and a meat rig for the tree to my right which would double up as a paste rig as it was the same depth at 14 mtrs, i wont waste to much time talking about meat as i only had one roach on that and i didnt have a bite on paste, i lost 2 foulers on the pole and pellet and had 1 skimmer and there didnt seem to be any fish in the swim so most of the last half of the match was spent on the wag i had 5 carp on that for 45lb and lost 7 more foulers all i could get was some liners and very few proper bites and i had the impression there wasnt that many fish in the area, perhaps the lead may have got me a few more but i will never know, opposite mat parsons had the right idea as he fished meat at 8 mtrs ending up with 9 carp for 104lb but that was only good enough for a section win ,as expected it was won off cambell 119 by my best mate dean malin(did i mention we were going halves) with 35 carp on pellet to the end bank margin for 174.3(mint)
2nd went to phil cardwell on 123 with 142.2 on popped up bread
3rd craig trigger edmunds 123.13 peg 126
4th martin preston 120.2 peg 85
5th mash 108.9 peg 131
6th jason mills 105.9 peg 118
so it was a good day and well done dean as he had to beat a class field to win
just another little gem from deans world . on the way to the match we got round to discussing emotions and that love and hate are said to be very close as emotions go, so after a few seconds lost in thought dean pipes up and say,s "well i must just dislike everyone then". he is a star

acorn lakes practice match

2011-09-29T07:16:00.002+01:00

22 booked in today but due to some doctors notes being sent to the draw we ended up with 19 , still a good number for a wednesday, we were using paddock lake which has 40 swims on it ,so plenty of room.i let roger andoniou draw for me even though he tends to give me a crap peg , but today he handed me peg 33 which is a bridge swim and anyone who knows this venue will know that the bridges really guarantee a days sport, i had dave roper the other side of the bridge on 34 and to my right was anton page who was miles away on 28, i had decided to fish with some live baits for a change in the shape of worm and caster down the middle by the bridge and up to my right ,still in the middle, feed and fish caster over by the grass on the far bank and pellet and corn up to the empty swim to my right, the worm rig was a 4x14 affair with a 14 6313 on .12, over was a 4x10 with a 16 6313 on .14 whilst the pallet rig was 4x12 on .16 with a xedion hook. at the start i cupped in some w&c on the worm lines some caster in 2 spots across and some pellet and corn to the pallet, i think tom thick on 3 had caught 2 fish on peg 3 before i had finished feeding on his soft pellet approach fished tight across.
i went in with the worm and was getting bites straight away from small skimmers , f1,s and a couple of small carp, i stuck with this for a couple of hours not really going anywhere as tom on 3 and rich coles were catching steadily, so i ditched this line and went over on double caster and began catching small carp , these bridge swims do seem to hold the smaller fish, i was trying to feed with a catty but the strong right to left wind was making feeding hard so i started potting them in but it wasnt as good as the catapult as the fish seemed to be responding better to catty feeding, the pallet swim to my right was hard to fish as the strong wind was blowing the rig back under the pole tip and dack towards me , i did get 4 fish from there including my biggest fish(4lb)and i lost another better fish there, i think it would have been better to fish paste there as the heavier bait would have stayed in position(best take some sunday). the rest of the match was spent on the far bank as the small carp were being very obliging, i think i ended up with about 40 small carp between 8oz and 1 1/2 lb which was ok around me but probably not enough to worry tom or richard, and thats how it ended with tom thick on peg 3 weighing 84.6
2nd went to rich coles on 6 with 70.10
3rd was me with 59.12 peg 33
4th kev molten 57.12 peg 6
5th steve kedge 44.12 peg 15
6th john bradford 40.7 peg 40 and he was top silver weight with 7.7
sunday should be ok as no one should blank especially as charlie barnes isnt going now lol
most people weighed in but fabio harding,s run of form had to end and today he dnw,d and has his ass tuned by the oldest angler on the bank off the next peg in the shape of joe thompson, with joe giving him a lesson in patience and presentation
breakfast is available on sunday morning at the fishery and its about a fiver for the large one. another plus to the lakes is that you can park right behind your swim with 20mtrs being a long walk

cheddar claypit open

2011-09-25T18:15:00.002+01:00

cheddar ac run one open each year and this is the first time i have been able to get in on the act, we got there about 30 mins before the draw and andy france walked us around and pointed out the fliers, but to be fair they all looked like fliers to me with lots of features and good margins in each swim , it must be said that this lake is probably the best kept and good looking venue i have ever fished on, the members certainly seem to put a lot of effort into the upkeep.
into the drawbag and out comes peg 9 , a proper flier according to everyone and it did look nice with a dig reed bed 11mtrs to my left but i was advised not to go near it as the fish dive straight through as its growing out of 5 foot of water, the word was that i would catch down my right hand margin and out in front in open water at 13 mtrs so i set up 2 4x14 rigs both with 16 hooks on for banded 8,s over 6,s. the good thing with this lake is that it is 6 foot all over except for the big weed bed where it was only 5 foot, at the start i cupped in 6,s at 13 mtrs in front ,down the edge and fired some 6,s towards the weed bed , first drop in at 13 and the float kept going and i had a fouler which i landed and as it was about 10lb it was very handy, next put in and another fouler was on the end but this one came adrift under the pole top, then i had a couple of skimmers before it went quiet, so i started feeding with a catty but that never really worked and looking around the lake as far as i could see no one was getting much, 90 mins in and dean wandered back to the van and got the method feeder rod out and proceeded to start catching on a BOILIE,(whats it coming to), my best way of catching was to iether feed with a pot or put several pouches in , drip feeding seemed to be a no no with the fish not wanting to respond to it so it was a case of dump feeding and catching what you could over it before feeding again, i had no bites from the right hand margin, i managed a hit and hold one from the reeds but it was only about 3lb but i did have several good skimmers on the 13 mtr line so i thought i had about 55lb at the end , i thought rod wooten next door had beaten me next door but it turned out that his fish were smaller than mine even though he had more carp than me ,as i think he had 9 to my 6 but the silvers may make the differnce, and thats how it ended up with me coming first on the day with 62.11 made up of about 19lb of skimmers and 6 carp making up the remainder
2nd went to dean malin on 19 with 59.9 which included the top silver weight on the day of 24.4
3rd rod wootten 56.1 peg 7, he would have won if he hadnt lost a big fouled double that he played for 30 mins before it came off at the net
4th russ peck 55.3 peg 10
5th mike west 47.3 peg 2
6th andy france 46.4 peg 21

johns water at landsend weds

2011-09-22T07:00:00.002+01:00

as lake 3 fished very well at the weekend i thought it would be a good idea to fish it for the weds open, and with only 10 booked in on tues evening we would have plenty of space but 15 showed up on the morning which was good but it just meant less room and some pegs going in that i would have preferred to leave out,
matt tomes drew 2 tickets out ,handing me one which was peg 50(urgh)and kept 70 for himself, ray cooper had my peg at the weekend and really struggled and the peg is usually pretty crap unless the pegs all around it are left out, i did have the older ginger ninja on 51 for company who is happy catching plippy roach so i would have the carp to myself, i set up 5 rigs(that will impress bobby gullick), corn and pellet rigs for the right hand margin, deep and shallow pellet rigs for over to the island and a soft pellet rig for down the middle, at the start i fed all the relevent lines and started down the middle on soft pellet over softened micro,s. almost straight awat fabio harding on 41 was into carp as was dave beany westcott on 54 , my float sat motionless for 30 mins then i had a 1 1/2 lb skimmer then a crucian so perhaps it was going to be ok WRONG it was a real struggle , during the first half of the match i managed 2 carp one on soft pellet and a fouler from the far side and a few more silvers and all i had in the last 3 was one fish on pellet down the edge. the lake was fishing very hard with even the fliers now not catching. tim clark on 46 was catching odd carp on the soft pellet and martin lenaghan on 42 was operating his usual catch and release policy, by the end he had 7 carp but had lost 15 ,tim ended up with 10 which was top on our side and with dean malin on 58 with the same it was going to be out of those 2 for top spot,dean took it with 52.6 on soft pellet over softened 4,s
2nd went to tim clark with 46.13 peg 46
3rd craig edmunds 36.7 peg 55
4th mat tomes 35.10 peg 70
5th martin lenaghan 33.12 peg 42
6th ed wynne 33.7 peg 68
silvers went to the ginger plipmaster andy gard with 10.8 on maggot on 51
apart from tims weight all the framing weights came from noted pegs so perhaps all the previous days rain upset the lake and its residents, who knows.
next wednesday i am running one at acorn as a practice for the teams of 4,s , its a 9.30 draw so ring me at the shop to book in 01179517250
oh and i weghed in 24lb costing me a fortune in pound side bets

teams of 4 rnd 2 landsend

2011-09-18T21:11:00.002+01:00

landsend today , spread over all 4 lakes so the fishing should be good but with a strong nw wind forcast that may make it difficult . andy bryant was our captain today so when he drew and i ended up on peg 68 on lake 3 i wasnt to upset, last time i was on it ,it was on a short pole match and i had a few at 5 mtrs so i set uo a 4x14 rig for that line with a 16 6313 on .12 for soft pellet over micro,s with a few softened 4,s mixed in, a 4x10 rig on .16 for meat down the margins each side as that can be productive in the last couple of hours, a 4x10 rig for hard pellet over towards the island and a 4x14 for the deep water off the front of the island both these rigs had a 16 b960 on .16 for banded 8,s over hard 6,s.
for company i had steve seager opposite on 42 next to ryan shipp on 41 and paul elmes next door on 70, the rest of the lake i couldnt see as there are lots of bushes on this lake now.
i fed all my lines at the start and went in on the 5mtr line with a soft pellet on , i had a quick look at my neighbours to see what they were doing looked back and my float was gone and i was into a carp first drop but it broke me so off with the .12 and on with the .14. i would like to report that i caught well on the 5mtr line and to be fair in the first 4 hours i stuck with this line as it was almost impossible to hold the pole over to the island and with lots of snags under the water by the island the wind was blowing the rig along and snagging, i did manage one on the rig by the island but the snags done my head in so i took the rig off i had done to fish the deep water off the front of the island as it was a none starter due to the wind and the aerater coming on and made an up in the water rig for tight in agasinst the island again on .16 with a 960 for banded 8,s,
alao my banker meat down the edge approach never produced a bite . most of the last 90 mins were spent on the shallow rig against the far bank and it was my best period as i think i landed 9 carp in that spell with fish up to 9lb , by the end i thought i had about 75lb but i thought both paul on 70 and ryan over on 41 had both beaten me, the scales would tell
craig(trig)ebmunds won with 155.13 on peg 19 ,catching on caster down the edge and pellet over
2nd ryan shipp 101.9 peg 41
3rd tony rixon 80.10 peg 68
4th tom thick 77.12 peg 36 which included top silver weight of 45.4 mainly skimmers on soft pellet
5th phil(fabio)harding 74.1 peg 51
6th paul elmes 71.6
teams on the day
avon angling select 31 pts
dynamite baits 29.5 pts
mats maulers 27.5
bristol motor shop 27
sensas thyers 25
westerliegh 24
avon angling 23
charlies angels 22
tims tarts 22
harriers 19
somerset angling 14 (how did that happen)
league to date
mats maulers 19
dynamite baits 14.5
bms 14
westerliegh 14
aa select 14
charlies angels 13.5
avon angling 12
thyers 11.5
somerset angling 11
tims tarts 5
harriers 3,5
next match in 2 weeks at acorn lakes

shiplate farm speci lake

2011-09-15T07:10:00.002+01:00

steve decided to let us try a test match on the speci lake , basically just to see what was happening in the lake , i.ve fished a couple of these sort of matches over the years and they can go iether way , with lots of sport with good weights or hard affairs with small pockets of fish and only low weights. it did make people curious as i managed to fill it easily with a waiting list ,after being guided to my vip (lol)parking spot by carol the parking attendent we were soon ready to draw. i let the oldest angler there in the shape of roger andoniou (forgot about jim thomas)draw for me and i ended up between phil(fabio)harding on 7 and the on site proffessional jim thomas on 5, so for those of you out there who cant work it out i was on 6, jim told me that this was to be the first match he has fished in 5 years , as he went missing when he maved into a caravan on the banks of the huntspill river and began making clothes pegs with the lovely brenda who is busy writing a recipe book for hedgehogs, i dont think anyone has told them they are endangered.
i fancied 1 to 3 or 15 on the far bank , as the early pegs had easy access to an island whereas 15 was the end peg but 6 would have to do. the lake was suppesed to be full of small skimmers with odd bream to 11lb plus some oddballs in the shape of sturgeon and grass carp, and the carp go to 30lb, i set up a .5grm rig with a 16 6313 on .12 for the shimmers and bream plus using 5 elastic with a pulla bung even a carp could be landed with a bit of luck, a margin rig with a 14 xedion hook on .16 for corn(meat is banned on this lake) and a wag rig to fish 8mm on the deck, but the wind started so that was never used except for one experimental cast halfway through.
at the start i cupped in some softened 3mm at 13 and 16 mtrs and fed some corn down the edge, straight out with a soft pellet at 13 mtrs and 5 mins in my first bite and i was attached to a good carp, after about 30 secs it all went slack as the rig came off, i thought the elastic had snapped but it was new stuff what happenned was that the knot in the end of the laccy had come undone allowing the dacron connector to pull straight off, that was a first , but some of these latex,s are hard to tie as they come pre lubed and knots try and undo themselves, i will have to blame that one on the tackle dealer who did it(umm).the rest of the match was fairly uneventfull with only small skimmers taking the bait and apart from the carp on soft pellet that was the only bite i had on pellet all the rest came on maggot, jim next door was catching on the wag with mag over g bait so i wandered back to the van and got some crumb, stopping to talk to tom thick on peg 3 he seemed to be catching small skimmers on soft pellet, he certainly seems to have the soft pellet fishing sorted.
the grounbait didnt seem to make any difference i had to keep swithcing between the 13 and 16 mtr lines as i couldnt get more than a couple of bites off each line before i had to move, by the end i had been beaten each side as jim ended up with 60 plus skimmers and fabio had 3 carp to my left , one on a method and 2 down the edge on corn. the match was won by tom thick on 3 with 28.15 which included 23.2 of silvers
2nd went to mike west on 15 with 25.11
3rd martin lenaghan 22.8 which had an 8.4 sturgeon in
4th phil harding 16.6 peg 7
5th jim thomas 15.7 (1st in silvers by default)
6th martin alexander 15.1 peg 13 in his catch was a 11lb grassie
my skimmers went 6.15 for nothing today oh i nearly forgot tim clark fished and his one method caught bream only went 5.12 so the 3 quid was mine, by i had to pay that out in side bets to more capable anglers , thanks tim.

chilton trinity woodland lake

2011-09-12T07:10:00.002+01:00

20 of us fishing today so we had a bit of room , only a few of us didnt have an empty peg on one side at least and with trigger drawing for me i thought he might draw one for me ,but no i end up with 26 but lickily i had chris(blippy basher)fox on 27 and paul elmes who may be a threat if the paste goes, this venue like others in the area has been responding to the meat approach and with it being a deep lake (7 foot) even with the level down by at least a foot it has been working fished at about 6 mtrs, so i set up a 1grm rig on .16 with a 16 xedion hook, a 4x12 on the same hook and line for each side margin about 1 mtr out from the bank in 2 foot of water , a shallow rig as there were odd fish moving and a 1.5 grm rig for 13 to 14 mtrs , bigger rigs than normal but with the tail end of a hurricane meant to hit us the extra stability may be needed
starting on thge meat at 6 mtrs it was very slow with only 1 small skimmer to show after 30 mins ,so i went out to 14 mtrs and that wasnt much better , it was that hard all i had after 4 hours was a 2lb carp and 3 small skimmers , although i had been feeding the meat lines all match i decided to give it some so i put in half a big pot at 6mtrs and a whole big pot each side in the margins, out on the 6 mtr line and i sat there biteless for 10 mins gazing around the lake odd peopll were catching a few with rod (van winkle)wootten catching in his margin each side of him and with the gimp on his right fishing caster for eels and shane caswell to his left who i,m starting to think he buys bait only for show and never actually puts any on the hook.
craig(trig)edmunds was catching on 7 , rich coles was also catching on 19 and tim ford on 17 was hooking plenty but after several outings to the river i dont think he is up to much more than roach bashing(lol)but he did keep the thatchers tradition up by fishing the method for a spell, but ti think he got bust on that.
any way 1hour 50 to go and i had 3 carp in 3 put ins but that was all i had there apart from 3 better skimmers then the rest of the time was spent in the margins where i had another 7 carp up to 9lb ish, it was hard to call this as it was several anglers had between 8 and 12 carp so it would come down to odd bigger fish making the difference, in the end craig edmunds won with 72.8 on peg 7 fishing meat in the margins each side
2nd was me (back from the dead)66lb
3rd chris davis 59.7 peg 32
4th dean malin 57.5 peg 29
5th rich coles 57.3 peg 19
6th rod wootten 54.3 peg 14
silvers went to chris fox on 27 with 11.15
it was a good tight match with one or two fish or a bigger one making all the difference, not an easy match mainly i think down to the conditions with the strong wind putting a strong undertow on the lake but no moans from anyone which is always a good sign, plus you always get a warm welcome from the owners , plus the now boast one of the cleanest new toilets i have seen on a commercial

rat holes at witherington farm

2011-09-08T08:00:00.002+01:00

every year the tackle dealers from the southwest and the reps from various companies get together for a match and general chat about the trade, well that didnt take long, i had the longest chat with mark from KAC about the benefits of cctv as it can make very interesting viewing of low lifes who think its there god given rights to shoplift, and its quite often people you wouldnt think it of.
well into the draw bowl and out comes 66 on the inner triangle and i was told by various locals that this was not a good draw as you cant clear the far bank as its an island with no access, whereas the outer triangle can come onto our bank and clear there far side as did lee woodhouse and mike (buzzer)bernstien behind me, both are fairly local and they both told me i was one 2 pegs off a flier and with a local sat there it was going to be tough.
at my peg i set up a margin rig on .14 for each side for corn to my right and various baits over dead maggots to my left, a meat rig for 5mtrs in front and 2 pellet rigs for over ,one for up against the far side foliage and one down the shelf.
at the start i fed mags and corn each side some 6mm meat at 5mtrs and decided to feed with a cup to the far side to try and keep the fish out of the foliage , looking at the local to my left and he was getting out a loaf of bread and proceeded to ship half a slice to the far side(well it was a big piece)and had a carp first put, well no noe told me about bread being the bait, i went across with some 4mm in a pot and a 6mm on the hook, i also fired a few onto the down the shelf line. the first hour was a bit slow with only a big f1 and a golden coloured carp of about 2lb and the bites had now stopped so i came back down the shelf and started firing some 4,s to the far side to see if i could get some activity, i began getting bites off skimmers on hard 6mm with them averaging about 8oz they were worth catching, i came back over the meat line and had skimmers there aswell, by now there were carp moving about under the grasses and branches on the island just where they think you cant reach them, by now my neighbour was well ahead but with the carp being on the small side it wouldnt take much to catch up, with this being only a 5 hour affair it tends to go really fast , so before you realise you only have 2 hours left and not a lot in the net ,i had tried my margins but only had a small perch over the maggot line, with fish showing on the far bank i only had one option and that was to cut the line above the float to 3 inches and poke the rig right in there, i was suprised as to how far back i could push the pole from using 13 mtrs to get to the edge of the foliage i could push the pole to 14mtrs before the tip hit the far bank, so i had to push it right in under water the pull it back a bit until i could see the float and it worked as i was getting bites, thing was though it was a no no to strike as all you did was hit obstructions above the pole tip, all you could do was throw the pole back in an effort to set the hook, thing is a lot of the bites were liners resulting in foulers as you were dragging the rig acdoss there backs but i was catching enough to claw it back against my neighbour, the last 90 mins were my best and i did manage a six pounder down the edge just before the end and i thought it was close between me and the angler on 68 for the section in the end my net net went 42.8 to win the section by 9lb.
vic bush was top on the day with 48.7 on peg 74 using worm and having a double figure fish certainly helped in a tight match
tom thick on 78 was second with 45.6 on corn
3rd nick collins 43.12
4th d baker 43.2
5th t rixon 42.8
6th j farrant 41lb
silvers went to steve mayo with 20.12 of caster caught fish on peg 62

teams of 4 round 1 chilton trinrty

2011-09-05T06:58:00.002+01:00

still ended up with 11 teams so all payouts stayed the same as last year, pegging out was maed easy as there are no corner pegs to worry about it was a straight line peg out , landsend will be different as the corners tend to be a bit fliery so the team draw will be staggered so one team wont end up in all the corners.
back to the draw and i was hoping for a draw in a section as it had the carp pegs in round the back of the island and up the left hand bank by the reeds, but no with jason radford drawing for the avon angling team it wasnt to be and i ended up on 67 in d section on the road bank(wheres fabio when i need him). although i moaned a bit i wasnt to upset as these road bank pegs have been producing some carp and skimmers , mainly on the paste in the last half of the match(all facts based on recent results lol)i think moke nicholls drew this peg in the last float only and he had 33lb on paste mainly late.
so with this in mind i set up a wag to fish corn at depth at 30mtrs, a .5 rig for caster over g bait at 13mtrs with an 18 to .10 and a 4x14 rig with a 16 6313 on .12 for soft pellet over micro,s at 16 mtrs.
at the start i cupped in 7 balls at 13 mtrs with lots of casters in them and a big pot of soaked micro,s with some corn at 16 mtrs and fed some corn on the wag line.
starting over the g bait i started getting small roach straight away, and they were small, so i tried corn over the same line , and the roach were slightly bigger but the bites were less forthcoming, i stuck on this line for the first 2 hours but by now there had been a couple of carp caught in my section so i binned that line but i did put i big full pot of caster on that line for eels just in case desperation kicked in, i had been topping up with smaller amounts of micro,s at 16 mtrs and there was now some fizzing going on , so i shipped out with a piece of corn ,but ti was all a bit frustrating as you new there was fish in the swim but you couldnt get a bite . i did manage 2 good skimmers in the next couple of hours, but with the wind now picking up a fair old trip had begun so i deepend up by a few inches and with 2 hours to go i started cupping some hard 4,s in with the micro,s and i dont know if was the time of day or the change to the feeding you never know but last 2 hours were my best with 2 more good skimmers and 3 carp for 27.7 for a section win and 4th on the day.
tom thick won off peg 12 with 48.10 ,carp on soft pellet
2nd paul elmes with 42.13 of paste caught carp
3rd rich coles 41.7 peg 7
4th t rixon 27.7 peg 67
5th kev perry 25.14 peg 61
6th mike nicholls 25lb peg 3 on the island
silvers went the way of steve kedge with 18.6 on peg 47 of mainly small fish on caster fished short
team wise there was a 3 way tie for first place with somerset angling, charlies angels and mats maulers all getting 32 points
next westerliegh on 31
avon angling 29
bristol motor shop 25
dynamite baits and thyers both on 22
a a select 15
tims tarts and harriers both with 12
next round at landsend in 2 weeks

weds viaduct

2011-09-01T07:06:00.002+01:00

dean didnt go today so i was with jason only, i got to jasons house only to find a small boy crying his eyes out in jasons street, i asked him what was wrong and he told me that some low life had stolen the trousers off his action man toy, sad eh, then jason comes out of his house and lo and behold he,s got a brand new pair of combats on , all i can say is his mum must be a whizz with a sowing machine, as she managed to get them taken up before i got there.
back to viaduct and 19 of us were on cambell only , so into the nescaffe draw tin out comes 123, a corner peg but a bit of a feast or famine peg, i had already decided to have a day on the paste as tim clark had given me a right shoeing at the weekend and there were a lot of fish taken on paste, so with this in mind i set up 2 paste rigs ,one with a 14 on for the skimmers and tench and one with a 10 for carp, and also a pellet rig for long down the edge into the corner and also a shallow rig as there were some cruisers about, i didnt set up a wag (or lead)rod as there was an angler on 121 which really means there is nowhere to chuck without effecting him. i had the kingswood rag and bone man on 124 in the shape of joe thompson who seems to break something every time he goes out and today was no different as halfway through he got off his box and did the worst display of the sabre dance i have ever seen and snapped a number 5, and on 125 was craig(trig)edmunds who seemed quite happy to play his fish out under his pallet , and for some reason when he had one go through his pallet and out the other side he was of the opinion that he could drop the topset one side and catch it the other side, you can quite understand why les(the chub)williams calls him a stupid boy, so there goes another 60 quid bobbing across the top before going under never to be seen again,
you may be wondering by now why it is i havent said anything about my days sport, its cos i never really had any, the paste never went with no one getting any more than one or 2 , idi manage a few early fish shallow and apart from a couple of foulers that was all i had , it was a bit of a 2 halves match with no noe getting much for the first few hours then the wind began to blow down to the carpark bank and from trig down most people started to catch a few , but the 5 of us at the top end really struggled with the angler on the end bank not even getting a single carp and no silvers to talk about.i only weighed 57.3 for nothing today
1st went to tom thick on 132 with 142.12 which included top in the silvers with 27.8 all taken on banded 6,s over hard 4,s
2nd j mills on 126 with 112lb
3rd kev molten 108.9 peg 114
4th mash 106.7 peg 129
5th trig 105.6 125
6th fabio 100.5 131
low weights by the lakes normal standards but all fisheries have off days.
and i made jason give the trouser back

gary wall memorial match, landsend

2011-08-29T20:35:00.002+01:00

it hardly seems like 12 months since gary passed away, the days and months seem to be going quicker all the time.
we had 39 turn up so we used speci, match and johns water, with fabio drawing for me i was always going to end up on a flier, and he didnt let me down as he drew 31 for me, he has only been back match fishing for 2 1/2 years and he has drawn this peg 9 times ,7 for himself and now twice for me, what a star .
for company i had the leg end himself andy bryant on 32 and chris davis on 29 so it was never going to be quiet.
i set up a 4x14 rig for soft pellet over micros at 13 mtrs , a margin rig for pellet which i never used , an up in the water rig which i never had a bite on and the normal 4x8 rig for over with a 16 b960 on .16.
at the start i cupped in soaked micros at 13mtrs , some 8,s down the edge and began firing 6,s over to the island , in put a jellied 4mm on the hook and dropped into the now fizzing 13 mtr line and was rewarded with a 6lb carp first drop, i went back out with a 6mm jelly on and began catching skimmers , i stayed on this for the first 2 hours getting odd skimmers plus one f1 and another small carp, i also lost 3 foulers over this line. after 2 hours i went to the far bank and never really looked back catching carp and a couple of chub right to the end, but foulers were a real problem especcially when i put too much in and ended up with to many fish in front of me , but lots of people were fouling , scott puddy opposite lost 25 carp as did mike nicholls on 19 and he isnt really known for over feeding , so who knows.i think i ended up with 21 or 22 carp plus about 20lb of silvers for what i thought would go about 160lb, and bryant had his usual good time ,only losing one lot of laccy today and ending up with 7 carp of which only 2 were in the mouth while the others are booked in at the local vets to undergo reconstuctive surgery on there asses to repair the damage done by his hooks
my net was more than enough today as i weighed 154.11
2nd was anton page with 80.9 off peg 7
3rd bobby gullick 79.2 peg 39
4th mike(i nearly cried cos i,ve lost 25 carp)nicholls with 77.6 peg 19
5th scott lovell 71.6 peg 11
6th tom mangnel 63.7 peg 24
silvers went to alan oram on 36 with 33.10 on peg 36 using chopped worm and caster to the island cover.
now for a little moan. i am getting a pissed off with people not waiting for there winnings ,its not as though i take long to do the weigh ins and payout, some one suggested that i should pay it out to the next in line , i think they would only do it the once

float only league final round

2011-08-28T21:22:00.002+01:00

viaduct was the venue for the final round with cambell, cary and 7 pegs on lodge ,i couldnt be beaten for the league so i didnt really mind where i drew, i let tim clark draw my peg and i ended up with 111 on cambell, then he drew 112 for himself.
i only set up 3 rigs , a shallow rig just in case but it didnt look right as the wind was in our faces and the water still had a nasty brown algae bloom, a 4x12 rig for hard pellet on the deck and a paste/catmeat rig with a 12 xedion hook , at the start i cupped in some catmeat and pellet at 6mtrs and some 8mm pellets at 13 mtrs. starting at 6mtrs with catmeat it took me 30 mins to get my first carp and i was already 3 fish behind tim on 112 who was opting for an all out paste attack at 9mtrs, also tom mangnal on 127 was catching well fishing shallow , back to my peg and it was out to 13mtrs with an 8mm hard pellet feeding over the top with a catty, i was getting a few fish but was losing some foulers , as was tim on the paste , but i think he did it right by feeding 2 swims with a cup and fishing each in turn and he kept edging ahead for the whole match so by the end it was fairly obvious he had battered me , i did relent and start fishing the paste at 13 mtrs and to be fair the response was favourable and i began matching tim fish for fish , so if i had started on the paste a bit earlier i woukld have got a lot closer to tim but i think he would still have beaten me as 112 has been a very consistent peg all summer,
its good to see customers putting there own elastics in there poles , with andy bryant being one of those he was very proud of his efforts , shame his knots attaching the laccy to the bungs arent to good as he lost 3 lots today as his knots came undone and he will need to come and buy some more , he is a legend !!!!!!!!!!!!
the winner came from an unexpected peg today when anton page weighed in 191.6 off peg 77 on cary , which was 16 fish taken on shallow pellet at 16 mtrs
2nd tim clark 169 peg 112
3rd tom mangnal 155.5 peg 127
4th gary etheridge 153 peg 121
5th scott puddy 126.14 peg 94
6th bobby gullick 124.09 peg 126
silvers went to paul faires on 124 with 46.3
my net went 119lb for 3rd in my section and 8th overall
the final league
tony rixon 35 pts
craig edmunds 34 pts
gary etheridge 32 pts
clayton hudson 31 pts
chris davis 30.5 pts
mat tomes 30 pts

landsend speci lake

2011-08-25T06:54:00.002+01:00

only 8 of us booked in today so its just a bit of a friendly knock up, with only 4 on each bank one of the corners would have been nice , but i end up with 28 stuck to my mitt which is halfway up the far side, with so much room i thought the margins might come into play so i set up pellet rigs for each side but me like everyone else couldnt raise a bite down the edges so no more of that then, i set up a 4x12 rig for down the middle with a 18 b960 for banded pellet (6,s) and a 4x8 for 8mm to the far bank with a 16 b960 on .18.
at the start i cupped in some 6,s down the middle and a healthy pot of 8,s against the island.
starting down the middle it wasnt long before i was playing a fouler which came off, next put in and another one on which i was convinced was in the mouth but that came off aswell, so i changed to a 16 hook with all the fizzing going on i was convinced i would get another but all i had was 3 good skimmers , i,m beginning to think these carp that fizz are taking a mouthfull of pellets off the bottom and coming up off the bottom to chew them as lots of people get bites and dont connect sometimes until you come way off the bottom and they are mouth hooked , who really knows.
after 90 mins of extreme fizzicals i decided to ignore that and go over to where fish were mooching about over the 8,s , but as is quite normal on this venue the fish are some of the wisest in the southwest and do a dissapearing act when the pole goes over there heads, it would be a bit better if you could use a longer line but with bits of foliage on the island you are courting trouble with to much line above the float, the first fish i had from there was a tail hooked 9 pounder but that was my lot for a while except for 2 lost foulers, i thought that the 8,s werent really working so i switched to 6,s and upped the feed , and that seemed to help with the fish feeding more confidently and losing some of there inhibitions, also i cme off the bank with my right hand margin rig as it was set at 2 foot , just right for about half a metre off the island shelf, and i had 3 quick fish, and by swapping between the shallow on top of the shelf rig and the slightly deeper rig i had odd fish to the end , i think i had 11 carp and with fish to about 13lb i thought i would have about 80lb , as far as i could see the main threat i could see was from mike west on 25 who had caught on pellet up the end bank and later on paste in open water,mike ended up with 72.9 but would have won if he hadnt listened to steve kedge who advised him that .16 will never break on the pole ,so 4 lost rigs later and i think mike will be buying some stronger line today ,my fish went 91.4 for first , jason radford also should have been second but the tired little bugger aint got the strength in his body to lift his net out of the water so a 5 pouder flipped out and went back, i,m finding it hard to believe he was the uk,s under 18,s power lifting champion and i dont think it should be a problem lifting for him as he is only 4 foot 6 so he aint got to lift it as far as everyone else.
4th was phil harding with 28.12 which was mainly chub off peg 35 and he won the silvers with that
5th and second in silvers was john bradford 28lb
6th joe thompson 25.6 peg 39
7th dean malin 20.12 peg 32
8th jamie dyte on 37 who dnw

shiplate farm west and hawthorn pools

2011-08-21T20:08:00.003+01:00

i only wanted 24 people for today as i wanted to leave out peg 15 on hawthorn as steve seager drew it last time and only had about 8lb and said he wouldnt come again if the peg was in , luckily he was on a hol in ireland with his family and i had 25 turn up so it had to go in, i let the frampton legend that is kieth turner draw for me and yes i ended up on 15 much to the amusement of everyone, i went on a bit of a scrounge up and managed to end up with 3 pints of casters and decided just to try and get a days fishing, 15 is an end peg with a curving bank making to swim a bit narrow but it widens as you go to the left, for company i had travelling partner dean malin on 14 who was opting for a pellet and corn approach(mainly as i,d nicked his casters). i set up a .75 rig with an 18 6313 on .12 for down the middle as its 6 foot deep a 4x14 rig for each side margin with the same hook but on .14 and a 4x12 on .14 for against the right hand bank and over.
at the start i fed some casters over and to the right and into each margin then began down the middle on single caster over toss potted caster but it was a bit slow with only a couple of small skimmers in the first 30 mins, i felt there were some skimmers there so i got of my box and mixed some g bait and put a few balls in , and for a while it was ok with skimmers taking single maggot but it never lasted so i went over to the right hand bank and had a couple of carp of about 2lb each so i was fast approaching mr seagers total and we were only 90 mins in a look in the margins produced a carp on the right and a missed bite on the left and that was thwe margins done for so i wont mention that again, as far as i could tell no noe was really running away with it as steve the owner did a curcuit and said west poolwas fishing hard. so 2 hours in and only 3 carp in the net i went over and i never looked back as the carp seemed to want caster today and not pellet as i ended up with 40 carp off the far side for a 43 fish total for an estmate of 85lb plus my silvers, the carp went 93.4 and sivers weighed 6.8 for a total of 99.12 for first
2nd went to bela bakos on 4 hawthorn with 53.8 and he never started catching till he started us chopped worm and caster
3rd was chris fox on 9 west pool with 52.2 which was all skimmers and a few big bream so he,s had a nice day
4th dean malin 44,4 hawthorn peg 14
5th rich heatley 42.10 west pool 10
6th andy(the leg end)bryant 41.4 13 hawthorn
silvers by default went to chris davis with 27lb on peg 2 west pool
after a slow start both lakes improved in the second half , steve wasnt expecting it to fish as well as it did as its been a bit hard of late but the average weight was over 30lb and considering the size of the fish that aint to bad
next weekend is the last round of the float only lge at viaduct and i think there are one or two spaces so ring me at the shop on 01179517250, also we have got the gary wall memorial match at lansend on bank holiday monday so ring me again at the shop or mike duckett on 07977545882
another quick plug there is a charity match at avalon on 25 sept for macmillan nurses tickets are in the shops, a really worthy cause as anyone who has come into contact with the macmillan,s will now what an invaluable service they do , so even iff you cant go all donations will be appreciated

viaduct weds

2011-08-18T07:00:00.002+01:00

i think 27 booked in so we were on cambell and a slice of cary so again steve gave all a bit of space, i felt better this morning as i had no alchohol tues night, and i may never drink again as its never really agreed with me, anyway back to the draw and out pops 76, it was the end peg on this bank today and with plenty of fish showing and a nice colour to the water i thought i may get a few, with cambell suffering from a nasty brown algae bloom and very few fish showing i thougth cary may be the place to be , i had a bit of a chard ressy reunion going on around me with alan(picky)gage on 78 and steve chant and mike hosgood behind me which always brings back some good memories from the chard spring series and the ressy matches run by the legendary les broughton, oh well back to 76 and i set up a shallow rig for the pole also a 4x12 pellet rig for on the deck which i could have changed to a 4x10 as the levels are right down, its that shallow at the moment i nearly thought i was sat at bullocks farm(sorry steve)also a paste rig (yep you heard right)and a wag rig, i have been using the middy clear loaded floats this year as they cast like a dream and you can swap floats without changing the shot as eacc float in each size takes excactly the same ammount of shot, the pellet rigs all were on .18 with 16 b960 hooks while the paste rig had a 12 anchor on, with the fish averaging 9lb ish on this lake with fish up to and over 20lb i only had 8mm for feed and bait with me so i cupped some at 14mtrs ,threw some under the tree to my right and fired some to 25mtrs for the wag. out on the pole and there were bubbles coming up already and with a 10lb fish in the net after 10 mins i thought a good day was in the offing and to be honest the peg was full of fish as foulers became a real problem and no matter what i did with the feed nothing seemed to help, if i stopped feeding the fish dissapeared, a big pouchfull just had the fish tearing the bottom up and another fouler, feeding 2 or 3 at a time resulted in the fish coming up but these fish on here are hard to fool in open water as they spook away. i did get one on the paste and 2 on the wag one of which was foulhooked ending the day with 7 carp and 4 skimmers for 71lb, during the day i fed about 5pts of pellets which may have been to much but talking to andy lloyd who won our lake off 86 with 135lb he had put 8pts in on the pole line alone whereas i had fed 3 lines so perhaps i didnt put enough in who knows , if we had all the answers it wouldnt be as much fun would it, i,m not sure of the excact result except that miles levy should have won but as he had 89lb in one net and 80 in his second and with a 70lb net limit i think he ended up in 4th place, the match was won by craig tucker on 112 with 165lb with his mate dan on 126 with 163lb , one of the new breed in the shape of phil(fabio)harding on 116 was 3rd with 150lb plus on the wag, so even with the water being an odd colour cambell was still the place to be , it just goes to show what an excellant well run fishery it is

sedges

2011-08-14T19:39:00.003+01:00

off to bridgwater this week to fish the sedges on brick lake , 20 fishing today so every peg is in, the day didnt start to well with having drunk to much bacardi at tony page,s wedding party, i was that bad dean had to drive , and i couldnt even eat my breakfast at hilltop, i did manage most of it so i was feeling a bit better by the time we got to the lake,as usual we had the warm reception from denise and jamie with the offer of a cup of tea or coffee, and its one of the tidiest fisheries you will visit and you dont even have to take any nets as they are supplied. time for the draw and i did my own this week as dean was holding the bucket , out comes 15 , a good peg as there is a weed bed betwwen 15 and 16 which generally holds some fish, for company i had chris davis on 16 and mike west on 14. the plan today was for chopped w and caster at 5mtrs ,the same rig to fish meat on the deck at 14mtrs , a shallow meat rig for 14 mtrs and a margin meat rig, i,m not going to bore you with how my day went as i was sxxt i ended up with 3 skimmers , one eel and a late carp down the edge, whatever i did i couldnt raise a bite and to add insult to injury chris won the match on 16 with 110lb and mike west won the silvers on 14 with 26lb so i am going to put my piss poor performance down to bacardi poisoning. towards the end of the match chris couldnt get his rig into the margin back towards me quick enough as the carp were queueing up ,i was fishing the same margin back towards him and i had one carp lost two foulers and i cant understand why i couldnt get a bite as we were both feeding the same line with the same bait well sort of ,as my meat was dusted with with greem stim whereas chris and mike,s was just natural, perhaps it was an off day for green stim, i think i may be clutching at straws now lol, as i said chris davis won with 110.6
2nd went to tom thick with 86.8 of carp caught mainly on the wag from peg6
3rd scott puddy on 11 with 72.8
4th dean malin 59.4 peg 10
5th ron hardiman 52.11 peg 3
6th john dursley 51.13 peg1
1st in silvers went to mike west with 26.12 , just pushing thatchers regect and stunt co-ordinater for the latest smurf blockbuster. bobby gullet(ick) with 25.14 of feeder and worm caught skimmers and i nearly forgot my 5 fish weighed 13.1 which apart from 2 dnw,s was plum last but did i moan and swear ,course not you just got to put it down to experience and probably a large slice of bad angling. does anyone have the number of a goog golfing coach, preferably not the one stu foale uses

weds landsend match lake

2011-08-11T07:14:00.002+01:00

only 14 today so it was only on tadham(match lake), fabio drew for me so i ended up on 15, for company i had mike(one at a time)nicholls on 16 and nigel sanders on 13, nigel was to far away to effect me and mike only takes 11 mtrs with him these days as his neck gives him grief or is it he just cant see any further.
so i had all the far bank to myself so i put up the usual 4x8 rig on .16 for over there, a stalker/slapping rig as there were a few fish cruising but not as many as i would have liked, a 4x12 rig for hard pellet down the middle but that turned out to be a waste of line and a hook as it never happened there, and a margin rig to fish worm and maggot to my left and right over dead maggot, at the start i went straight out and mugged one in 5 secs, which duly took me into a snag on the inside and i had to pull for a break, on with another hook and another one staight away and at 8lb it was a good start, i stayed on this for the first couple of hours as no one was really catching except martin lenaghan on 19 who at times never had time to feed before his elastic was wripped out , luckily being left handed i fish with my back towards 19 so i didnt have to watch him but i could hear the splashing so it was a lower placing to fish for and with no silvers plan it was carp or bust, i had been fedding to the far bank but had seen vety little in the way of fish which was a worry as they are normally climbing the bank, so apart from the early cruisers i was beginning to think the fish had left the area, i could see some fish moving on the end of the island to my left at 20mtrs so i started feeding 15mtrs to my left against the island and i soon began to get some signs , not manic but enough for me to stay on this line ,i ended the match with 15 carp ,9 shallow, i margin and 5 off the far bank for what i thought with the help of my clicker woujd go about 85lb with my 3 ide, and apart from martin on 19 no one else had really run away with it.
martins catch went 169.3 for his best ever match weight so well done to him
2nd was me with 91.11
3rd on 24 was stuart foale with 79.6
4th jason radford on one of his rare days when he is allowed to go 63.13 peg 7
5th mike west 48.2 peg 5 (again)
6th jim(steve)jenner 41.13
silvers went to john(the gimp)bradford 21.2 on peg 1

teams of 4,s venues and dates

2011-08-09T18:49:00.002+01:00

sorry its a bit late but here goes
4th sept chilton trinity wildmarsh
18th sept landsend
3rd oct acorn both lakes
16 oct landsend
6 nov landsend
20th nov viaduct
£144 lge entry
£100 compulsory team pools on the day
teams i need to hear from, from last year
dynamite baits
avon angling
avon angling select
philtone printers
charlies angels
tims tarts
thyers
westerliegh
team keyford
mats maulers
any other teams fancy a go give me a ring as i dont think all these teams will want to fish this year, i already know team harriers and keynsham angling want to fish so you have 7 days to contact me

float only 1 round to go

2011-08-09T18:35:00.002+01:00

t rixon 35pts 456.04lb 7 to drop poss max 35
c hudson 30pts 265.11lb 4 to drop poss max 33
m tomes 30pts 262.11 5 to drop poss max 32
c edmunds 30pts 3 to drop poss max 34
c davis 29.5pts 4 to drop poss max 32.5
g etheridge 29pts 4 to drop poss max 32
m nicholls 27 pts 3 to drop poss max 31
d roper 27pts 4 to drop poss max 30
t thick 26pts 4 to drop poss max 29
s puddy 26pts 3 to drop poss max 30
d malin 25pts 1 to drop poss max 31
n collins 25pts 3 to drop poss max 29
t clarke 24.5pts 3 to drop poss max 28.5

float only rnd 5 chilton trinity

2011-08-08T07:04:00.002+01:00

back on wildmarsh today which is a more traditional lake where you generally need to catch skimmers,bream or a handful of carp to do well.
i let trigger edmunds draw for me , he pulled 2 out i took one which turned out to be peg 12 which is about opposite where i was last match and still next to the bank of reeds which is on a bar going across the lake, deemed a good draw as it can produce both carp and bream, i had travelling partner dean malin the other side of the reeds, i would of been happier with a john bradford type angler on there as now there was 2 carpy anglers vying for the same things(carp), and we were both in the final of the knockout along with dick bull on 15 which is a good carp peg as its an end peg and had the wind bowing in and mike nicholls who was on the road bank which going by previous matches was the hardest area, but things change.
i set up a .75 silvers rig to fish at 14.5mtrs away from the reeds, a 4x14 for the same distance but by the reeds and another 4x14 for 9 mtrs up along the reeds. the carp rigs were all on .16 with an 18 xedion hook while the silvers rig had an 18 6313 on .10.
at the start i cupped in 8 balls of g bait on the silver line, some micros and corn at the reeds at 14 mtrs and some caster and corn at 9 mtrs as i have seen tench caught from this area(but not today all i had was aroach and missed a bite, so no more mention of that bit) .
starting on caster over the g bait and it was a mare as i couldnt get it to the bottom as little roach and rudd were nailing on the way down, i put a piece of corn on and had to wait for a bite but at least it was a skimmer ,only 8oz but the right species but after that it was back to roach bites so i binned that line aswell and decided to concentrate on the reeds, on with a piece of corn, lowered the rig in and i thought i had a bite but it was hard to tell as the wind was blowing around the end of the reeds and pushing my rig away, it was probably a paste day but i hadnt made up a rig for that so i slipped on 2 pieces of corn and had a smallish carp(3lb)so that was where the rest of the match was spent doing the mike nicholls way of feeding after each fish so you are just trying to get one fish by your bait at a time(sorry mike)by feeding to much the foulers can be a problem, i ended up with 12 carp and a couple of skimmers and roach for a total weight of 45.3 for first on the day and a section win means i have won the lge with a match to go, but to be fair a big thanks must go to the people who keep drawing me good pegs, thanks lads.
2nd was mike nicholls on the unfancied road bank (not sure what number)with 33.12 ,he had 4 one at a time carp on paste and 12lb of silvers
3rd martin pettifer 32.8 peg 9
4th gary etheridge 29.11 peg 42
5th dean malin 29.8 peg 11
6th scott puddy 26.4 peg 7
silvers went to the worm ace nick collins with 14.14, again on the road bank
knockout
t rixon 45.3 £134
m nicholls 33.12 £100
d malin 29.8 £60
dick bull must try harder
all in all it fished ok with more people having doubles and there wasnt to much moaning, and its another fishery where the owners dont just sit back and are constantly working on the lakes trying to improve it so well done to misha and her parents
on august bank holiday monday there is a memorial match at landsend fishery for gary wall(12 months since he died after a long fight with the dreaded C)so book in with me at the shop on 01179517250 or with mike at the fishery on 07797545882. his bankside tantrums are still missed by all his friends

2 plus 2 match cambell lake viaduct

2011-08-04T07:20:00.002+01:00

we have tried short pole matches at landsend fishery and its been ok ,making for a fair match, also they hold a topset only lge at the sedges and the weights are surprisingly good so i decided to run a short pole match at viaduct so 2 plus 2 it was then, i booked it and it sold out in a day, ok so it was only 22 anglers but that aint bad for a weds, and judging by the comments from the anglers fishing the open on cary i could have had quite a few more so perhaps i might do a few more.
i let dean malin draw for me today and handed me 130 which was one of the only pegs i didnt really want as it never seems to be a good inside peg apart from when dave wride had 70lb of silvers off it about 2 months ago and that was about the last time it produced fishing close, with mike nicholls drawing 132 again for the second time in 3 days and he won of it with 150lb on sunday ,barring any mistakes he would be hard to beat ,as would be tom (aka jordan)thick on 112.
i set up a pellet rig for under the tree to my right for silvers just incase dave wrides silver were still there but i never had a bite on that in the couple of times i tried it ,also the paste rig was a none starter, i just dont seem to be able to get it right, i think i need a day off to get that sorted, a shallow rig on a long line for some early stalking and shallow, and a 4x12 rig for hard pellet on the deck, all the pellet rigs were on .16 with a 16 b960 hook.
at the start i swung out the stalker rig on the nose of a cruiser and i had one on before most people were still putting bait in so with 8lb in the net it was a good start, i managed a couple more in the next hour but they soon wised up and stayed out of range which was a shame as they were good fish.
by this time mike on 132 was already pulling away with fisy falling to his paste method which generally entails throwing next to nothing in ang catching with regular monotony, he is a tackle dealers nightmare as he can make a bag of pellets last a month(a 2 pint bag that is). halfway through and tom opposite was catching aswell now as was bela bakos on 111 who having to get off his box to net his fish halfway along the bank between himself and tom(ha ha only joking bela)also he had to go and help tom unhook a 2lb eel as he is scared of them. my peg was producing odd fish for me but the y were coming in fizzing off the bottom with a mouthful of pellets the buggering off, i tried not feeding like mike (well not much any way)then upping the feed but nothing seemed to work ,i could get fizz which i dont think was all carp but obviously some was , i tried not feeding but the fizz would stop and i couldnt get a bite ,i put a big helping in and then i could get fizz and a bite or indications but the fish seemed to be well off the bottom but i couldnt get a bite up or on the drop, so i had a bit of a frustrating day , i think i will put down to the fact there just wasnt enough fish there (lol) , thinking back it may have paid me to kinder a few pellets in and fish for each fish as though it was my last , some times a good ploy in hard pegs instead of windmilling pellets all over the place.
as expected mike won with 140.11 of paste caught fish from in front and down his margin,
just beating dead malin on 126 with 133.5 who would have won if he didnt have 8lb to much in one net
3rd was tom thick on 112 with 128.14 which included the top silver weight of 25.8
fuuniest thing was when he had weighed his silvers and was getting his carp net out and i let the eel slither back over his feet, he screamed like a girl, well he is charlies bitch
4th bela bakos o 111 100.01
5th ala oram 83.6 peg 128
6th t rixon 80.01

weds landsend match lake

2011-07-28T07:05:00.002+01:00

we just about had enough to use 1 1/2 lakes today so we used the match and 33 to 40 on the speci, with fabio back for his first outing since his operation i let him drae for me so i ended up on peg 11 which is a nice peg with lots of options , only 13 mtrs to the island and with the water levels right up that meant that there was a decent depth over there(15 inches). so the normal rig of a 4x8 rig for banded pellet on .16. a 4x14 rig for pellet at 5 mtrs , a shallow stalking rig as there were a few on the surface and a 4x12 to fish to the end bank at 16 mtrs. the only other angler i could see was fabio on peg 13 down my own bank all i could see was the poles sticking out.
at the start i fed the island and end bank with some 8,s and the 5mtr line with 6,s and picked up the stalker, 5 mins in and a 7 pounder was netted as did fabio i quickly added another but as there werent to many at this end they seemed to be spooking and they were rapidly dissapearing . after 90 mins i had taken 6 fish but that was it as i couldnt see any fish on the surface now, the only person still catching shallow now was trig edmunds on 19 as there a re usually a lot of fish on this peg as they seem to be atracted to the gap in the island and he reckons he took 15 fish before his melted away.
i did try the 5 mtr line but never had a bite , mike nicholls had the peg a couple of weeks ago and had 40lb of silvers off it but i probably put more bait in in the first 5 mins than mike did in 6 hours , i just cant help myself , it probably didnt help playing carp in that area either.
so over the island where there were fish moving , so i went in with the shallow rig and was rewarded with several chub on 8mm pellet but that was no good as there were several anglers fishing solely for silvers and i would be to far behind, so i upped the feed and that had the desired effect as tails began appearing and nice orange ones at that .
but these fish are hard to get in the mouth ,only due to the fact that they are feeding in such shallow water so foulers become a real problem , the depth rig to the end bank only produced a good roach but a go on the shallow rig against the bushes did give me 3 carp and 2 tench but it was hurting my bad shoulder twisting to fish ther so i knocked that on the head and spent the rest of the match at 13 mtrs against the island(less painfull), by now phil was feeling a bit worse for wear opposite and was struggling to fish as he was in a bit of pain, i think its to soon to out on the bank another week of r and r is needed i think, but he did inform me that trig was still catching again on 19. so i fished around the end of the island and had odd fish right to the end, about an hour from the end i put a pint of 6,s down the edge and 30 mins from the end ther were two fish with tails up at 2 mtrs under a bush so dropped the island rig in and promptly caught a 6 pounder .
by the end with the help of my counter i thought i may have 95lb but admitted to 90 , the scales arrived and my catch went 102.2 which was winning until we got to craig edmunds on 19 who had 134.6 for first on the day
3rd was stuart foale on speci 35 with 75.12 which included top silver weight on the day with 51.6 which was chub on worm and caster over to the island and later skimmers on paste down middle
4th jason radford 75.4 peg 33
5th nigel bartlett 58.12 peg 40
6th phil(fabio)harding 56.12
special mention to roger kimberley on peg 21 who being from north of glos could be deemed slightly tight , he dropped a catty in of the platform and dived in to try and save it (actually he slipped)completely forgetting about the i phone 4 in his pocket i think he may let the catty sink next time.
off to the river this weekend to fish a big money match at newbridge , should be interesting to say the least , i get a feeling the banter may be quite interesting from the "proper" anglers ha ha .

shiplate farm west and hawthorn ponds

2011-07-24T20:26:00.002+01:00

with 25 fishing we used all pegs on both lakes and i didnt really mind where i drew , andy bryant drew and handed me peg 10 then drew 11 for himself both of us on hawthorn, drawing on this pool means i didnt have to worry about silvers as that would probably be won on west pool as long as the bream and skimmers played ball. back to my peg and with the wind off our backs and it only being about 13 mtrs it was going to be easy on the joints.
it was 6ft in the middle and down the edge so a .4 rig on .14 with a xedion hook for corn or soft pellet and a 4x8 and 4x10 rig again on .14 with the same hook for over tight and just off the far shelf again for soft pellet and corn .
starting at 9 mtrs i was able to feed by hand due to the wind being so strong, so much for the weather men saying it was going to be 23c with a gentle breeze , it felt more like 15c with a gale blowing up my ass, by the end i was all but shivering sat in my flimsy t shirt.
i started feeding softened 4,s at 9 mtrs and over to the far side ,and began feeding some corn at the bottom of the nearside shelf, it took about 20 mins to get my first carp and that was on corn on the 9 mtr line , it was soon followed by another then the bites went a bit funny , so out with the far bank rig as an up in the water rig and 2 more carp then i couldnt get a bite shallow but not to worry as there seemed to be plenty of fish against the far bank, as andy bryant was proving on peg 11 as he had a 6 fish lead over me and he was proclaiming it as the best fishery in the northern hemisphere and that i may need to think about buffing a pound up for him, i did get one on corn down the edge but that was the only sensible bite i had there, i ended up with about 17 or 18 carp which according the fish counter would weigh about 49lb so i abmitted to 44lb to be on the safe side my net actually went 48.2 so the counter keeps working
the match was won by john(the gimp)bradford with a rare crp and silvers weight of 70.4 off peg 10 on west pool
2nd and just missing out on a hat trick of wins off peg 1 on hawthorn was tim ford with 61.13
3rd 2oz behind with 61.11 was adrian jeffrey on west pool peg 9
4th rod wootten 49.11 peg 3 hawthorn
5th dean malin 49.9 peg 2 hawthorn(chip shop sausage)
6th chris fox 49.8 peg 4 west pool which included the top silver weight of 32.9 mainly skimmers on his topset using worm, caster and maggot
7th t rixon 48.2 and a quid off andy bryant whose peg dried towards the end giving me a chance to catch up
all in all it was a good close match which everyone seemed to enjoy apart from steve seager on peg 15 hawthorn who did really well to avoid the fish, but he did manage the top weight of eels on the day
3r

shiplate farm west pool

2011-07-21T07:17:00.002+01:00

only a small match today with 10 of us so the lake was full with all pegs taken , there were some road works in the lanes leading to the fishery with the lane from weston super mare being closed totally, so the only access was from the a38 side , so after a couple of phone calls kieth and shane turner arrived as did the bridgwater lothario in the shape of mike west, so draw under way and trig drew for me and gave me peg 4, he was on 5 and dean malin was on 3 and with the pegging being of a friendly nature it was going to be hard. just 2 rigs today , the bream and skimmer rig for the middle was a .6g affair which i later changed to a 4x14 with a 16 6313 on .12 and a 4x8 rig on .14 with the same hook for over to hopefully catch carp. the bream in this lake go to 8lb so they can make all the difference on the day. at the start everyone started in much the same way, feeding some softened pellets of various sizes down the middle and cupped some 4mm and micros with a bit of corn over , i thought cupping was the best option as the ducks would probably annoy me as they seem to be able to spot a catty at 1000mtrs and upend and eat your bait, dean next door fed with a catty and sure enough the feathered horrors arrived but at the end as we all know they upset us more than the fish. anyway everyone started getting skimmers and odd bream from the start but with it being flat calm this only lasted for about the first hour, then we all began struggling, craig(trig)edmunds on 5 put 2 balls of g bait in at 5 mtrs at the start and that paid off as he had 2 better dream and some skimmers over it during the day, so thats definately an option not to be ignored next time, it seemed you only got a couple of bites in one place then you would have to refeed and go to the other line, i did have 2 carp off the far side and a few good skimmers but the carp just seemed to be swimming through as i was getting odd liners, whereas dean on 3 ended up with 6 carp down mainly i think to him using the catty and making more noise and putting up with the ducks, by the end it was clear that the frampton legion stalwart kieth turner on peg 10 had probably done enough as he had 9 carp for what was going to be about 40lb with dean being closest with his carp and silvers mix.
the minor placings were up for grabs with jason radford having 2 late carp to put him in the mix ,and with me and trig both declaring that one had more than the other, with me thinking his 2 big bream foulhooked over his g bait making the difference.
as it turned out kieth turner was a popular winner with 43.3 of carp on corn to the end bank
2nd dean malin 36.8 peg 3
3rd jason radford 25.14 peg 8
4th tony rixon 23.11 peg 4
5th craig edmunds 23.8 peg 5 (you still have much to learn grasshopper, like the fish still have there mouths at the front oooh 3oz that hurts)
6th joe thompson 21lb peg 1

viaduct match lake

2011-07-17T19:22:00.002+01:00

this isnt going to take me to long to write as i didnt catch to much today , and with 2 bloggers to my right in the shape of tim ford on 46 and chris fox on 47 and with both of them catching considerably more than me i will let you read there blogs as it makes far more interesting reading, i let andy bryant draw for me so i ended up on 47 which is a corner peg with a long margin to a reed bed which sometimes produces some small carp and tench so in set up a rig on .16 and i did get 4 small carp down there and lost a couple as they are faster than me and made the weeds before i could pull them out , also my banker method of micros and caster fished at 13 and 16 mtrs which has served me well in recent matches failed me today with only 9 skimmers making it to the net.

the match was won by tim ford on 46 with 35.7 which comprised of 12lb of skimmers and the rest carp down the edge on corn , fair play to tim as it isnt generally a peg you would want .

2nd was dave evans on 49 with 32lb of maimly carp on meat on the waggler

3rd dean malin 27.9 peg 43

4th clayton hudson 26.10 peg 45

5th chris fox 25lb peg 47 and it was the top silver weight made up of skimmers on the pole then on the wag towards the end

6th t rixon 16.6

the lake fished harder than expected possibly due to the rain we had overnight as it can have an effect on the oxygen levels, thats the best excuse i can think of though lol

float only lge after round 4

2011-07-14T17:59:00.002+01:00

tony rixon 28 pts 411.01lb

mat tomes 24 pts 250.04lb

chris davis 23pts 313lb

clayton hudson 23pts 240.15lb

craig edmunds 23pts 197.12lb

gary etheridge 22pts 227.04lb

thomas thick 22pts 219.09lb

ed wynne 22pts 142.11lb

dick bull 21pts 180.10lb

dean malin 20pts 221.08lb

mike nicholls 20pts 219.07lb

scott puddy 20pts 168.12lb

dave roper 20pts 166.06lb

nick collins 20pts 137.06lb

last 4 of the k/o to be fished at chilton trinity

mike nicholls

dean malin

tony rixon

dick bull

weds landsend match lake

2011-07-13T20:21:00.002+01:00

only 12 of us today so loads of room, good to see pauline quirks weight loss guru in the carpark in the shape of leyton palmer. just for a change i had the last peg in the hat so i ended up on peg 7, its a peg which seems to get stronger in the last half of the match , especcially when peg 6 isnt in as the fish tend to come round the end of the island to the feed, just a pellet attack today as the meat seems to have lost some of its attractivness, so all rigs were on .18 with a 16 b960 for banded pellet, i set up a shallow stalking rig, a margin rig which never produced a bite and a couple of rigs for up and down the far shelf and one for pellet at 5 mtrs, i started at 5 mtrs with a banded 6 over hard 4,s ,but after an hour all in had was 3x f1,s , a skimmer and 2 roach and with no fizzing it didnt look good for that line, the next hour was spent chasing shadows with the dapping rig but i never got a bite on it so that was that then. over with the down the shelf rig in about 3 foot of water this produced 2 carp and a couple of lost foulers , as i had been feeding 8mm pellets over straight in front and on the angle at 10 o,clock since the start i was seeing tails and swirls in both swims so that was the rest of the match sorted then. by swapping and feeding the 2 area,s i kept fish going into the net right to the end , finishing with about 20 fish for what i thought (with the help of my new counter)85lb ish, tom thick was first to weigh on peg 1 , and he was admitting to 13 small carp, obviously being from shepton mallet he had to stop counting when he ran out of fingers ,cos he had 20 for a weight of 70lb 1 oz ,but it was only good enough for second as mine weighed 90lb 3 oz, this fish counter is working out ok

3rd was clint wojtyla with 66.9 on peg 17

4th leyton palmer 61.4 peg 3 (team any peg . com)

5th pete sivell 60.8 peg 21

6th mike nicholls 41.8 which was all silvers on peg 11 using his favourite soft pellet approach at short mtrs

float only landsend rnd 4

2011-07-10T20:23:00.002+01:00

with 49 fishing mike let us use 3 1/2 lakes again so plenty of room for most, i let fabio draw for me today and i ended up on 24 which is a nice corner peg, according to bob gullick i have drawn so many corners even my ass is square now.i needed a section win to keep me at the top of the lge , and 24 is more than capable of winning the section, my main threat was always going to be dean malin on 19,

i set up a meat rig for the margin but never used it, at shallow/stalking rig, a full depth pellet rig and 2 margin rigs for up the right hand margin at 14 mtrs by a tree trunk.

i started by cupping some 6,s at 13 mtrs and fired some 8,s up the edge , first and second drop over the 6,s at 13 mtrs resulted in 2 lost foulers , and that was the end of my sport for what seemed like ages, even though i had a bye in the knockout i still had to at least catch a fish to progress to the final round and i was beginning to think i would blank as we started at 11.30 and i finally landed a 8 pounder at 1.10 that i had to stalk then i had 2 more doing the same very quickly and another 7 during the next couple of hours , some stalking and some properly , but by now the fish had wised up and seemed to be staying out of range. so it was time to go up the edge and i needed to catch as dean was getting fish quite regularly across on the island plus it sounded as though the speci lake was fishing ok as the bush telegragh had reported that tim ford on 33 was catching ok and judging by the swearing chris davis on 32 was losing some , any way i began getting bites straight away , landing a couple then losing some under the stump butn i was landing enough to keep up with dean, by the end dean had 21 carp and a couple of skimmers whilst i think i had 19 but my fish were of a slightly better stamp so it was going to be close, craig(trigger)edmunds gave me a fish counter to try and keep tabs on what i have caught as i have had to much on several occassions this year, and my clicker was telling me i had 117lb spread over 2 nets, as i had over estimated the size of my fish i thought it would be closer to 100lb

as it turned out tim ford on 33 was first on the day with 126.12 of pellet (read his blog) caught carp

my nets went 111.3 for second and the all imprtant section win

3rd was dean malin with 99.15

4th mike nicholls 94.14 on 36 which included the top silver weigth of 32lb

5th paul elmes 86.4 peg 31

6th chris davis 85.8 peg 32

it was nice to see the match and speci lakes full of water giving a decent depth to work with on the islands and margins, also mike has begun to tidy the islands up trimming all the weeds back which saves losing to many rigs and hooks.

viaduct weds lodge lake

2011-07-06T20:28:00.002+01:00

with clubs having booked cambell and cary there was to be a small open on lodge lake and as i hadnt fished it since we had to break the ice i was looking forward to it. into the draw tin and out comes peg 60 which is the third peg up on the right hand bank, for company i had dave white on 59 and the gimp on 62 so with an empty peg to my right i decided to fish and feed 8mm pellet on a slight angle at 14 mtrs towards the empty peg, so i set up a 4x12 rig with the usual 16 b960 hook on .18, a shallow rig just in case ,and a meat rig for the margins but i wont mention that again as it was roach city down there, with them turning a square piece of meat into a small marble in seconds. i set up a depth wag rig with one no 10 down the line with a 14 hook for pellet at 25 mtrs.

at the start i cupped in some 8,s at 14mtrs and began firing 8,s on the wag line, it was a very slow start with only lee w(h)errett on 66 catching on paste on the edge of the tree,s, and dave white had had his bell rung a couple of times on pellet on the lead(i promised not to call him a sea angler ,but i lie). it took nearly an hour to get the first fish in the net in the shape of a 5 pounder , after a couple of hours i had moved on to 3 whilst dave next door had snared about 6 on his uptide outfit and lee on 66 was still catching but his fish were on the small side, dave had a go on the shallow wag and caught 2 carp but they seemed to dissapear for him so he had to revert back to the lead to keep catching . the middle 2 hours of the match i spent on the wag but that only produced 2 fish but one of them was about 14lb. i had been firing 8,s over the pole line but a switch to cupping seemed to get more bites as the fish stayed on the bottom ,whereas when i was using the catty the fish seemed to want to come up but i couldnt get a bite on the shallow rig . i ended up with 10 carp and 3 skimmers for an estimated 80lb ish.

the day was won by dean malin on 56 with 104.12 mainly thanks to a late run of carp to 18lb on the long pole with 8mm pellet

2nd went to lee werrett with 94.14

3rd dave white 94.2

4th t rixon 90.10

5th colin dyer 61.2

6th s kedge 49.1 which included top silver weight of 32.1

landsend lakes 3 and 4 , johns and sydneys

2011-07-03T19:36:00.002+01:00

21 fishing today so plenty of room between pegs, fabio drew for me and handed me 57 which was the last peg in on johns water (3), i had plenty of water as i had an island to my left at 14 mtrs and the end bank to my right also at 14 mtrs, mike had trimmed the grass on the island so that was ok , but the end bank needed a bit of sorting , but 5 mins with the weed cuttter and i had some nice mud to fish against, for company i had the highridge slayer opposite(rod wootten) and newby shane turner next peg to my left(60).

i set up and fed a meat line but never used it , a shallow pellet rig on about a mtr of line for stalking as there were a lot of fish cruising with a 16 b960 on .16 xedion rig line and a 4x12 on the deck rig also for pellet with the same hook and line.

at the start i cupped in some meat but as i said i never used it , i started firing 8mm pellet to the island and end bank but began by stalking , and after 15 mins i had 2 fish in the net for 20lb, a good start, i stayed on the stalker for the first 3 hours in which time i had about 10 good fish and the fish had stopped showing themselves within range so it was off to the island and end bank with the same rig ,first put on the end bank, fish on oops fish snagged in mikes wire cage for his hay bales and hook gone, then i landed a couple then i lost another hook in the cage , but that was the last hook lost, by swapping from the island to the end bank i kept fish going into the net(s) right to the end , i did use the depth rig for the last 15 mins for 2 fish, a nice day except for the heat , it must have been 80 f in the sun today and with no wind in my corner i was hot to say the least by the end then i had to do the weigh in(mint), i was admitting to 140lb so when i weighed 157.2 i was quite happy as i wasnt to far out yay and first

2nd steve seager with 62.8 on peg 65

3rd craig(trig)edmunds 61.12 peg 42 it was a good job he had fabio fish spotting for him early on

4th paul(in the tail again)elmes 47.12 peg 68

5th dean malin 46.4 peg 72

6th ron(goldfinger) crandon 39.8 peg 83

top silvers went to rod wooten on 55 with 16.10

landsend weds

2011-06-29T21:24:00.002+01:00

firstly we went boatfishing on sunday out of poole , we had a nice day as it wasnt to rough and we had a few nice conger up to about 70lb all of which we had in a one hour spell , we would have had more but the skipper wasnt up to the task of unhooking and returning so he moved us to another mark where we caught bugger all, he thougfht 18 big eels in an hour was enough for anyone , especcially him as he was done in, it was good to see all the eels go back alive apart from one which was kept for the pot, and with the weather being good i ended up with a head like a cherry ,mint.
bad day on monday as we had my old mate,s ed perkins funeral, it was good to see a lot of his fishing mates in attendance , a good send off for one of lifes true good ones, rip mate.
monday evening i was dragged kicking and screaming to the bon jovi concert at ashton gate , which i must say was rather good, although i must say it is a bit annoying sat in the middle of a load of screaming 50 plus women chucking there tenalady pads at the stage lol.
back to landsend and tom thick drew for me so i ended up with 22 for the day , a good draw but 21 is better , i had jason radford on that one for company and timmy clarke on (whats that i hear you all shout empty pegs all round). so a meat rig for the margins with a 14 xedion hook on .18. a banded pellet rig for 5 mtrs and 2 pellet rigs for over ,one on top of the shalf and one for halfway down the shelf, all with a 16 b960 on .18 (no change there then) i started at 5mtrs with a 6mm hard feeding the same, it took 20 mins to get a bite and that was a good skimmer, a few more followed then i pulled the band into a piece of 8mm meat and that produced a couple of crucians , but on the 90 min mark jason had begun to get a couplke of carp across so i ditched the 5 mtr line and went across on the halfway up rig and had 2 carp and missed a couple of bites so i went up on top of the shelf and thats wher i stayed for most of the match, i did get 3 carp down the edge on meat, but there were to many fish over on the island to spend to much time down the edge, i only fed and fished 8mm pellets over on the island as the fish get to preocuppied with smaller pellets sometimes making foulers more of a problem, well thats what i thought , but that seemed like a load of bollocks as i still fouled a load (lmao).
but i had enough as my silvers went 19.12 for top silver weight on the day and my carp went 88.6 for 108.4 for first
2nd went to charlie barnes,s secret plaything , tom thick with 89.3 on peg 18
3rd craig(trig)edmunds on 15 with 80.15
4th timmy clarke 57.2 peg 24
5th del(boy)howsen 47.14
6th jason(keptin)radford 47.1 peg 21
there was a tie for the default silvers , steve kedge and john bradford both had 17.12 so they had to share the money, trig also had 17.12 of silvers but he got in the overall
anyone looking for a match at the weekend , i am running a match on no 4 lake on sunday with the option to overflow onto no 3 lake so phone me at thge shop on 01179517250 to book in

acorn speci lake

2011-06-23T07:06:00.002+01:00

owners son mark bartlett suggested we have a match on the speci lake , and with viaduct being a bit close to the glasto festival site people werent to keen to risk the traffic , even with the oky koky anglers booking in and out i still managed to fill the 16 pegs on offer, but with roger andoniou turning up on speck we had 17 but there is a spare peg in front of the cafe so there was no problem. everyone fancied a draw on the front bank as the wind was blowing in to it and we all thought the fish would probadly be following it so when dean drew peg 12 for me which was on the far side in flat water i thougth my chances of winning had all but dissapeared but with the lake being a bit of an unknowner as there are few matches held on it , you never know. there was a clevedon club match on it at the weekend and andy hembrow won that with 85lb on the spare peg on poled pellet down the edge and a lot of the other anglers gaught carp with a fair few being taken on the method feeder but with this being a float only match at the request of mark,as he thought it would fair it up.
the lake has a reasonable head of 4 to the pound skimmers so i intended to target them so at least i would be getting bites. i did set up a margin rig for meat and corn but the wind which was by now gale force blowing the marginal reeds over i couldnt see up the edge and when i could i never had a bite so no more of that then, i also set up a wag to fish pellet on the deck halfway to the island but that only produced one bite from a 6oz carp so no more of that then,
i set up a 4x16 j15 float with a size 18 6313 rig for the skimmers with most of the shot 15 inches from the hook and 2x10,s 4 inches from the hook so the lifters would be easy to spot, at the start i cupped in 8 balls at 13 mtrs then had 30 mins on the wag to no avail, dropping in on the pole i wouldnt say it was hectic but there were enough bites to keep the interest going , but they needed feeding as they would drift away but they would come back after each ball, to be fair i dont think i took enough groundbait, i put in 2kg but i think 3 would have been better as towards the last hour i ran out and the last 45 mins i was skimmerless i did try putting some caster and dead mags in but all that did was to prevent my bait getting to the bottom as a tiny rudd stopped it on the way down.
the only person i could see who had taken any carp was jason radford on peg 3 who had 5 on paste in his left hand margin for 26.10 and first on the day
2nd went to steve kedge on peg 15 with 25.12 which included top silvers with 25lb of small skimmers and perch
3rd mark bartlett 21.5 peg 16
4th t rixon 19.10 peg 12 my silvers went 18.6 to give me the silvers by default
5th r fogg 15.13 peg 4
6th m alexander 13.8 peg 13
i think we will have another match there but it will be any method as there were a lot of fish on the islands and they appeared to want to stay there

float only lge halfway mark

2011-06-21T19:15:00.002+01:00

top 12
t rixon 21 pts 299.14lb
c edmunds 20 pts 166.7lb
m tomes 18 pts 193.12lb
c davis 17 pts 227.8lb
c hudson 17 pts 184.10lb
n collins 17 pts 104.9lb
e wynne 17 pts 104.2lb
s puddy 16 pts 129.10lb
d roper 16 pts 114.7lb
g etheridge 15 pts 168.12lb
t thick 15 pts 150.3lb
s seager 15 pts 120.8lb
knockout draw for the semi drawn by my mum
d roper v m nicholls
d malin v c davis
t rixon v bye
b gullick v d bull
seriously though it was drawn by a customer called dave carrol

float only round 3 chilton trinity

2011-06-19T20:50:00.003+01:00

all 49 of us on wildmarsh today which can be a cruel lake as you need to catch quality silvers or carp to do well and as i had drawn craig edmunds in the knock out we drew for each other , he gave me 22 which is the same peg as i had a couple of weeks ago, when i had some decent skimmers and a small carp whilst trig emded up on 49 which hasnt been the best of areas lately but the wind had turned a bit so it might change, when i got to my peg i decided on the wag being a bit of a non starter as the wind was quite strong and blowing in and across, so much the same rigs as last time , a .75 with an 18 6313 0n .10 for 11 mtrs over groundbait, a 1grm rig with a 16 6313 to .12 for 14mtrs to fish soft pellet and corn over micro,s and a 4x14 for caster down the edge , for company i had bob gullick on 24 and dick bull on 21 .
after last weeks terrible attempt at balling it was out with the cup this week and it didnt take to long to put 10 balls in and at least they went into the right place all i put in mine were some casters and soaked micro,s , think bob did much the same whereas dick opted for chopped worm in his, i also cupped some micro.s with a few pieces of corn at 14 mtrs and then some casters down the edge.
dick started well with a couple of good skimmers on the worm but all me and bob could get were small roach, there were fish in my peg as i had some bubbles coming up and i di miss a couple of good bites which i suspected of being liners , so i put double caster on and swung the rig out past the feed and that began to produce with a few good skimmers ending up in the net after a couple of hours the 11mtr line never really produced mucc else for the rest of the match apart from small roach and as there were no bubbles coming up now i think the skimmers had moved off, i had an eel and some roach on the inside but the roach didnt seem to want to settle so i just kept swapping around the three swims and a did get 2 small carp and a few more skimmers on corn over the micro,s so by the end i thought i had the measure of bob but it would be close between dick and me with us both admitting to just over 20lb ,
in the end the match was won by chris davis on peg 40 which is a noted carp peg at the back of the island with 53.9 of meat caught carp from the margins
2nd was steve seager on peg 9 with 51.5 on his warm paste
3rd gary atheridge on island peg 10 with 28.1
4th mat (the new breed of mermaid) 27.14 peg 11
5th t rixon 25.14 peg 22
6th dick bull 23lb peg 21
silvers went to dick with his 23lb pushing me into 2nd in silvers by 8oz with 22.8, but the 2 small carp gave me the edge over him for the all important section win, giving me max points so far.
there were a few moans today but its a proper lake and not a heavily stocked commercial with some pegs seeming to be devoid of fish but thats the nature of the beast and the owners are constantly working very hard to turn it into venue to keep eveyone happy from the bivvy brigade to us moaning matchmen and i think they are getting there but it doesnt happen overnight
oh yes and as far as trig goes and the knockout he is history i think he had about 10lb off peg 49 ish even after his girlfriend ms jo shepherd txt me to let me know trig was going to cut my ass really bad, ye right.

landsend 2 plus 2

2011-06-15T20:22:00.005+01:00

firstly eddy perkins funeral is on monday 27th at 10.30 at haycombe cemetry as far as i know all are welcome to attend.
back to landsend for another short pole match all we were allowed today was the top 2 plus 2 more so a nice easy day without to much stress on the joints.
roger andoniou drew for me and gave me peg 3, not the best of pegs of late and even the new breed in the shape of phil(fabio)harding only managed 11lb off it last week, so when an angler of his calibre (LOL) stuggles on it , it must be hard.
for company on 5 i had the legend that is colin golding and on peg 1 was non other than bridgwaters very own sex machine(as long as the blue pills keep working)mike west and due to the ammount of foliage around the lake these were the only 2 anglers i could see.
only 2 rigs today , a 4x14 rig on .12 with a 16 6313 for soft pellet, caster or maggot over softened 4,s at 5mtrs and for down the left hand margin as its the same depth and a 4x8 up in the water rig just in case , but that never happened apart from some small roach so i wont mention that again, and to be honest i havent really got to much to talk about . the first hour was spent on the soft pellet but that only produced 1 small roach and judging by the muttering from peg 5 colin wasnt fairing much better, whereas mike on peg 1 was doing ok with some good silvers taking a liking to his halal chicken luncheon meat (dont ask)i couldnt see what was going on but i could hear a bit of splashing so i new there were some fish coming out.
i know what i should have done and that was to just concentrate on silvers as i could get perch and roach down the edge plus i had 4 good skimmers from the 5mtr line and by the end i had 3 carp aswell but my 20lb of silvers and 15lb of carp was going to win zilch today
first on the day was dean malin with 77.4 on peg 24 on 6mm soft pellet over 6mm hard pellet feed
2nd was alan oram with 60.4 on peg 17
3rd mat ( one of the new breed) tomes with 58.1 on peg 12
4th mike(ga ga )west with 50.7 peg 1
5th phil harding 48lb peg 15
6th t rixon 35.13 peg
and the silvers were won by john bradford on the most inform carp peg in somerset 21
with 26.8

chilton trinity wildmarsh lake

2011-06-12T21:20:00.003+01:00

got up feeling a bit subdued but after a good brekkie at the fountain cafe in st george and the normal world according to dean malin conversation i was soon feeling better.
i had 30 booked in today but with the rain and gale forecast for today i would be surprised if they all showed , but only one no show so that wasnt to bad, i let fishery boss misha herring draw for me and she handed me peg 16 which is a cornerish peg with a reed bed to my right going along the end bank.
3 rigs today a .75 with a 18 6313 to fish over grounbait at 7 and 13 mtrs , a 4x12 for caster at 3mtrs with the same hook and both on .10 and a 4x12 j2 on .16 with a 16 xedion hook for meat and corn down the edge.
i had decided to ball it as g bait seems to be the key to the silvers so i threw in 10 balls at 13 mtrs oh and 11 mtrs and 14 mtrs , i havent done that for a while and it showed , cupped some meat and corn down the edge and fed some casters at 3mtrs , starting over the g bait at 13 mtrs i ha bites straight away from 1 to 4 oz roach and apart from one 12oz skimmer thats all there seemed to be in front of me. so the bulk of the match was spent down the edge where i caught 6 carp , 5 on double corn and 1 on meat , my silvers went 5.1 and the 6 smallish carp went 24.5 for a total of 29.6 which was enough to win on the day
2nd was paul elmes on 57 with 26lb
3rd nick collins on peg 25 with 25lb which also included the top silver weight with 22.3 of skimmers and roach on bits of worm and caster over grounbait at 11mtrts
4th dave roper 24.10 peg 43
5th craig(trig)edmunds 22.12 peg 9
6th steve seager 19.6 peg 11

ed perkins

2011-06-12T06:29:00.003+01:00

more bad news ,eddy perkins , a good friend of over 30 years finally lost his battle with a breathing disorder on saturday afternoon.
i met ed when my my family moved to whitchurch when i was 19 and he used to come over and go out drinking with one of my new neighbours, mike roussell and we hit it off straight away becoming firm friends, with all 3 if us being anglers we always had plenty to talk about, even after mikes untimely death back in the 80,s ed and i still made a point of going out at least once a week for a drink and a catch up,ed was also my best man when married judith in 83, and it was only him that stopped me doing a runner from the church as judith was over 20 mins late(but i,m glad he stopped me)
ed was a long time member of the fry,s angling club and was always one of the anglers to beat and that was never easy he had a love of running water and he was never happier than when he was running a top and bottom float through for chub, roach and dace.
i,m finding it a bit hard to put into words what this no nonsense straight talking man really meant to me, all i know is that i will miss him as will all his family and friends as he was an old school proper bloke who i always found kind and generous right to the core.
thanks albert(eddy) perkins

viaduct weds

2011-06-09T07:05:00.002+01:00

with a strong south westerly with showers forcast a draw out of the wind would be nice , but it wasnt to be as a drew 114 which is a good peg but with the wind coming in and across from the left it makes the tow go in the same direction as the wind making presentation hard with float rigs blowing along and foulers being a problem , so i should have set up a lead but i havent seen my lead rod rod for over 12 months that was going to be a problemi set up 2 rigs for meat ,one for the margins 4x10, and one for 5 mtrs 4x14 both on .18 with a xedion 14 hook ,and a 4x12 rig for pellet at 13 mtrs with a 16 b960 also on .18.
after cupping in some 6,s at 13 mtrs and feeding some meat at 5mtrs and in each margin i began at 13 mtrs but with no real fizzing to speak of the signs werent good and it took me 35 mins to get a bite and land my first fish which was a good skimmer, and another hour to get my first carp, looking around no one was really setting it on fire, but with most getting odd carp i was already behind , the bankwalkers were saying thar jason radford on 119 was catching well on the lead and with mat tomes behind me on 76 getting odd fish it seemed all over apart from the shouting.my meat line at 5mtrs produced a few bream but the rig was blowing through even quicker there and the margin yielded 3 carp and a tench and with another 7 carp and a some more skimmers but that was no good today my combined silvers and carp went79.9 with andy lloyd winning the section off 112 with 92.14
first on the went to jason radford who managed to to stay off his phone long enough to catch 147.9 casting a pellet to the end bank on the straight lead
one good fish away on peg 80 was mash with 139.2 on pellet on the lead
3rd mat tomes with 130.2 pellet on the lead
4th craig edmunds 118.12 peg 123
5th chris fox 101.9 peg 132
6th dean malin 100.15 peg 127
silvers went to craig edmunds with 47.14 all on meat
hmmm now let me see where did i last see my lead rod

float only lge rnd 2 landsend

2011-06-05T20:43:00.002+01:00

all 4 lakes were being used today and i didnt really mind where i drew as the form pegsd couldnt be relied upon to produce , and as the carp had been spawning yesterday it all might be a bit iffy. as i had drawn ron hardiman in the knockout we decided to draw for each other so i pulled a peg for ron and he ended up on 82 which was the end peg on lake 4 , johns water, then he drew mine and i ended up on 78 , same lake only halfway up, this lake was always going to be difficult to call as there had been no matches on there for a while as its a bit of a hike and clubs dont want to walk that far, but i think that may be there loss.
3 rigs today, a 4x8 for hard pellet over by the island in 10 inches of water on .16 with a 16 b960 hook, a 4x12 rig for 5 mtrs on the same line and hook , and a 4x10 rig for meat down the edge, at the start i began at 5 mtrs with banded pellet ,whilst firing 6,s to the island and fed some meat down the edge, the first 90 mins were a bit slow with only 4 small carp and a few skimmers at 5mtrs, but with fish showing against the island i had to give it a go, clint wojtyla had already gone over on peg 81 and was catching odd carp so the signs were good, i went over and began catching straight away, they arent big fish in this lake with sizes varying from 8oz up to about 2 1/2 lb and i caught fairly steadily right to the end on banded 6mm over 6,s , i did try down the edge on the meat a couple of times but only had 2 carp and a roach and it was abit of a wait for bites and with the carp climbing the island i left the margins and concentrated on the island right to the end, i needed an section win and i thought i just done enough as i thought my carp net would go about 60lb, as it turned out my 60lb actually went 93lb and with an 80lb net limit on this venue my total lack of ability to sort my weights out was going to cost me as the match was won by ray hayward on 51 (sydney,s)with 91.14 of meat caught carp fishing to the bottom of the far side island shelf
2nd chris davis 82.15 peg 42
3rd t rixon 81.6 peg 78(should have been 94.6. i am a tit)
4th tim clark 74.10 peg 58
5th mike baber 68.6 speci lake somewhere
6th andy lloyd 66.10 peg 41
silvers went to steve seager with 28.8 on peg9(i think)of mainly foulhooked skimmers on warm paste
FIRST JOB THIS WEEK IS TO BY A FISH/WEIGHT COUNTER LMFARO

wednesday landsend top 4 only match

2011-06-01T20:43:00.002+01:00

after the success of the last top 4 match we had another one today and with 17 booked in it shows how popular it is. we had a bit of room to play with so we put 13 on the match lake and the first 2 on each side of number 3, as this was the seventh match in 8 days on the match lake i really fancied drawing one of the pegs on number 3, so i let tom thick draw for me as he never seems to be on a bad peg , and sure enough he handed me 68 which is on number 3 and a flyer as long as you can fish the long pole to the island and the weed bed to the left ,but with a top 4 only that was out of the mix, we just had to hope the fish were a bit peckish and would come close. with one of the new breed(yea right)in the shape of phil(fabio)harding sat opposite ,i was going to have my work cut out as he has been in a rich vane of form lately, but after watching him today he must have drawn on some garage fulls never mind the sheds.
i only set up 2 rigs , one for soft pellet at 4mtrs on .12 with a 16 6313 and a 4x14 impact 6 float, the other was a 4x10 impact 1 with a 14 xedion on .18 for the meat each side in the margins.
starting at 4mtrs with soft pellet and feeding softened 4mm it wasnt long before i was getting bites off small skimmers , hybrids and crucians but it wasnt hectic, but at least fabio was keeping us ammused as he was losing carp and moaning to himself non stop, by the end i think he had lost at least a dozen and landed 5 but we all get those days, even the new breed.
i had been feeding meat down the margins but at the 3 1/2 hour mark i still hadnt had a bite in the margins, and by now the 4 mtr line had died , so i put on a piece of meat on the 4mtr pellet line and had a carp of about 6lb, quickly followed by 2 more, then i saw a tail in the left hand margin so went straight in and had a carp, then i had one in the right margin, so it was meat till the end ending up with 10 carp to 10lb , 5 from the margins and 5 from the 4 mtr line for what i thought would go about 75lb, when the scales arrived my silvers and carp went 81.4 for first on the day
2nd went to martin lenaghan on peg 5 with 56.3
3rd dean malin 54.14 on peg 10 which also included the top silver weight on the day of 26.6 beating john(the gimp)bradford into 2nd in silvers with 24.4
4th tom thick 53.5 peg 7
5th mat(new breed)tomes 53.3 peg 24
6th dave roper 50.6 peg 15

viaduct match lake

2011-05-29T20:34:00.002+01:00

it wasnt hard to fill this match as there are only 14 pegs on the lake and it tends to be quite fair ,but a draw on the right hand side of the lake was favourite as the bulk of the skimmers seem to prefer that side at the mo and they are the target species with the carp and f1,s being the bonuses , but that will change as the carp grow, back to the draw and i let dean draw for me and i ended up on 51 which is the right side of the lake and i had dean for company on 52 and joe thompson on 50 , both of which were going to concentrate on the feeder which was good news for me as i was going to fish the pole at 13 and 16 mtrs with caster over caster and micro pellet mix, so i set up two 4x10 rigs with 18 middy 6313 hooks on .10 .
at the start i cupped in half a large pot of casters with a few micro,s at 16 mtrs and just a small pot of the same at 13 , beginning on single maggot at 13 mtrs i never had a bite fot 30 mins while shane caswell on 47 ahd caught a few skimmers and dean next door had some fish on the feeder, so after 35 mins i put a caster on went back out to 13 and the float went straight under, but i missed it(liner)the caster was still in place so i lowered the rig back in and it went under and a 12oz skimmer was safely netted , 3 more followed quickly before the swim died so i cupped a few more casters and pellets and started to get more indications followed by a few more skimmers then it slowed again, so i refed and went out to 16mtrs and had some more skimmers and by feeding each line and knicking a couple from each line i had bites right through the match , i did set up an at depth wag to fish 8mm pellet to the island but that only produced one 2lb carp, i did miss a couple of bites on the wag and bumped a fish but it was to hard as the willow tree,s were shedding there clingy horrible white fluffy bits making it impossible to sink your line so the float was getting dragged back towards you producing zero presentation, so the rest of the match was spent on the pole between the 2 lines , and by the endi reckoned on about 35lb which was good as far i could see , dean next door had taken a run of late fish down the edge but i didnt think it would be enough, and so it proved as my silvers went 38.6 and my 4 small carp weighed 5.4 for a total of 43.10 for first
2nd went to martin mcmahon on 45 with 35.13 of mainly small carp on the feeder
joint 3rd went to dean malin on 52 and tom mangnall on 40 both with 29.3
5th eddy wynne 26.10 peg 48
6th chris fox 25.11 peg 46

weds viaduct

2011-05-26T07:00:00.002+01:00

25 booked in so we were on cambell and a bit of cary, a draw on cambell would be nice as cary was still being a bit hit and miss. into the bucket and out comes 130, right lake but not the best of pegs of late , and i was informed that the angler on it the day before never had a carp bite all day and never weighed at all, i did txt mr hudson and ask him how he fished it so i could do the opposite lol(sorry ian)but he never got back to me in time so i made up my own mind.
normally this peg is in the sun all day but with leighton palmer opposite casting a shadow over the lake it may be a bit chilly, i cant see him retaining his slimmers world slimmer of the year title next year, perhaps me and him should get together for a slim off challenge for a quid.
anyway back to 130, 4 rigs , a mear rig for the margins(never had a bite), a meat rig for 6 mtrs(1x6oz skimmer), and 2 pellet rigs for 14mtrs , one shallow on .18 with a 16 b960 and a 4x12 for using at full depth but with most the shot under the float with only 3x no10,s down the line to try and catch on the drop, the 14 mtr line was going to be attacked with 6mm fed through a catty and with 8mm on the hook.
for company i had jim baines on 132 who sloped off well before the end and on 129 the irrepressable mr charles barnes who was setting his stall out (eventually)for a meat attack at 9mtrs for silvers, so i did end up with a lot of water to draw from,
at the start i did cup one lot of 6,s at 14 mtrs and fed some meat on the 2 closer lines but as i have already said it never realy happened on those lines, but to be fair i didnt give them a proper go as there appeared to be enough fish at 14 mtrs to keep me enterained. i did manage a carp first drop in after about 5 mins but by now one of the new breed(lol)in the shape of the avon angling night watchman phil(fabio) harding on 115 had taken 2 and continued to catch and lose fish right through to the end as did lee wherrett on 110 although he lost far less than fabsy so that was first and second taken care of but in which order we would have to wait till the end.
as far as my match went i ended up with just over 20 carp and a few silvers, all but one being taken on the deep rig, there were some fish up in the water but the near gale blowing into and across it made shallow fishing to difficult with the rig getting blown along to fast for my liking, i did get one and lost a fouler but it wasnt right so most of the match was spent on the deep rig for a total weight at the end of 142.7
first on the day went to lee wherrett on 110 with 200.4 mostly taken on meat at 16mtrs out in front and down the left hand margin
2nd phil harding 174.1 peg 115 (he is suffering a bit of bridesmaid syndrome of late)
3rd andy lloyd 153.5 peg 88
4th tony rixon 142.7 peg 130
5th dean malin 140 peg 77
6th dan squire 125.8 peg 128
silvers went to kevin murch on 78 with 50.4 of meat caught skimmers at 6 mmtrs

chilton trinity widmarsh

2011-05-22T20:43:00.002+01:00

with 2 rounds of the float only and a teams of 4,s on this lake i thought it would be a good idea to run a couple of opens on here , it must havce been a good call as i ended up with 34 booked in. this a lake which you need to approach carefully as it is more like a traditional venue where you need to target the skimmers ,roach and tench but saying that it is nearly always won with a carp weight but the carp tend to inhabit only a handful of pegs and these are well known, today i tried to leave the carp fliers out , but as normally happens the peg closest tend to get a few.
i let fishery manager misha herring draw for me and i ended up on 22 which is on the spit to the left of the shallow bar which runs across the lake from the far side, with this in mind i set up a wag to fish hard pellet at depth on the slope butn it was a none starter as the wind was so strong it was impossible to keep still, and as this was a float only event the lead rods were left at home.
so it was three pole rigs , a .75g for 9 mtrs with an 18 6313 on .10 to fish caster and mag over g bait , a 1.5g for 13mtrs(impossible to fish any further as the wind was to strong) with a 16 6313 on .12 to fish various baits over micro,s and a 4x14 rig for 3 mtrs each side on caster.
at the start i cupped in 2 balls of g bait at 9 mtrs some micro,s at 13 mtrs , began feeding caster each side and fired some 6mm pellets on the wag line just in case (but it never). the match started quite well with plent of small roach falling to caster over the g bait plus a couple of skimmers before it went quiet so i cupped in another ball of g bait and that kick started the peg again with more roach and another skimmer , i had only bought a bit of g bait with me and i think i paid the price as bela bakos at the next peg had put several balls more than me in at the start and had a good run of skimmers up to 3lb whereas i only had the odd one or it may have been that i was on the edge of the shoal as tom mangnall the other side of me only had one skimmer out in front but did manage a 4 pounder down the edge, thye 13 mtr line was a struggle as the wind was making presentation all but impossible , but i did get one small carp and 2 more skimmers , my end weight was 18lb for no good on the day.
first on the day went to dave roper on island peg 2 whose carp went 46.15 all taken on meat down his left hand margin
2nd was paul elmes with 45.15 on peg 9
3rd glen bailey on 13 with 43.9
4th steve preece 30.11 peg 44
5th bela bakos 26.1 peg 21
6th dean malin 25.8 peg 65
silvers went to steve kedge with his usual net of white bait which went exactly 20lb off island peg 3

landsend weds

2011-05-18T20:41:00.002+01:00

we had abit of a change today as we were only allowed to use our topset plus number 4 section which was handy as the wind was meant to be quite strong today and blowing from the west is straight down the fishery making island fishing hard .we thought it would be good to try a short pole match as it seemed to be a winner at the sedges where they do a topset only league and its very popular , and you generally need
70lb to win with good backup weights.
roger andoniou drew for me so i ended up on peg 3, not the best under normal match conditions but today who knows.
i set up two 4x14 rigs ,one with an 18 6313 and the othewr with a 16 of the same pattern both on .12 and both to use at 4 sections and the left hand margin by a bush as it was the same depth and a 4x12 with an 18 hook for the left hand margin as it was about 1ft shallower.
starting in front i began by feeding softened 3mm with a 4mm soft pellet on the hook whilst feeding casters into each margin.
i began catching roach straight away so that was ok then about 10 mins in a decent common came by eating blossom off the surface so in dropped my pellet on its nose and it took it straight away, well that was a quick 7 pounder in the net, the first half of the match went ok as i had a couple more carp on the soft pellet plus a couple of good skimmers and crucians and f1,s then the bite dried up plus the wind was making it difficult to get decent presentation, so i started feeding some casters with the pellets and went into the margins with caster , but it was very slow , i must admit to expecting more from the left hand side as i have caught well there in the past ,but for some reason the fish didnt seem to be there, i did get 2 chub a small carp and some small perch but it wasnt good in the right hand side i managed a couple of perch and a small tench then nothing, so it was back out in front with double maggot and as there was some fizzing going on now i fully expected some action , and i did but mainly from fish that i needed to try and get to reverse into the landing net , i did land a couple of foulers (no suprise there then)and a couple in the mouth to end with 9 carp and about 20lb of silvers, due to the bankside foliage i couldnt see what was going on , except for the gimp on peg 5 who i could see was putting a steady stream of silvers into his net, even though he was moaning that he couldnt get a bite , and i could hear some splashing from the far side but i didnt know whether it was dean malin or dan white, as it turned out it was dan white who had been catching on meat and ended up winning with84.12 on peg 21
i was 2nd with60.6
3rd went to the inform tim ford with 55.3 on peg 7
4th tom thick on peg 16 with 54lb
5th mike nicholls on 15 with 49lb
6th alan oram with 48.12 on peg 12
silvers went the way of the gimp with 27.14 but only just with alan having 27.8 and tim netting 27.2
all ai all it was a very fair match with 7 weights over 20lb of silvers alone so we will try it again in a fortnight so book early to avoid dissapointment lol
perhaps some of the other fisheries in the area might give it a go, it may be a bit of an eye opener and its certainly easier on the arms

avalon open

2011-05-16T06:41:00.003+01:00

a good turnout today with 34 booked in but with tom thick unable to get a lift we had to make do with 33, so we used the whole lake, with the weather forcast giving a dry day and westerly winds of up to 12mph it all looked good , then the wind started blowing at about 25 mph making a draw on the left hand bank looking good as the wind would be off your back, with fabio,s drawing arm being on song i let him draw for me, oh well it had to come to an end sooner or later as he drew 21 for me which is on the left hand bank(wind of my back again)facing the middle of the top island, i had tom mangnall to my right on 20 which is a good peg as there is a small gap in the island which always holds some fish , and alan oram on the left who would cut off any fish coming from that end of the island, so i couldnt see me getting much of a return from this swim.
i set up a meat rig for the right hand margin as it has a bit of form down by the reeds, a .5 rig to use at 13 mtrs with soft pellet or mags over micro,s and a 4x14 for banded pellet at 16 mtrs plus the mandatory pelletwag for this venue.
at the start i cupped in some micro,s at 13 ,some 6,s at 16, fired some 6,s to the island and began plopping some meat down to the reeds.
begginning at 13 mtrs with soft pellet i never had a bite , a switch to mags on the hook produces a couple of small rudd on the drop but i never had a bite on the deck there, so after 20 mins it was out to 16 mtrs but with no bubbles coming up i wasnt confident, and with tom on 20 already having a couple of small carp in the net my pound was looking dodgy. on the hour mark i finally had a proper bite which ended up with a 6 pounder gracing the net then i had 3 good skimmers in the next 30 mins, and that was my lot on the pole plus i never had a bite down down the edge , but as the reeds werent knocking i didnt pay it to much attention. the rest of the match was spent on the wag but ecven that was hard as there didnt appear to be enough fish there to make them compete , you could see the odd fish slurping off the island most of the match but they are hard to tempt when they are doing this, plus the fishery could do with a bit of a trim as there are lots of branches and reeds on the islands making it difficult to get tight. i managed 8or9 smallish carp on the wag but it was hard as the wind although being off my back it tended to swirl a bit as it hit the island and came back but it was no where near as difficult as must have been for those opposite, my 3 skimmers went 6lb and with my 9ish carp i had a total of 38.14 for nothing today, i did lose 4 fish on the wag which any one would have given me the section but adrian jeffery won the section with 40.2 which is good to see as its nice to see anglers of his advanced age still being able to do a bit.
any way back to the full result tim ford on 26 won with 61.14 taking 90% of his catch in the last couple of hours on the pole using banded 8,s feeding 6,s and catching at full depth (i think)and it was good to see a thatchers angler fishing properly and not chucking the method
2nd went to phil (fabio)harding with 59.9 on 26 which is a good result off that peg as its not the best
3rd tom mangnall on 2o with 53.8 who i think would have probably won if he hadnt spent most of the day telling his girlfriend he loved her(sickening to listen to)or throwing all his kit up and i mean up the trees on the island
4th dave roper on 7 with 53.7
5th nick collins peg 3 51lb
6th adrian jeffery peg 29 with 40.2
silvers went to john(the gimp)bradford on peg 48 with 23.4 of skimmers tench and chub on worm at 13mtrs
off to landsend on weds for a topset plus one match which should be interesting and on sunday its off to chilton trinity on wildmarsh for a float only match so if ant one is interested in either ring me at the shop on 01179517250 to book in

viaduct weds match on the match lake

2011-05-11T20:48:00.002+01:00

as there was a daiwa trade match on cambell and cary it was decided to run a small match on the match lake ,and with only 14 pegs on the lake it didnt take much filling.
i must admit to liking this this lake as its a venue that takes a bit of thinking about as its not a carp crunching fish race lake with you needing to catch a variety of different species to win, with good skimmers being the target fish at the moment, but there is a good head of small carp up to 4lb aswell as tench and f1,s with some goldfish thrown in for good measure. as fabio was fishing today i let him draw for me again and he handed me peg 50 which i wasnt to upset with as no one really knows as to where the fish are going to come from cos they seem to move round a bit on this lake, and the few matches we had on the lake last year saw the winners coming from all over.
i set up a margin rig just in case but never had a bite on that but i didnt expect to as i wasnt in a corner and all the pegs were in, so thats the last time i will mention that.
my main line of attack would be at 13 mtrs and 16 with a 4x10 impact 6 float (available again yay) with a 16 6313 on .12 . i only set up the 1 pole rig as there was only 5 inches difference between the 2 lines , and a wag rod to fish hard 6mm on the deck towards the island.
at the start i cupped in some softened micro,s at 13 mtrs and half a big pot of casters at 16 and squirted a few 6,s towards the island , starting with 4mm jelly pellet at 13 mtrs i never had a bite in the first 10 mins which was a bit unusual as last year you could expect a bite first drop, so after 10mins it was on with double maggot and i hooked a 6oz skimmer on the drop ,which i tried to swing and it fell off, so back out and a 1lb skimmer was safely netted, i kept the odd skimmer coming for the first couple of hours on the 13 mtr line then it died , i found the best way to feed today was to fish for each fish as you needed to kinder some bait in and i found miro,s mixed with some casters then fish straight on top of it, you would get e fish almost straight away , but hardly ever 2 , very strange so it was a case of reeding after each fish , sometimes you would get another instantly or you would have a 5 to 10 min wait for another bite and the fish seemed to prefer single caster over maggot on the hook, at about the halfway mark i had a look on the wag and in tha next 45 mins i had 3 carp to 4lb and an f,1 but the white rubbish off the willow trees was making life difficult as you couldnt sink your line so i put that down and went out to the 16 mtr line and by feeding with the pot and fishing single caster i kept a few good skimmers going into the net right up to the end of the match. as far i could see around the lake i had done ok , the only people i couldnt see were tom thick on 45 and dean next to me on 49 who had had a lot of fish on the feeder and some more carp and f1,s down the edge ,but i neednt have worried as my silvers went 38.4 and the carp went 16.2 for a total of 54.6 for first in the match and also the top silver weight
dean malin was second with 45.12 on 49 with most of his fish falling to the open end feeder fished to the island with banded pellet
3rd was tom thick on 45 with 39.2
4th martin lenaghan 27.13 peg 52
5th paul homewood 22.15 peg 44
6th jamie parkhouse 21.1 peg 40

float only lge round 1 viaduct

2011-05-08T20:50:00.002+01:00

49 booked in to fish this league which makes the pegging easy with 3x7 peg sections on cambell and cary and one section on lodge, i let fabio drawe for me today as he has a knack of drawing fliers for other people, and today was no excveption as he handed me peg 112 on cambell, which is a proper good peg , and making it better was the fact that the strong wind was mainly off my back ,which is a change as all i semm to do lately as fight the wind with my pole ,and thats a contest you just cant win.
i set up 4 rigs , couple of pellet rigs for shallow and on the deck at 14 mtrs with 16 b960,s 0n .18 , and 2 meat rigs , one for 5mtrs and 1 for the margin both with xedion size 14,s on .18, and as an after thought i went to the van and got a full depth wag rod out just in case all else failed.
at the start i fed some meat each side in the margins and some at 5 mtrs aand cupped some 6mm hard pellet at 14 mtrs, i intended to start at 14mtrs to let the meat lines settle , but mike nicholls on 130 had a carp first drop so i went out to 5mtrs with the meat and had a carp first drop aswell, followed by three more in the next 40 mins but the bites were few and far between so i went out to the 14 mtr line with banded 8mm and started firing 6,s over the top, i was on a 4x14 rig with a bulk about 1/3 up from the hook with no dropper as i cant see what benefit a no 10 shot has when the bait is heavier than the shot , and i began catching quite steadily with a lot of the fish taking the pellet on the last bit of the fall ,so i slid most of the shot up under the float with just 2 no10,s and 1 x 8 down the line and that seemed better with a lot of the fish taking on the drop, i did try shallow several times but couldnt raise a bite on it , i think the heavy rain during the night may have stopped them coming up, so instead of feeding all the time it was better to feed a coup[le of pouches ,catch a couple and feed again, the foulers werent really as problematic as normal iether, i kept trying the 5mtr meat line and took a few more fish there and i had 1 from my left hand margin but small roach kept nibbling the meat so i didnt give it to many goes.by the end i had about 30ish carp and a tench and a skimmer for a total weight of 192.10 for first on the day but i nearly cocked it up as i had 86lb in one net and there is a limit of 70lb per net and if you go over 90lb the net is cancelled(oops)that was close, and with the fish getting bigger its going to get increasingly hard to call, as i only had 13 fish for that 86lb
2nd was clayton hudson on 116 with 121.7
3rd kev molten 118.4 peg 111
4th mat tomes 117.2 peg 121
5th bob gullick 110.13 peg 113
6th ron hardiman 97.4 peg 118
silvers went to john bradfords apprentice tom thick on peg 94 with 33.13
i think there would have been a lot more fish caught if the wind hadnt been as strong as the anglers on the opposite bank were struggling to hold more than 6mtrs of pole(aint life a bitch)

de ja vu at weds landsend

2011-05-05T06:50:00.002+01:00

only a dozen today so we were all on tha match lake , i was made to draw my own peg today and went and drew peg 7 again , and mike (edge dweller)west had the last ticket and ended up on 5 again. i decided on a slightly different approach today , i was going to fish the meat(vogue bait)down the middle for the silvers (skimmers and f1,s)so i set up a 4x12 rig on .12 with a 16 6313 , a big meat rig for under peg 8(never had a bite on that ), a hard pellet rig to fish long past pallet 8 by some reads and the usual 4x8 rig for over under the small bush. at the start i did all the normal things of feeding the empty pallet , the pellet swim past that , some 6mm meat down the middle and fired some pellets to the bush ,and some towards peg 6 and the gap in the island as i,m beginning to think peg 6 needs to be in so peg 7 can draw some fish off the swim, starting on the meat it was a lot slower than i expected actually bites were non existent, and my first bite after 20 mins resulted in an ide of just over a pound, 15 mins later and my 2nd bite ended up with a 3lb carp , and that was the end of the bites on meat , i should have known better as i have tried the meat several times at this venue and never managed to make it work. i went down the edge for a quick look just in case something had settled over it early doors, but no joy here either, the trouble with 7 is is that you have a grandstand view of peg 19 and martin lenaghan had taken 4 fish in his first 4 put in fishing shallow and was catching fairly regularly, and as far as i could see no one else was getting much so the winner was already sorted so all the rest of were looking for a placing, i wasnt to worried as the day had begun well as me and dean had the usual abbies brekkie then went into the bookies for a quick go on the roulette machine, so we put a tenner in and put it all on numbers 0 and 32 woohoo 32 come in and we walk out with 102 quid, thats the day paid for then.
back to the fishing and by the halfway mark and all i had was 3 carp and a skimmer and an ide , a look down the edge on the pellet line produced 2 fish ,one was a skimmer and the other a 7lb carp but that was the total of my bites down the edge , i never had a bite by the pallet on meat either . by now mike west was well and truly anchored to his margins and waiting for some action, which he did get by the end with a few reasonable fish stumbling over his garlic meat.
the last 2 hours of the match were my best period with some fish turning up on the long line towards 6 but with it being only about 10 inches deep and the fish being a bit cute it was a case of feeding and trying to catch one before the pole spooks them but i managed 13 fish over ther giving me a 16 carp total and 2 silvers and with no one apart from martin really catching well it was going to be tight for the minor placings.
as expected martin lenaghan won easily with 112 1
2nd the new breed mat tomes had 70.6 on peg 15
3rd t rixon 65.6 peg 7
4th andy france 57.14 peg 21
5th kev molten 55.3 peg 1
6th dean malin 53.4 peg 11
in the abcence of tom thick john bradford got his silvers crown back with 30lb off peg 3

another bank holiday match. landsend

2011-05-03T06:31:00.002+01:00

only 14 booked in for todays match but mike still let us spread out a bit as there didnt seem to be as many pleasure anglers about today so we pegged the match lake and half of the speci. jason radford drew 31 which was the peg anton page smashed the match record on recently with 342lb so i didnt think the record was under any threat today. or any other day come to think of it , i think it will be a record that will never be broken, but as the saying goes never say never.
i made the mistake of letting andy france draw for me again , even though after thhe last time he did i said i wouldnt let him do it again, so i was off to peg 7 then, its a peg that i have done ok off in the past as there is a shallow ledge under a small bush on the far bank and providing you keep feeding it the last half of the match can be very productive, so i set up a 4x8 rig on .18 with a 16 b960 for that , a 4x12 on .16 with an 18 b960 to fish hard 6,s over 4,s at 5mtrs and a meat rig on .20 for under the empty each side.
at the start i cupped in a few 4.s at 5mtrs some meat under the the pegs each side and began firing 6,s to the far bank bush, beginning at 5 mtrs it soon became apparent that the wind was going to play a big part in the days proceedings as it was strong now, blowing left to right and forecast to get stronger(mint), so the far bank was going to be a struggle, i had abite straight away well i think it was aloiner to be honest as a skimmer went cartwheeling away from the swim. 15 mins in and a proper bite resulted in a 3lb carp but that was the only fish i had on that line, by now there were some tails on the far bank but i have learnt from past experience that it pays to leave them to get confident before you try and catch them, especially on this venue cos the fish tend to be a bit cute as they have been in here a few years now and have seen it all, so the more confident you can get them in the shallows the better it is . as the 5 mtr line seemed to be a bit of a non starter i cupped some 4,s at an angle to my right at 14mtrs(with the wind). a quick early look on the meat lines produced nothing so i went across but the early activity had stopped , i did manage 1 carp but the wind was making all but impossible to get the rig tight to the bush, in fact i spent more time in the bush rather than under or near it, when i,ve done well off this peg in the past i have ussually had an angler on peg 6 which is on the gap in the islands and i think that helps peg 7 as with someone feeding the gap means that you can draw some fish off them as you can see fish working there way towards you , but not today. i was confident of catching but late as the fish need to find the bait, and thats basically what happened as the fish turned up in the last hour , but the wind had so strong it was all but impossible to get presentation and 2 part grown duckling turned up to really annoy me , the thing with ducks is that they annoy the angler more the fish as i could still see tail patterns in between the 2 tiny terrors, then it happened , the rig got blown up the bush(again)and with the pellet on view one of my little feathered mates nailed it luckily pulling my rig out of the bush, it didnt take more than a few seconds to net the duckling as an 8oz feather duster is no competition for .18 and 16 elastic and when you put the ducky back (honest i did) they tend to bugger off. before that i did manage 2 small carp and some reasonable skimmers on the 14 mtr line and a chub,a skimmer and a tench on the meat lines and a lost carp which did some knitting with my rig under the pallet, i ended up with 10 small carp and some silvers which was going to be no good today.
1st on the day was rod(i cant stand the speci lake)wootten on peg 25 with 120.6 caught on pellet fished long up his left hand margin
2nd tim clarke who had a bite every put in(his words not mine) on paste but done well to avoid them and only put 61.6 on the scales off peg 1
3rd was simon hebditch,s whipping boy nigel bartlett on peg 11 with 60.12 which also included the top silvers weight on the day with 32lb
4th mike (if i sit with a piece of meat on down the edge long enough i will get a bite)west with 55.12 peg 5
5th tony(i must phone the new breed matt tomes to see where i am going wrong)rixon
with 51.10 peg 7
6th andy(the leg end)bryant on 19 with 48lb
fabio won the silvers by default with 27.4 off peg 15 , fairplay to fabsy he has done ok with silvers of late so perhaps he has found his niche as the smaller weights of silvers are much easier to attain for him rather than the big weights needed to win overall (well that should be enough to wind him up LOL)

sedges brick lake

2011-05-01T19:49:00.002+01:00

20 today so the lake was full as there are only 2o pegs on there. i let dean draw for me which is usually a mistake, i fancied a peg about halfway up either bank but i ended up on 19 , 2 out nof the corner , at least the wind was off my backl so i was in for a more comfortable day than the anglers opposite who had in there faces,
there were quite a few fish showing down the middle of the lake so i set yup a pellet wag , a shallow rig , a margin rig and 2 deep rigs ,one for meat and one for hard pellet. the meat rigs were on .16 with a xedion 14 hook whilst the pellet rigs were also on .16 but with a 16 b960 hook.
at the start after feeding all my pole lines it was out on the wag, which may have been a mistake as chris davis on 18 had a quick carp shallow but bt the end of the first hour i had 3 and chris had 2 but as far as i could see his 2 would weigh more than my three put together, then after that first hour niether chris or me could get a bite shallow, so i went out to 14 mtrs with hard pellet on the deck and had a good skimmer on 6mm banded, but it was really hard to get a bite , even john bradford fishing caster couldnt get a bite , most people seemed to be getting odd carp and skimmers with meat or in tom thick,s case his usual soft pellet over micro,s approach was producing plenty of skimmers for him. the carp didnt seem to want to feed today as they havent spawned properly yet , they started to go a couple of weeks ago but then the temps dropped and the majority stopped .
as i said no one was setting it on fire , although scott puddy on 9 was now getting an odd carp on the lead on pellet and towards the end chris davis next door was tempting odd good fish down his rigth hand margin towards the gimp, who was only fishing for silvers , i did manage 3 more carp on meat ,one at 5 mtrs and two at 14, but chris next door had some good fish in the margin, so as far as i could see scott was the only threat to him, but it turned out chris had done enough as his net went 72.10
2nd was scott puddy with 67.2
3rd tom thick with 54.15 which included top silver weight of 45.14
4th steve seager 54.3
5th tony rixon 42.2
6th ron hardiman and steve hutchinson both with 35.14

float only league 2011

2011-05-01T06:17:00.002+01:00

the league kicks off next sunday with the first round at viaduct. i,ve got 48 booked in and can still squeeze onother few in if i have to , with 2 rounds each at viaduct, chilton trinity and landsend its looking to be an interesting league , entry is 60 quid which is your peg fee,s paid up front and your pools for the last match paid, so if you fancy it ring me at the shop on 01179 517250 or on mobile 07974807941

friday 29 april, national fishing day

2011-04-30T06:43:00.002+01:00

thanks to the wedding we all had another day off today so there was another pole only at the viaduct fishery, there were 50 booked in but 4 didnt show and they never had the decency phone and cancel, which is always annoying to the organisers.
i fancied another draw on cambell today but it wasnt to be as peg 105 stuck to my hand which is towards the carpark end of cary, i wasnt to dispondent as it had been throwing up some good weights of late but with the fish having started to to spawn during the warmer weather then stopping due to the sudden drop in temps the lake had switched off.
i made up rigs to fish pellet and meat long(14 mtrs) and meat at 6mtrs aswell as down the margins, i,m not going to waste much time on this as all i had was 1 carp after 20 mins on a pellet at 14 mtrs , 3 skimmers in the middle of the match on 6mm banded and 3 carp in the last hour on meat at 14mtrs when the strong right to left wind dropped enough to let the people on our bank get some decent presentation.
i think the fish will need some warm weather again so as they can spawn properly and we will be off again.
1st on the day was mat parsons on 132 with 147.14
2nd s kiefer 137.9 peg 113
3rd nick(mr consistent)collier 133.10 peg 94
4th mike nicholls 124.6 peg 111
5th andy power 123.4 peg 116
6th will bohne 114.13 peg 119
so apart from nick the place to be was on cambell as expected , although the silvers were won with a sterling performance of the highest standard by phil(fabio)harding on peg 71 lodge with 25.1 which gets him into the all winners silvers final in october(fabio wrote this for me to put up, you would never guess would you)

viaduct weds

2011-04-28T07:08:00.002+01:00

still a good turn out with 27 fishing so it was on cambell and a part of cary, so into the draw bag and out pops 119 which is the top right hand corner on cambell, its a peg which at times can throw up some good silver weights as long as the tench and skimmers decide to play ball, but not to waste any time with that i only had 1 tench during the match so the chances are they werent there or i did it wrong or it was a copmbination of them both, who knows.
i set up several rigs from a shallow and deep pellet rigs to a meat rig for 6mtrs which has been working lately and a magin rig for pellet at 5mtrs and 16 mtrs to the end bank , apart from the meat line ,8mm pellets were going to be used as feed and bait so the bait tray was looking decidedly naked with a bait box of 8,s and a box of meat on it, nice and simple.
i started off by cupping some 8,s to 14mtrs straight out and at 16mtrs to the end bank, and i started feeding a few 5,s 5mtrs to my right as pete sivell had drawn it at the weekend and had 50lb of tench there as i never had a bite there even when i switched to meat i think pete must have caught them all.
starting on the deck at 14mtrs i fouled a carp first drop then i had some liners so that was the signal to pick up the shallow rig and to start feeding with a catapult, and i soon had a couple of fish in the net but it didnt seem right with the fish not really showing much interest in the pellet feed as you could see fish just swimming through the feed, the next couple of hours was spent trying to mug any fish which came within range, luckily i managed a few and they were of a good size and as no one seemed to be catching to well apart from the angler on 127 i was quite happy, even one of viaducts new breed of rising stars in the shape of mat(shrimphead)tomes
(well thats what he told me when i saw him out shopping on monday)seemed to be struggling but i had no doubt he would turn it round at some stage.
i kept trying the meat rig at 6mtrs but only had 3 proper bites there which resulted in 3 carp but again the fish didnt seem to be happy staying over the feed, so most of the rest of the match was spent between the end bank margin at 16mtrs and trying to mug a fish on the shallow rig if one caught my eye but they were few and far between in general, towards the end of the match i started pushing the shallow rig right in tight to the reeds and that was my best spell , i should have done it earlier, i ended up with 25 carp and 1 tench for what i thought would be about 120lb
first on the day went to p greening with 35 carp for 171.9 mainly on the lead
2nd alex murry 154.12 peg 132
3rd t rixon 139.6 peg 119
4th nick collier 138.14 peg 129
5th scott russel 138.4 peg 114
6th charlie barnes 116.13 peg 111
silvers
nick collier 38.14
and what happened to the new breed matty you were next to second but it was a corner end peg so that was expected, but were also beaten by the 2011 slimmers world slimmer of the year leyton palmer, lol.

todber manor park lake

2011-04-25T08:15:00.002+01:00

well that was a good weekend for big weights, firstly tom(with the cheesey grin)mangnel beat the viaduct match record with 319lb by dapping, then he went on to beat the record on woodlands at chilton trinity with over 200lb, and yesterday at landsend on peg 31 anton page totally smashed the fishery record with 342lb, well done to them both.
back to my match and a few of us managed to get in to a total fishing forum open run by the amiable mark poppleton and not very well assisted by ken rayner. fabio drew for mark and only went and drew him the best peg on the venue which is 38, mark did try and protest that 7 was better but as he was let down by one person and yes you guessed it ,peg 7 was left in the hat making 38 the best peg.
i ended up with 28 not really a noted peg but with everyone being greeted by carp slurping in every peg you wouldnt like to say any peg had more fish ,but they certainly were enjoying the silver fish spawn feast. next peg to my left on 30 was fabio and then tim ford on 31 in the corner with the wind blowing in was always going to be a hard one to beat as you just new he was going to catch in his margin.
i set up 4 rigs , a 4x14 for down the track , a 4x12 for each side margin , a 4x10 for on the deck over and a shallow rig (6 inches deep) for over in the grass.
at the start i started feeding 8mm pellets in each margin and at 6mtrs and began firing 6,s over to the far bank, starting at 6mtrs i had 3 reasonable(3 to 4lb)carp in the first 30 mins then i started to get roached out and there are plenty in here as will bohne showed recently taking 80lb in a match, on about the hour mark i couldnt take the roach playing footie with my pellet so i went over with the shallow rig and began cathing f1,s and small carp straight away and for the next hour things were going very well , that is until a pair of ducks showed up on my far line and began mopping up the pellets off the bank and they made a mess of my far bank as they flattened some of that spikey grass onto the surface making i difficult to get the pellet through, even feeding a bit short didnt really work as the carp were staying tight to the bank as they were still mopping spawn but also eating pellets and although i had a few carp short the f1,s were being a nuisance as you dont want to catch them as they are to small, you need carp ,also there was no silver prize today so i had to keep feeding the pellet through the gaps . i stayed with it till about an hour and a half from the end ,then i went down the margins and kept catching odd carp right to the end, by the end i didnt really have a clue as to how much i had as there is a big variance in the size of the fish i was getting, so i admitted to about 130lb but hoped it was a bit more and it proved so as i ended up with 151.5 but i was beaten ito 3rd place by the 2 people i expected as mark poppleton on 38 won with 177.7 on mainly paste down his edge and 2nd place went to tim ford with 164.4 who started on the method(typical p thatchers angler)but soon switched to the pellet shallow as there were to many fish in his peg with liners being a problem plus he caught well in his margin fishing off the deck with pellet
3rd t rixon 151.5
4th ben bench 115.13
5th ken rayner 114.4
6th m blake 112.7
this has got to be one of the few venues you can go to and guarantee a bite every put in the hardest part is avoiding the f1,s as they arent big enough to build a big weight.
before the start i had to go and rescue fred roberts as his car had broken down about 2 miles from the fishery, he was parked in the entrance track to a farm, the white farmer left as we were loading his kit into my van and fred a quick word to make sure it would be ok to leave the car there until he could sort out recovery , the farmer was ok with that but he did look a bit worried when he spotted fred,s i love robert mugabe t shirt lol nice one freddo

viaduct pole only good friday

2011-04-23T18:03:00.003+01:00

these matches are usually very popular and today was no exception as 50 were booked in so we were on cambell, cary and lodge lake, so after a brekikie at the fountain cafe which as judith was with me today she had to pay for as the driver never pays, then it was off to viaduct me with my tackle and judith with her kindle and deckchair
the usual pre match banter was as good as always so good times.
time for the draw and into the hat and out comes 135 which is on the carpark bank of cambell and as i had the end bank to myself i thought it would be ok, even though the meat had been working well i decided on an out and out pellet attack feeding 6,s and fishing 8,s.
i set up a margin rig for each side to the empty pallets, a 4x12 rig for 5 and 14 mtrs and an up in the water rig dut with the bright sunshine and flat calm conditions this might be a non starter, all rigs were on .18 with the usual size 16 b960 , i wont dwell on the margin rig as even though i fed it apart from 2 foulers i never had a bite which is unusual as steve feeds the lake off 136 pallet and i,ve drawn it before and caught well by tyhat pallet but not today oh well.
starting at 5 mtrs on pellet i had a 5lb carp first drop followes by a few more during the next hour then the inside line died so it was out to 14 mtrs but after acouple of liners it was out with the shallow rig and that produced 4 more carp but with it being to flat it was hard going so back out on the deep rig for a couple more , at the halfway mark i had about a dozen fish in the net but it was difficult now but by swapping between the 5 and 14 mtr line i kept adding fish so by the end i had 24 carp in 2 nets and a few silvers in the 3rd net, i had a quick look in one net and thought i would be a bit close to the net limit, but the scales would tell, as usual there were lots of fish to weigh in and it took steve an hour to get to me with several nets over 100lb with alan oram on 111 being best with 166.14, my carp nets went 131.12 with one net a shade under the 70lb and my silvers weighed 10.11 for a total of 142.7 for 6th on the day and a section win by befault.
1st on the day went to alan with his 166.14 with nearly all his fish falling to 10mm meat fished at 5mtrs and into the margins
2nd went to steve denmead on 105 cary with 158.3 again on meat
3rd nick collier on 131 with152.10 again on meat
4th andy(the ginger one)power with152.01
5th stu foale 147.10 on 121
6th t rixon 142.7
all in all a very fair match with no one really running away with and with another pole onle being held on friday 29th which has now become national fishing day its selling out fast so ring the fishery asap or you will miss out tel no01458274022
dont forget your meat though or be like me and not be bothered to cut any but i bet i do next week.

viaduct weds

2011-04-21T07:09:00.002+01:00

well i got that wrong today.into the draw bag and out comes what i tried to pass off as peg 18 which is a good island peg on spring lake, which unfortunately wasnt even in as we were on cary and lodge, so i turned the ticket the other way up and headed off for peg 81 which is the other side of the spit where i drew last week. this peg used to be a proper carp flier but it seems to have gone off the boil a bit over the last 2 seasons, fishery manager paul greenwood advised me that it was put in because local angler kieth(mash)masheeder had caught 98lb off it at about this time last year
(mint)perhaps there still there then!!!!!!!!!!! lol. i should have listened to owner steve long who told me to fish 4 and 6mm pellets for skimmers as there a lot there as they like to spawn against the spit. but i got to the peg and the area to my left was black with carp sunbathing, and as i like dapping for them on the pole i got the carp goggles on straight away, big mistake. so i set up a 4x12 on a long line for dapping/shallow rig and 2 4x12 rigs ,one to fish straight out ant one to fish on the deck against the spit, both on .18 with the usual 16 b960 hook, and i set up a .30 meat rig to fish by the monk to my left.
at the styart i cupped in some 6,s out in front and against the spit ,some meat by the monk and then picked up the dapper as there were still fish mooching around on the top, there was one at 8mtrs so i dropped the pellet just in front of it ,it turned to take it dut it misseed thepellet and i think i fouled it in the pec, that was the first one gone then, i managed another one 10 mins later but even though it was in the mouth it came adrift on the way back, by now the cruisers had backed off to my left well out of range of the dapping rig plus there were a lot less about so i think they had in the main backed out of the bay, so i went out to the in front line and the misery continued, with just a couple of liners on the deck so out with the shallow rig and 2 more lost fish, 90 mins in now and nothing in the net but i wasnt to worried as it looked to be quite hard with no one really catching well so i wasnt to worried, so out to the spit and first drop and a 2lb skimmer was on its way to the net , thats when i should have changed and scaled down but did, did i fxxx, i continued with the 6 and 8,s, there were plenty of carp against the spit eating bream spawn but they were tight in and you cant get at them as there is to much debris and foliage, very frustrating, so by the end i had managed 25lb of skimmers and 5 carp for 50lb giving me a 75lb total for no where again, and with john geen winning the silvers with 44lb and tim palant coming second with 31lb i should have listened to steve and gone for skimmers from the start as i would have probably had a good few as there were certainly a lot there , but 8mm hard pellets arent the best approach, there goes that hindsight thing again, and as for the carp well i think i lost about 15 or so which was a bit of a phil harding type of day, i think most were fouled as once hooked they just kept going, i did try and catch shallow against the spit but apart from a good skimmer i couldnt get a carp, if i draw the peg again i will be up the spit and clear the peg out as i lost count of the number of twigs branches and brambles i pulled out, i even lost 2 carp when they shed the hooks into a mass of branches on the bottom, well at least i have cleaned out the peg a bit for whoever draws it on friday as there is a pole only there.
the match was won by tony witcomb on 73 lodge which is the corner peg where he fished paste down to the tree for 180lb ish,
2nd was lewis greenwood on 76 with 160lb with pellet on the lead to start snd some fish shallow on the pole later in the match.
i,m not sure about the rest as dean and me slunked off to subway for a cappuccino and a cookie (comfort eating)

sunday open landsend

2011-04-17T20:26:00.003+01:00

a good turn out today 40 ,so we had the use of 3 lakes , speci, match and johns and to be honest i wasnt to sure as to where i wanted to draw but the match lake was looking good as it had thrown up 6 ton plus weights the day before, but martin lenaghan drew for me and handed me 32 which is a corner peg on the speci lake, for company i had fabio next to me on 31 which he has drawn 9 times in the last 2 years and its a proper flier so i felt i would be up against it for the quid side bet.
i set up a 4x14 rig with a 16 b960 to fish on the deck straight out, a 4x10 for against the end bank on the deck and a 4x12 shallow rig as i expected the fish to come up as it was a nice sunny day, all rigs were on .20 xedion rig line with the same 16 hooks but on .18 hooklengths.
i started on the full depth rig straight out at 14 mtrs after cupping in somme 4mm pellets on that line and against the bank then i began firing a few 4,s over the top on both lines, i was soon getting indications which resulted in some decent f1,s and a couple of carp in the first 90 mins but then a couple of liners had me reaching for the shallow rig which was the right move as i soon had a fish and apart from a couple of fish on the deck against the edge most of the rest of the match was spent on the shallow rig feeding 4,s and using an 8 on the hook mainly to avoid the small fish, i finished with 24 carp and a few silvers for what i thought would go about 130lb, i didnt know about the other lakes but on ours i new dean malin on 38 had 30 ish carp and brian shanks on 29 had taken some good fish down the edge and across on pellet.
it turned out deans fish went 192.3 for a comfortable win on the day on peg 38, catching on pellet over to the island then later down his right hand margin on meat
i was second with 165.8 peg 32
3rd martin lenaghan 150.4 peg 1
4th brian shanks 123.12 peg 29
5th rod wootten 118.7 peg 5
6th ron(goldfinger)crandon 105.3 peg 21
silver went to tom thick(again) with 30.8 on peg 24 on his usual soft pellet approach
and as for fabio he was gone before the end with only 2 carp in the net and 15 lost so he definately had the chip shop sausage syndrome
good to see it fishing really well on this venue

viaduct weds

2011-04-14T07:29:00.002+01:00

with 29 fishing both cambell and cary were being used, a draw on cambell is generally prefered as you tend to get more bites as the fish are a bit smaller and it has a greater stocking density, but i wasnt to dissapointed when i drew 80 on cary which is the carpark side of the spit so you have the option of open water as well as a good margin,and with the average size of the carp in this lake being 8 to 9 pounds with lots of fish up to and over 20lb if you can string some together its more than possible to win off this lake.but you must be careful as the fishery has a 70lb net limit, i,m beginning to think these fishery owners have shares in keepnet firms as lots of people are having problems sizing there fish, i cant help thinking numbers in nets rather than weights may be a better option as most fishery owners have a reasonable idea as to the average size in there lakes
i set up 2 pole rigs to fish up and down the shelf against the spit and a wag to fish at depth at the end of the spit at about 25 mtrs.
i began the match on the wag whilst feeding the spit with 6mm , and feeding and fishing 8,s on the wag. the first hour went to plan with 4 good fish in the first hour, if i could keep up this rate i may be in with a chance but no it didnt happen and i ended up with 13 carp to about 15lb and some skimmers in the margin but no carp against the spit, i dont think the cold wind and rain blowing into me helped to much, i was shivering by the end as it was only 8c which was a bit of a shock after the weekends 20c.
my 13 carp went 117lb and the skimmers went 18lb for a 135lb total. andy power won our lake and came second overall with 171lb on 85 cary on the lead meaning andy neale on 86 won our section with 142lb, in all fairness i could have had a few more fish if i had set the lead rod up but i just dont like it.
the top weight on the went to nick collier on 110 with 35 carp for 220lb on the pole and pellet out in front and down the edge at 16mtrs , i didnt get the full result as we just got in the van put the heater on and sulked off.
nick(aint got a clue)ewers would probably come second but he was way over the net limit on both his carp nets which serves him right as he was admitting to having only 100lb so he (only) ended up with 158lb.

sedges tile or was it brick lake, its the left one

2011-04-10T20:22:00.002+01:00

20 fished today so it was a full lake, i let dean draw for me and i ended up pn 23 which is the third peg up on the left hand bank, for company i had dean on 22 and rod wootten on 24. i thought the people to beat would be paul elmes on 21 ,tim ford on 40 (both corners)and local ace tom mangnol on 39, the same peg he won off last time i ran a match here.
i set up a 4x18 rig with a 16 6313 on .12 for meat at 6mtrs , the same size rig with a 16 b960 for banded pellet on the deck at 16 mtrs and an up in the water rig just in case, bigger rigs today as its over 7 feet deep on both lines.
also a pellet wag rig was put together as i had an island chuck but with the breeze blowing off the island presentation was always going to be hard.
at the start i cupped in some meat at 6 mtrs , some 4mm pellets at 16 mtrs and began firing 8mm as close to the island as i could, starting on the meat at 6 mtrs i had a small carp first drop, then a 1lb skimmeer about 10 mins later and that was it for the meat line i never had another bite on it, 45 mins in and paul on 21 ,tim on 40 and tom on 39 were all getting carp on the shallow wag, so that was the rest of the match mapped out for me, but it was hard work as i had to keep casting as the breeze was blowing the float off the island so unless i had a bite within about 20 to 30 seconds of casting it was a case of wind in feed and cast again , most of the fish were on the small side between 1 and 2lb but i did get on good one on the wag at an ounce under 16lb , so by the halfway mark i thought i had caught up paul on 21 as his good early start had fizzled out somewhat and he was really struggling. unlike tom on 39 and tim on 40 who were both catching steadily, i did manage 2 shallow on the pole about an hour from the end , one of which was about 12lb, so by the end i thought i had a 70 plus pounds, its a bit hard to call when there are a lot of small fish involved. as it turned out tim ford won the day on peg 40 with 119.9 all taken on the shallow wag cast to the end bank
2nd was tom mangnol on 39 with 99.10 again on the wag
3rd was me with 93.6(ok it was a big 70lb)
4th steve hutchinson 48.5 peg 35 which was the top silvers weight on the day , his catch included 6 bream to nearly 8lb
5th paul elmes 47.12 peg 21
6th tim clark 42.5 which included a 13lb carp which he weighed and returned during the match, only to foul hook it again just befor the end when he was fishing down the edge where he had returned it, it smell a bit dodgy to me,
as i said steve hutch won the silvers with 48.5 but i must mention second in silvers which went to mike nicholls on peg peg 29 with 720 (quality)roach and rudd for 31.12.it all sounds a bit sad counting that many, steve only needed 6 bites to beat him in the silvers lol

landsend weds

2011-04-06T19:56:00.002+01:00

with a couple of late cancellations we only had enough to put every other peg in around the match lake so we had plenty of room, i made the mistake of letting martin alexander draw for me and he gave me 24 , not a peg i really like but it is capable of throwing up some decent weights, opposite on peg one was the fire brigades finest daffodil in the shape of tony witcomb so at least we would see if the paste was going to start going yet.
i set up a shallow rig on .16 to fish the open water and against the end bank but apart from a couple of rudd it never was a goer so i wont waste my finger tips on it again.
i did a .30grm for the deep water at 12 and 10 at 14 mtrs with a 16 b960 for hair banded pellet and a 4x10 with the same hook and both on .16 xedion rig line to fish on the deck up the right hand margin by an overhanging tree. today was to be an out and out hard pellet day as thats all i had with me.
at the start i cupped in some 4,s in the deep water on both lines and some in the right hand margin by the tree, first drop in produced a roach as did the second then after a short wait i hooked a good carp on a 6mm hard pellet , it came in easily till i showed it the net then it took off like a scalded cat and broke me, so i refed that line and went to the 2 o,clock line, i took a few good skimmers and a couple of carp from here before it died so i fed again and by swapping between the 2 deep lines i took a few more smallish carp and some good skimmers till about the halfway mark when both swims died, the other end of the lake seemed to be fishing better as i could see john bradford, dean malin and martin lenaghan all catching, with dean and martin catching shallow and deep and john catching on his usual caster at 4mtrs, even the past(e) master tony on 1 was catching shallow under a tree to his right on his topset shallow, off to the tree for me at 14 mtrs and i caught 4 or 5 in the next hour with no problems, as this peg needs you to fish next to the tree stump but the fish normally run under the stump and snag you but so far so good, then the fish seemed to remember what to do as i began to get done seriously with every fish running away under the stump in the last 90 mins i probably caught 5 and lost 8 or 9 plus a couple of floats and i even pulled the elastic out of the pole and left it in the tree, but at least i could go and retrieve it after the match, to be honest i thought i was well off the pace as there seemed to be plenty of fish coming out at the top end of the lake with dean and john bradford having the lions share. what i didnt realise was that john wasnt even putting his carp in the net and it turns out he had 13 carp to double figures , seems a bit wierd to me as he would have won as he weighed in 36lb of silvers so his carp would have given him enough to win i would have thought. dean malin won with 102.11 from peg 15 with some shallow on hard pellet and the rest on meat down the edge
2nd was tom thick with 83.12 which also included the top silver weight of 40.14 of mainly f1,s taken on soft pellet and meat at 13mtrs on peg 5
3rd martin lenaghan 78.3 peg 13
4th me with 76.3 peg 24(must try harder)
5th tim ford 75.2 peg 7
6th tony witcomb 63.9 peg 1
even after chucking 13 carp back john managed the silvers by default with 36.4 of mainly skimmers on caster on peg 17.
if any one is interested i will be running a match at landsend on the match and speci on sunday the 17th draw at 10 book in with me at the shop 01179517250 or ring mike at landsend on 07977545882 and we are at avalon next wednesday.