Viaduct Fishery, Campbell & Cary, Pawlett Club. 22-02-15

With 28 fishing today (a couple last minute drop outs), we had a sensible amount of anglers on each lake.
I arrived at the lake early enough and although the day started rather freezing with a sharp frost, the inclement weather predicted would soon wash away the crispyness on the ground.
I had a brief chat with a few guys including newcomer James Withers, and decided I fancied 119, 123 and 132 on Campbell as they have been consistent recently. On Cary, 85 and 86 would be obvious choices but 104, 106 and 74 looked ideal for a few fish too.  If I wasn't to get any of these then 115, 116, 125 and 126 would suffice as they can be great winter pegs if the fish move away from the end banks.

Anyways onto the draw, I waited until most had picked, all my favoured pegs had gone. I plucked out peg 130......yep the same peg I tend to draw more than any other on the complex. That's something like 8 times in the last 12 months. A really shallow peg that is a struggle at the best of times, even with the aerator in the middle. One day I will draw well on Campbell......I hope.
For company I had Sedges owner Jamie Cook on peg 129 and down in the corner peg 132 I had one of the Clapp Twins.

My usual Campbell peg....peg 130

I set up 3 pole rigs, but only used one. 1 carp rig (just in case.......haha!!), a 0.2g rig for silvers (unused due to the wind) and a 0.5g silvers rigs. I had 2 lines in front, the 1st at 2+2 and the 2nd at 13m.
A 4aaa waggler was set up to cast, initially slightly to my right in the shadows of the trees where I could see the float, I also set up a lead rod to cast slightly short of the aerator.

Baits for the day were meat, caster, corn and some maggots. I also mixed up a bit of dark F1 groundbait.
At the all in I cupped 4 smallish balls of groundbait with caster and maggot at 13m. Some caster cupped at 2+2 and a few grains of corn plus some caster went out where my waggler would be fished.

I began on the waggler and caught a couple of small roach to save my blank, I then went out on some punched meat. 20 minutes passed before I had a wrap round and a 2lb tench was netted, bonus.
Meanwhile, everyone else I could see hadn't really had anything, though Jamie on 129 did have a few roach though.
A look on the pole after a couple hours gave me a couple roach, but then the wind had began to get stronger and it was persisting with rain. Nice....not!!
So I pretty much spent the remainder of the match fishing the waggler either over the long pole line or over the area I started off on. It was hard work but I picked up the odd roach throughout the afternoon.

Elsewhere James Withers on p125 had been catching a good few but was sharing the shoal of carp with Martin Rowles on peg 116. Eric Fouracre on p115 had landed a couple carp early on. But it was slow going.
Jamie Cook did manage a 10lber late on, accidentally on his silvers line, but followed this with a chunky bream to go with the nice net of silvers he had amassed. He also had his no.4 section blown in by the gales we had, be he got it back.
Sandra on p114 had here brolly blown in, while Brian Gattiss on (around) peg 106 had his brolly/box/nets and bait all blown in towards the end of the match. Luckily his 10 carp never escaped from the nets.

By 3pm we were down to just 7 of us fishing on the lake, at least 3 people blanked on Campbell.
At the all out I estimated I had 4lb of fish, while Jamie would have close to 10lb of silvers plus his solitary carp.

I was 1st to weigh and my 4lb 10oz silvers was my reward for my efforts....
Jamie had 10lb of silvers and the 10lb carp.
Then there were a couple 2lb+ nets before Withers stuck 81b on the board, well done him.
The far bank saw Martin Rowles have 97lb, managing a good last couple hours, the fish obviously drifted across from 125 to 116 in the afternoon sun.
Eric had 25lb from 115 and that was it for the lake.
On Cary there was a 12lb and a 13lb silvers catches while Brian Gattiss had just over 92lb to take 2nd spot on the day.

Results (as best I can due to rather damp weigh sheets)
1st p116 Martin Rowles. 97lb+
2nd p106 (?) Brian Gattiss. 92lb+
3rd p125 James Withers. 81lb+

Silvers. Both from Cary.
1st Rob Dodd 13lb+
2nd Steve Fouracre 12lb+

So a tricky day, again, from peg 130. Not much else to say, but never mind....haha

Next up for me is PSV's match next Sunday down on Landsend (Match Lake).

Until then, Take Care.
Lee

Plantation Main Lake, PSV Match, 15-02-15

Plantation's Main lake was the venue for this week's match with the PSV guys, with only 11 originally booked in, the 'better' weather that was predicted saw us end up with 17 fishing, a decent turn-out including Pete Sivell and newbie Steve Sewell amongst the clan.

With all the chit chat, predictions and talk about what pegs are favoured (5, 7, 27, 38 were my choices), the draw was soon under way.
As usual I waited back and when I came to drawing there were 2 pegs left in the bucket. I took both out and let Steve Burgess choose either left or right hand, he chose left. He was on peg 11, me, I was on peg 29. I have only been pegged in this small area (pegs 28 to 33), so at the time I would rather have had peg 11. Oh well.

I made my way around to the peg to find I had Darren North on peg 31, we thought that p32 would have been in not 31 as that peg faced my swim/island.

peg 29, Plantation Main Lake.

I had agreed to give Adam Caswell some groundbait, which I did along with a bait tub to put it in!!

Anyways I set about mixing my groundbait, wetting some micros and sorting my tackle. I had for bait some micros, groundbait, maggots and 8mm pellets. Also some various coloured pellets for a change bait.
Tackle wise I set up 3 pole rigs, the 1st was aimed at silvers at 14m (maver float, 0.3g, 0.14>0.10>b611 size 20), the 2nd was for carp at 8m (but the same depth at long if require) and lastly a margin rig for down to my left at around 8m (0.4g NG Margin, 0.18>0.14>16 B911x), but despite it looking nice there I never had a bite.

Left hand margin....

I also assembled a method feeder and a waggler, both of which would be fished towards the island.

At the all in I cupped in a couple balls of groundbait on the long line plus some pellets and maggots on both of the carp lines.
1st chuck on the method feeder saw my tip bouncing around with liners, I really didn't fancy a repeat of last week where liners were my highlights!!
After a couple more chucks I was into my 1st carp, a baby of 1.5lb was safely netted, this followed 15 minutes later with it's twin.
I stuck on the feeder for the first couple of hours and at 12pm I was on 2 skimmers for possibly 1.5lb and 3 small carp for around 7lb.
Elsewhere Darren had landed a few skimmers, Alan Healey on peg 1 had landed a carp or 2, plus some small silvers, Ryan Radford on around peg 6 or 7 had landed a couple of skimmers and carp. It was tricky going though.
A look on the pole was my next move, well I had snagged and lost a feeder on an unseen 'feature', and this gave me a skimmer of around 1.5lb. 10 more minutes passed before I had a go on the waggler, but I didn't get any bites, so I swapped the float from a standard loaded waggler to a pellet type set around 12" off bottom and chucked that over(ish) where my feeder had mostly been going, I had a carp of 5lb right away before another snag too that rig...!!! grrrr.....

I chucked my feeder back out and soon found myself attached to my lost float rig, which in turn was attached to a snag, I wound this snag in and it turned out to be half a tree!!
Sadly doing this killed the swim and the rest of the match was patchy for me.
The remaining 2.5hrs saw me amass 3 more okay sized skimmers off the pole lines and although I struggled on the feeder and pellet waggler, I pulled out of no less than 7 carp during this period, most seemed foul hooked, but not all.

With half an hour to go I was on 5 carp and my skimmers, a look down my left margin didn't give any response (though Darren did manage on down his edge), the short pole line gave me 12oz skimmer. Another carp on the wag and 2 more on the method saw me end up with 8 carp for around 20lb, plus about 6lb of skimmers.
From those I could see (and those who'd packed up) I had done ok, but I heard that Chris Szakacs, Julian Nurse and Ryan Radford had a few carp, they'd all been pegged close together so the fish were in that area of the lake.

I packed my kit up, took it back and loaded the car.
I followed the scales, beginning with Alan in peg 1. His few silvers and half a dozen carp gave him a total of 26lb 4oz. Pete Sivell on peg 3 weighed around 12lb. Julian Nurse popped 37lb on the scales before Chris Szakacs took the lead with 56lb+. There wasn't much after this until we got to John Bradford and his silvers net of 11lb 9oz took the silvers lead. A couple more guys weighed in before it was my turn, my 1st weigh (silvers) was just over 8lb and was soon topped up by my under-estimated carp net of 32lb+. My total was 40lb 11oz to put me into 2nd spot.
Darren was next, I reckoned on him having 15lb of silvers and perhaps 9lb of carp. Infact it turned out that his 2 carp gave him 12lb 12oz, his silvers went 15lb 12oz to give him the silvers lead at this point.
Next up was Lionel Legge and Steve Sewell on pegs 38 and 39 respectively. Lionel did well on the silvers front, 12lb 5oz was his total, moving him to 2nd spot in the silvers. Steve Sewell put around 10lb of silvers and a sole 5lb carp onto the weigh sheet, not a bad 1st outing with the club, I am sure he enjoyed the match.

Results:
1st, Chris Szakacs, p5 56lb 14oz
2nd, Lee Williams, p29, 40lb 11oz
3rd, Julian Nurse, p4, 37lb 5oz
4th, Ryan Radford, p6 34lb+ (not in the pools)
5th, Darren North, p31, 28lb 8oz
6th, Alan Healey, p1, 26lb 4oz

Silvers:
1st, Darren North, p31, 15lb 12oz
2nd, Lionel Legge, p38, 12lb 5oz
3rd, John Bradford, p27, 11lb 9oz

So all in all a productive match and most peeps managed a few silvers and odd carp, for me it was a matter of unseen snags, lost fish and a few lost pieces of tackle. If only I could have caught a carp or 2 on the pole as the pole caught carp at the venue tend to be somewhat larger than those that inhabit the islands' margins.
We were told that the owners have plans to tidy the pegs and clear what they can of the snags/branches that are in the margins and around the island. This will be good as the fishing is pretty good and I enjoy fishing there.

Next up is a match on Cary and Campbell at Viaduct with Pawlett, judging by recent results, it looks like a lotto at the draw bag.....PSV are on the Match lake on the same day, I expect most of the gusy should get some bites.

Until next time, Take care.

Lee

Sedges Tile Lake, PSV Match, 08-02-15

Not much to write about this week as not a lot occurred for the match we had at Sedges.

I arrived in plenty of time as I only live a few minutes away from the venue, but I was the only person there when I arrived, so a quick scout around the lake to see how much ice was present, there was a touch of cat ice in peg 21 and that was it.
However it was rather chilly in the fog, but that was due to disperse with the sun breaking through in the late morning.

A slightly foggy Tile Lake, Sedges.

Anyways I wasn't too keen on fishing, I had a feeling things would be tough after a period of cold weather and then a sudden bright day and no ice on the water (I feel ice helps when it's cold).
We only had 7 of us fishing, not a great number, but not really surprised as the weather hasn't been conductive to catching a few fish.

Anyways we paid our monies and chose to fish 7 pegs along the middle of the lakes, pegs 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 were used. I drew 2nd last and was rewarded with 39. Not too bad.
I had Matt Challenger next to me on peg 38.
The 2 preferred pegs were occupied by Lee Waller and Alan Healey up on pegs 32 and 33 respectively. Nice pegs for silvers usually when it's a northerly wind.

Sedges Tile, Peg 39

I didn't fancy fishing for the silvers, which in hindsight was a mistake, so I set up a waggler for maggot and meat, a lead rod for bread/pellet/marshamallow/bunches of maggots plus a couple pole rigs, both at 14.5m distance. The 1st in front and the 2nd down in front of peg 40 (just off the shelf).

To cut a short story shorter, I had liners on the 'tip which I couldn't convert to bites despite all my efforts, I never had a bit on the waggler and only had 1 bite, which I missed on the pole line down to peg 40.
My only 2 fish came on a maggot feeder chucked close to the island, both under 1oz roach, the 1st caught on 5 dead reds, the 2nd on a banded 8mm pellet......greedy fecks!!

Other than Lee Waller, who was putting silvers in to his next throughout the match, things were hard.
Myself, Matt C, Matt Taynton, Steve Burgess and Keith Ray all struggled, with the others only catching  a few silvers late on, mostly on the long pole.
Meanwhile, un-beknown to me, Alan had landed 3 or 4 carp and a skimmer on lead/bread tactics cast on/towards the island.

By the time the weigh in had been done I would have been home and on the sofa, Keith did not weigh either.

So not the best day on the bank, but such is life. I would have packed up around lunchtime, but my lack of motivation even got me not being arsed to do that!!

1. Lee Waller (32) ....... 19-5

2. Alan Healey (33) ..... 17-5

3. Matt Taynton (37) .... 5-0

4. Steve Burgess (36) ... 3-7

5. Matt Challenger (38) ... 3-3

And 2 dnw's

 

Mr Waller caught his silvers and solitary carp on soft pellet over micros on the long pole.

 

Next up is a match on Plantation's Main Lake, it has been a while since I fished there.

 

Take Care

Lee

PSV match, Harescombe Fishery. 01-02-15

Today saw 11 of us up on the hills of Gloucestershire as we visited the scenic Harescombe Fishery. It is a lovely venue that I have fished once before, last autumn. But at times it is rather exposed to the elements and today would be no different with a strong north-westerly pushing along the lake from right to left as you look from the car park. F1's and bonus carp would be the target species, plus there are skimmers, roach, chub, barbel, perch and gudgeon are present.

No Steve Burgess to 'organise' the day, that was left to Alan Healey, more or less, to arrange the pools and pegging. With the draw meant to be at 9am, we waited for Lionel Legge to arrive, he duly didn't so we stayed at 11 anglers.
Plenty of banter ensued, a lot aimed at Adam Caswell, or as Darren North pointed out, A well mad sac (anagram of Ad's name, lol). The odd of him fishing the whole 330 minutes was slim, he rarely does!

Anyways with the weather looking set fair, the 6% chance of snow was given the turned up nose treatment by Simon Belcham who insisted it wont happen, I fancied either a peg with the wind either directly behind or directly into me, so that'd be one of the 4 end pegs then! Other than that, peg 24  by the landslip would be ok. In the most part, the pegs along each straight would be hard work with the strong cross wind.

I picked my peg out about 2/3rds of the way along and plucked peg 13, which is a couple pegs from the far end. For company I had Ryan Radford and Alan Healey on my right on the end bank. I had Brian Shanks on peg 11 to my left. Across from me was Darren North on around peg 19.
I carried my kit to the peg and set about sorting my kit out, everything had to be put down sensibly with some weight to it as the wind would surely blow it away, as Alan found out a couple hours into the match when his net bag 'jumped' into the lake and needed rescuing.

View of peg 13, Harescome Match Lake.

View along Harescombe Match Lake from peg 13

I set up 4 rigs today and I did have a lead rod with me which stayed in the bag.
The 1st rig would be for down to my left margin by some grass, this rig would do for tight over should the wind drop, it didn't so the rig was just used down the edge. It was a NG Jordan pattern in 0.2g. 0.14>0.10>B911 f1 size 18.
The second rig was the same but had a banded hook, but remained unused.
The 3rd and 4th rigs were again the same but one banded hook (unused) and one not. These were 4x12 Maver pole floats on the same lines/hooks as above. This rig would be used for 2+2 line and again at 11m which was realistically the further I could managed sensibly in the wind.
Baits were simply wetted micros and maggots, I did have some expanders and pinkies, but these remained fishless and stayed in the tubs barring the odd look.

The all in was officially called at 10:01, which was a couple minutes after Steve Burgess had texted 'all-in', so I guess his tackle was ready and we were dealt the hand of knowing what he was about to do......or was he?
I began down the edge without feeding and never had an indication, Ryan however, managed a small carp 1st drop towards the end of the island. I stayed in close for 10 minutes before venturing out to 11m, then into 2+2 then into the edge again. I rotated this for 90 minutes and never had a bite, I did feed a small toss pot of micros and maggots every so often, but it was slow.
Actually this end of the lake was slow, Brian had managed a few little roach, Alan a nice 3lb+ carp and Darren (opposite) had a few f1's and silvers. The other end of the lake seemed busier though and from what I could see, Mark Radford, Chris Szakacs, Lee Waller and Si Belcham all seemed to be regularly netting fish, but this can be a bit misleading as anything other than plip roach must be netted.

At just after 11:30 I had a couple of bites, one of which gave me a plip roach, a 4oz skimmer followed before another plip roach. These all came from the 11m line on maggot.
All the while I had been drip feeding micros and maggots down the left hand edge.
My 1st f1 came just after 12pm and was a nice 1.5lb fish from the edge, it was a solitary one though and no more fish followed immediately after.
All I could see up my end was Darren and Brian picking up a few silvers and f1's, Alan and Ryan were really struggling. The other end looked, from my viewpoint, a bit more fishy with landing nets being used more often than us lot. Oh, Adam was doing a fair bit of non-fishing from either Ryan's or Alan's pegs.

As the day went on I started to pick up a few skimmers, some fell off as they were lightly hooked. I also managed a couple gudgeon, a few roach and a chublet. But more importantly the 11m line gave me 3 or 4 small f1's under 1lb and also a 2lber.
Oh we also managed the 6% chance of snow, much to mine and Simon's amusement.
A look down the edge at 2pm gave me my best fish of the day a 2.5lb f1 was duly netted, a 1.5lber came a few minutes later.

The last 90 minutes saw Darren North and Brian Shanks pick up a few fish, Alan packed up at 3-ish and tipped his couple of fish back, Ryan soon followed but kept his 6 or 7 fish for weighing. Adam already had his kit by Lee Waller's van ready to go and Derek, who was on peg 21 had began to pack up.
I continued to pick up the odd f1 and skimmer, I did bump a couple, but most anglers did as they seemed finicky for most of us.

At the all-out I had 11 f1's over 1lb and probably 5lb of fish under 1lb, so perhaps 18 to 20lb-ish. I reckoned that both Darren and Brian had more, but the top 4 (payout spots) would come from the other end.

I packed my kit away and waited for the weigh in to start. Lee Waller and Simon (then Alan) began with Darren's net as Adam and Derek dnw'd. Darren's nets went around 22lb, less than my guess of 27lb. Alan dnw'd and then Ryan dropped his fish on the scales, he weighed just under 10lb.
Next up for me, my fish gave me a suprising 26lb 14oz to put me into a temporary leading position.
Shanksy weighed in 19lb 5oz, so he had mostly smaller f1's compared to me.
At this point I was still convinced that the top 4 would still be the remaining 4 anglers to weigh, so next up saw a very good catch of 35lb+ for the amiable Si Belcham, Lee Waller's 24lb net was a lot less than what I thought it would be (landing every fish = pain in arse guessing what others are catching).
Chris Szakacs, most peeps favourite to win, was on peg 30, he managed to net a few, including a decent nr 5lb f1. His total of 39lb 8oz took the lead with only Mark Radford to weigh from landslip, hot peg, flyer, peg 29. His net came up short with 30lb 14oz putting him 3rd on the day.

Results:
1st - Chris Szakacs - 39lb 8oz
2nd - Simon Belcham - 35lb 14oz
3rd - Mark Radford - 30lb 14oz
4th - Lee Williams - 26lb 14oz

So although the wind was a pain in the butt and only 2 of the predicted 4 pegs framing, most of us had a few bites (not all though!!) and it made a nice change to catch actual f1's as a specific target species rather than the odd one in mostly carp or skimmers nets. They certainly pull well for their size which is good. But down here in Somerset we rarely see the species as a main player in catches.

You can read the PSV blog here... to see how the winner caught his fish and the full results.

Next week sees me and the rest of the PSV guys on Sedges, specifically Tile lake. Hopefully we'll have less windy and more settled conditions.

Take Care.
Lee