28-04-13 Trinity Wildmarsh, Pawlett Club Match

Todays match was with Pawlett Legion Angling Club, at the Trinity Waters complex just outside of Bridgwater. In particular Wilmarsh Lake. Weather was around 10 degrees and overcast, with a moderate/variable wind blowing from the southwest(ish).

Wildmarsh is the largest lake on the complex, housing over 70 pegs. It has a decent head of silvers including bream, tench (inc golden tench), perch, eels, barbel along with the usual skimmers and roach. The head of carp is reasonable, with fish to over 25lb, and they don't half hang on!! Depth around 6ft, but areas to 9ft in places, with a odd layout due to a leg/spit and an island.

Well, I arrived for the 9am draw at around 8am, where I chatted with the guys, more about the carp anglers fishing along the road bank (the pegs in the 60's) and how they were fishing to the spit, which soon changed. The posse of early arrivals included Vic Bush, Eric Fouracre, Chris Ware and Phil Clapp amongst others.
Now I know I have only fished around 3 matches with this club, but it really is well supported and each match usually sees around 30 fishing, which is a testament to the fact that it is just for fun (cost is peg fee plus £7 or so pools).

After a bit of banter and some 'admin errors' with the pegging, the draw was made. I did fancy an island peg or maybe in the high 50's where the calmer water was. I didn't know what pegs were in until I came to writing my name on the sheet. But I drew halfway along and ended up on island peg 4, three of us only on the island.

View from my peg (note Vic Bush on the end spit peg)

 

 



After reading a few blogs about the lake gave me a few ideas, and thus my tactics were based around margins, topset+1 and 14.5m. I did take 4 rods with me, but lack of space in front meant they stayed in their bags.

I mixed some groundbait for one long line and prepped some 6mm expanders, and got everything ready for the all in.
I had a 0.8gram (0.14-0.12 size 18 B911f1) for the gb line at 14.5m to the left, to target, mostly, the skimmers.
I used a 0.6g (0.18-0.14 size 16 B911) for in front at 14.5m, where I planned to fish 6mm pellet and corn/meat/whole worm with the target being carp (or better sized silvers).
Also a silvers rigs (topkit +1) for 2-3ft shallow for if the fish come up in the water along with a 0.5g NG Caner for on the bottom over the same line. Caster and maggot was bait for this area.
My margin rig was an NG Margin in 0.3g on 0.18-0.16 size 16 B911, this was to my right in 3ft of water, towards a tree. Baits for this was 6mm pellet feed, various hookbaits.

The all in went at 10:30 and the 6hrs began, I cupped 6 balls of groundbait with a few free offerings were deposited in line with a tree, 2 helpings of 6mm pellets with a pinch of corn and meat went in on the long 'big fish' line in front. Some casters were flicked to my short line while I gave the margins a liberal helping of bait too.

Starting on the short line for 30 minutes gave me a few motherless minnows and rudd, but nothing over an ounce, so I shipped a whole dendra over the pellets at 14.5m (I had planned to fish paste, but the wind put me off), I missed a bite immediately.
By this time Vic on the end peg of the spit (peg 30) had landed a decent golden tench and a couple skimmers on the pole (he started on the tip 30m in front of him, which was 30m in front of me too).
A few moments later I hit a bite on the worm and a little elastic came out, it was a decent weight on the end and seemed like I was attached to my 1st carp, 15 minutes later, after it woke up, I netted a carp close to 10lb. Bonus.
Back out to the same line and nothing happened, so a short while later I re-fed and came in on the short line, single caster at depth was the starting point, I ahd bites right away with roach and rudd to 3oz coming in fits and starts along with an f1 of 6oz. I did hook something which plodded off breaking my 0.10 in the process, I think it was probably and eel.
I did try over the groundbait a couple times with no joy. So I left it a while longer.
Vic was still catching on and off on his long pole line, mostly decent skimmers, nobody else I could see was doing much.

All the while I had been baiting the margin as I reckoned on a few fish from there during the match.
A look over the long groundbait line didn't bring a bite, so with nearly 2hrs gone I had to decide what to do. I could see Vic catching on chopped worm, so I decided to put some in over my groundbait and leave it to settle.

Back on the short line, I put another little f1 in the net, some more rudd and a couple 4oz roach, I also had a couple eels of around 8oz, both of which had minnows in their mouths. It did look like the tench or barbel which can get had short were not playing today.

For the next half hour or so I fished over the groundbait (with added cw&c) with a quarter of a dendra, this bought a few palm sized skimmers and roach, I was pushing 4lb of silvers and a single carp, not enough for anywhere as it stood, Vic probably had around 25lb of skimmers/bream/tench and I had seen a few carp landed along the 40's and 50's.

With an hour to go I had a look in the margins, corn on the hook, sailaway bite, mental carp attached , ploughed under the trees to the next peg, into a branch (baby tree more like) that was not seen, rolled on the surface, looked 7lb-ish from what I saw. It looked like it was a gonna, and so it proved. I managed to get my rig back and the offending snag out of the lake. I also managed to crumble my 5th section on the male joint when I never got my sections together when the fish ploughed off.

I re-fed the edge and went back onto the long pellet line with a whole worm, no bites came. No bites came over my gb/cwc line either, so I put a couple more small fish in the net from the short line.
Vic had lost a carp on his margin line, the fish ploughing through his 'feature tree'.
Chris Higgs over on about peg 50 also was given the run around by a carp, at one point I am sure it was 3 pegs away from him......

By now I had given up on any chances really and with a few people having packed up, but with 5 minutes of the match left I looked down the margin again, but this time, should I get a bite, I was going to react quick and try and get the top kit 90 degrees from where I was fishing as soon as the float goes under. I missed a bite almost immediately, and next drop the float continued going, I was into another carp, this time I got it out into open water. The all-out signalled, so I had 15mins to land the fish, this one, like the one I landed, just plodded, other that a solitary run where I had to put a section on it just used it's weight to waddle around on the bottom occasionally coming up to swirl near the surface forming vertexes in the water. So a few minutes later it came towards me where I scooped it up, it looked around 6lb but fought a lot better than it's weight.

With the fish in the keepnet I started to pack up, sure that I hadn't really made any headway into Vic's catch. I shall have to see I thought.

Word had it that the low numbered pegs had not produced, but Chris Ware on the spit had landed a few as had one of the corner pegs near to the spit had given up a few fish. But I couldn't be sure.

The scales duly arrived at my peg and it turned out Vic had around 32lb, Chris Ware had 40lb+ and there was another 30lb weight. That was pretty much it really upto me.
On the scales, my silvers went 4lb 7oz and the 2 carp weighed 16lb 11oz. 21lb 2oz was my weight.

So I put the rest of my tackle away, and headed to the entrance car park for the results.
Most commented on how it had been a bit iffy and the wind was more of a hinderance for some, coupled with the peg layouts, resulted in low weight catches. But then Wildmarsh isn't a 'bagging' water by any means.

Results/Payouts: (top 3, 1x silvers, 3 sections)

1st - C. Ware - Peg 25 - 41lb 2oz
2nd - R. Baker - Peg 39 - 35lb 11oz
3rd - V. Bush - Peg 30 - 32lb 2oz

Silvers - M. Hembury - Peg 50 - 13lb 2oz silvers from an overall weight of 20lb 12oz

Sections:
Sandra - Peg
E. Fouracre - Peg
L. Williams - Peg Island 4.

So I picked up my section money which was a surprise as I didn't know the payout set-up before it was announced.
I came 4th overall. 3rd was to far ahead to make a difference.

 

 

So an enjoyable (if not expensive thanks to a carp and my cack handedness) day, another venue for me to fish again no doubt.

 

Next up for me looks to be the 1st evening match at The Sedges this Thursday, before Saturday's Clevedon match at Plantations Horseshoe lake, another 'never fished' venue.

 

Until then take care and tight lines.

 

Lee

21-04-13 Trinity Woodlands, Clevedon Club Match

Todays outing for me was a Clevedon FWAC match at the popular Trinity Waters complex on the outskirts of Bridgwater. Woodlands being the pond today.
It is a venue I have not fished for a long time, but I wont leave it so long before I have another day there. I never consider it if I fancy a day out or the kids want to go fishing, I shall do next time.

Anyways, a 9am draw, fish 10:30 - 16:30. There was 17 or 18 fishing and several of us were not on Adie's list, much to his amusement.
A quick chat to a few of the regulars here informed me of some 'hotter' pegs, but to be honest the only pegs which I didn't want were 10 and 2, as the few times I have fished the lake, peg 10 has never done me well, and 2 looked cold.

So the 9:10 draw came along and out I pull...........peg 10. Ho Hum. For company I had a nice chap called Allan Oram on peg 11, Lance Tucker on peg 13 and Kev Perry (I think) on 8.

View from my swim.

It is a relatively deep lake, with up to 10ft in places and in some swims the margins can be 3ft+, mine was pushing 8ft on the pole lines at 6 and 12m, my right hand margin was a decent 3ft.
I initially set up a pellet wag for 20m out, a lead/banded 8mm rod and 3 pole rigs. The pole lines were 6m (0.5g float) out to an area to my right which was 6" shallower than everywhere else, a 12m line in front (0.7g float) and a margin rig (0.3g). All were on 0.16 to 0.14 matchteam with B911 hooks.
Baits were 6mm and 8mm pellets, 8mm cubed meat and incase of a struggle some dead reds and casters. I also knocked up a 50/50 mix of micros and groundbait. Oh and some 6mm expanders.

On the all in I was straight on the pellet wag with a banded 8mm, as I have found that 1 or 2 early casts while everyone is potting bait in can catch a bonus fish or 2, this was initially set to 2.5ft deep. I gave this 20 minutes or so. altering the depths but I only had a liner. I kept the feed going in though as they can turn up at any point, they were moving near the surface as there were lots of rolls/swirls/jumping fish.

At this point I fed my long line with 3 balls of groundbait mix with a few deads and casters in, on the 6m line I cupped 3 big pots of 6mm pellet, but I only gave it a couple looks with no response, so no more of that. I also potted a heaped cup of mixed pellet and meat in my margin swim.
By now Andy Hembrow on p23 had landed a few carp and Allan and Lance had also landed a few skimmers and the odd carp.

Out to the 12m line, I missed a bite after 15 minutes, then promptly foul hooked a lump, which I played for a while before it shed the hook, leaving me a scale of around 2" in diameter.
By now we'd been fishing around 1hr or so and had kept feeding the pellet wag line, so a quick look with that and no fish were coming, so I chucked the bomb over that line and had a few liners before the tip whacked round and a fish was on.......................for 5 minutes until I was left with scale number 2. Luckily I had a bite soon after and carp number 1 was in the net, possibly 4lb.
I stuck with this tactic for a while as nobody except Andy Hembrow and Jonny Page on p26 were catching carp, Lance had a few skimmers as had Allan, the guys on the far side's end pegs hadn't had a bite, or at least a fish. Rod Wotton opposite me had a few fish, but wasn't hauling.

By now 3hrs had passed and I was properly struggling, I had tried all my lines without any luck, when I noticed peg 8 catching on the pole shallow, so off my box and another topkit out of the holdall and a shallow rig was put together, banded 6mm or 8mm was to be hookbait. The next 40 minutes bought me 4 more bites on the shallow rig, constantly catapulting 6mm pellets around the float resulted in 2 landed carp of 4lb each, a baby roach which fell off and a lost foul hooked carp. The swim again died. I tried on the deck again, but not so much as a liner, but the wind had got up and had changed from being towards me in a left to right direction, to a right to left direction towards me. It had also picked up in strength with odd attempts at rain thrown in for good measure.

For the last couple of hours I decided to switch between the shallow rig and my margins.
Allan on the next peg had had a few carp and skimmers, but it was Andy who looked to be running away with the match, Jonny Page had a few too.
To cut a long story short, Allan spent the last 90 minutes fishing his margin and was getting a bite a chuck and looked to be catching Andy, whose catch rate had dropped somewhat. Rod Wotton was now bagging some lumps, shallow by the looks of it.
I wasn't catching consistently, but was getting a few bites, even if most resulted in nothing, small roach methinks. I did land another 4 or 5 carp from the margin, couldn't get a bite shallow or on the deck at 12m, I also had a tench of 1lb 8oz and a couple skimmers of an ounce (which I chucked back).

The all out signalled and other than 2 guys on the last two pegs on the lodge bank who'd packed up and dnw. I figured I would be somewhere near last. Allan had, I suggested, 20/25 carp and his silvers, Andy had a load, Jonny Page and Rod Wotton had also done well in the last hour, Kev next door on 8 had also landed a few too.

The scales had arrived at me and 50lb or so was the best weight, I guessed on maybe 40lb. Infact I weighed 43lb of carp and my tench of a pound and a half. Not too bad.
Allan weighed in with 123lb or so and looked good for a top 4 placing.

I scooted my kit back to the car and caught up with the scales and it turns out my 44lb 8oz was doing just fine, but the lodge bank still was to be weighed. Andy's catch went 128lb 14oz, which is less than everyone thought it would. Jonny Page had 93lb 8oz and there were a couple weights around 40lb before Rod Wotton put 5 carp plus his silvers on the scales for 62lb 2oz.

So all in all a day of inconsistency for me, no sort of pattern in the fish's behaviour, perhaps yesterday's warm and sunny day, followed by a cloudy, cooler and more breezy day may have confused the fish, though the far end pegs had calm water the last couple days so maybe was a touch warmer up there. The fish definitely were not feeding in the bottom layers, I only had a couple bites off my deep rigs including the 1 fouled lump. But I am back on here next month, so I have learned a fair bit too.

Results/Payouts

1st - Peg 23 - Andy Hembrow - 128lb 14oz
2nd - Peg 11 - Allan Oram - 123lb
3rd - Peg 26 - Jonny Page - 93lb 8oz
4th - Peg 29 - Rod Wotton - 62lb 2oz

1st Silvers - Peg 19 - Adie Baker - 20lb 8oz
2nd Silvers - Peg 3 - Brian Slipper - 17lb 10oz

So my 44lb wasn't too bad in the scheme of things. Allan's weight was a great result after seeing the results from that bank.

Next up for me is a Pawlett Match, at Trinity again, with Wildmarsh lake being the selected one.

Take Care and stay safe.

14-04-13 Sedges Silvers Match, Pawlett Club Match

The less said about this the better.
After a late night/early morning and only 3.5hrs maximum sleep my heart and head was not into going today, I had prepared my bait and stuff and my intentions were good, but at 7am I got out of bed and really could not be arsed.

I loaded the car though and made the 5 minute trip to The Sedges, loaded the trolley and waited for the draw. Brick peg 16, now I draw this peg (and 18) quite often, infact I think on the last 6 matches on Sedges I have had 16 four times and 18 twice.

I got to my swim, the wind was strong meaning that over 8m wasn't easy as it was heading straight up the lake, so a topkit rig was set up, a rig for 4m out and another for around 8m or so.
A feeder and waggler were set up to.

Well in the 2 hours I fished I managed a bunch of handsized silver fish, perch, skimmers and roach.
Some proper skimmers were being caught as well as the odd accidental carp. But the truth is that I really didn't have it in me to try, I just wanted to get home to the sofa and watch the footy.

So I don't know the results or anything else.


Next time, an earlier night and a match on Trinity Woodlands, a venue I have not fished for years.

Cheers.

Apex Lake 7/4/13 Clevedon Club Match

Today saw me on the Clevedon FWAC match at the public park lake that is Apex in Burnham/Highbridge. It is a nice water with depths upto around 6ft or so. It is a NSAA (Highbridge) club water.
Stock wise there are plenty of skimmers and bream upto 6lb, with the average being maybe 12oz-1lb. Lots of roach to 2lb, some rudd and plenty of carp of all varieties to 20lb-ish. (There are some big eels, lots of baby eels and some pike). It is closed for the month of march.

I hadn't fished the lake since last summer, maybe July and decided to have a pleasure fish on Friday(5th) just to get a feel for the place. I chose peg 6 on Friday, but all I could gather was that today was going to be tricky as I only had 6 skimmers, all on the tip, couldn't get a bite on the pole. Paul Chapman fished peg 5 on Friday and also had about 6 skimmers (and a fouled pike).

So back to today, I arrived at the car park 15 mins before the 8:30 draw, we were to fish 10-4, and there was 22 of us. Payout was to be top 3 and 3 section winners. Carp counted as 2lb as in previous matches the placings or the winner at least had usually bagged a solitary carp and therefore some money. Some were happy, some wanted them to weigh what they weigh.
I wanted peg 4 as it very consistant all year round and had the wind off the back, so comfy fishing.

Into the bag of pegs went my hand, roughly 4th from last, out came peg 40, a peg which can be brilliant in the summer. It has a fallen, large, dead-ish tree to my left, which is shared with peg 41. It is also located in a bay where the south westerlies head. For company I had Mike Lilley in 41 and nobody to my right, that is until peg 37 where Titch (of Thyers tackle shop) was pegged. My section was pegs 33-42 (8 anglers).

You can make out the edge of the tree.

Looking over to pegs 33-36

 

 

On arriving at the peg, armed with the knowledge that I could only get bites, on friday, on the feeder, I decided to set up 2 feeder rods and a waggler rod. The water was clear-ish and the wind chilly.

No pole was set up, which was nice, as the fish haven't ventured in on pole lines recently, also with a busy footpath 4 or 5ft behind me, I didn't mind at all. Dogs/cyclists/holiday makers/kids/joggers and oaps are plentiful at apex, with the pegs 38-44 being most troublesome. So it saved me worrying about my relatively expensive pieces of carbon.

 

The 1st feeder was a medium drennan green type, 4lb mainline to a 0.10 matchteam hooklength and a 16 B611 (barbless rules). This hooklength was best at 10" to 16" long.

The 2nd feeder was a bigger feeder for micros and was fished on 6lb line and a 0.14 to size 16 B911 hooklength with a band set up for 8mm pellet, just incase carp were about or the bream were hanging themselves. Sadly it wasn't to be, despite a few 10 minute spells, I never had a bite.

The waggler was a loaded middy insert to be fished in 5ft of water at 14m or so. 3lb mainline to 0.08 line and a size 20 hook. This was only tried a couple times as the wind was rather strong and right into my bank, so even feeding was tricky. I never had a bit on this.

So I mixed by groundbait, sensas lake and sonu f1 dark, added a few micros, a pinch of ded reds and caster, but not too many,

On the all in, I catapulted (of sorts) some 4mm pellets onto the waggler line along with 3 or 4 walnut size balls of my groundbait. I then flung my feeder 35yrd or so and waited, and waited and waited.
After an hour I hadn't had a bite, Tim Lewis  (peg 36) had landed a few fish, as had Mark Broomsgrove over on peg 33(I think). Someone along my bank had landed a bream of maybe 2.5lb. I couldn't see anything else.
By now the tow had picked up and keeping the tip still, along with the wind, was tricky. But alas at 11:20 I had a bite, now bites on Apex can be good old wrap rounds or little knocks. Thankfully I had a proper pull and duly landed a skimmer of 12oz. 20 mins later I had another of similar size.
The guys in the 30's had been having a few, but I couldn't see exactly what, probably skimmers.

So onto the halfway stage, I had only had 2 fish, but a couple people informed me it was tricky and that only a few smaller skimmers had been had, except peg 4, who had been catching regularly and the lad on peg 10 (good skimmer peg) had caught a few better bream.
I was rather cold now, the sun was getting to my eyes and seeing the tip, was at times, tricky.

In between 1 and 2pm I did land a decent skimmer of maybe 3lb and another 12oz fish, but bites were only coming less than a minute after casting, and single ded red was the bait (but I did actually catch a fish on half a dendra...I never catch on worm!!). I reckon I had maybe 7lb or so, which was probably nowhere, but 2 bites could bring a couple bream and 10lb, so I kept plugging away.

At half past two, I had another proper pull of the tip and a skimmer of a pound was netted. Then it died. Nobody could buy a bite, a few guys packed up and it looked like a couple skimmers could be ideal for placings, I was sure I was on par with most of the pegs in my section, maybe Tim on 36 having most.

I tried the waggler a couple times, tried the heavier set up and was alternating between maggot (live and dead), worm and caster on the tip, I even resorted to re-clipping at another 10 yards further. But nothing happened. I had slowly started to tidy my kit up, most of my bait and some bits and pieces were put away as it was gone 3pm.
At quarter past I had another bit, a gentle pull round saw me into something heavier, I had hoped it was a bigger bream as it came in nicely for a moment or two, then woke up forcing me to give line, it was either a carp or pike as I had ruled maniac bream out. 20 minutes later I landed a nice common of around 8lb, though it would only count as two. Ho hum.

The last 20 minutes went by without activity and the all out was called. Everybody was pleased about that.

As I packed away, I could make out that peg 4 had plenty and was likely to win, unless someone had bagged a load up towards the island pegs. The rest of the anglers I could see probably had similar bags.

The scales arrived at my peg and Tim had caught 12lb 4oz and Mark on 33 had around 11lb. The other weights were between 5 and 9lb I think.
Onto the scales went my silvers, bang on 9lb, add this to my 2lb for my carp gave me 11lb on the nose. Not bad, but not likely to get me any pick up, and so it proved.

The lake had been tricky, with lots of weights around 5lb and a few between 10 and 11lb 8oz. My 11lb was possibly around 8th or 9th.

Results:

1st - Dom Sullivan - peg 4 - 22lb 14oz
2nd - Rob Fogg - peg 10 - 16lb 10oz
3rd - Paul Faiers - peg 43 12lb 8oz

Sections:
A sect. - Kev Perry - peg 44 - 11lb 12oz
B sect. - James Gunther - peg 15 - 11lb 8oz
C sect. - Tim Lewis - peg 36 - 12lb 4oz.

There were a fair amount of us whom were a skimmer away from section/framing, but it was a fair match.
Apex isn't match fished enough, which is a shame as the fishing can be brilliant, but they are not used to 5 or 6hrs of pressure and feeding so they do tend to switch off after a couple hours.
If you are looking for a decent ticket then the NSAA (highbridge) one is good value.

Next up for me looks to be a Pawlett club match at Sedges, it is a silvers only match next sunday.

Take care, stay safe.

Lee

Viaduct Campbell 31/3/13 Club Match

Campbell lake at Viaduct for my match yesterday, it was a PSV match which 13 of us fished in generally bright and chilly conditions (though not as cold as 7 days previous), with an inconsistent wind coming from the east/north-east, which was lovely  -  NOT.

 

 

I had never fished a match on Campbell, as I have said before, but knew that the lead was the main player, with the pole throwing a few silvers and odd carp.  Mostly from pegs 116, 117 and 118. Though 125, 126 and 127 had been reasonable if the carp ventured to that side of this lake.

With the prolonged winter still carrying on, this match was going to be a bit 'hit or miss' as Campbell has been for the last few months. Saturdays memorial match had thrown a 150lb+ bag, a couple near to the ton, and then bits and bobs.

So I arrived at the car-park, loaded the carp-porter and gave Steve the £20. A few minutes later I had peg 126 in my hand, not too bad I thought, should be in with a chance of a carp or 2 if they are over this side. When I got to my swim I thought that I would have rather been on the peg to my left as you could make out the 'balls of carp' under the surface towards the middle of the lake.
As I didn't know any of the guys (except Steve Burgess), but they all seemed worth a laugh and an array of banter was given and taken, most of which was aimed at the 'blankers' and the 'aged' members of the club.

I rigged up the pole with 3 rigs, 1 for banded 8mm pellet at 13m to my left at 10 o'clock position, another at 2 o'clock position with meat/corn and a 3rd at 7m with silver fish in mind.

The carp rigs were on 0.14-0.12 to size 16 B911, the silvers was 0.12-0.10 and an 18 B611x

I also set up a 3/4oz lead with a 16 carp feeder hook with band for pellet or meat. This was to fish roughly halfway over.

 

 

 

On the whistle I chucked the lead out, waited, waited and waited a bit more, other than a couple liners not much happened for me in the 1st hour, and with the chap (Nigel? edit...Keith) on the peg to my left landing a couple or 3 carp, he was fishing with popped up bread and liccy feeder, I never bought any bread.....ho hum!! The guy over on 118 also had 2 carp on the waggler (it was less windy over there), peg 12 also had one, everyone else was struggling with only a few silvers being caught.

 

So after an hour I fed the 3 pole lines and continued with the tip for hour number 2, though this hour was more eventful with me losing a couple foul hookers and peg 124 landing another carp. Pegs 115 and 114 were also starting to catch, mostly skimmers and losing the odd carp on the pole, so the fish looked like they were over that side in numbers.

Up on peg 123, the angler had landed a few silvers and the chap next to me on 127 was on the pole catching baby roach and skimmers upto 3 or 4oz.

 

After a couple hours I was definitely going nowhere fast, there were 4 or 5 anglers who'd had carp and a skimmers. So I got off my box and set up a pellet wag, I did this as occasionally when the wind calmed, I could see the carp near the surface and maybe I could trick one or 2, problem was as soon as I cast out the wind would pick up. I did have a liner, but that was it for the waggler for the rest of the match. I also tried the original pole lines with no response, so left them. So I set up another rig to fish for anything at 14.5m straight out, though the fence behind meant double shipping. I cupped in 2 balls of loose groundbait with a few dead reds and casters in.

 

Back on the tip while the new pole line settled and I soon had a wrap round, a skimmer of a pound was duly put into the net. A few liners and another carp lost saw me on the longer pole line and a few skimmers of the 4oz mark were put in the net over the next hour or so, all on the 4mm Bait Tech Expanders. I did land a carp of 2 or 3lb but then it died again. And stayed dead for a couple hours. I was way behind in the silvers so knew I needed maybe 10 carp for any chance of a pick up.

During the dead 2hr spell, pegs 115 and 114 were catching consistently, though I think 115 was more carp than the skimmers on 114, or so it seemed from where I was sat. Peg 125 was still catching small fish and everyone else was struggling, though Nigel Keith next door was picking up the odd carp including a decent sized one which looked 8 or 9lb.

 

Moving into the last hour and finally I had a 3 more carp, 2 of which came in the last 20 mins, they were small though at the 3lb mark. So at the all out I guessed I had maybe a couple pounds of silvers and possible 12 or 13lb of carp, for likely to have been nowhere. 114 and 115 had been bagging in the last hour and along with Nigel Keith  next door, it was going to be close.

My silvers weighed just over 3lb and my carp just over 13lb, but was top overall weight at that point, but only 4 other had weighed. Nigel Keith's fish went 58lb and Steve Burgess on the end peg had a d.n.w.

 

So I packed up and wandered back to load the car and see the results.

I didn't get the weights properly, but they'll be on the PSV blog at some point, but the winner had 60lb of which was a cracking 38lb of skimmers/silvers, then two 50-odd pound weights. I think the default silvers winning weight was 8lb or so. My 16lb turned out to be ok, maybe halfway down the field. The fact pegs 114 and 115 caught well on the pole shows that the fish were happiest on that bank and there wasn't much my side could have done. Roll on the warmer temps.....

 

I think that if I had gone for the silvers on the longer line earlier and/or maybe fished a standard feeder/maggot set-up then I could have scraped the silvers, but I got caught in two minds on what to do and didn't really get myself into an organised plan. But next time I shall improve, I hope.

 

Next up for me is a match with the Clevedon guys at Apex next week, but I may have a go at Viaduct on Thursday in the saver match and maybe a pleasure session down Apex (today after the footy and/or Friday) to make some rigs. I haven't fished Apex since around August, but there are usually skimmers to be had.

 

Take care and Happy Easter

 

Lee