Viaduct , silvers only

With ring lake being used for this one the turnout was up on the normal Wednesday opens, 19 were fishing so steve spread us around spring with 37 and 38 on middle in the draw aswell, I travelled down with Ron hardiman and said the only pegs we needed to avoid really would be 6 and 20 , Ron got into the daw tin before me and pulled 20, then I went in and drew 6 , not what was needed today, but at least we were forecast a nice dry day, and it was interesting to see there are still some swallows   Flying around so we get an Indian summer yet. Getting to my peg which was an end peg on this bank today with the next peg to my left being peg 9 which was occupied by ziggy, in peg 7 and into the corner the surface was littered with carp which were idly swimming about taking odd floating pieces of food items, not what you need in a silvers match, on my right was Tim pallant on 5.
I mixed up some groundbait, the normal mix of gimps gold and sensas lake , and made three rigs, one for banded pellet and one for mag and caster to use over g bait at 11 and 14 mtrs, and another to fish caster to hand over caster which can be good for roach in the early part of the match, on the whistle I cupped in 6 balls on the 11 mtr line and 4 out at 14, began feeding on the short caster line and fired about a pint of pellets into the corner to try and encourage the carp to stay down there, starting on the short caster line I was suprised not to get a small roach first put in, in fact it took 5 mins to get a bite and that was it on the short line probably due to the plumes of mud coming up which wasnt from roach that's for sure, so that line was binned. It on my right was catching perch and roach on worm in his right hand margin, not big fish but plenty of them, the rest of the match was spent on the two long pole lines picking up odd decent skimmers and small roach which came on the drop, I had put some caster and 4 mm hard pellets in the feed so I did get some fish on hard 6mm and some on caster and maggot, but there was no pattern it was odd fish coming out of the blue, my section was from me round to peg 12 where mash was sat and when steve wandered round about halfway through I thought it was going to be the tightest section in the match. He also joked that we were going to get an inch of rain. And about two hours to go we did , it poured down and never stopped,
By the end it was obvious that no one in our section was going to frame so it was section or nothing
When the scales arrived ziggy was winning the section with 21lb, just a pound ahead of the venues
Silver expert Paul greenwood, I new it was going to be close , and was glad to plonk 23.11 on the scales, so the days costs were covered at least.
1st on the day on peg 18 was Scott russell with a nice net of skimmers for 46.1
2nd was mark poppleton on peg 38 in middle lake with 42.12
3rd dave romain on  peg 1 with 29.14
4th Tim pallant with 29.12 on peg 5
5th steve kedge on19 with 29.9
6th gabe skarba with 27.10 on peg 37
Anyone looking for a match on Wednesday there is one being run at landsend on match and speci, ring me at the shop to book in

Chilton trinity, woodland lake

2nd visit here in two weeks, but I,m not complaining as its a venue where you tend to get a days fishing from most pegs and its not a Peggy lake so it's nigh on impossible to predict where the winner will come from. With 25 booked in , which is a big number for this lake due there being corners and end banks which needed to be used , it was to be a pole only again this week so no arguments as to where you could cast or fish.
Again I let misha draw for me and she handed me peg 28 which is on the carpark sided of the lake and smack in the middle , normally a reasonable area but with ever peg in that could change, also the absence of any wind so no ripple that may effect the weights, for company I had 5 pots bailey(glen) on my left and Martin Alexander on my right who is good company but but due to the act he has lost his hearing aid(again) you need to shout at him to have any sort of conversation.
I set up 4 rigs today , a meat rig at 5 mtrs, a couple of pellet rigs for 14 mtrs and a margin pellet rig for each side .
At the start I began feeding 8mm hard pellets each side in the margin and firing the same size out to 14 mtrs, it was a slow start for me as it took me about 15 mins to et connected to my first fish which was fouled and came off, glen already had one in the net and was getting plenty of indications on his paste attack but they were really iffy for him, 45 mins in and now a few fish behind glen and having a few liners I went out on the shallow rig, and I had a reasonable little spell putting 8 fish into the net, just edging me in front of glen after a couple of hours, the only person I could see catching regularly was Paul elmes on peg 3 who was getting fish n the deck on hard 8mm pellet aswell as the odd fish shallow. The fish didn't stay for to long on the shallow line probably due to the flat conditions I think.
Going into the last couple of hours I was getting a bit of movement in my right hand margin, so the last part of the match was spent between the 14 mtr deep rig and the margins, and I ended up with 16 carp for 70 to 80lb, glen had 13 so at least I didn't get busted by a paste basher, I hoped.
Paul on 3 , Shaun Townsend and trig had also had a better second half so it was hard to say who had won, as it turned out Paul elmes had managed to hang on to his early lead and won with 106.12
2nd and on the next peg(2) Shaun Townsend had 90.1
3rd Craig Edmunds on 15 with 88.12
4th tony Rixon on28 with 81.8
5th Gordon cannings on 7 with 74lb
6th glen bailey on 29 with 63.9
Silvers
Ken Rayner with 13.13 of skimmers on dead maggot over soaked 4,s on peg 9
Ken had to go for a swim after as he dropped the bottom 4 sections of his pole in, and FairPlay to him he got them out which is no mean feat in 7 foot of water.
Also we had a little gem from misha during the weigh in when someone asked her how much the lake was down , to which she replied , about 18 inches in some places and two foot in others

Southwest trade match, todber manor

This is an annual match organised by mark harper mainly, but helped(or hindered by dave drake and Norman hugget), myself and the Avon angling night watchman travelled down and it only took about an hour and ten minutes to get to the dolphin pub in gillingham for breakfast and the draw, I must say the breakfast was really good, tasty and hot with plenty for all.
Into the draw and out comes 34 on park lake, I always seem to draw this back straight when I go here,  the end peg 38 is normally the peg to beat, but I was quite happy with my peg as I had a small bay to fish into amongst the overhanging foliage on the fat bank, this is a fishery that needs a proper trim to tidy it up, it is a heavily stocked water with lots of f1,s and carp up to 6lb and its possible to get bites all over your peg, but with 200lb needed to win you need to make up your mind early on as to which line you are going to target and make it work as it soon becomes a fish race, mark harper was to my right on 32 and with whitepost lakes in he expected the winner to come from there, but with a lot of cold rain during the night the water seemed to have lost a bit of  colour so who knows .
I set up a couple of pellet rigs for the far side, one for on top of the shelf and one on the slope, a pellet rig for the margins and the obligatory meat line for 5 mtrs.
At the start I fed all lines with the relevant baits and went over on the slope rig , lowered the rig in and it kept going , that was a 4lb carp first drop, a good start.
I kept catching odd fish so I stuck with it for the first couple of hours but as the time went on foulers became more of a problem, so with tails waiving up on the shelf the rest of the match was spent after them apart from a couple of short sorties on the meat line which produced half a dozen fish but it wasnt quick enough, I also had one fish down the edge but that was even slower, so far bank it was then. By now mark harper who had a slow start was catching well with f1,s and carp falling to his corn attack at 5 mtrs, he had intended to fish the method for a while at the start but he threw in into a snag and lost the lot before the start and I don't think he had another , Preston must be out of stock.
Although there were plenty of fish against the at bank they proving hard to catch as there was lots od debris under the surface making it hard to keep fitting and dropping, and also when the bait got to the bottom I think it was below the rubbish. By the end I had 40 plus carp but with lots on the small side 2lb ish I thought I may just scrape 100lb, mark was convinced I had 135 at least but I didn't , I new it
was going to be close between us and when he plonked 107.13 on the scales I thought he would just

edge it, I was next to weigh and my nets went 103.10, one good fish really, our lake seemed to Have
Fished hard so we expected white post to produce the weights , but it turned out to be just as hard
There
Ian didcote on 5 park came out on top with 146.6, with all his fish falling to bait tech polony
2nd Marc jones 133.1. On 27 whitepost
3rd mark harper, 107.13, 32 park
4th tony Rixon , 103.10 34 park
5 th steve kedge 101.14 , 23 whitepost
6th John candy 99.12, whitepost
Well it took one hour 10 to get there, but missed my turning in bruton and it took us two hours 15 to get home , we even went past viaduct lol, talk about senior moments.

Chilton trinity, woodland lake

With 22 fishing I made this a pole only only match, as this venue has corners and end banks which had to be used, so it stops any arguments, it was a shame really that we had the windiest wettest day of recent months forecast and it was went to be mainly a westerly so it would be blowing straight up the lake making for difficult pole fishing , luckily the wind seemed to be more southerly so at least it was off the backs for many and in the face for others. Misha drew for me and I ended up with 24 with  bela bakos on 23 and fabio on 26 with an empty peg between us , so the margins should be good for a few.
I set up a shallow rig just in case , couple of depth rigs , one for 13 mtrs, I didn't fancy going longer in case the wind changed direction, one for meat at 5 mts and a pellet rig for the margins, I decided to fish pellet down the edge as small roach can de a problem in the shallow waters in the side , also I only used 8,s as feed and hook baits, so at he start I began firing 8,s out to 13 mtrs, throwing meat onto the 5 mtr line and pellets down the edge .
It didn't take long to get a bie which resulted in a small carp of about 2 lb safely netted, soon followed by another of the same size hen a good one of nearly 10lb so a good start, there seemed to be a few fish being caught with Martin McMahon over on 9 catching well, shallow which was interesting as the anglers on that bank had the wind blowing straight in at them , back in my peg it started to go a bit wrong after that with foulhookers , I was landing a couple but losing most, but I was getting some in the mouth aswell, so I kept feeding odd fish into the net, I tried upping the feed, cutting it back and even not feeding at all , but that just resulted in no bites at all, the fish I was fouling were on the bottom as I was connecting instantly on the strike , it seems to happen a lot now.i tried the shallow rig  and had one fish and that was hooked in the fin. So I just decided to put up with it. As far as I could see I was doing ok, bela was struggling and fabio was hooking skimmers but most of them seemed to be jumping off, also trig over on 17 was finding it hard, mike nicholls wandered up with about 2 hours to go and was admitting to 12 carp also Shaun Townsend on 27 was catching well on meat on the 5 mtr line, I did get a few on meat and I had 3 down the edge on pellet so by the end I new I had over 100lb but not being able to see the rest of the lake I couldn't say who was looking good to win.
I started the weigh in on mike nicholls on peg 30 and when he plopped 123.12 onto the scales I told him I thought that would be enough on the day, he had started the match by, oh sod that read his blog to see how he did it
I ended up just behind him in second spot with 120lb exactly
3rd Shaun Townsend  on 26 with 117.7
4th Martin McMahon on 9 with 90.9 and he only snapped his pole twice
5th Anton page on peg 6 with 86.1
6th Tom mangnall on 7 with 79.5
Silvers
Scott puddy on 28 with 17.4 of skimmers on pellet

Weds viaduct open

With the Royal Navy fishing on cambell the open today was on match and lodge if needed , with 14 fishing steve put 9 on match and 5 on lodge , even though it was a pole only match a draw on lodge was needed to frame overall or win the silvers, into the draw tin and out pops peg 44. A good wag peg !!!!!!!!!. For company I had the gimp on 43 and mark tanner on 45.
I normally do ok on this lake fishing caster and micro combination, so I set up a caster rig to fish at 13 mtrs 10 and 2 o,clock, the same rig would do at 16 mtrs at 10 angle, and I set up a hard pellet rig to fish banded 6 over loose fed 4,s at 16 mtrs 2 angle.
At the start I cupped in some micros and caster in the 13 mtr lines , a big pot of caster on the 16 mtr 10 angle and began firing a few 4, s towards the 16 mtr 2 angle  line, starting at 13 mtrs small roach were the first to arrive as is normal but they wanted to stay, there were some carp and f1,s present but the small roach were being a bit of a problem, I spent the first couple of hours trying to get a bait to the bottom and when I did I quite often got an f1 , but I wasn't catching well enough as glen the spod bailey on 40 was catching on paste over his pellet mountain and they were good fish aswell for this lake .
I switched to the pellet line fishing on the deck which is only 2 foot all the way across in this peg, and began catching a few with no roach problems, it was mainly f1,s and with them going over 2lb they were worth catching, after an hour of this I had odd swirls so it was off the box and assembling a shallow rig and I never looked back catching f1,s but not to many carp, glen was till catching on 40 and with the news filtering through that lodge was producing there looked to be only the section up for rays and with glen in my section it was going to be hard as I. Needed to catch between 2 and 4 fish to stay in touch with him, the fish kept coming shallow up until about 30 mins from the end when they seemed to disappear but a switch to the deck rig kept a few fish coming , by the all all out it was a bit to close to call between glen and me, glen was fist weigh and put 103lb on the scales ,and I wasn't to sure I had that , I thought I had 80 ish, I had to wait for the scales, but when they eventually got to me Vincent brown was top on our lake with 128.4 but he wasnt in my section , my nets went
108.9 just beating glen, it was those few late fish on the deck, plus glen hooked his keepnet with 5 mins to go trashing his rig (excuses excuses), I bet mark tanners ears were well and truly chewed off on the way home,
As expected the top weights came off lodge with Paul Blake on 66 ending up with 184.6 of meat caught carp
2nd mark wynne on 64 with 158.13
3rd mat parsons on 58 with 146.8
4th Vincent brown on 49 with 128.4
5th me 108.9
6 th glen bailey 103.13 on peg 40
Silvers
Dave romain on 60 with 41.2 of skimmers

Avon angling open, sedges , brick lake

20 fishing today so every peg was, this venue doesn't suffer because of it, in fact it seemed to help some venues and this is one of them, it's a square lake which is normally about 8 foot deep but as with most venues we need rain desperatley and the level was down about 18 inches but it still was 6 foot plus deep, I fancied peg 10 or 11, I waited till nearly the end to draw , in fact there was only two tickets left in the draw , there was only myself and glen  ( the spod ) bailey left to draw , he took a ticket and ended up on 10 and mine was peg 7, a good. Silvers peg with a chance of carp aswell, the chances of winning were also reduced as Craig Edmunds was on 11 and providing he tried this week it looked to be either him or glen would be the man to beat.
I set up three rigs today,  a pellet rig to fish banded 8,s over loose fed 6,s. a meat rig for 5 mtrs and a rig for corn or caster over caster in the margin, for company I had Martin McMahon on 6 and bela bakos on 8.
At the start I began at 14 mtrs on the pellet rig aswell as throwing some meat at 5 mtrs and some caster down the edge, it was a bit of a slow start , bela was catching early on on paste and Martin was also catching on the method, although I was a few fish behind the anglers either side I soon began getting odd good bream on the pellet and occasional carp put in an appearance, I had a nice enjoyable match not really bagging but steadily putting skimmers and carp in the nets, bela slowed up after his good start but he did suffer quite a few skimmers. Dropping off mainly due to them flying about after they were hooked ,Martin stopped catching after he lost his lucky pellet. All the time glen on 10 and trig over on 11 had Been steadily  catching carp, glen on paste over his pellet mountain and trig over his normal 3 pieces of meat, two completely different feeding techniques but both effective .
By the end it was a two horse race between trig and glen but I fancied trig to edge it. As for myself I thought I had 40 lb of skimmers with a lot on pellet but several on the meat line at 5 mtrs,
First on the day went to Craig Edmund son 11 with 123.7 of meat caught carp at 14 mtrs in front and some up his right hand end bank
2nd and opposite him on 10 glen bailey had 116.14
3rd was me with 94lb which included. The top silver weight on the day with 44.12 of all skimmers
4 th Tom mangnall with 75.2 on peg 15
5 th Philip Harding on 16 with 69.11
6 th joe McMahon on 17 with 67.15
Off to viaduct on Wednesday for a match on the match lake with an overspill onto lodge if needed

Weds landsend open

With 16 of us booked in today mike let us use the match lake and the far bank of the speci, with that much room I wasn't to bothered where I drew , in fact I let fabio draw for me and he gave me 29 on the speci. For company I had Martin lenaghan on 31 and Alan oram on 27. ,
I set up a couple of pellet rigs to fish just off the island and one to poke in tight against the mud under the overhanging plants, a meat rig for each side margin, a slapping rig and a pellet rig for on the deck at 5 mtrs, at the start I began firing 6,s to the far bank, and fed some meat and pellet in the various parts of my swim, the margin meat line was a waste during the match as all I could do was let roach turn the cubes into little marbles,
Starting with the depth rig just off the island I was soon attached to and angry fouler, then after losing it and missing a couple of liners I went out with the shallow rig and soon had a nice double figure common in the net , swiftly followed  by the 5lb f1 which resides in the lake, but I can't bring myself to call it a silver so I stuck it in the carp net, but that was the end of the shallow fishing proper, with the overhanging foliage making it all but impossible to do it properly, if I could have weighed in nettles I would be winning, so it was onto the island depth rig about a metre off , fishing banded 8mm over 6,s fed by catty. There were plenty of fish mooching about so most of the rest of the match was spent lifting and dropping as close to the foliage as possible, I ended the match with 23 carp and a few silvers for what I estimated to be about 130lb,.
I would have had a bit more but I called all out and left my rig in and about 2 secs after I shouted I was attached to a big fish which turned out to be the 18 lb common which I have caught three times before, gutted as I watched it swim away out of the landing net, why couldn't it have taken the pellet 3 seconds earlier, I said to mike duckett who was stood watching that it would probably cost me today, I didn't know how the match lake had fished as it had been unusually quiet on there even with Tom thick in attendance, as it turned out gabe skarba on15 had won with 152.11 of mainly meat caught carp(I think)
2nd was me with 134.15( that fish would have done it then)
3rd mark leader on peg 7 with 118.11
4th Martin lenaghan with 117lb on  peg 31
5th Tom thick on peg 3 with 115.12 and he had the top silver weight of 17.10
6th Alan oram on 27 with 90.12

Float only league, final round

This was the last of the series and we were at viaduct on Campbell and Cary, with 20 on each, I let Tom thick draw for me and he gave me 95 and I drew for him and gifted him 112, definitely got the short straw there then, but saying that I wasn't to upset as I needed a section win to get in the overalls and at least on Cary lake there is always a chance to catch up with some of the bigger fish that inhabit this lake, whereas on Campbell it can be a bit of a fish race making it hard to catch up once you are a few fish behind, for company I was next to fabio again on 94 which is the corner peg , which I fancied as the wind has been blowing in there for a few days, and on 96 was the welsh / Australian hybrid in the shape of  stuart(skippy) barnett, so at least I had someone cheerful to talk to on one side ( I will leave that one to you to work out). I set up a wag rod and a paste rig but never used either, and a depth pellet rig , I didn't set up a shallow rig as I have never had to much success on this lake fishing shallow.
On the whistle I shipped out the pellet rig to 14 mtrs fired in some 8,s and waited, it didn't take to long to foulhook one which came off as did the next 4 aswell, in the meantime dan white was slapping a shallow rig about and by the end of the first hour he had 7 carp in the net, I had managed to put 2 in the net but liners were a problem, so at the end of the first hour I was off the box and assembling a shallow rig, I was soon into the first carp on it and to be honest apart from a couple of attempts to catch on the deck which just resulted in liners and a couple foulers I stuck with the shallow rig for most of the match putting odd fish to about 15ib in the net, fabio had banked on the wag to the end bank and was catching some and on the other side skippy was catching and losing on several methods including paste, and pellet shallow and deep , the lake was fishing well with lots of people catching , Paul elmes over on 79 had lost count of the number of scales. He had put in his net , luckily for him Craig Edmunds at the next peg was keeping count and by the end he had 50 on his clicker, Paul couldn't deny it as he had lost count.
By the end I had 19 carp and 4 skimmers in the nets and with them weighing 164.8 it was the section win I needed to keep me in the overall money, Craig Edmunds had all but won the league before today , with the only person to possibly upset. His win was Shaun Townsend who was on 111, but he needed to win his section with over 300lb and for trig to dip out, FairPlay he won his section and the match with 228.14, so not enough to oust trig
2nd Tom thick on 112 with 196.5
3rd mash on 105 with 180.6
4th mike west on 125 with 172lb
5 th tony Rixon 164.8 peg 95
6th Scott puddy on 116 with 161.3
Silvers
 Gary etheridge with 44.11 on peg 86, catching skimmers of various sizes on soft pellet over softened 4,s
Overall league
Craig. Edmunds 25 pts 576.8lb. £325
Shaun Townsend 25 pts 525.7lb £250
Paul elmes 24 pts 548.7 lb. £175
Tony Rixon 24 pts 478.5lb. £100
Tom mangnall 23 pts. 686.4 lb. £50
Another good league finished now till next year and it was a good tight finish, mainly due to the small 5 peg section, roll on next year
Having another go on wildmarsh at chilton trinity next Sunday so give me a ring at the shop if you fancy it 01179517250