Mad mikes watersports lake

Mike Nicholls arranged this match on this lake, i had fished this lake probably 30 years ago, i drew next to vic bush that day, we both had one bite each, vic had a small carp and i had a stickleback, we were hoping for a better day today as it had been fishing well on the pegs that were open for angling, namely over on the far right hand bank , the rest of the lake was virtually untouched as far as angling went, there have been plenty of quality roach caught leading up to this match, with roach over two pounds, and even rumoured 3lb fish during the early autumn, and a fair few carp were to be had. Mike Nicholls did the social distancing draw, and everyone was hoping for 1 to 6 or 23 and 24, so when it was my.turn for a peg mike pulled out 12, nearly.as far as was possible away from the rewuired swims, but it was an unknown today so i went to the swim with an open mind, at least we could drive to our pegs which is always a bonus, for company i had venue expert, (he has fished it once) lee macey to my left and long time friend Ray bazeley to right. I must say it's certainly a big piece of water, with a nice colour, but plenty of weed as well.

With a weedbed at 11 mtrs and a strong wind blowing in left to right and plenty of rain in the air, not to many options, so only two rigs, a .4drennan as4, slim pattern and guru wire stem bodied job for abit of stability, dave haines had been round the day before to ensure we could get down to the water safely, but i still felt as though i was up the crane LOL.

As we were told we would need quality roach to do well i only had casters and a few maggots on the side tray,so i fed two lines, topset and two and 11 mtrs. but two hours in and very little to show apart from a few very plippy roach i was wishing i had bought some pinkies, (ye right), luckily i had some lake and thatchers in the van so got off my box and knocked some up, and it did transform the peg a bit as i had a flurry of small rach over then it seemed to die, but then i started to get some small carp,not loads but i felt inwas going to get a bite at any time swithing between the two lines, i ended up with 7 or 8 small carp and some tiny roach for 17lb+ whuch was top weight from 7 round to 22, but beaten plenty of times by the farbank swims and the two swims in the carpark, but i did enjoy it in a wierd sort of masochistic way, woukd i go there again , probably but a few les anglers so we could be squeezed in on the good pegs.

Monday acorn

Baxk at thi prolific local venue today, and i must say the fish are in excellent condition with comfy accessible swims and definitely no tree,s. And with parking behind all but 5 swims it s an ideal venue for everyone from the less abled or above with good sport virtually guaranteed. Any way we stopped off in yatton for a couple of bacon and sausage rolls, we tried a place called "that coffee shop", wont be going back, expensive especially as they dont even put butter in the rolls, going to give it a 2, it would have been my first zero but the coffee was really good, im not blaming the staff they only go by company policies, baxk to the fishing, and this will be fairly short as im a bit late doing it. I drew for everyone but got gary spearing to pull mine out, peg 15, thats ok, to my right was somerset legend and genuine nice guy mike west who i havnt seen since the start of the year, nice to have a bit of a catchup. also a bit of a competion , can anyone guess the name of local angler on peg 11 in all the matrix gear, no prizes but i bet you can all guess lol.

As for the fishing ive had an interesting day, had three nice carp and a few f1,s on bread over in the first hour, then nothing, so switched to feeding some hard 4,s and caught a couple on that, then the bulk of my weight came on maggot iether on the topset and two in front where i had 4 tench aswell as some late carp, and the rest was on maggot down by empty peg 14, down there again in a fortnight so get in touch to book in, ended up with 92lb which was second on the day behind Martin lenaghan on peg 1 with 122lb, well done . Silvers went to andy gard on peg 27 with 20lb of mainly small fish and one tench, 19 fished today after a couple of late cancellations. Weigh sheet below.

Culpins ripoff league, rnd 4

Baxk to Summerhayes today for this match, but not before a stop at lillypool cafe for breakfast, thanks ladies for opening up early for us, food was excellent and hit, so a 4.9 it is then. Mat got the social distancing draw underway, and i did the recording of names, i must say i was glad to peg 23 on longs get pulled out, that pleasure fell to rich lovering, who was taking the mick out of me vefore the draw as i did bad off it last time, Fairplay to him he did manage a lone carp from it, definitely a bad peg. Organiser mat managed to get peg 23 on sellicks, which had carp all over it, he would have to do well to avoid a good weight today, and league leader dave romain drew the same lake but peg two. I couldn't see him making any mistakes from there. mat pulled out peg 5 on longs for me, its a nice looking peg, just coming out of a wide bit , so i could reach across with 14.5 mtrs.

Pegs 7 & 8 normally are.the ones to beat in this bit as there is a big lilly bed between them with plenty of reed cover aswell. But everyday is different. I set up a meat rig for the margins but nothing on that , so no more about that waste of meat. a maggot rig for 11 mtrs, a pellet rig for across, left and right of centre towards some mud banks, and lastly a bread dobbing rig for across amonst the foliage.

On the whistle i fed some maggots at 11 mtrs but after that went straight across on the bread, fishing it about 12 inches off the deck, i had a small carp first put in, second put in i bumped one, then i had to work around the weed getting odd bites, i stayed with it as no one was getting much in my section, after a couple of hours i couldnt get an indication onnthe white stuff , so i started feeding pellet left and right across but only had one fish fromnthe right hand side, i did get 4 carp and a hybrid from the 11 mtr maggot line, i also made a rig to fish maggot at 14 mtrs straight across, and i did get three more carp in the last hour at 14 mtrs on maggot, i thought i had done enough to win the section as i new i had over 40lb, mike nicholls probably had the most of the others in the section, and so it proved, i had 46lb, for the needed section win , mike was closest with just over 30lb, the match was won on sellicks by the consistent Sam Powell on 21, with dave romain on two coming second with, 64lb giving hi 4 section wins, so well done dave. Mat culpin wandered along the Carpark to give me his quid as he had managed to avoid the carp to only have 14lb, well done mat 😂😂😂😂😂. Weigh sheets below.

Huntstrete coffin dodgers

Baxk to bridge pool again today,(Thursday). Looking forward to it, i had a few hours sat on peg 27 on monday, i fished hard pellet over to the island and had a nice few hours catching carp to nearly 10lb and some f1,s, even though the water was.very clear the carp were happy to be in the shallow water, Dave gillard was doing his social distancing draw, i was fourth out, and he only pulls out peg 27 for me, plenty of groans but i was happy, lol. By the time i got to my peg mike Nicholls was already on 25 and was busy getting hus variois angling aids attached to his zimmer frame.

Baxk to my swim and it looked nice,the isalnd was 16.5 mtrs away, and i always like these swims between the islands as i think the silvers like to swim in these channels as its so deep (7foot)

So i set up the same pellet rig as monday, a .2g as4, for up the island shelf, also a shallow rig as i had a few on the drop on monday, the other rig was a .6 as5 for silvers .it was nust about now that mike Nicholls was having a practice cast with the wag, and managed to lasso a seagull around the leg, after a short but spirited fight it was safely released.

I had a quid side bet with kev winstone on silvers only, even thiugh i was a carp peg. So at the start i cupped in one ball of groundbait at topset and one, and three at 11 mtrs, all laced with caster. Starting short i only had one small roach, so i went out to 11mtrs, and began catching small skimmers immediately, i stayed on thus for the first two hours, really enjoying myself, all the time feeding hard 4,s to the island, after two hours i went across to the island expecting to catch carp straightaway, but it never happened, it took 15 minutes to get my first carp, so i rested it and came back on the silvers, it was a bit slower, but by topping up, i still kept the small skimmers coming, i had a few better ones and a couple over a pound but most were 2 to 6oz, good to see.i did get a few more carp from across, but it was nothing like it had been on monday, but it turned out i had done enough to be top weight on the day and that included the top silver weight aswell.

19lb of silvers and 28lb of carp, weigh sheets below, also i am running a match at acorn on monday if anyone fancies, I've got 20 at the mo, but a few more would be nice.

Viaduct silvers lge rnd 2

I travelled with Chris fox today , and we stopped at the well in shepton, formerly canards well, and to be fair the foos was excellent, unfortunately it took about 35 minutes for it to arrive at the table, so 4.85 for the food and 2.5 for the service. Anyway, we still managed to get to the fishery in time for the 9am draw, got into the queue about halfway along, waiting for steve to do the draw as we paid, i got to the front and he drew me out peg 124 on the far side of Campbell, quite happy with that, not a match winning peg in all honesty, but a fair section peg, the match was almost guaranteed to be won from cary as the skimmers had really switched on in the lale , possibly due to the huge ammount of high protein carp bait that has been shovelled into it all summer long, for company i was next to will puddy on 123 and mike walker on 125, i also had chris in my section aswell on 121. My section was pegs, 118 round to 125, so i felt i was at the better end to be fair. I was using a new keepnet today, which as we all know it can be the kiss of death, but i had to get it wet at some stage, it is one of mosella,s 2 mtr hd nets, ideal for this type of fishing, not to long but more than big enough for today, i did have my other silver net aswell just in case.

Today it was flat calm, so no trip or ripple, which can make it a bit of a trial for silvers but the carp seem to enjoy it.

Three rigs, a .3g drennan as3 for topset and one, same pattern but .2g for down the edge, and a .5g guru wire stem for 11 and 14 mtrs double bulk, just in case i needed it. A simple bait tray, some black lake(sensas) mixed with a bag of thatchers original, 50/50. Always been my favourite skimmer mix. 2 pints of casters and a handful of dead reds. I fed one small ball on the short line, 2 at 11 mtrs and 3 at 14mtrs all with caster in and nothing else. Starting short i gave it a out 90 minutes and had three good skimmers and some sensible roach, but as expected it died on that line, i kept feeding it but it never came back, i had a short burst of roach down the edge and lost a good perch, bloody things with horrible bony mouths, most of the remainder was spent flitting between the two long lines where it was a case of waiting for a bite, sometimes it was a skimmer, other times it was a carp, just pot luck, i lost probably a dozen carp, more than some and a lot less than others,the double bulk didnt seem right today, althiugh i had a few fish on jt , the lighter .3 rig was better. but by the end i thought i may have 20lb which looked good for the section, my fish went 25 lb , more than enough to win the section, so happy with that, roll on the next one, as expected all the framers came from cary, with paul faiers winning on the day with 42lb of mainly waggler and corncaught skimmers of peg 97, well done, weigh sheets below as normal.

Shiplate thursday costcutter

With the shooting season starting , gary flinders has stopped running the matches, but luckily, titch williams has taken over the running of them, well done matey. He got the draw underway and it came as no surprise to any one when alan quantrill drew peg 1 again, he,s getting relentless.

They have even taken the peg1 sign down and the swim is now known as plain AQ, i ended up on peg 3, so i coukd look back and see alan, im sure he was wandering around the peg measuring up to see if it was going to be worth trying to get planning for a house.

My swim looks nice, its got an island at 16mtrs, which i expected to catch some carp against, even though it was only 12 inches deep, i didnt think it was cold enough yet to force the fish into deeper water,

so i set up a pellet rig for over there, a meat rig for the short line, nothing on that, and a skimmer rig .5g for 11 mtrs. On titches referee whistle i cupped in 1 ball of groundbait on the two oclock line and a more positive 3 balls at 11 o,clock angle, and began feeding hard 4,s to the island. It turned outnto be an interesting day, although i put a bit of chopped worm in the groundbait, i never had a bite on a worm or piece of any size, all the skimmers i caught were iether on maggot or caster, with double being the best in either.also i had most fish over the more positively fed line, and they still needed regular topping up. It was a waiting game for a bite , but i didnt mind that as it was a lovely day sat in the sun, plus i had the added onus of watching alan catching steadily all day, firstly on a method which he occasionally cast in the same place, and later on the pole at 8 mtrs to his right on meat, i did get a few carp over towards the island towards the end of the match, but with the bright sunshine and a bit less colour in the water, the carp weren't happy staying in such shallow water, but i had some , so by the end i hoped i had at least 80lb, but i ended up with 97lb which included just short of 25lb of silvers which was top silver,s, so a return on my money, as expected with the ammount of practising alan has had on the peg, it finally came good today and he won the day with just over 200lb, well done . second went to john andres on 14b with 125lb, all on his favourite paste method. weigh sheet below.

Sunday/monday

Sunday it was round three of mat Culpin,s ripoff league, shiolate farm for this one, and i definitely wanted to avoid the squircle, but firstly breakfast, thanks to the ladies as lillypool cafe for opening up a bit earlier for us, and it was really nice (4.85). So got to fishery to find the Carpark rammed, as as well as us 36 , the frampton club was there and they had 21 fishing, good to meet the person who is buying the property, seems like a nice bloke, and he is going to employ John hawkins as the fishery manager , a good move i think, so good luck to all. Mat go the social distancing draw underway, i was fourth to be drawn and he pulled out 7 on Hawthorn for me, more than happy with that one, especially as I had an empty peg to my right. At least i should have a much better day than the last round at Summerhayes, strangely i drew next to brian slipper again, ive had an interesting days fishing, catching fish across, about a mtr off the far side in about 2 foot of, on banded 6mm hard pellet over loose fed 4mm, the fact its a steady slope up to the far side makes it a bit hard to at times to get the bait sat ok on the slope, but i felt i was doing enough to do well, i was the end peg in the section, and i couldnt see what was going on at the other end, but it sounded as though it was being quite tough early on, most of the match was spent towards the end peg, i did try several flirts on the short meat line, although i had couple of fish, i didnt seem right, and towards the end i had some slightly better fish in my right hand margin on maggot, i was first to weigh in the section and ended up with 133lb, but mike duckett on peg three caught well on meat in his margin innthe last couple of hours to end up with 167lb to win his section and the match, well done mike, i ended up 2 in the section and second onnthe day, also top silvers weight on the day was from our lake, jess Jordan on 13 had just under 17lb, next round is back to Summerhayes, hopefully i will avoid 23 longs, but you never know, weigh sheets below.

monday and it was acorn again, i was up to 24 fishing at one stage.but come the day i was back down to 18, still ok, so i am doing another in a fortnight, all welcome just get in touch to book in. i did the social distancing draw, apart from drawing my own, i left that to the golden arm of alan quantrill, an angler who has probably drawn peg one at shiplate more times than titch williams and gary flinders combined, LOL 😂, and he never let me down, pulling in form peg 11 out for me, i did repay him by drawing peg 21, as he likes his silvers fishing he was happy with that, i had darren north(matrix) lookalike,gary coton(matrix)to my right and john dursley on my left. Again the plan was to attack the island shelf with hard pellet, the same to my left where the tree has been taken out, then a maggot line at topset and two hopefully for some tench aswell as odd carp.

And the match went pretty much to plan, started across for an 8lb common first put in, and they kept coming for a while, not to consistent, but enough to have me thinking i was doing ok, occasional looks down the left hand margin gave me a few, and i even managed to mug one, in the last couple of hours i had some bubbled coming up onthe short maggot line, and i had a few nice tench from there, so by the end i thought i had about 140lb, and wasnt to far out as i ended up with 138lb, which also included over 30lb of tench, turned out to be enough to win, john andres on three had 127lb on paste, silver,s by default won the silver poll with 21lb, weigh sheet below shows it fished ok, and i must say the fish are in really good condition. Weigh sheet below.

Dont forget i running another one in a fortnight, so message me or give me a ring at premier angling to book in.

Well well Wels

Judith and me were away this week, staying in a log cabin just on the outskirts of Gillingham, quite and well equipped, no complaints. With the close proximity to Todber, and with neudith never having caught a catfish it would have been rude not to have a go, so i booked us a 24 hour ticket from 11am on Wednesday, till 11am on Thursday. We had a quick look on the lake Tuesday as Nigel hawkins and his better half joanne were doing a 48 hour stint, ending at 9am on Wednesday, After a quick chat with them, they confirmed that the lake had switched off, and very little in the way of cats, or carp had been showing. In fact there had only been one fish out whilst he had been there, so that hit the confidence a bit, he fishes it quite a lot and it was as hard as he had seen it, they were camping on peg 5 which is one of the better swims, and the only fish caught had come out of peg 3 which is opposite, he did say if i wanted to get there early on Wednesday i could jump into there swim and he would leave his bivvy etc there and i could take it back and he would collect it from premier angling in the week, but i had to say no as there were a group of anglers booked on for 10 am and they would get first choice, so we left them to it and it turned out nigels only action was to lose a cat down the channel between the island and the spit slightly to the left, and still when he left there had only been the one cat caught. We still got there at 10 next morning to find the group of anglers deciding on the pegs they wanted, so judith and me ordered a burger from the food place in the carpark for later that day 6.30, then waited for them to make there choices, that done the only swim left was the one nigel had been in, which was suprising as it is rated as one of the better swims with an island with a channel and some open water straight out in front. So 5 trips from the van later ,

and a face time call to kieron to help assemble the bivvy, which was very cosy for two, i was ready to get the rods in the water.

Rather than put the rods on the wooded staging as others do i positioned then to the left, so in the event we actually caught anything we would have a safe clear area to stand and play it.

As it was being hard i decided on a very cautious approach, as nigel had fed a bit on the end of the spit i positioned one bait there, and the other one towards the corner of the isalnd, bait was double 21 mm halibut pellets to which i moulded some halibut groundbait around as an extra attraction but without giving the fish to many options, and apart from that, some of the other anglers seemed.to want to feed enough bait as though it was summertime, but the water temp had probably plummeted in the last couple of weeks, and i thought less may be best to give us the best chance, so although we had had a couple of bleeps from the spit bait. , there had been nothing concrete, so we wound in our baits at 6 and wandered down the carpark to collect our burgers, which are all freshly made, and at 8oz , not to small iether, before fetching the food i changed the set up from ones with lead clips etc to some free running rigs meaning the fish didnt have to shift a heavy lead to register any action, whilst at the burger van kier from the todber shop was getting some food and he had told me to position a bait further off the island to the right in more open water as he said the cats seemed to be wanting to be in that open water more than around the islands, so with one bait in the gully and the other in open water, it was burger time, and i must say it was really good, one of the best dirty burgers ive had in a while, Mine finished i sat back , but only for a few minutes, the open water rod was off, so judith had to ditch the remainder of her burger and grab the rod, and she had her work cut out, this fish was giving her a proper work out, and i must say i was suprised at the power of this fish, but she did really well playing it in, the only help she had from me was to give her a bit of advice as to which way to pull, firstly to keep it out of the channel, then from the marginal reed beds, and i must say a big thanks to the angler to my right , whose rig was picked up during the scrap, but he just gave it all the slack line he could, this was a good fish but i didnt realize how good till i netted it, so we got it on the scales , and it registered 52.5, less the weight of the net which was 2.5, giving judith her biggest ever fish of exactly 50lb absolutely buzzing for her, she did really well, it was a strong fish which stripped line against a very tight clutch, shame it was to big for her to pick up safely, but the picture seems to do it justice.

Fish safely returned, baits repositioned and sat back not really expecting anything else , so when the same rod went off again, it was my turn, judith did the netting for me, on which was still a nice fish , but at 34.9, a lot smaller then hers, but im not complaining, and it was a good fight, which at times made me think a bit, so her achievement is even more noteworthy, not the best of pics but by now it was raing hard and blowing a gale.

And apart from a smaller one of abiut 15lb in the early hours that was it, three runs and three cats,at a time when the lake had switched off a bit , i wasnt complaining, the group that were there had struggled with only one of there number banking one, but at 40lb still a nice fish, but being hooked in the tail, which must have been interesting to say the least, hus mates wouldnt let in count lol. Although it was enjoyable even with the gales and rain, i dont think i will be doing to much of it, sat in a bivvy behind carp rods, perhaps in better weather during the summer, i csn see it being lovely, who knows.

Neds thursday ripoff

Back at Shiplate farm for this one, havnt been here for several weeks and was looking forward to it, it looks as though steve and carol have sold it, but luckily it sounds as though the new owner is keen to keep it as a fishery and is going to honour all match bookings. Gary(ned)flinders was running this one , but he is handing the reigns over to titch williams from now on. Gary got the draw underway and i picked up peg 5 from the table top draw, i dont mind really where i draw on this lake ,but peg 1( best peg in Somerset) is always fancied, that pleasure fell to alan quantrill, and with venue expert gary on 3 i thought silvers may be my best option, so with tbis in mind i set up a short caster rig to fish on my topkit with caster, a rig for worm over groundbait on two lines at 11 mtrs (11&1 o,clock), a pellet rig for.16 mtrs.on the deck and a meat.rig for the right hand margin, i normally like to have a closer rig aswell for the skimmers, but this peg is shallow for a long way out, it doesnt drop down to the full depth till you get to about 9.5mtrs.

I was ready to start on time, and when gary called all in, i fed two balls of groundbait on the two longer lines, some 6mm hard pellet at 16 mtrs, plopped.a.few.pieces of meat.down the edge , then started.on the short caster line, i gave that about 15 minutes but apart from a few small roach, it wasnt to good, so i went out on dounle caster on the right hand long line, i quickly had a couple of decent skimmers, then i noticed a large dark ominous cloud approaching, so a walk back to the van for the Brolly was needed, just as well i did as we had some really heavy rain and hail storms during the match. But I had a nice days fishing, catchimg plenty of skimmers from the two long lines, but they seemed to want a bit today ever time one line seemed to slow, i put another decent ball in with some caster and chopped worm in and went to the other line, i also had a few carp from my long line and the meat margin line had plenty of activity towards the end, this is where the horrible word hindsight come along again, i could see plenty of carp being caught , but i misread massivley as to how many and the sizes of them coming out, i had mark bowden over on 14 as the clear winner,WRONG, when the scales got to me alan on one had 130lb, gary on 3 had 140, i thought i had about 115lb, but was a little bit out as i had 123lb which included 47lb of skimmers.

And gary over on 14 had 128lb, so gary was top on the day, i should have spent the last 30minutes fishing for carp as that weight was more than attainable i think as i had tail patterns down there, normally 47lb is enough the win the silvers , but well done tony thick, who on peg 11 fished meat short for an excellent 50lb, well done matey.weigh sheet below.