stafford moor xmas match

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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