wednesday landsend

back to landsend for the fortnightly knock up, and after a nice brekkie in abby,s dean , me and lofty radford were soon at the fishery.
dean drew for me and i ended up with peg 5, which is a nice peg as its only 13 mtrs to the island and 14.5 takes you to the corner of the island , and with little or no wind at least it was going to be a easy day not wrestling with a nasty side wind .
3 rigs soon made , a 4x12 impact 10 to .18 with the usual b960 for shallow/ stalking, a 4x10 impact 1 for up the far shelf and on the corner of the island with the same hook and line, and a 4x14 impact 6 on .14 with a 16 6313 for meat at 5 mtrs as the peg has a lot of form for silvers with decent skimmers and crucians.
on the whistle i threw some meat on the short line but didnt feed to the island yet as there were a few cruisers on the top, so it was straight out with the stalker rig and a 7 pounder was on its way to the net and with most people around me still potting bait in ,it was good start, with it being a narrow fishery and the fish being a bit wised up this method dont last long here so i only managed another one befor they dissapeared off the surface, i did catch one more later in the match doing it but that was it on that rig.
next on the meat line where i thought i would get some silvers but after 30 mins on that and only one bite which resulted in another 7 pounder that was that for that line, by know i had begun feeding three spots on the island 10 o,clock 12 and about 1.30 which is the point of the island. i began fishing between 10 and 12 picking off odd fish but losing a few foulers but as the match progressed the foulers got fewer as they began to feed properly, i kept feeding all three spots but refained from going to the point as i felt it gave the fish some where to back off to , as we had a 12 draw i left the point till 2 hours from the end which i think was agood move as it was solid, probably to many as the foulers started again but after losing a few the peg seemed to settle again as a few had been scared off leaving a bit more room in the peg(lol).
then i had a proper senior moment , with the match due to finish at 7.15 i dont understand why i called the all out at 6.15 luckily most people called me a rude name and carried on , i suppose the older i get the more of these blips are going to happen, i will have to speak to mike nicholls so he can explain to me as to what i can expect.
for company i had avon fire brigades finest each side of me today, on my right was rob lynn ,who to be fair hasnt fished for 2 years due to bad back problems , unfortunately i think he took advice from the man on my left tony the past(e)master witcomb aka daffodil who turned up with his bucket of paste slime and was gone befor the end.
i didnt know how the speci lake was going and as far as i could tell it was only martin lenaghan on 19 who was getting a few. by the time i called the second all out i think i had caught about 30 ish carp and with a decent average size i thought i had about 150 lb, i was abit out as they went 181.6 for first(dean was gutted as he has never drawn peg 5)
2nd went to adrian bishop on 27 with 108.1 all caught shallow against the island
3rd martin lenaghan 107.12 peg 19
4th phil(fabio)harding 82.10 on peg 32
5th jason(lofty)radford 75.7 peg 25
6th adrian jeffrey 59.10 peg 1silvers went to clayton(shiny tackle)hudson with 16.2 on peg 15 on worm and caster to the island.
off to avalon sunday for the second round of the float only lge, i may have a couple of spare places if anyone fancies a 50 plus pegger, ring me at the shop on 01179 517250 if interested

bank holiday landsend

even though we only had 21 booked in mike let us use match and speci, so plenty of room today.
i was forced to draw my own peg today so i wasnt to upset when i drew 31 for myself(ha ha), i drew this peg a couple of weeks ago and had over 200 lb off it so to say i fancied it would be an understatement, for company i had rod wootten on 32 and jason radford on 29.
3 rigs today all on .18 with a 16 b960 for hair rigged banded pellet, on was a 4x12 impact 10 for shallow , a 4x10 impact 3 for up the far shelf against the island , and a 4x12 impact 6 for just down the island shelf in 3 foot of water.
at the start i began firing 6mm pellets towards the island and began down the shelf , it ook about 5 mins to get my first carp, and i had 5 in the first hour, a good start.
then mikes wave making machine started at 12 and that was the end of my bites really until the aerater went off after 2 hours, even after it went off i couldnt catch against the island where you normally do , odd fish would come in and have a bit of a mooch but didnt seem to happy to stay under the pole tip . with fish uder the bushes at the front of the island there was only one optian , and that was to go 17 mtrs so a quick plumb up revealed the same depth as my side of the island so the same rig would do. i wish i had done it earlier as i began getting liners and bites straight away , trouble was ed wynne on 25 had landed 20 plus carp by now so it was to late to play catchup, but who knows i did lose several fish , some of which i,m sure were hooked in he mouth, by the end i had about 18 carp so i thought i would have about 100 lb which was never going tobe enough as ed had 28 and stu foale on match lake 21 had had a good day.
stu foale ended up winning with 135.13 on peg 21 with all his fish falling to hard pellet between 13 and 16 mtrs, it was also the bronze peg so he picked up 145 plus 85 for winning so he was more than happy .
2nd was ed wynne with 127.13 on peg 25 catching all his fish 14.5 mtrs up his left hand margin
3rd was me with 89.15 over estimated badly
4th paul (the beaver)elmes on peg 22 with 86.4
5th dave (beany)westcott on peg 15 68.00
6th jamie dyte 60.00 on peg 39
silver were won by john bradford on peg 13 with 37.9 0f chub, perch,tench and skimmers on caster
2nd in the silvers went to steve lippett on 17 with 28.2

trinity(and it aint the lighthouse)

it was a hastily arranged affair as there wasnt anything on really ,so we ended up with 21 fishing, paul elmes drew for me and handed me 11 which is abouit halfway up the far bank, not to bad a draw , for company i had dean on my right and garry wall on my left. three rigs today , a 1grm j3 with a 16 b960 to fish the deck at 13 mtrs(it was to windy to go any further)in 9 foot of water, an impact 10 4x12 with a 18 b960 for up in the water and a 4x12 j3 for down the edge on .18 with a xedion 16 for meat.
at the start i cupped in some 6,s at 13 mtrs and threw some meat down to the empty pallet to my left. i fished at 13 mtrs on the deck and was rewarded with 2 bites and lost fouler in the first 45 mins, by now dean was fishing shallow but getting plagued with roach so i thought i would let him carry on with that unless he had a carp or two then i would have a go, by now the wind was making it ny on impassible the get any presentation, and apart from tom magnol on peg 2 , out of the wind catching smallish carp no one was doing any good,
2 hours in and i had taken 2 small carp on the deck and dean had 3 shallow, i went out with the shallow rig with a banded 8 on but got roached out and i couldnt hit the bites and it wasnt helping that i couldnt hold my pole still.
i decided to go down the edge but again it was only roach bites, this wasnt going to plan at all, i re plumbed close to the bank to my left which was about 18 inches shallower than by the pallet , threw in some meat and went back out to 13 mtrs, starting on the deck i took a couple more small carp and lost 3 foulers, by now dean had caught s few more small carp shallow and also some quality f1,s and gary on my other side had now had some carp on paste at 7 mtrs and was beginning to get somebites down the edge as well, with no bites deep now and only roach bites shallow i was falling behind and the 13 mtr lines showed no signs of coming to life, it was back down the edge on meat , i will be honest and say i missed loads of bites and lost 6 or 7 carp cos they were going through snags and dissapearing around the legs of the platform faster than i could get the pole back but i did manage to land 5 carp 1 tench and a good f1 by the end .but i had been proper battered each side, gary wall on peg 13 won with 70.13 on paste thats 2 wins in 2 days, he,s going for the hat trick at landsend tommorrow and i wont be betting against him
2nd tom magnol on peg 2 with69.13 of mainly shallow caught fish
3rd chris fox 50.7 peg 23
4th dean malin 44.2 peg 10 and he had top silvers with 18.10
5th paul elmes 41.3 peg 30
6th ryan summerhayes 39./10 peg 5
poor old shrimp head is back in hospital again with his belly bother, so get well soon matey .
so i,ve suffered the dreaded chip shop sausage syndrome today(battered all round)but tomorrow is another day so roll on landsend.
oh yes and i weighed 28 lb

avalon again

its been a while since we fished here so i was looking forward to it , as its a venue that can be a bit testing to say the least, with a lot of anglers ,and good ones a that staying away . perhaps its the fact they cant cast a float tight or sit behind a lead rod pinging some 8,s somewhere in the vicinity of there hook bait who knows or it might be just a bit of a difficult nut to crack.
liegh and vic have done a lot of work over the winter and spring , trimming islands repairing platforms installing aerators and chalking the lakes, which seems to have done it good as the colour was a nice brown with no trace of that horrible grey suspension that seems to switch it off making the fish difficult to catch,
i fancied peg 1 today as have never drawn it but it wasnt to be , i waited till the end to draw and it was left to me and martin lenaghan to argue over the last two tickets , as it turned out martingot peg one an i had to make do with 24 (christ its tough sometimes)probably the best peg on the venue , i cant believ fadio didnt draw it as its one he has had several times, he had to make do with 11 which aint bad .
3 pole rigs today two 4x14 j3,s on .18 with a 16 b960 one for out in front and one for down the edge by the reeds, and a 4x12 impact 10 with the same line and hook for shallow against the reeds, and i set up a pellet wag to fish towards the end of the island,
at the start i cupped in some 6,s at 16 mtrs and by the reeds down the edge and fired some 8,s towards the island, starting at 16 mtrs with a banded 8mm i had 1 bite in the first 30 mins , a 10 oz skimmmer being the culprit,and with no fizzing going on the signs werent good, so out on the wag and that was hard , ifished that for about one hour and managed just 2 carp for about 8 lb, i did mis 2 or 3 bites but that was a none starter really, so it was down the edge then,and there seemed to be plenty of fish down there with liners and bites with most of the carp being of a sensible , 3 to 6 lb , feeding with a catty meant that some of the feed went into the reeds , so when the reeds began twitching i would ditch the deep rig and push the shallow rig against the reeds and catch one then go back on the deck, by switching between the deep and shallow rigs i caught odd fish right to the end ending up with 23 carp ,one tench,one skimmer and 2 x 8 oz carp. being up in the corner i couldnt see what was going on , the only person i could seew as gary wall opposite on 23 whose always good for a bit of entertainment as he can swear more in 6 hours than the entire cast of shameless can do in an entire series,. after the match the only person who had caught was dean malin who was admitting to about 100 lb. liegh turned up with the scales and my catch went 129.14 which was enough as dean was close with his guess as his net went 114.15 for second place all his fish falling to 8mm pellet fished between 17 and 20.5 mtrs which takes some doing, being on peg 16 it meant he could just reach the island(to heavy for me and most other people)
3rd alan oram on peg 12 with 75.11
4th gary wall 69.2 peg 23
5th vic bush 66.15 peg 19
6th glen bailey 63.5 peg 5
silvers were won by mike west on peg 7 with 21.12 of skimmers taken at 10 mtrs on soft pellet.
it fished quite well really with fish on most pegs willing to have a bit of a munch so with the improved water colour the signs are that it should fish much better this year and to be fair the anglers that have been fishing it recently have enjoyed some good sport with silvers and carp, as far as the matches go it has never been a fish race venue and i hope it never does as its possible to win and frame off numerous pegs and you are always in with a chance as its a venue where a couple of big fish can always get you back in the hunt

goodiford goodies

off to goodiford mill fishery today for my first visit , so after a good brekkie in abby,s kitchen dean , jason and me were off down the A 38 and m5 to the collumpton turn off and wee got to the lake in an hour so it wasnt to bad or to far. the lake looked nice the only thing was a lot of the carp population seemed to be spawning, but not all as there were quite a few cruisers indicating that they werent all at it. the match was a nick coller/ anton page affair and it all ran very smoothly. there was 40 fishing so it was a good turnout , even though there are 64 pegs on the lake it meant putting some corners and tight pegs in so 32 or 33 would be a nice number on the lake.
i drew for myself today and ended up on 21 which was at the top of the slope from the carpark, a nice short walk, i had a good long margin round to mike west on 21 trouble was the willow tree,s were shedding that horrible white fluff (seeds)that stick to everything it touches and by the time the match started the margin was no more as the fluff had built up to such an extent that it was 2 to 3 mtrs out from the bank making the margin unfishable , so the 4x12 j3 float to .16 and a 16 b960 was a waste of time ,i did feed it during the match with 8mm pellets just in case it cleared, but it never so that was a waste of time.
as there were a few cruisers i made up a 4x12 impact 10 to fish pellet shallow on a long line so i could go dapping with a 8mm on .16 with the ususal hook, and i made up a 4x16 j3 for fishing on the deck, but with it being 9 foot deep i didnt excpect to much on that.
at the start it was straight ou with the shallow rig , and it didnt take long to dap the first carp into the net , steve kedge on 19 had 3 doing the same in the first 3 put ins then he bagan to struggle, jason radord to my left started on the wag to a small island, he had a carp first chuck then the island on the next 3 so that was the end of his wag fishing as he didnt want to lose any more floats.
i couldnt really see to much of what was going on as there were islands,tree,s and spits in the way, i did hear that at the halfway mark dean was admitting to 40 carp, so tha was the winner sorted . by the end i had taken 20 carp all taken shallow at 16 mtrs , for an estimated 90 lb,as expected dean won with a bit to spare as he ended up with about 70 carp all taken on 8mm pellet from his right hand margin at 13 mtrs for 214.2 on peg 27
just behind (lol) in 2nd spot was me ,my 20 carp going 109.6 on peg 21
3rd tim ford 102.10 peg 13
4th gary (bigfoot)bedford 84.7 peg 33
5th leon (the imp)hubbard 84 lb peg12
6th gary wall 83.14 peg 39
silvers were won by ron stark with 27.12 of caster caght roach and skimmers.
considering the fish had other things on there minds i dont think it fished to badly so another visit is definately on the cards, all we have to do is convince the owners to let us put less anglers on the lake so giving more anglers a chance to get a few bites and fish

lovely landsend

18 booked in today so mike let us use the match and the far bank of the speci, thatchers platinum blond rent boy drew for me and handed me 28 which is halfway up the island on the speci lake, generally you need to be on an island end to do well , but i have done well off these mid pegs befor so i didnt really mind, and who drew flier 31 , yep fabio again , thats 6 times in 12 months surely he must get it right this time(not).
getting to my peg i was greeted with the sight of spawning fish, luckily it wasnt the carp but it seemed to be the f1 type things and the carp were having a bit of a mop up on the spawn.
3 rigs , a 4x10 impact 1 with a 16 b960 for banded pellet against the island in 15 inches of water and the same rig would do for down the edge, a 4x10 impact 10 (dibber) same hook and line for up in the water just in case and a 4x12 j3 for 14 mtrs same hook and line to fish in about 1 mtr of water .
no place for cups today so at the start it was catty,s only, i reckon i had my first carp on befor most people had finished cupping , so with an 8 pounder safely in the net it was back out on the 14 mtr line ,and i added another fish of a similar size about 10 mins later, then after a couple of liners and a lost fouler that was the end of the first hour and the end of that line.
over to the island and after a couple of liners number three was on its way, but at least it was a good double(13 tom 14lb) i would like to say that the bites came thick and fast , but they never , it was hard work as the fish seemed to need a constant bit of feed fired at them and a lot of lifting and dropping with a lot of the fish taking it on the drop, when i say lot i dont mean loads just the ones i caught, i only had one down the edge and that was the smallest at about 4lb.
i think i had 9 carp in the first 3 hours (with some big fish ), i had to wait till the last 15 minutes to get another carp it seemed the whole place switched off as most people struggled during the same period with the fish switching on towards the end, my peg was no different as in that last short spell in 3 put ins i had 2 grass carp in consecutive drops one of 12 lb and 1 of 14 lb , and on the last put in i had another double figure mirror, why couldnt they have started feeding a bit earlier, i ended up with the top weight on our lake with my 12 carp and 4lb of silvers going 123.2 with all the fish taking a banded 8 over loose fed 6,s
but it was only good enough for 2nd as my travelling partner dean malin on peg 17 had taken 35 carp on pellet against the island for 165.8
3rd went to the avon fire brigades only daffodil tony witcomb with 117.4 of paste cauht fish on peg 13
4h gary wall 106.8 peg 26
5th adrian bishop 86.4 peg 32
6th andy france 76.9 peg 24
top silvers went to john(the gimp)bradford on peg 7 with 42.10 all on caster at 3 mtrs
after looking at the results you can probably tell that fabio got it wrong again and could only manage 50 lb from what is the best peg in somerset lol sorry fabsy i had to say it. he really does need to find an extension for his pole so he can get to the far side, but he did lose a lot , i think he lost 4 befor he netted one.
i heard today that mat (the shrimp)tomes had been rushed into hospital with severe stomach pains , after a ct scan it appears he has developed a hole in his bowel(nasty) look on the bright side though now you got two bums you might be able to eat even more. or was it something to do with anton and nicky screwing you over the work but i dont think you meant it in that way lmao, get well soon mate i cos i dont know how long we can manage without you contribution to the pools .

match lake viaduct

with nothing on unless you wanted to drive a long way a quick call to steve at viaduct and we had the match lake booked, its only a small lake with 14 pegs so it didnt take long to fill, i even had a waiting list, so after a breakfast in abbies kitchen in bishopsworth (tasty quick and clean) off we went . with everyone on time except for tom magnol who shares a house with 2 girl twins so we will let him off, the draw was done , fabio drew for me and gave mee 44, on past form its not the best of pegs , but the lake has been emptied and restocked with f1,s , small carp ,skimmers and tench so hope fully we would get some bites, for company i had john(the gimp)bradford on 43 so all the water past 6 mtrs was mine, and paul (beever)elmes on 45 who seems to miss 95% of all the bites he gets, its like being pegged next to a demented swordsman swishing his pole or waggler rod about all day for no result, even advisory phone calls from niel mercer during the day didnt help.
3 pole rigs today , all 4x10 impact 1,s . one with a 18 6313 to .10 for caster down the edge but i never had a bite on that .
one with a 18 6313 to .12 for maggot and soft pellet at 13 and 16 mtrs and anather with a 18 b960 for hair rigged banded pellet at 13 and 16.
i also set up a wag rod with a 3 aa wag to fish on the drop out by the island
at the start i cupped in some micros and a few casters at 13 some soaked 4,s at 16 mtrs , began firing some 6,s to the island and threw some casters down the edge (wot a waste of time ).
starting at 13 mtrs i didnt see the float go under after 5 mins as i was watching fabio land a skimmer on 46 and i was talking to mr long , but as they are new fish they dont let go and after a bit of a merry dance on number 6 elastic a 1lb carp was in the bag and that was the last bite i had on single maggot , double maggot produced a few skimmers a and a 3lb bream over that line , after about 1 1/2 hours i couldnt raise another bite on that line so i put a soft pellet on and shipped out to 16 mtrs and missed a bite so back out with the 6mm banded pellet and another carp was on its way. the fish certainly didnt seem to want much bait chucked at them , so it was a case of feeding a few pellets and fishing on it until you had a fish then repeating the process. with about 2 hours to go i tried the wag , i took 4 quick carp and another skimmer then never had another bite on that, so it was a case of feeding the 2 pole lines and swapping between the 2 picking up odd fish here and there , looking round the lake i couldnt see any one really catching except for tom magnol on 50 who had been catching fish on the feeder during the first half of the match, but his swim had died for the second half , considering the ammount of fish that they have put in ,it was strange that it was a real struggle to put more than 1 or 2 bites together from any one area , we also had some torrential rain it was so heavy at times i had to take shot off my rigs so i could see the floats, the scales told the story of the lake as it had been very hard for everyone and my 25.8 was enough for first which included top silver with 9.14 of skimmers
2nd tom magnol 18.12 mainly with maggot on the feeder peg 50
3rd dean malin 14.00 peg 42
4th j bradford 12.2 peg 43
5th phil harding 10.15 peg 46
6th g wall 9.2 peg 51
it was good to see acouple of old friends back in the shop this week firstly bill milton who has been really ill since last november but went to rood ashton today on the team veals match , i hope he enjoyed it and is ok. then stuart barnett who went to oz 14 years ago but has come back to celebrate his 50 th birthday, he,s hardly changed except that he seems a bit shorter than i remember amd less hair but then again thats the same for all of us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!