gary wall memorial match, landsend

it hardly seems like 12 months since gary passed away, the days and months seem to be going quicker all the time.
we had 39 turn up so we used speci, match and johns water, with fabio drawing for me i was always going to end up on a flier, and he didnt let me down as he drew 31 for me, he has only been back match fishing for 2 1/2 years and he has drawn this peg 9 times ,7 for himself and now twice for me, what a star .
for company i had the leg end himself andy bryant on 32 and chris davis on 29 so it was never going to be quiet.
i set up a 4x14 rig for soft pellet over micros at 13 mtrs , a margin rig for pellet which i never used , an up in the water rig which i never had a bite on and the normal 4x8 rig for over with a 16 b960 on .16.
at the start i cupped in soaked micros at 13mtrs , some 8,s down the edge and began firing 6,s over to the island , in put a jellied 4mm on the hook and dropped into the now fizzing 13 mtr line and was rewarded with a 6lb carp first drop, i went back out with a 6mm jelly on and began catching skimmers , i stayed on this for the first 2 hours getting odd skimmers plus one f1 and another small carp, i also lost 3 foulers over this line. after 2 hours i went to the far bank and never really looked back catching carp and a couple of chub right to the end, but foulers were a real problem especcially when i put too much in and ended up with to many fish in front of me , but lots of people were fouling , scott puddy opposite lost 25 carp as did mike nicholls on 19 and he isnt really known for over feeding , so who knows.i think i ended up with 21 or 22 carp plus about 20lb of silvers for what i thought would go about 160lb, and bryant had his usual good time ,only losing one lot of laccy today and ending up with 7 carp of which only 2 were in the mouth while the others are booked in at the local vets to undergo reconstuctive surgery on there asses to repair the damage done by his hooks
my net was more than enough today as i weighed 154.11
2nd was anton page with 80.9 off peg 7
3rd bobby gullick 79.2 peg 39
4th mike(i nearly cried cos i,ve lost 25 carp)nicholls with 77.6 peg 19
5th scott lovell 71.6 peg 11
6th tom mangnel 63.7 peg 24
silvers went to alan oram on 36 with 33.10 on peg 36 using chopped worm and caster to the island cover.
now for a little moan. i am getting a pissed off with people not waiting for there winnings ,its not as though i take long to do the weigh ins and payout, some one suggested that i should pay it out to the next in line , i think they would only do it the once

float only league final round

viaduct was the venue for the final round with cambell, cary and 7 pegs on lodge ,i couldnt be beaten for the league so i didnt really mind where i drew, i let tim clark draw my peg and i ended up with 111 on cambell, then he drew 112 for himself.
i only set up 3 rigs , a shallow rig just in case but it didnt look right as the wind was in our faces and the water still had a nasty brown algae bloom, a 4x12 rig for hard pellet on the deck and a paste/catmeat rig with a 12 xedion hook , at the start i cupped in some catmeat and pellet at 6mtrs and some 8mm pellets at 13 mtrs. starting at 6mtrs with catmeat it took me 30 mins to get my first carp and i was already 3 fish behind tim on 112 who was opting for an all out paste attack at 9mtrs, also tom mangnal on 127 was catching well fishing shallow , back to my peg and it was out to 13mtrs with an 8mm hard pellet feeding over the top with a catty, i was getting a few fish but was losing some foulers , as was tim on the paste , but i think he did it right by feeding 2 swims with a cup and fishing each in turn and he kept edging ahead for the whole match so by the end it was fairly obvious he had battered me , i did relent and start fishing the paste at 13 mtrs and to be fair the response was favourable and i began matching tim fish for fish , so if i had started on the paste a bit earlier i woukld have got a lot closer to tim but i think he would still have beaten me as 112 has been a very consistent peg all summer,
its good to see customers putting there own elastics in there poles , with andy bryant being one of those he was very proud of his efforts , shame his knots attaching the laccy to the bungs arent to good as he lost 3 lots today as his knots came undone and he will need to come and buy some more , he is a legend !!!!!!!!!!!!
the winner came from an unexpected peg today when anton page weighed in 191.6 off peg 77 on cary , which was 16 fish taken on shallow pellet at 16 mtrs
2nd tim clark 169 peg 112
3rd tom mangnal 155.5 peg 127
4th gary etheridge 153 peg 121
5th scott puddy 126.14 peg 94
6th bobby gullick 124.09 peg 126
silvers went to paul faires on 124 with 46.3
my net went 119lb for 3rd in my section and 8th overall
the final league
tony rixon 35 pts
craig edmunds 34 pts
gary etheridge 32 pts
clayton hudson 31 pts
chris davis 30.5 pts
mat tomes 30 pts

landsend speci lake

only 8 of us booked in today so its just a bit of a friendly knock up, with only 4 on each bank one of the corners would have been nice , but i end up with 28 stuck to my mitt which is halfway up the far side, with so much room i thought the margins might come into play so i set up pellet rigs for each side but me like everyone else couldnt raise a bite down the edges so no more of that then, i set up a 4x12 rig for down the middle with a 18 b960 for banded pellet (6,s) and a 4x8 for 8mm to the far bank with a 16 b960 on .18.
at the start i cupped in some 6,s down the middle and a healthy pot of 8,s against the island.
starting down the middle it wasnt long before i was playing a fouler which came off, next put in and another one on which i was convinced was in the mouth but that came off aswell, so i changed to a 16 hook with all the fizzing going on i was convinced i would get another but all i had was 3 good skimmers , i,m beginning to think these carp that fizz are taking a mouthfull of pellets off the bottom and coming up off the bottom to chew them as lots of people get bites and dont connect sometimes until you come way off the bottom and they are mouth hooked , who really knows.
after 90 mins of extreme fizzicals i decided to ignore that and go over to where fish were mooching about over the 8,s , but as is quite normal on this venue the fish are some of the wisest in the southwest and do a dissapearing act when the pole goes over there heads, it would be a bit better if you could use a longer line but with bits of foliage on the island you are courting trouble with to much line above the float, the first fish i had from there was a tail hooked 9 pounder but that was my lot for a while except for 2 lost foulers, i thought that the 8,s werent really working so i switched to 6,s and upped the feed , and that seemed to help with the fish feeding more confidently and losing some of there inhibitions, also i cme off the bank with my right hand margin rig as it was set at 2 foot , just right for about half a metre off the island shelf, and i had 3 quick fish, and by swapping between the shallow on top of the shelf rig and the slightly deeper rig i had odd fish to the end , i think i had 11 carp and with fish to about 13lb i thought i would have about 80lb , as far as i could see the main threat i could see was from mike west on 25 who had caught on pellet up the end bank and later on paste in open water,mike ended up with 72.9 but would have won if he hadnt listened to steve kedge who advised him that .16 will never break on the pole ,so 4 lost rigs later and i think mike will be buying some stronger line today ,my fish went 91.4 for first , jason radford also should have been second but the tired little bugger aint got the strength in his body to lift his net out of the water so a 5 pouder flipped out and went back, i,m finding it hard to believe he was the uk,s under 18,s power lifting champion and i dont think it should be a problem lifting for him as he is only 4 foot 6 so he aint got to lift it as far as everyone else.
4th was phil harding with 28.12 which was mainly chub off peg 35 and he won the silvers with that
5th and second in silvers was john bradford 28lb
6th joe thompson 25.6 peg 39
7th dean malin 20.12 peg 32
8th jamie dyte on 37 who dnw

shiplate farm west and hawthorn pools

i only wanted 24 people for today as i wanted to leave out peg 15 on hawthorn as steve seager drew it last time and only had about 8lb and said he wouldnt come again if the peg was in , luckily he was on a hol in ireland with his family and i had 25 turn up so it had to go in, i let the frampton legend that is kieth turner draw for me and yes i ended up on 15 much to the amusement of everyone, i went on a bit of a scrounge up and managed to end up with 3 pints of casters and decided just to try and get a days fishing, 15 is an end peg with a curving bank making to swim a bit narrow but it widens as you go to the left, for company i had travelling partner dean malin on 14 who was opting for a pellet and corn approach(mainly as i,d nicked his casters). i set up a .75 rig with an 18 6313 on .12 for down the middle as its 6 foot deep a 4x14 rig for each side margin with the same hook but on .14 and a 4x12 on .14 for against the right hand bank and over.
at the start i fed some casters over and to the right and into each margin then began down the middle on single caster over toss potted caster but it was a bit slow with only a couple of small skimmers in the first 30 mins, i felt there were some skimmers there so i got of my box and mixed some g bait and put a few balls in , and for a while it was ok with skimmers taking single maggot but it never lasted so i went over to the right hand bank and had a couple of carp of about 2lb each so i was fast approaching mr seagers total and we were only 90 mins in a look in the margins produced a carp on the right and a missed bite on the left and that was thwe margins done for so i wont mention that again, as far as i could tell no noe was really running away with it as steve the owner did a curcuit and said west poolwas fishing hard. so 2 hours in and only 3 carp in the net i went over and i never looked back as the carp seemed to want caster today and not pellet as i ended up with 40 carp off the far side for a 43 fish total for an estmate of 85lb plus my silvers, the carp went 93.4 and sivers weighed 6.8 for a total of 99.12 for first
2nd went to bela bakos on 4 hawthorn with 53.8 and he never started catching till he started us chopped worm and caster
3rd was chris fox on 9 west pool with 52.2 which was all skimmers and a few big bream so he,s had a nice day
4th dean malin 44,4 hawthorn peg 14
5th rich heatley 42.10 west pool 10
6th andy(the leg end)bryant 41.4 13 hawthorn
silvers by default went to chris davis with 27lb on peg 2 west pool
after a slow start both lakes improved in the second half , steve wasnt expecting it to fish as well as it did as its been a bit hard of late but the average weight was over 30lb and considering the size of the fish that aint to bad
next weekend is the last round of the float only lge at viaduct and i think there are one or two spaces so ring me at the shop on 01179517250, also we have got the gary wall memorial match at lansend on bank holiday monday so ring me again at the shop or mike duckett on 07977545882
another quick plug there is a charity match at avalon on 25 sept for macmillan nurses tickets are in the shops, a really worthy cause as anyone who has come into contact with the macmillan,s will now what an invaluable service they do , so even iff you cant go all donations will be appreciated

viaduct weds

i think 27 booked in so we were on cambell and a slice of cary so again steve gave all a bit of space, i felt better this morning as i had no alchohol tues night, and i may never drink again as its never really agreed with me, anyway back to the draw and out pops 76, it was the end peg on this bank today and with plenty of fish showing and a nice colour to the water i thought i may get a few, with cambell suffering from a nasty brown algae bloom and very few fish showing i thougth cary may be the place to be , i had a bit of a chard ressy reunion going on around me with alan(picky)gage on 78 and steve chant and mike hosgood behind me which always brings back some good memories from the chard spring series and the ressy matches run by the legendary les broughton, oh well back to 76 and i set up a shallow rig for the pole also a 4x12 pellet rig for on the deck which i could have changed to a 4x10 as the levels are right down, its that shallow at the moment i nearly thought i was sat at bullocks farm(sorry steve)also a paste rig (yep you heard right)and a wag rig, i have been using the middy clear loaded floats this year as they cast like a dream and you can swap floats without changing the shot as eacc float in each size takes excactly the same ammount of shot, the pellet rigs all were on .18 with 16 b960 hooks while the paste rig had a 12 anchor on, with the fish averaging 9lb ish on this lake with fish up to and over 20lb i only had 8mm for feed and bait with me so i cupped some at 14mtrs ,threw some under the tree to my right and fired some to 25mtrs for the wag. out on the pole and there were bubbles coming up already and with a 10lb fish in the net after 10 mins i thought a good day was in the offing and to be honest the peg was full of fish as foulers became a real problem and no matter what i did with the feed nothing seemed to help, if i stopped feeding the fish dissapeared, a big pouchfull just had the fish tearing the bottom up and another fouler, feeding 2 or 3 at a time resulted in the fish coming up but these fish on here are hard to fool in open water as they spook away. i did get one on the paste and 2 on the wag one of which was foulhooked ending the day with 7 carp and 4 skimmers for 71lb, during the day i fed about 5pts of pellets which may have been to much but talking to andy lloyd who won our lake off 86 with 135lb he had put 8pts in on the pole line alone whereas i had fed 3 lines so perhaps i didnt put enough in who knows , if we had all the answers it wouldnt be as much fun would it, i,m not sure of the excact result except that miles levy should have won but as he had 89lb in one net and 80 in his second and with a 70lb net limit i think he ended up in 4th place, the match was won by craig tucker on 112 with 165lb with his mate dan on 126 with 163lb , one of the new breed in the shape of phil(fabio)harding on 116 was 3rd with 150lb plus on the wag, so even with the water being an odd colour cambell was still the place to be , it just goes to show what an excellant well run fishery it is

sedges

off to bridgwater this week to fish the sedges on brick lake , 20 fishing today so every peg is in, the day didnt start to well with having drunk to much bacardi at tony page,s wedding party, i was that bad dean had to drive , and i couldnt even eat my breakfast at hilltop, i did manage most of it so i was feeling a bit better by the time we got to the lake,as usual we had the warm reception from denise and jamie with the offer of a cup of tea or coffee, and its one of the tidiest fisheries you will visit and you dont even have to take any nets as they are supplied. time for the draw and i did my own this week as dean was holding the bucket , out comes 15 , a good peg as there is a weed bed betwwen 15 and 16 which generally holds some fish, for company i had chris davis on 16 and mike west on 14. the plan today was for chopped w and caster at 5mtrs ,the same rig to fish meat on the deck at 14mtrs , a shallow meat rig for 14 mtrs and a margin meat rig, i,m not going to bore you with how my day went as i was sxxt i ended up with 3 skimmers , one eel and a late carp down the edge, whatever i did i couldnt raise a bite and to add insult to injury chris won the match on 16 with 110lb and mike west won the silvers on 14 with 26lb so i am going to put my piss poor performance down to bacardi poisoning. towards the end of the match chris couldnt get his rig into the margin back towards me quick enough as the carp were queueing up ,i was fishing the same margin back towards him and i had one carp lost two foulers and i cant understand why i couldnt get a bite as we were both feeding the same line with the same bait well sort of ,as my meat was dusted with with greem stim whereas chris and mike,s was just natural, perhaps it was an off day for green stim, i think i may be clutching at straws now lol, as i said chris davis won with 110.6
2nd went to tom thick with 86.8 of carp caught mainly on the wag from peg6
3rd scott puddy on 11 with 72.8
4th dean malin 59.4 peg 10
5th ron hardiman 52.11 peg 3
6th john dursley 51.13 peg1
1st in silvers went to mike west with 26.12 , just pushing thatchers regect and stunt co-ordinater for the latest smurf blockbuster. bobby gullet(ick) with 25.14 of feeder and worm caught skimmers and i nearly forgot my 5 fish weighed 13.1 which apart from 2 dnw,s was plum last but did i moan and swear ,course not you just got to put it down to experience and probably a large slice of bad angling. does anyone have the number of a goog golfing coach, preferably not the one stu foale uses

weds landsend match lake

only 14 today so it was only on tadham(match lake), fabio drew for me so i ended up on 15, for company i had mike(one at a time)nicholls on 16 and nigel sanders on 13, nigel was to far away to effect me and mike only takes 11 mtrs with him these days as his neck gives him grief or is it he just cant see any further.
so i had all the far bank to myself so i put up the usual 4x8 rig on .16 for over there, a stalker/slapping rig as there were a few fish cruising but not as many as i would have liked, a 4x12 rig for hard pellet down the middle but that turned out to be a waste of line and a hook as it never happened there, and a margin rig to fish worm and maggot to my left and right over dead maggot, at the start i went straight out and mugged one in 5 secs, which duly took me into a snag on the inside and i had to pull for a break, on with another hook and another one staight away and at 8lb it was a good start, i stayed on this for the first couple of hours as no one was really catching except martin lenaghan on 19 who at times never had time to feed before his elastic was wripped out , luckily being left handed i fish with my back towards 19 so i didnt have to watch him but i could hear the splashing so it was a lower placing to fish for and with no silvers plan it was carp or bust, i had been fedding to the far bank but had seen vety little in the way of fish which was a worry as they are normally climbing the bank, so apart from the early cruisers i was beginning to think the fish had left the area, i could see some fish moving on the end of the island to my left at 20mtrs so i started feeding 15mtrs to my left against the island and i soon began to get some signs , not manic but enough for me to stay on this line ,i ended the match with 15 carp ,9 shallow, i margin and 5 off the far bank for what i thought with the help of my clicker woujd go about 85lb with my 3 ide, and apart from martin on 19 no one else had really run away with it.
martins catch went 169.3 for his best ever match weight so well done to him
2nd was me with 91.11
3rd on 24 was stuart foale with 79.6
4th jason radford on one of his rare days when he is allowed to go 63.13 peg 7
5th mike west 48.2 peg 5 (again)
6th jim(steve)jenner 41.13
silvers went to john(the gimp)bradford 21.2 on peg 1