Landsend Series, last round, 26-3-17

Short blog today, from the weekend's match.

I  managed to get onto the Ken Rayner/Landsend/So-Simple Baits league as a stand-in  (for Pete Nurse I think) and would be on Lake 3, which I prefer over the Speci Lake, lake 1.

I was certain it would fish alright given the warmer days we have been having, but the nights have been cool and days bright, so things were up in the air so-to-speak.
Anyways I plucked peg 70, a tidy peg but the far bank sheltered the water from the sun for most of the day, so I was less than optimistic, but it is always good for some fish. I expected the opposite end to fish a bit better to be honest.

Peg 70, Landsend Lake 3

I set up a few rigs, none for silvers, which in hindsight was a mistake as the top silvers was 9lb and 7-12 took the silvers money by default.
Anyways a pellet rig for on the deck across, a pellet rig for along the left hand bank. A rig for my left margin and a meat rig for 2+2 off to my right in the direction of a weed bed.

To shorten a long day, it began with peg 68 (Mike West) having a few small f1s and peg 41 also catching a few fish. Peg 42 took 2.5hrs for their 1st fish and it was fishing hard at least for us at this end of the lake. I waited maybe an hour and endured a broken number 4 from my 1st fish hooked (and lost).
The day dragged for all it seemed, but Shawn Kittridge and Andy Hembrow took the top 2 on the lake with 53lb and 60lb respectively, from the other bank and other end of the lake.
I had 8 carp in total, all small ones (following me this winter) for a level 20lb and a solitary F1.
4 carp came from the end bank, 4 from across, all on the pellet at full depth.
I had plenty of liners and indications, but couldn't get them to feed, but it seemed most of the complex suffered this.
If my carp averaged a sensible 4lb each then I would have won the section, but sometimes these scrappy small fish are resident in certain pegs and you have to hope they want to feed, but they never did.

On the day the results were...
1. 162-15 - Gary O'Shea - p18 Lake 2 Match Lake
2. 119- 2 - Tony Rixon - p13 Lake 2
3. 79-15 - Lewis Jones - p27 Lake 1 Speci Lake
4. 77-15 - Russ Peck - p29 Lake 1
5. 65- 7 - Steve Hutter - p34 Lake 1
6. 60-12 - Andy Hembrow - p55 Lake 3 Johns Lake

Silvers
1. 15- 4 - Ken Rayner - p31 Lake 1 Speci Lake
2. 14-13 - Rich Lovering - p33 Lake 1
3. 14- 9 - Mike Duckett - p20 Lake 2 Match Lake

Saturday is the next Fisho at Viaduct, looks like a 130 peg sell out, so plenty of not-to-draw pegs, so Campbell or a couple Cary pegs will do me thank you.
No plans on Sunday yet....

Have fun,
Lee

Summerhayes, Sellicks. 19-03-17

A change of scenery for me this Sunday, I decided on visiting Summerhayes, it isn't somewhere that I visit too often.
I arrived there in plenty of time to see that plenty of 'gardening' has been done around the venue by Pete and co. It looked nice though with plenty of light and wind getting to the waters, which is not a bad thing. Sellicks lake, the one we fished, had plenty of bubbles and odd fish moving on the surface.
There were 10 or so fishing, all regulars at the venue including Bill Hopping who wins a good amount there on the paste. Kedgey, Paul Purchase, Jamie Rich and Janders plus a few others to boot.

The golden peg was drawn, peg 8. That went to Bill. I pulled out peg 6, which is the highest numbered peg I have ever drawn on the lake..!!
The wind was blustery and strong, and by the end of the match my neighbour on peg 4 had broken a couple of pole sections.

Peg 6, Sellicks at Summerhayes

I had my mind set to fish for silvers, having some bait left over from a pleasure session on Saturday, but stuck some 6mm meat, 4mm and 6mm pellets in the bag incase I needed them.
Arriving at my appointed plot I went about sorting my stuff, keeping it all as safe from the wind as possible, but I still had to rescue topkits a couple of times during the match.
1 rig for 2 spots at 11m for silvers was set up, and unused.
A rig for my left edge, which although quite deep, wasn't as snaggy as my right edge felt, I would fish meat over maggots there.
A deep banded pellet rig for on the deck at 14m just off the far bank plus the usual 6m meat rig, which went bite-less all day surprisingly.

The all in was called and after dropping my feed in the specific areas I began by toss-potting 4mm pellets and fishing a 6mm in the band on the deck. No indications were forthcoming in the first 30 minutes then I managed to hook, and lose, about 8 small carp, I am sure they were all foul hooked as the odd fish was swirling near the surface against the island.
So it was off the box to set up a shallow rig, plus I fed a liberal helping of pellets by the cup just to try and force the fish down.
I started to ping pellets over while trying my other lines. Of the 3 guys I could see it was only peg 11 that was catching anything. I never managed a fish off my other spots so I ventured back across with my shallow rig and promptly had 3 fish in succession. The fish average around 3lb, so I was using my clicker, just to practice I suppose...haha.

A look on the deep rig then gave me a couple of smaller carp, but I was still suffering with foul hookers. So for the rest of the match I pretty much spent fishing shallow, varying depths and the odd occasion on the deck. Further along my side of the lake it was both pegs 8 and 11 catching well, especially the latter who was catching down his edges. But we all suffered with lost fish.
I also spied Steve Kedge get his 2nd carp net at one point, so no doubt he'd been doing well.
I did manage 3 or 4 fish from my left edge in quick succession around 4hrs into the match and again I had 4 from there in the last hour.

At the all out I had around 30 carp, my clicker showed 63lb on one net and my last hour's fishing went un-clicked into my 2nd net. But with my guesstimates at weight guessing of smaller carp being not very good, I presumed I had around 80lb or so.
I packed up the kit and caught up with the weigh in, and it was Jim Jenner leading with 74lb, then further along Kedgey had a low 80lb net. Paul Purchase had a cracking net of silvers for around 17lb, including tench and crucians.
Peg 11 had 60-something pound before Bill on the golden peg had some very decent silvers and a bunch of carp to also end up with a low 80lb net.
Then came me, 3 weighs, my 1st net had 62lb and 9 ounces, and my 2nd net had 27lb 15oz giving me 90lb 8oz, which took me into the lead, and with only peg 4 left to weigh it gave me the win. Plus I was pleased my clicker worked.

I was nice to get some shallow fishing done, but I am sure my peg was worth more than I extracted, but the weather hampered things and other if's and but's, hindsight and less duck activity would maybe have been kinder to me.

Results:
1st, Lee Williams, peg 6. 90lb 8oz
2nd, Bill Hopping, peg 8. 83-04
3rd, Steve Kedge, peg 17. 81-15

Silvers
1st, Paul Purchase, peg 13. 17-03
2nd, Janders, peg 19. 10-13

Weights....

Not sure where I am fishing this coming weekend, Viaduct has the Golden Reel qualifier on Saturday, so that is an option, as for Sunday I may go back to Summerhayes for a match on Longs.....actually it looks like I am at Landsend on Lake 3.

Until then, have fun.
Lee

This week's blog...... 12-03-17

An update sort of blog today, I would have done 3 separate ones, but really they would not have amounted to much individually.

So firstly, on Wednesday it was the 1st Fisho qualifier of the year, at Viaduct, so along with 96 others, we all had fingers crossed that things would fall into place, a few bits of luck and some half sensible fishing could produce a result.
After the usual natterings I plucked peg 74 from the tin, a decent draw, one I felt had a chance should the fish stay down the near end of Cary Lake, but in reality we all knew Campbell was the likely lake to win the day.

Peg 74, Cary Lake.

I had Calum Craig opposite me and Darren Cox on 76.
The match started ok, a couple carp and some skimmers in the first hour from off the edge of the tree to my right.....but then that was it as the fish moved up the lake with Alex Murray on 102 doing ok for a while before 77 and 78 took the lake's honours. I chose not to weigh. Calum had 3 carp I think, 107 had 4 and 109 only 1.
I did get to see Steve Jackson, Gareth Lennox and Frank Domachie catching well most of the day, sharing 400lb between them, with Jacko wining through to the final. Oh and well done to Emma Drysdale for running Mick Bull close down in the narrows in Middle, just being pipped with both having 90lb+.

Saturday saw me head back to Viaduct for Don Sutherland's memorial match, a silvers only event across Spring/Middle, Lodge and Campbell Lakes. 49 fished and a draw on a good peg on Spring would be a first choice.
I managed another reasonable draw, I was told by Vince Brown, with peg 32 on Middle, but arriving on my peg, there were a few carp moving all over but only the odd plip roach and rudd showing on the silvers' front. Hmmm maybe the skimmers and bream had ventured through the gaps to Spring lake?

Peg 32 Middle...

I set up a waggler for corn at 20m or so, a rig for maggots/caster over groundbait at 14m in front and caster over maggot by a tree at 14m to my left. Oh and lastly a 6m rig for caster over caster.
I managed 1 decent skimmer on the waggler but the majority of my fish came on the 14m groundbait line using caster as bait. I had 20lb 2oz, this was 3 skimmers between 1.5lb and 3lb. The rest was roach and rudd plus the odd 6oz skimmer. Luckily I won the section by default, but it was the top weight off Middle Lake and the winner, Mark Saunders was the overall winner with 49lb 8oz from peg 26. That area of the lake, pegs 24 round to peg 5, fished well, and generally Spring fished very well with loads of 20lb+ weights. Campbell and Lodge also produced 29lb+ nets.

Results (1-32 Spring/Middle, 53-73 Lodge, 110-132 Campbell)
1. Mark Saunders - 49lb 8oz - peg 26
2. Stu White - 42lb 9oz - peg 2
3. Gabe Skarba - 39lb 11oz - peg 124...
4. Shawn Kittridge - 39lb 9oz - peg 1
5. Jess Jordon - 33lb 12oz - peg 17
6. Ryan Shipp - 32lb 3oz - peg 19
7. Nigel Easton - 32lb 1oz - peg 115
7. Robin Guy - 32lb 1oz - peg 15
9. Steve Jackson - 30lb 7oz - peg 116
10. Nick Ewers - 30lb - peg 5
11. Roland Lucas - 29lb 6oz - peg 59
12. John Page - 29lb 2oz - peg 64
13. Alvin Jones - 27lb 7oz - peg 3
14. Chris Fox - 24lb 4oz - peg 24
15. Vince Brown - 24lb 2oz - peg 16

Lastly was today's match on the Kings Sedgemoor Drain at Bradney with the Pawlett bunch.

Running late (for me) and arriving with my breakfast in hand, it was a matter of saying my hellos and stuff, some guys fishing whom I haven't seen for ages were present, like Baz Morgan and Dave Nash to name 2.

A look at the water from the bridge and I knew it wasn't going to be a great day in terms of weights as the water looked too coloured and coupled with the warmer weather we have had, I expected it to be a bit of a scratching day. I also said that whoever draws the end bay peg nearest the bridge should win or be chucked in as it looked full of fish including pike. I didn't want to draw in the pegs downstream of the bridge as it is too deep and hasn't been so good on the whole for the last 2 or 3 years.

The draw was made and I went in mid-rabble and pulled 24 (after a bit of faffing between myself and Keith Clapp, I fished peg 24, he had 23...). Jamie Cook and Neil Venning were in the fancied end pegs of the bay. The pegging was 1-10 perma pegs on the South Bank, 11 to 19 in the bay area opposite the EA building and 20 to 24 below the bridge.

My Bradney peg on the KSD.

A waggler was set up, but only had a couple casts as the wind was a pain.

A couple pole rigs, one for 6m on a 0.7g float on 0.12>0.10>20 b511 hook, here I would feed caster and hemp by hand. The 2nd rig was a 2g Drennan Carbo on the same lines but would be fished at 13m over an initial balling of groundbait laced with hemp and caster, 6 big coconut sized balls to be precise.

With very few small fish topping, it was a struggle for the day, just picking up a few fish, mostly roach between 1 and 2oz, a 4oz fish was a bonus. It was just a matter of patience and luck.

The short line only gave me a couple fish as I had no flow here. Throughout the day I kept checking with Keith what he was getting and pretty much the reply was 'not much' or 'nothing more'. Though the 2 pegs nearest the bridge, I was told, were picking up small silvers.

The all-out came at 4:30pm and as the scales arrived below the bridge the top 2 nets were indeed Jamie and Neil from the 2 last pegs in the bay with circa 16lb each. A 9lb net and a few 5lb nets were recorded, none of us admitted to 5lb below the bridge. My 4lb 11oz was the best weight from that stretch. I had between 60 and 70 fish, so on the small size, my largest was maybe 4oz. But not good enough for a pick-up.

The perma pegged section fished a bit better with plenty of 6 to 9lb nets.

Results, top 3 came from the bay areas, top 2 nearest the bridge.

1st, Jamie Cook. 16lb 15oz.

2nd, Neil Venning. 15lb 8oz

3rd, Kev Lock. 9lb 6oz (inc a tench)

Weights....

So a mixed set of results, but I enjoyed them all and this weekend's fishing for silvers.

Not sure where I am fishing next weekend, no set plans. We shall see.

Until then, have fun.

Lee.