Tunnel barn farm

This was a fundraising event to raise funds for the women and disabled national angling teams, it was a north versus south clash to add a bit of a twist, with 140 booked in it was good to be involved in a good sized match. Lots of good anglers in attendance and with lots of us southern softies not being to practiced in the art of f1 fishing it was going to be more than likely the northern monkeys would triumph on the day, two draw tins , one for the south and one for the north meaning we would be alternating around the lakes.
Into the draw tin and out comes peg ten on new lake, meant nothing to me but des assured me it was flier being a short island reach and normally plenty of room as it was on the end bank on its own today, travelling partner Chris fox drew on canal lake 4 , not to good but on this venue you can expect a days fishing off even the worst pegs.
I got to my peg and I must admit it did look good , nice margins , a small hole in the reeds against the island and I could get round the left hand side of the island aswell as it was only 11 mtrs to get there.
Rigs today were a margin meat rig , two hard pellet rigs for across to the island (I was told it was the wrong approach as it's a w&c venue). And a deep and shallow maggot rig for top set range.
At the start I began on the short maggot rig and had bites straight away from small skimmers and the like, all the time feeding 4,s across the the two island pellet swims and dropping some meat down the edges, by the end of the first hour I,d had a few f1,s but with swirls from the f1,s on the island I felt it was time to go across, I soon had a few f1,s but they can be notoriously hard to hook on banded pellet at times, hence lots of people today were pinning there faith on worm and caster. From there on I had a nice days fishing , missing plenty of bites/liners but catching more than enough f1,s to keep me more than interested, I can certainly see the appeal of this venue, and it would be nice to see a similar venue closer to home , hill view is about the closest, so perhaps a few visits to there may be in order. Bites came right to the end of the match on the two island pellet lines aswell as a few fish on the short maggot line including a handful of small barbel up to 1 1/2lb, I didn't catch on th margin meat lines, although I did miss some bites lol.
By the end I wasn't sure as to what weight I had but I expected it to go 90plus, in fact when the scales mounted on the golf trolley turned up my two nets went 62 and 41 pounds for 103 total, overall no good probably but I at least beat the two northern anglers each side, although it was touch and go for a while with the angler sat in his bed chair on my right. As far as I could tell 130lb won but with lots of weights down to me , Chris and I decided to leave as it was going to be a long winded affair to get the results out, bob gullick stayed on though and both Chris and me picked up some section money , although bob did say they felt very thin , I think the monkeys beat the softies which didn't suprise me as they have a lot more f1 venues up there.
Float only league next Sunday at landsend but before that I will fish the huntstrete coffin dodgers match at Withey pool, and with temperatures set to soar this week it may be hard .

Thursday costcutter, viaduct match lake

I was meant to be going to Avalon today but it was already booked by the Weston club so it was off to viaduct again but only on the match lake so with only 14 pegs available it soon filled.
Into the draw tin and out comes 52, the corner pampas grass peg, lots of options , a long left hand margin , the corner of the island to fish the wag to and obviously the long pole , oh yes and a short one for meat . For company I had dan squire on 51 and the always smiling Tom mangnall around the corner on 39, so after setting up all things for various lines it was start time , as is normal on this lake it pays to start shallow on hard pellet for the f1,s and carp , but nothing really happened, this is going to turn into one my really short blogs ,as my peg never started for me , dan was picking up odd fish on the pole , a switch to the wag also was no good for me but again dan was catching , this was were the schoolboy error occurred, I normally watch and see if there are any reasons as to why someone is catching next door on seemingly similar pegs, but I must have been from the heat as I never noticed him feeding hardly anything , but not me ,no, I over cooked my swim very quickly with to much feed and with the fish not feeding to well that was my day done and dusted, I ended up with 19lb and a bit more of a tan and dan fished a nice tidy match to win with90.14
2nd was dan white on 47 with 53.13
3rd mike west on 47 with 53.10
4th Leon Hubbard on 48 with 45.9, also it was Leon's birthday today so happy 53rd matey
5th dave cockayne on 43 with 44.13
6th terry leney on 45 with 43.10
Off to tunnel barn farm this weekend for a north versus south match to raise funds for the ladies and disabled international teams, f1 fishing (groan) must try and keep my hand out of the pellet box lol.
Next match at Avalon is definitely on the 9th July as it's booked , so apologies to those without a match yesterday, hopefully see you on the 9th

Viaduct spring league

This was the final round in this popular series, 55 fishing normally but we had a few no shows for various reasons and one  toys out of the pram display, who went and played golf instead lol.
I was in the last 4 of the k/o against , andy Neale, bob gullick and goes cochrane, all. Had to do was avoid Cary as it has been through a tough time this week due to oxygen problems , but with steve getting the oxygen levels back up to normal it should soon be back to normal,
Into the draw tin first and out comes 87 on the top bank on Cary , andy was on 66 lodge possibly he best carp peg on there, bob gullick on 115 , cambell that's the third time on the peg in this series, and Giles cochrane on 124 , that was me buggered for a pickup then as they were only paying out the top 3 in the k/o .
I thought I may have a chance of a few as Fred Roberts had 160lb off 88 the day before fishing shallow on the pole, so I set a shallow rig and a deep pellet rig for 14 mtrs, which was far enough as there was a nasty right to left wind blowing, a meat rig for 5 mtrs and wag for fishing at depth, not really to much to say on the match really as I ended up with 9 carp for what I reckoned on going 90lb,
I had 5 on the wag , two on the pole on pellet on the deck, I did hook one shallow but it came adrift and two on the meat line , no skimmers today as they were the worst affected fish when the oxygen crashed, Gary oshea on 90 caught quite well fishing shallow and opposite him kev molten on 94 also had some on pellet at half depth, they were first and second on the lake with 145 and 125 respectively  my 9 fish actually went 95lb so they were good fish, needless to say I came last in the k/o with it think andy Neale winning it followed by bob gullick then Giles , first on the day went to Chris Davis with 245 lb , he would have had over 300lb but he had over 80lb in one net so lost the entire weight in that net, as for the league Craig Edmunds just won on worst section dropper over Giles cochrane so well done to those two, I don't have all the results as fabio and me did the big swinging door and left before the results.
Next match is Avalon on Thursday ,9.30 draw fish 11 to 5 , anyone interested ring me on 07974807941 to book in, or txt me

Thursday cost cutter, viaduct fishery

Still popular today as 34 were booked in, I was treating it as a bit of a practice for the final round of the spring league which is on this Sunday, I may just stand an outside chance of framing as long as I win my section with 300lb and the 15 people above me all blank, hmmmm.
I travelled down with trigger so that was one good peg gone and with Chris fox not fishing there would be an extra crap peg to draw aswell.
Into the draw tin and peg 129 stuck to my mit, a nice peg next to the spit on cambell, for company I had Gordon canning on 130 and gabe skarba the other side of the spit on 128. I had intended to fish all out pellet today but last time on this peg I caught well on meat late in the match, so I procured a tin of meat from the shop and cut it with trigs 8mm cutter as he was just up from me on 126.
With the aerator on I decided against the wag as last time I fished this. With the water moving presentation went put of the window . So pole only, pellet rigs were for the end of the spit , a slapper/stalker , one for 14 mtrs on the deck and a small one for back in the small bay to my left, plumbing around the deepest part I could find was 30 inches at 14 mtrs so that was where began my attack, but it was all very torrid, the fish wanted feeding but wouldn't stay on the deck, so fouling was a real problem, not just for though , looking around at this end of the lake there seemed to be a lot of foulhooked fish being lost, even glen 5 pots bailey on 110 was getting the same on paste. You would fully expect to catch shallow in these conditions but they wouldn't have it at all, I did get two shallow and stalked a third by the end of the first hour, so I went back out with the deep rig and had a few more , ever time I fed the swim would fizz showing the fish were there but just getting liners , I tried the shallow rig several times at different depths but to no avail, the end of the spit swim which is normally the banker in the peg only produced two fish, with little or no activity there, going into the last hour I only had 12 carp in the net and a few tench, then all of a sudden he meat line started to bubble and the last hour was the best with two carp from my left hand margin and 7 off the 5 mtr meat line, ending up with 21 carp and a few accidental tench, it was never going to be any good as the other end of the lake had fished quite well with Gary o,Shea on 115 leading the charge, also Martyn woodington on 66 lodge had caught well. My fish went 130.12 for no good, I was top weight at my end of the lake but got battered by the other end with Gary o,Shea winning with 192.14
2nd was Martin woodington  on 66 with 176.2
3rd Dom Sullivan on 118 with 161lb
4th andy row bottom on 119 with 157.11
5th trig with 149.10
6th steve Walters on 59 with 132.14
Silvers
Dick bull on 127 with 30.10
Ian Dunlop on 111 with 27lb
Gary caught on a bit of everything from worm over groundbait to paste to pellet to meat, must have been solid lol, if he had tried a bit harder he may have had his first double ton today.
Next Thursday I am running another one at Avalon, so to book in txt or phone me on 07974807941 or give me ring in veals on 01179260790

Float only league round 2

Down to landsend for this one , one of my favourite venues this one , with 40 fishing I had 15 on match and speci lake and 15 on lake 3, johns water, I think steve Seager drew for me and handed me peg 18, which is on the far side of the match lake , on the left hand side of the central gap in the island, for company I had Clint wojtyla on my right on 19 and Pete nurse n 16 to my left , so a bit of banter was guaranteed. The sun was out while tackling up so a stalker rig was assembled, also a meat rig for 5 mtrs , a rig to fish banded pellet over by the Island , and another rig to fish pellet down my left hand margin.
At the start I went with the stalker rig and managed 5 carp in the first hour , which was ok as far as I could see. But with the sun disappearing behind clouds the shallow fishing was never going to last, so going into the second hour ,I switched to the island swim , first off  I went in on the shallow rig and had a couple of carp but it was proving difficult, by now Martin lenaghan on24 and ken Rayner on 21 had begun to catch, the middle part of the match was very hard for me , I had a couple of carp but suffered foulers ,  I had to wait until the fifth hour to start catching again , when firstly I had 5 decent carp on the 5 mtr meat line in 20 minutes and began to catch some down my margin on banded 8 mm pellet over loose fed 6,s so from being behind ken and Martin and about the same as Clint , I pulled ahead of them in the last two hours , ending up with 25 carp for an estimated 120lb , which was going to be good enough for a section win, which was my main aim for the day , also I had drawn Shaun Townsend in the k/o and he was on peg 70 on lake three, and it fully expected him to catch over 100lb , which he did , he weighed 105lb , luckily my net saw me weigh 123.15 which won the section and was second on the day, I was beaten by steve tucker on peg 1 with 125.9, steve caught on meat down to his right by an overhanging tree and straight out at 6 mtrs.
3rd place went to Clint wojtyla next to me on 19 with 105.9
4th Shaun Townsend on 70 with 105lb
5th Craig Edmunds on 51 with 102.15
6th Gary oshea on 5 with 99.6
Silvers
Gordon canning on 31 with 22.12 , of skimmers and f1,s
Tim ford on 27 with 16.2
The lakes didn't fish to well , I think the fish are struggling as there are still a lot of fish with spawn in them, most of our other local venues seem to be fishing hard aswell, we need some warm weather to the spawning over and done with , hopefully this week is going to warm up nicely midweek so it may get done and dusted.

Thursday costcutter , Avalon

After the normal tasty brekkie at lillypool, it was off to the fishery, numbers up slightly today with 13 fishing, we had a couple of viaduct escapees in the shape of dan white and Romanian dave (romain).
I let birthday boy mike west draw for me and he gave me 26 which is one of my least favourite draw on the lake, then I drew for mike and pulled 24 for him which is the end corner peg and all round flyer, well it is his birthday and it's not every day you reach 70 is it !!!!!!!.
The other side of me was dave romain on 28 which has a small gap in the island in front of it , rigs today were the pellet wag and two pole rigs. One for 14 mtrs on the deck and a margin rig , nice and simple .
At the start I cupped in some 6,s at 14 mtrs , fired some 8,s towards the island which was hard as the stiff breeze was coming off my right shoulder making feeding awkward, sometimes it fell short and other times it ended up on the grass, and with it being a good 45mtr throw getting it all to work correctly was always going to be difficult, I started on the pole , but with no fizzing it was always going to be hard, in fact by the end of the first hour I had one carp , a roach and a skimmer, by now dave had 4 or 5 carp on the wag , but mike the other side was losing plenty in some under water branches, going into the second hour I ditched the pole and spent the rest of the match on the pellet wag, both me and dave were suffering missed bite syndrome, mainly due the distance we were fishing and the wind putting a big bow in the line and the float trapping through much to fast, I did try a bigger float to try and bring a bit of stability to the set up but the wind was just to strong, dave did try the lead but apart from a couple of late fish on it , it wasn't any good , the carp seemed to want to be shallow, at the end I had 17 carp and dave had 20 or 21 so he would probably just have the edge over me m my accidental silvers in the shape of some big hybrids may help , but it didn't prove to be the case , as my nets went 79.8 which was about 10lb more than I thought I had, but I needed 2 more fish to beat dave. As his fish went 87.2. Looking back it was a mistake to start on the pole as Dave's , early fish were the difference, but neither of won as dan white on 48 did the business with 105.2 , catching mainly shallow along the end bank, with fish to 15 lb.
Top silver weight the re born angler , Gary cross on 40 with 36.10 on worm and caster fished at 4 mtrs, 2 nd in silvers went to bath tackle shop owner and all round nice man dave bacon with 28.10.
Next weds mike nicholls is running a short pole match on cambell lake at viaduct , I think there may be a couple of spaces , so if anyone is. Interested ring or txt mike on 07436015587 to book in.

Viaduct spring league , round 4

This is the penultimate round for this 55 peg popular series, I didn't really mind where I drew as long as I avoided lodge as it's been fishing very hard, so I wasn't to upset when I pulled out 124 on cambell, I was still in the k/o and drawn against dave romain ,who drew peg 55 on lodge, not at all a good draw , I didn't laugh to much, honest.
For company I had job jones on 123 and steve Seager on 125, several rigs today , a wag rig , tried but failed with, no more on that then , a short meat rig, again tried and failed during the match so no of that either, a shallow stalker rig and a pellet rig for 14 mtrs on the deck. At the start I cupped in some 6mm hard pellets at 14 mtrs and fed all lines aswell, but with a few fish on the surface I began with the stalker, with an 8mm pellet, I had one  straight away , a good start. And that was my match set really, I did have a few on the deck but most of my fish either came stalking or shallow at 14 mtrs . It was a hard match as due to the light and reflection spotting fish was very difficult , I ended the match with 19 carp and a couple of skimmers, I expected them to go at least 120lb , but was suprised for the 19 fish to go 141.9 and my few silvers went 3.5 for a 144.14 total and second in the section, our section was won by Giles cochrane on 117 with 190.15, virtually guaranteeing a series win with one match to go, his biggest threat for the series s from Craig Edmunds  who won today with 208.7, but Giles has a massive weight advantage,
2 nd today was steve tucker on 112 with 201.8
3rd Marc illingworth on 132 with 197.11
4 th Giles cochrane on 117 with 190.15
5th a Weston on 94 with 177.8
6th dick bull on 96 with 165lb
Considering the fish were having a go at spawning gather lakes fish well, except for lodge lake. Which seems to be in the doldrums a bit, but only in matches , pleasure anglers seem to catching plenty.
I,m running a match at Avalon again on Thursday , so if any one fancies it please ring me at veals on 01179260790 or ring or txt me on 07974807941 to book in , it will be a 9.30 draw ,

Viaduct Thursday costcutter

I was intending to go to huntstrete with the coffin dodgers , but trig Edmunds came into veals on weds and convinced me it would be a good idea to go for a practice at viaduct as the spring league fourth round is on on Sunday, also I don't think he had any fuel in his car as I had to give him a lift. So he was round mine early and we went to lillypool cafe for the normal nice brekkie , and with the weather set to be fine a good day was hoped for, it must be a good forecast as tony (the daffodil) witcombe was fishing today, obviously he reckoned the paste was going to work then !!!!!.
31 in attendance today including the man on fire (we should be so lucky lol) Giles cochrane who has got this venue properly Sussed . Into the draw and 96 comes out , trig had it at the weekend and managed a few and it's normally a good peg so I was happy, trig drew 81 which is good l although it was in the shade all day so trig shorts and flip flops weren't ideal , especially as the cooling wind was blowing into it. For company I had dave romain on 94 and two pots bailey on 97.
With the wind blowing off this bank I fancied the wag for a few so that was put together, also a meat rig for 5 mtrs, but I am not going to mention that rig as although I tried it a few times I never had a touch on it, this method doesn't seem to be working here at the moment , especially on this lake.
Other rigs were a pellet depth rig and a slapping/stalker/shallow rig.
At the start I fed all lines and started at 14 mtrs on banded 11 mm pellet over loose fed 8,s and at the end of the first hour I had two carp and a couple of small bream, but it soon became obvious the fish didn't want to be on this side of the lake as trig was several fish ahead as was Martin Rogers on 85, next door glen was on 3 carp taken on the lead and dave the other side was on nothing , a look on the wag was just as hard although during the match I did get 4 carp on the wag and a couple more bream, with about 21/2 hours to go I got off my box and put a lighter rig together to catch some more skimmers as I was never going to catch up in the carp stakes as no one on our bank was going to threaten the leaders, so a switch to feeding 6,s and fishing a banded 8 bought me several more good skimmers/small bream up to 3lb, even the this was never going to be enough to win the silvers as John gray on 77 was netting lots ov bream and by the end he had three keepnets in naf that was just for silvers !!!, either side of me , glens normally productive paste approach had let him down and even his favoured lead chucking wasn't working, not even liners so I think the fish weren't in attendance on this side of the lake. Top on this normally productive bank was Ben hagg on 99 with 114.9, catching all but one of his carp on the tip, my 7 carp as I had one on the skimmer rig went 64.2 and with 41.6 of skimmers I totalled 105.8, my only chance of a pickup today would be a from the silver pool.
Overall it was a difficult day for most except for the two most consistent anglers on the venue at present with the irrepressible Giles cochrane on 110 winning again with 257.11, catching on the lead with 6 mm pellet, FairPlay to him as he doesn't just chuck the tip out and feed over the top , he really knows how to work his swim .
2nd Craig Edmunds on 81 caught on any method he decided to use and ended up with 213.5
3rd andy power on 119 with 201.3
4th dave white on 123 with 163.2
5th Martin Rogers on 85 with 146.9
6th g ? Can't read his writing with 138.6
Silvers
1st John gray with an incredible weight of  104.8 of skimmers on peg 77, all caught on 6mm hard pellet.
2nd was me with 41.6
As for two pots bailey , did I mention yet that I more than doubled his weight as he only managed 51.14, bugger, sorry glen I wasn't going to mention it .

Float only league round 1

As normal the first round was at viaduct fishery on cambell and Cary, I had another senior moment with this one and had 41 fishing today when it should have been only 40, next rounds will. Be back to 40 though lol.
Back to today and I decided to let my twin draw for me in the (ample) shape of andy Neale, and he handed me 114 after pulling himself 111, that boy can draw, for company I had Alan oram on 115 and joint league organiser steve Evans on 112, so I had the added bonus of an empty peg on 113 and I new steve wouldn't be going down there as he likes his silver fishing,
Rigs today were all pole rigs , no wag as the wind was blowing really hard from the left and into our bank making presentation impossible , so 11 mtrs pellet rig for on the deck , a couple of. Margin rigs one for one a topkit range as mike nicholls had caught at this range a few weeks ago, a pellet rig for down to the pallet on 113 and a slapping rig just in case. And the normal meat rig at 5 mtrs
On the all in I started on the 11 mtr line with 8mm in the band and feeding 8,s on all the pellet lines and of course meat at 5 mtrs, the first hour was ok with 4 carp in the net and a handfull of decent skimmers but with the wind increasing even 11 mtrs in front was nigh on impossible to control, so that was binned , and the rest of the match was spent down the left hand margin ,and meat line, the topkit only line only produced two fish, but the 14 mtr line down to 113 was the most productive , presentation was hard but it was worth the effort, as bite came regularly, I did switch to an 11 mtr pellet on the deck as it seemed to anchor the rig a bit better, I also had some slapping down by the pallet but due to the wind it was hard , also being so shallow down there, about 18inches , the fish didn't seem to want to stay shallow, so I would get a couple shallow , then I needed to go on the bottom, and if it went quiet I went on the meat line for a fish or two, I ended up with 30 carp , I reckoned my carp nets would go about 150lb plus my accidental skimmers, I normally put 9 fish in a net on this lake but I had a few smaller ones today so I had 10 in each net, I thought rich Lacey on 135 had done enough today as he seemed to be catching all day, also the ever consistent Shaun Townsend on 125 had caught well, the scales started on the far side of our lake and when they reached me Shaun was top with 161.12. I thought it was going to be close, my nets went 176.9 to put me in the lead, after a few more anglers it was rich Lacey's turn , luckily his nets went 172.14 so I had won our lake, only Cary to weigh and after that was done trig Edmunds on 96 was top weight on there with 175.15, luckily he missed his net with. 2lb skimmer(schoolboy error).  So top 6
T Rixon 176.9
Craig Edmunds 175.15
Rich Lacey 172.14 and his first ton up weight
Shaun Townsend 161.12
Tim ford 135.7
Gary oshea 122.12
Silvers
Glen Calvert 38.12
Kev molten 34.10