PSV Match, Viaduct Cary 9-9-18

Before I get on to Sunday's match I will give a quick recap of the couple of matches I have fished but not blogged about since my last post.
I fished the penultimate match of the Float Only Series which was at Sedges, I drew p35. Umm so-so in a float only match. Well the match was hard all over but I started well with a handful of fish shallow on the pole, losing a couple which may have been foul hooked, but gradually the wind changed and I struggled for the remainder of the match to finish with 35lb which was last in the 5 peg section but not last on the day.
Then I fished a Thursday open at Viaduct across Campbell and Cary. I fancied fishing for silvers but drew peg 80 but I still set my stall out in the main for silvers.
I managed to land a few carp, of which one was fished for. But I had a decent 2.5 to 3hrs at the start of the match before things died for me. Thankfully I put 22lb on the scales which was top silvers weight off Cary but beaten by a couple of nets from Campbell for 3rd on the day.

Since those matches I had a lovely family holiday in Turkey, the sea was warmer than the hotel pools and the fish in the sea like to have a munch on your dry skin, scabs and any abrasions, so when I stayed sill in the water I would get nipped, they didn't hurt, more of a surprise. Myself and daughter mostly spent ages feeding the small fish bread which was cool. Also drank and ate too much but randomly had loads of early nights and plenty of sleep which is unlike me. But very nice to get away.

Right I digress, back to Sunday, I was going to go to Summerhayes as me and the missus had plans Saturday night and didn't know if I would be in decent shape to fish. But on Friday Steve Burgess asked if I wanted to guest with the PSV bunch on Cary. After a day thinking about it I agreed.
I got there in plenty of time for the 9am draw and had a chat with a few of the guys, I haven't seen a few of them for bloody ages so it was good to speak.
Into the draw and I wait for towards the end of the queue and I plucked 105, before Mr Burgess found himself on 102. Not the area I fancied as it has been patchy there and with the wind pushing up towards the top corner and pegs 88 to 90 would have been my preference. But none the less I would crack on and see what I could catch. Oh and John Bradford who only fished for silvers drew p80 and wasn't going to fish it but in the end he did.

Peg 105 Cary, Viaduct

I didn't have much in the way of bait for the silvers, only some micros and expanders plus perhaps 20 worms so I only set up one rig which remained untouched all day.
Other rigs for the day was the obligatory lead rod for 8mm pellet.
A shallow pellet rig and depth pellet rig to fish between 14 and 16m in front. I used a DT Pinger for the shallow set up and a DT RBS open in 0.4g for on the deck, hooks were B911 size 16 and 0.16 hooklength.
A rig to fish meat at 6m was put up along with a rig to fish to empty peg 106 using a DT Margin Diamond. this rig went untouched.
Baits were 6mm and 8mm pellets and 8mm meat, so nice and simple.

At the all in I fed some micros and expanders for the silvers, the only time I put bait out for them.
I fired some pellets out to about 25m for the lead and began on the short meat line hoping for an early mug fish, but other than losing 3 foul hookers (scales returned) I had 2 bites I missed that was my first 45 minutes done with. Matt Williams on p74 also lost a couple foul hooked carp early before switching to silvers bashing.
All the while I had been pinging 6mm pellets on the long pole line but oddly there had not been a sign of fish, usually there would be some fizzing and perhaps the odd swirl. But nothing.
So I chucked the lead out and gave that 10 minutes before I got bored.

Out with pellet on the deck and I missed a couple half hearted bites, maybe liners, but I thought I would try a little longer on the deck before trying shallow. I then managed two carp in as many drops on the deck and that was 18lb in the net after 90 minutes, I think only 1 carp had been had elsewhere at this point. But I began getting iffy indications again and tried the shallow rig at various depths before I caught another fish around 13lb fishing around 10 inches deep (shallow?).
Just before the 2hr mark arrived I chucked the lead out and managed one after 5 minutes to push me up to 40lb on the clicker...… and then it went dead so I wandered to see Steve on 102, he only had small silvers and Adam Caswell was just netting his 1st fish of the day in the form of a skimmer off peg 100. Steve said nobody had much.

Back to my peg and around 90 minutes passed before I landed anymore fish. I did lose one on the lead in that time but it had became entangled in another carp trailing line and inevitably my carp was lost. But 2 quick shallow fish helped me along and 3 skimmers on the meat line saw the 4th hour pass ok enough. My clicker said 55lb and I was onto my next net.
The 5th hour was ok with a couple more carp on the shallow rig, I had to feed heavy and leave a few minutes before swinging the rig in where the feed went to get any indications. The deep rig just sat still.
It looked like I was doing ok, only young Ross Sewell on peg 77 was getting the odd carp now, but I did expect the top bank to have had a few by now.

The last 60 minutes were upon us and I was starting to see a few fish up towards peg 109, out of sensible (or unreasonable?) casting range, I just hoped a few would venture up, which luckily one or two did and I mugged a couple as they swam by.
A look on the meat line gave me a couple indications but I only caught a decent set of branches which screwed all change of me catching here really.
Randomly I fired a pouch of 8mm pellets down by peg 106 and in the last 20 minutes I caught 3 fish on the lead just off the platform, the 3rd of which I netted on the whistle and went in the 3rd net.
My clickers showed 55lb, 60lb and that last one which was perhaps 7lb. Plus my 3 skimmers (3lb). I reckoned on 125lb.

I packed up most of my kit and waited for Steve Long to come and begin the weigh in.
When he arrived he said the water temps had dropped considerably in the last 5 days and the lakes had generally slowed, with just the odd 'big' weight.
Anyways my last fish was just over 8lb and my other 2 nets were actually well clicked boosting my carp catch to 125lb, coupled with my 3lb of silvers I had 128-07 in total. 12 carp and 3 skimmers.

Steve Burgess had 14lb of  'eyes' before the scales moved onwards. He said I could win with my weight as he hadn't seen anyone catch too much.
I loaded my kit in the car in 3 trips as it was a short-ish walk. Before catching up with the results, Alan Healey said Will Dearlove had done well and I believed him when he said he had 4 carp nets in. So I was likely to be second.
Actually Alan had wound me up and it turned out I had won on the day ahead of Will's 77-01 net.
John Bradford won the silvers from peg 80, the bigger skimmers/bream/tench hadn't really fed and he had 15lb 8.5oz, Steve Sewell had half an ounce less!!

Results:

1. Lee Williams (105) 128-7
2. Will Dearlove (90) 77-1
3. Ryan Radford (87) 60-5
4. Ross Sewell (77) 54-5
5. Alan Healey (98) 50-9
6. Lee Waller (81) 43-5
7. Adam Caswell (100) 35-5

Silvers:
1. John Bradford (80) 15-8½
2. Steve Sewell (96) 15-8
3. Matt Williams (74) 15-1
4. Steve Burgess (102) 14-0

So a pretty decent day results wise, but 12 carp and 3 skimmers landed, 3 lost foul hooked carp and 1 carp lost to a fishing trailing line, it wasn't hectic with plenty of quiet times. But happy none the less.

Next up for me is Avalon on the 23rd with Pawlett, no fishing this weekend as me and the wife are off for a '48hr Party' with a 90's theme at Pontins for a laugh.

Plus I need to get a little prep done for the Maver Festival at White Acres in 3 weeks of so...

Until then, take care and have fun.
Lee

PSV Match, Shiplate Main Lake, 2/10/16

A lovely sunny, reasonably mild day was the forecast as a bunch of the PSV guys fished on the Main Lake at the lovely Shiplate complex near Weston-Super-Mare, The air was nippy and it shows autumn has arrived. Lovely time of the year.
There was another match on Hawthorns which saw the car park reasonably full, plenty of chat, abuse and piss-taking was done and spirits were high.

We all paid, the draw was made, it was obvious which pegs would be wanted, 1 and 15 are flyers and should be thereabouts come the weigh-in, but peg 14 has been the hottest peg of recent times and would be a very good draw. The rest of the pegs are fair and can produce winning weights for sure.
I had the 3rd last ticket and drew peg 11, so I though I would have a day fishing for silvers.....hmmm!!
Peg 1 went to Adam Caswell, 15 to Alan Healey and 14 to Mr Steve Burgess.
With the way it is pegged the only peeps I could see were those on the opposite pegs, Pete Uzzell and Mark Radford on 3 and 5 respectively.

Shiplate p11 Main Lake

Shiplate Main Lake p11 lhs

I made my way to the peg and went about sorting my stuff. Groundbait mixed, micros wetted and expanders pumped. 3 tins of corn and some 6mm pellets finished off my bait tray. The lake was flat calm and there were a few silvers and the carp were mooching around in the upper layers, but they were not my target.
2 silvers rigs, one banded, one not. The banded would be for 11m in front (corn and 6mm pellets) and the other at 2+1 in front at the bottom of the near drop-off using expanders/micros/corn.
A rig for carp down the edge, but hoped not to use that, and a rig for off the end of the tree with carp the intended target, this wasn't used in vain.

At the all in I started on the short line, toss potting balls of micros and odd grain of corn, it was a while before I had a bite and inevitably it was a skimmer, one or 2 more followed, only fish up to 4oz. After an hour I hooked 2 carp on this line, both foul hooked and both lost.
A tench and a nice looking crucian were netted but things had slowed with the odd roach only coming to my short line.

So after 90 minutes I went long and starting getting the odd skimmer and roach, but nothing of the quality I expected and felt that I would need a few lumpier skimmers and a few tincas to win the silvers money. I kept pinging the odd pellet and potting in the odd pinch of micros and a few grains of corn.

Between 12:00 and 3pm I had really struggled and only probably put in a few roach and 1 little tench, I also lost a carp that vanished around 20yrds away to my right.
Elsewhere I expected John Bradford down on peg 9 to be winning the silvers, Steve Burgess looked to be winning the match overall. Opposite Pete only had a couple carp and a few silvers. Mark Radford was starting to put some skimmers and a few carp in his net as had Chris Szakacs on peg 7.
So at 3pm I potted in 5 cups of groundbait down my left edge and left it for 15 minutes before going in over the top with double corn. It worked and I had a carp in the net after a spirited battle had a 5lber in the net.

Over the following 40 minutes I had another 4 carp from the edge and lost another to the tree.
The last 15 minutes were fishless and the all out was called. I expected to have maybe 10lb of silvers and maybe 30lb of carp.
I packed up, loaded the trolley and went and watched the first few weigh ins, Alan had 42lb off peg 15, Steve Burges s had 70lb+ from peg 14 including a 12lb grass carp, Lee Waller had 16lb of silvers of which 13lb came in the last hour, I then had 12lb of silvers and 33lb of carp for 45lb and ounces.
I let the scales do their job before getting to see the results back at the car park.

Results:
1. Steve Burgess (14) 71-9
2. Adam Caswell (1) 57-7
3. Mark Radford (5) 49-0
4. Chris Szakacs (7) 47-15
5. Lee Williams (11) 45-8
6. Alan Healey (15) 42-6
7. Pete Uzzell (3) 22-9
8. Lee Waller (13) 15-12
9. John Bradford (9) 11-15

Silvers:
Lee Waller 15-12

So it fished a bit tricky with the sunshine and flat conditions, but in hindsight if I had taken some form of live bait like maggots or worms I am sure I would have had enough to win the silvers and I think that the pellets and corn approach wasn't really right.
Also if I had come in on the edge lines, or even fished shallow in some form then 2nd overall's weigh looks like it would have been gettable.

Not sure where or if I am fishing this week as on Saturday I am down at White Acres for the Winners Week Festival which will make a change and maybe get some F1s and different scenery.

Until next time....
Lee 

SW Over 50's + Disabled vs PSV, Acorn Paddock Lake, 04-09-16

31 fished today I think, maybe a couple more, but it was an interclub affair against the venue regulars of the SW 50+ and Disabled guys.
With space at a premium and yesterday's and night's rain we had, plus Saturday's match fishing alright, the big 150lb+ weights were somewhat lowered on the expectation level, that said you can never be sure of anything with fish and fishing.

I arrived early, dipped nets and had a chatter with a few guys before getting on with the draw, I fancied anywhere from peg 1 round to 12 and maybe 33, 34 and 35. Peg 12 has been in form the last 2 weeks with weights to 237lb coming off it.
I drew around halfway down the line and plucked peg 5, a nice peg on the point of the smaller island, for company I had Ray Cooper on peg 4, and I could watch regular venue framers on pegs 9 and 10 in the 2 Bobs, Feltham and Smith respectively. Lee Waller had drawn peg 12 and he had Eddie Wynne and Steve Sewell to his left.

Acorn peg 5, lhs

Acorn peg 5

I set up 4 rigs, 1 for each margin, though my right hand side never produced. Groundbait on the left maggots down the right. My right hand margin rig also doubled up for fishing across in the shallow, 12 inch deep, water using corn, maggots and expanders.
A rig for 2+1 in front using expander over 6mm pellets.
A rig for banded pellet around 1m off the far bank in 3ft of water.
Also an unused method feeder was set up.

Bait was 6mm pellets, some 8's for the band, 2.5pts of maggot, 3 small tins of corn, some groundbait and some 6mm expanders.

I began fishing off the island, toss potting 6mm pellets and using an 8 in the band, I had 2 fish in the first 15 minutes, only 3lb fish but a start......then I lost a couple foul hookers before it died properly.
The 1st hour had lapsed with just 2 carp in the net, but I was still ahead of some who hadn't had a fish after 60 minutes.
The second hour was a little better, I managed a couple carp from my left margin on corn over groundbait and then I had 1 from the deeper water on expander. But I was getting a few foul hooked fish, annoyingly they would only come off at the net, I wasn't the only one suffering this though.
It really was slow going......in fact the next 2.5hrs saw me struggle properly and I am unsure if I actually put a fish in the net. There were fish showing in open water but could not be tempted despite trying various tactics,

I had binned the pellet line off the island as I was only getting liners and they wouldn't take bait shallower, they seemed to be just roaming the area. I had also switched to varying what I was feeding across in the shallow water, I began to figure it was a matter of trying to snatch the odd passing fish, try and grab their interest.
I worked out that sometimes a helping of corn would get me a couple fish, then it would die, so a pot of maggots would do similar. Groundbait and 6mm pellets and even 8mm pellets being fed over the same spot would all pick me 1 or 2 fish before dying.
I also had a couple fish from the 2+2 line on expanders.

Into the last hour or so and my 1st net's clicker showed 44lb. I had seen 1 or 2 swirls down over the left edge and managed a couple 5lb fish from here, but still I was getting a few foul hookers or they were not taking the bait properly as I pulled out of a couple fish.
I wasn't taking much notice of others really, but Chris Szacaks on peg 7 was losing a few at the net from peg 7 and the 2 Bobs on pegs 9 and 10 were doing well enough.....Lee Waller had gone by now off peg 12..!!
I also could see that someone around peg 33 or so was using their net often, though those behind me from pegs 40 back to 36 hadn't had too much in their nets, including venue regular Mark Walsh in peg 36.

The last 60 minutes were simply spent fishing across varying the baits while keeping an eye on edges, only dropping in when I could see fish were present. I did mug a couple as they left the margin, dropping a bait in front of them as they departed.
I finished with my 1st net clicked at 54lb and my second was 23lb.

I packed up and loaded my car before following my half of the weigh in, rumour had it that Matt Williams on peg 33 had caught well but that half of the lake (peg 40 back to 22) has struggled.
Also I knew the two Bobs had done fine and that Chris Szacaks had a late run of fish from peg 7.
Peg 1 dnw'd before Dave Stephenson had 12-09 of assorted silvers including a few goldfish!!
Peg 4, Ray Cooper caught a few edge fish late on and had a little over 48lb.
Next up was me and again my clicking has been accurate enough in that my 2 weighs went 26lb 2oz  and 51lb 6oz....finishing with 77-08. I got told that'd be in the frame. I didn't expect it to be honest.
Next was Ryan Radford and Chris S. They had 42lb and 44lb respectively.
Bob Feltham's late run of fish gave him 44lb+ then regular venue winner Bob Smith had 69lb 5oz.
Peg 12 dnw'd. Then we saw Eddie Wynne put his silvers on the scales, it settled at 12-08 before it was noted there was a roach in his net.....he pipped ahead of Dave with 12-10.....lucky lucky.
Steve Sewell then had 48lb 6oz. There were a couple more dnw's along these pegs before I left them to it.
A quick look at the 2nd sheet saw Matt Williams had a couple pounds more than me from peg 33 but that was it from that half, so I had finished 2nd. Not too bad really, we both had lost fish so I cant really say that it was lost fish that cost me the win, maybe it was the fact I managed to knock my bait tray everywhere and spent 10 minutes faffing around with that when I knew there were fish to be caught.....all hindsight though!!

Results:
1. Matt Williams. PSV 79-05. p33
2. Lee Williams. PSV. 77-08. p5
3. Bob Smith. Over 50. 69-05. p10
4. Steve Sewell. PSV. 48-06. p15
5. Ray Cooper. Over 50. 48-02. p4
6. Bob Feltham. Over 50. 44-14. p9
Silvers
1. Eddie Wynne. Over 50. 12-10. p13
2. Dave Stephenson. Over 50. 12-09. p2

So the venue did have a bit of an off day, but there was still plenty of bites to be had if you worked hard to tempt them. By varying things a bit on the day bought me a few bonus fish I think.
So in the last few weeks I have managed 3 seconds and a third from 6 matches, just need to get over that final hurdle, haha.

Not sure where or if I am fishing this week, maybe I will have an afternoon over Apex. Maybe try to fish Summerhayes on Weds and Shiplate on Thursday.

But next Saturday we have Pawlett's day out over at Mathern Mill, a new venue for all of us I believe.

Until then, Take care.
Lee

PSV Match, Harescombe, 28-08-16

Back up the M5 yesterday to one on my favourite match fisheries, Harescombe, a venue where you should get a few bites all year round given the head of F1s and other species.
Only 10 of us were present, there was a contingent of the club down at Stafford Moor for a 3 day event that Lee Waller had arranged.
Today I bought along the wife as she hadn't seen the venue and it got her out of the house.

We arrived in loads of time, the trip is only minutes over an hour, so not that bad really. We went up to the café and everyone was present and some were munching on brekkie, the wife ordered a hashbrown and bacon sarnie for her, I just had a cuppa.
Alan Healey was running the show today, the owner sorted the pegs and it was to pay top 4 overall.
In to the draw with only 3 pegs left, I drew 19 which is decent enough, Rich Jones plucked 16 which the owner said would be facing down the lake once you have crossed the far bridge. Alan had the last peg and it was 29, the peg generally seen as an out and out flyer and is the near end of the lake and has the infall to your right and where the landslide has occurred in front. Always worth a good few fish.

My Peg, Peg 19 at Harescombe

For company I had Chris Gay on peg 21, he'd mostly be fishing the method feeder, and to be fair it is often hard to beat there if you have fish in the peg, but fishing it at 13/14m just isn't for me in a club match, I enjoy fishing the method, but where fish are not 1lb-ish fish and where you actually need to cast properly, but each to their own. To my left I had Rich Jones, I could see everyone except Alan Healey, so could keep an eye on all.

4 topkits assembled for the match: All on 6/8 laccy, 0.2 NG Jordans using 0.14>0.12>size 16's.
1st was a rig to fish using the topkit down each edge, meat over 4mm pellets both sides
2nd was a rig to fish maggots through the water, occasionally meat, topkit+1 distance
3rd was a pellet rig for 13.5m across to the left of a bush/tree/grass spot
lastly a shallow pellet rig for fishing across as the fish will come up and slurp against the board.
For bait I had 6mm pellets for across, 3pts of maggots for that line, some 4mm pellets and 6mm meat for the margins mostly.

At the all in I began in front at topkit+1 with maggot and was soon getting a few silvers, also the small roach were swirling at the feed, there didn't look to be any carp or f1s in amongst them so I stayed on the deck hoping they would follow the feed down rather than up.
Half an hour in and Chris Gay was on around 8 or 9 F1s/carp on his method feeder, Rich Jones was getting a few carp by fishing along to the out fall on his left.
I stuck to this line until an hour had gone and only managed 1 small carp plus the silvers, but nobody was catching much. I began to feed my left edge at the 45 minute stage with a view to try down there next.

Into the 2nd hour and I switched to my left edge with meat and did pick up a couple f1s and a barbel, but my meat was getting ragged out by small roach and gudgeon mostly. But I stuck with it hoping that the better fish would come along. Chris was getting a fish a chuck on his feeder at this point and was miles ahead, actually he was on 17 f1s/carp that I had seen and I was on 4 by the end of 90 minutes. Rich Jones was getting a few also.
I switched back to the topkit+1 line but tried meat on the hook, this gave me a run of carp and f1s before fading again, so I started flicking a few pellets across in prep for when I tried there.

The 3rd hour saw me pick up a few fish on both pellet rigs fished across, so I was starting to put some f1s/carp in the net more regularly, plus I was picking up some chub and barbel, perch and skimmers which always help.
The 4th and 5th hours were my most productive, by swapping both edges and the short line in front, feeding heavier, I was getting short bursts of fish from each, but was still suffering with baby roach whittling the meat down off the hook, but the f1s and carp were coming at a sensible rate along with some silver including add 6oz skimmer. The odd foray across also produced a few fish, but was suffering with a duck and foul hookers that trashed a couple rigs. Chris Gay had been catching all the while, even picking up a few fish from his margins when he came of the method feeder and looked to have the match sewn up. Rich Jones was still getting a few and we heard Alan had been doing steady on the method feeder from peg 29. Everyone else were only catching in small bursts and the fight for 4th and last in the money was between the rest of us, more or less.

The last hour was productive for Mark Radford over on peg 14, until this point he hadn't had too many and was suffering with small silvers, but he picked up a run of f1s and carp in this period, while for everyone else it had gone quiet, even Chris only had a handful of fish, I managed 4 f1s from in front as the margins didn't produce as expected.
The all out was called and the rain began!!
I packed up, thinking I had maybe 50lb of carp/f1s plus my few silvers, I guessed Mr Gay had 110lb and Rich Jones must have 70lb.

I loaded the car so me and Adam began the weigh in. Starting on peg 29 with Alan, he had 61lb, which I thought was, by the murmurs, less than he'd been assumed to have.
Adam weighed next, 25lb+. Then we went along the car park bank with only Ryan Radford topping the 40lb barrier. Around to peg 16 and Rich Jones, he popped his 3 weighs on the scales and came out with 75lb 3oz to take the lead.
I was next to weigh, my few silvers actually weighed 11lb and 4oz. Coupled with my f1s and carp I totalled 77lb 10oz, slightly more than my guess.
Chris Gay the took the lead as expected, nearly having my estimated 110lb, he totalled 104lb 10oz, so that 1st 90 minute spell gave him the cushion over me and Rich Jones.
Last to weigh was Matt Powell, he had 26lb+.

Results:
1st, Chris Gay, p21, 104-10
2nd, Lee Williams, p19, 77-10
3rd, Rich Jones, p16, 75-03
4th, Alan Healey, p29, 61-01

Scrawled weigh sheet.

So not a bad result for me, I feel like my results are taking an about turn after a pretty slow run of mediocrity, I had a 3rd and top silvers in Wednesday's Sedges open, though I was 1 carp away from winning and yesterday's 2nd at Harescombe was hard earned but appreciated. Granted it was not the biggest match, but it defo helps with confidence and makes me look forward to the next match.
My last 2 visits there have given me a 1st and a 2nd, so I am getting to grips with the place, but busy fishing suits me.
In hindsight, I should have fished corn not meat as I am sure I could have put a few more f1s and carp in the net, maybe I would have missed out on the silvers, which were the countable fish that boosted my weight, I had roach, rudd, perch, skimmers, gudgeon, barbel, chub, f1s and carp in my catch.
I fed 2pts of maggots, 2pts of 4mm pellets and a handful of 6mm's. Plus maybe a tin of meat.

Next weekend I think I have Acorn on Sunday, but no doubt I will get a little fishing in during the week.............I hope.

Until another day. have fun.
Lee

PSV Match, Todber Manor, Homeground Lake. 14-08-16

A club 1st today, a visit down to Dorset and a match on recently opened Homeground Lake (we had Hillview but got switched due to numbers).
A nice easy enough journey of around an hour or so down some little lanes and as the weather was clear, warm and sunny it was rather enjoyable.

Anyways back to the venue and the fishing, I arrived in plenty of time and Matt Williams and Mike Wilson were both present, I had a look around the tackle shop, which I must say is very well stocked and prices competitive. They have kit for carp fishing, coarse fishing, match fishing and catfish fishing.
The lake we were to fish was only recently opened and was rather bare and barren, but very nice platforms that were not too close together, there is 15 pegs in total on the lake that is just over an acre in size. Two islands are present in the lake. There isn't any marginal growth as such and it is rather barren. There was plenty of fish moving and jumping, we got told there was loads of silvers, tench, skimmers, roach and perch.

Todber Manor, Homeground Lake.(peg 81)

Once all 11 of us were present we did the draw, nobody was massively bothered about where they drew as we'd all have an island chuck plus there wasn't anything else that stood out, a bit of wind on the water would be nice, but the predictions were for a light breeze, on and off, but from varying directions throughout the day, as we looked across the lake from the nearside, the wind was generally right to left.
The draw was done, peg 81, the end peg on the near bank, and with peg 80 not in, I had the corner of the island to fish to with the method feeder. To my left on the end bank was Matt Williams, I fancied him to do well from there. Opposite me was Chris Szakacs, to my right on 79 and 78 were Will Dearlove and Ron Hardiman respectively.

I had read that the method feeder and shallow pellets are the 2 ways to go, so both of these were set up, a meat rig for topkit distance in front of me and a sort of margin rig for 2+2 down to my left where I could find 2ft depth, which was 6ft off the bank, though I knew the fish would come into the shallower water close in, I felt they'd spook easily.
Lastly a full depth pellet rig for 13m which is also where I planned on the shallow fishing.
Bait was groundbait for down to my left, 6mm pellets for up and down at 13m, 8mm meat for the short lines, I also had a few 4mm pellets for feed, plus wetted micros for the feeder.

On the whistle I fed a few pellets long, meat short and groundbait to my left. I started on the feeder and nothing occurred for about 20 minutes, so that was abandoned for a while. During that opening period Ron Hardiman and Brian Shanks were getting plenty of fish, small tench, small skimmers and one or 2 carp. Will had 1 carp on the feeder, but he wasn't getting any joy. In fact a few of us were struggling.
So a quick 5 minutes on the topkit with meat saw a couple missed bites, this gave me a 1oz perch the missed bites were from small silver methinks, so out to 13m with a 6mm in a band, a few 1 to 3oz tench came my way then a carp of around 1lb.
The next 2 hours went along similar vein, odd carp among the small tench and odd skimmer. Will, Brian, Mike Wilson and Will were catching the most consistently from where I was perched.

It was a few hours into the match when we saw Adam Caswell had a diabetic fit and ambulances were called and after some treatment he was carted off to Yeovil. Brian Shanks spotted his condition and between him, Ryan and a few others helped out. We all wish him well.

Back to the fishing and I managed a carp of 3lb or so on the method and mugged one of similar size on a piece of meat. But although I was getting fish regular down to my left and on the topkits, the time between fish was lengthy and I could see Chris on the peg opposite from me getting plenty of fish down his right edge, as was his neighbour Brian Shanks. Also the 3 to my right were getting fish more regularly on various tactics. Will even managed a good fish of perhaps 8lb+.

With 2hrs to go I fed a bit more aggressively to my left and on the topkit lines, abandoning the other lines. This proved to work a bit better as I then managed to increase the regularity of fish getting put into the keepnets, the fish were right in the edges too, maybe 8 inches of water, but some surface scum prevented me getting my rig into them and a 0.5g rig and 8mm pellet wouldn't get through the crap, so it was the slightly further out/deeper spot that I had to concentrate on, coupled with the topkit line.
I was soon enough picking up carp averaging 1lb or so, plus one or two nice skimmers. I suppose my biggest fish was 4lb. So the remaining period of the match was fished this way.
At the all out I was certain to be struggling at the back end of the field as it seemed all except Matt, Ryan and Mark Radford had struggled as much as me during the day.
I packed up my kit, loaded the car and began the weigh-in with Mike and Chris.
I was 1st up to weigh, putting nearly 9lb of skimmers on the scales, then my 2 well split carp nets made the total up to 81lb 2oz....miles more than expected and more than most thought I had. Surprised really.

We weighed in the rest, seeing Chris Szakacs putting 87lb on the scales thanks to the 2nd half of the match, Brian Shanks topped 100lb as he caught well all day, then a few more weighed in before Mike Wilson put less than what I thought on the scales, Ron Hardiman pipped my weight by 9oz, I was sure he'd done 100lb, but he had lots of baby tench. Will had 51lb...well short of my guess!!

Results:
1st, Brian Shanks, Peg 85, 101-09
2nd, Chris Szakacs, Peg 83, 87-04
3rd, Ron Hardiman, Peg 78, 81-11 (section)
4th, Lee Williams, Peg 81, 81-02
5th, Alan Healey, Peg 88, 61-02 (section)

So for the 2nd week in a row I was pipped for the section money, but for a change I wasn't next to or opposite the winner!! Interestingly the top 3 caught on corn I believe, soft pellet also accounted for a few fish.
But it was a nice venue and definitely one I will return to as it's not too far really and the place is clean and tidy and will no doubt give lots of bites to all.

Weights

Next up is Viaduct's Costcutter match on Thursday, then the final round of my series on Saturday at Viaduct Cary, then Landsend on Sunday, lakes 2 and 3 with the Pawlett rabble.

Until then, take care.
Lee

PSV Match, Viaduct Campbell, 7/08/16

18 fished this latest PSV match on the ever productive Campbell lake on the brilliant Viaduct Complex.
Another nice day, weather wise, was on the horizon, so no doubt my slightly burnt knees and feet would be a bit more delicate by 5pm!!

I arrived in loads of time and sorted my kit, I was hoping for a day fishing for some skimmers or the tench, which are now a decent size, depending on the peg. So I chucked some worms, caster and a little groundbait in the carryall along with the normal meat, 6mm and 8mm pellets, oh plus some paste..!!

As usual there was a bit of banter flying around, there was a bunch of Welshies and Ade Crawley, fishing the re-opened Cary lake for the fishery match, so the car park was busy with Legacy Tackle polo shirts aplenty!

Back to my match, I fancied one of the top two corners (119 and 123), plus any of the pegs 110 to 115. Not much else floated my boat.....especially 130.
I drew 3 from the end of the rabble, there was 129, 130 and 123 left in the bucket....so a good possibility that I could be stuck with the peg I didn't want. Alas I had 129, the nearside of the spit, Will Dearlove had 130 so he was sat on my right, he had Lee Waller on his right. Opposite I could see most, but Big Pete Uzzell, Human Thermometer Adam Caswell and The 2nd Best Radford (Mark) from pegs 112 to 110 respectively were our entertainment for the day.

Re-used pic of Peg 130 on Campbell......just to break up the writing.

At my peg I set up a lead rod, a silvers rig (unused), a paste rig (2 foulers lost), a rig for banded pellet off the spit and meat rig. There was plenty of carp boshing off the end of the spit.

I wont go into detail as I had 2 carp early on the lead, then a run of 3 fish off the spit in the 2nd hour before the rest of my fish came to the lead in little spurts of.......1 fish!!
I had 1 carp on the meat rig, lost a few foul hookers on the paste rig and a few accidental silvers on all set-ups.

During the day it looked like it was fishing difficult with only my neighbour on 130 catching in a semi-consistent fashion on the lead, feeding heavy in an area of the lake that was literally black with fish turning over the lake bed, he had fish swirling at the pellets he fed, but he did pull out of a good few during the 6hrs and up until 2pm I am sure he was miles ahead.....until I spied his father-in-law (Keith Ray) on peg 115 getting a fish a chuck and was by my guesswork, going to run Will close. though I couldn't see anyone else rumour had it that nobody was doing much, someone mentioned Mr Szakacs on peg 124 caught well early then faded. Oh and John Bradford had some tench, so he'd likely to be close to winning the silvers (but Uzz opposite was skimmer bashing well).

By the all out had called my clickers showed 57lb (7 carp) and 26lb (4 carp) plus a couple silvers, I did miss the net with a near 2lb skimmer that slipped from my hand, hit a pallet post and bounced over my keepnet!! Not that I worried on that as my meagre 80-something pound weight wouldn't earn me any keep. I had 5 carp on the pole and the rest on the lead.
There were some fish in my right edge, so I altered my meat rig, only for the pesky ducks to find where I had fed...... killed that then!!!. In hindsight I reckon I may have had more by fishing longer on the pole rather than the 2+3 distance I was fishing, though it was 13m to the end of the spit where I had fished. But hindsight is not foresight!!

At the all out I was certain it was between Will and Keith, oddly Adam on peg 111 had tipped back his 13 or so carp and Lee Waller tipped his fish (some on the lead...oddly) back at 3pm.

I was 3rd to weigh after Steve Sewell had 60lb from peg 132, Lee Waller dnw, Will had 140lb then I put 83lb of carp (good clickers....happy clickers) and a couple pound of silvers for 86lb 12oz.
I didn't follow the scales as John Bradford took over on the score-sheet.

I loaded the car and made my way round to where the weigh in was going on, just in time to see Keith fall short of Will's total. A glance at the board showed Will leading , Keith 2nd and Chris Szakacs 3rd. Degsy Williams had pipped me to that section money and it looked like that bloody skimmer had cost me. Ah well.
The rest of the weigh in was done, with Pete Uzzell falling just short of John Bradford in the silvers, so again the Gimp took that pot.
Last to weigh was Mark Radford, he had the exact same weight as me, though he must have snuck them in as I didn't see him catch too much.

Weigh Sheet.

Results:
1st, Will Dearlove, peg 130, 140lb
2nd, Keith Ray, peg 115, 132lb
3rd Chris Szakacs, peg 124, 108lb

Sections, Ryan Radford on peg 119 and Degsy on peg 125

Silvers:
1st, John Bradford, peg 126, 28lb
2nd, Pete Uzzell, peg 112, 24lb

So 2 days in a row I was again next to the winner, again always drawing near fish not on them!! Good luck to my neighbours next weekend!! I still wouldn't have wanted peg 130!!

Anyways next weekend I may fish a match Saturday, or maybe a pleasure bash on the Huntspill or KSD perhaps. But a 1st trip to Todber on Sunday with PSV, now fishing Homeland lake....new venue for most of us I believe.

Until one day,
Take care.
Lee

PSV Match. Viaduct Campbell, 05-07-16

First PSV match for a while for me today. 18 or 19 of us fishing, hoping for an abundance of action from the lake's population of carp, bream and tench. After seeing the results yesterday, the 250lb+ winning weight was reduced by around 100lb, I reckoned 140 or 150lb would be there or there-abouts.

I got there early, loaded my trolley and had a bit of chatter with a few guys before we got down to the draw, I fancied 112 up to 119, the spit pegs or at a push peg 123. With the aerator on 24/7, the fish are not always comfy in the vicinity of the thing.
Everyone drew except myself and match secretary Will Dearlove, the sheet showed my nemesis peg, peg 130, still having no name next to it, or 110 and 111. So I got or guest for the day, expert angler, the one who won the Saturday open, Scott Russell, to confirm the last 2 pegs.
They were 110 and 111. So me and Will were happy enough, especially Will who had 111, the winning peg from Saturday. I had peg 110.

Campbell peg 110 (didn't go left, so no pic taken)

Plenty of time to sort tackle and bait out for the day, bait was simple. 8mm and 6mm pellets, 8mm meat and some various pellets for in the band. I did chop up some worms for silvers, but only for Will's benefit when I told him I was deliberating fishing for non-carp species!! A lead rod for various spot around the peg, an edge rig for 2+1 both sides, this gave me 1 carp off the stump to my left. and a meat rig for 10 o'clock direction and in front at 7m or so, this rig would actually do for anywhere in the peg as it was the same depth within an inch. Lastly a shallow/slapping rig was put together, but went hardly fished and fishless all day. I didn't want to fish 16m down to the brambles and risk breaking or losing tackle, so that section stayed in the holdall to starve off temptation.

The 10am all in was called and I began on the short meat line, but nothing really happened, only 2 very small carp and a skimmer in the 1st hour. Meanwhile Ade Crawley had drawn yet another flyer and was picking a few lumpy carp down to his left. The second hour saw me add a few bits on the short meat lines and a solitary 2lb carp on the meat line in the 10 o'clock direction.

A short burst of 3 fish on the lead in the third hour gave me false hope, especially as they all were only 2 to 4lb fish, none of the 6 or 7lb+ average fish. Will on peg 111 was doing similarly to me, he also had a 4 fish burst on the lead at the same time as me. Meanwhile over on the pegs below the spit, Scotty Russell on p132 was getting a few smaller carp from various spots of his peg and Alan Healey on peg 130 was getting a better stamp on the lead cast in the vicinity of the aerator, the pegs above the spit were struggling on that side.

Into the 4th hour and things picked up a little for me as I was tempting the odd carp and flying skimmer from my meat lines, not hectic but a few fish, maybe 5 in the hour, but again all around the 2 to 4lb mark. Will had started to slow down, but the fish he did land were a darn sight larger than mine. My clicker showed that I had around 40lb total, this was in the region of 13 carp at the end of that hour.
The 5th hour actually went quite well in the main, I was getting a fish, or at least a bite, on the meat pretty much each drop, although I was landing a few it seemed foul hookers were defo a problem, they would come to the feed and not really settle on it, but news came down that all the pegs above Ade on 112 had been catching quite well all day and a last chance come back was not really on the cards.

The last hour came and went, I was thinking it would be quite a good hour with the 5th hour being decent. It never happened as it slowed down for me, Will and Ade on peg 112. I could see a few fish down by the brambles to my left, I couldn't cast my lead there due to the trees and I really didn't fancy shipping out 16m to get close to them. So I stuck with the meat and only put a couple in the net and my second clicker showed 48lb. So maybe I ended with 80lb and perhaps 10lb of silvers.

The all out was called and I packed up pretty sharpish, loaded the car and waited for the scales. I spoke to Will, whom I was certain had plenty more than me as his fish later in the day were of at least average sized fish or bigger, we were certain Ade had near 200lb as it seems he had been catching Cary sized fish all day and he even afforded to tip back a good double figures of silver away to cater for his carp. Turns out it seems that he plays his fish for around 20 minutes each and was miles off 200lb.

Opposite me was Scott and Alan who both looked like heading for a similar weight to each other, though it turned out that Alan chucked back a nice skimmer on lost out on the section to Scott because of this....gert wally!! Anyways I was last to weigh and looked at the sheets to see that 119 back to 112 had done well with Ryan Radford winning the match at Chris Szcakas in 2nd spot, Ade snuck in to 3rd as he 'only' had 114lb or so. Will had 60-something pound which was well short of my guess but closer to his, so well done him. My silvers were 9lb 14oz and my 2 nets went 40lb and 50lb plus ounces. Ending with 100lb 12oz, slightly over my 80lb of carp that my clickers showed, but closer than is my norm. I ended up 8th with this.

Results:
1, Ryan Radford (118) 144-5 (mostly shallow)
2, Chris Szakacs (116) 142-2 (mostly edge fish)
3, Ade Crawley (112) 114-12 (mostly edge fish)
4, Mark Radford (115) 111-3
5, Scott Russell (132) 106-4
6, Alan Healey (130) 105-9
7, Steve Burgess (119) 103-2
8, Lee Williams (110) 100-12
9, Adam Caswell (125) 88-10
10, Steve Sewell (128) 88-2
11, Pete Uzzell (114) 86-6
12, Will Dearlove (111) 65-6
13, Ross Sewell (126) 63-11
14, Matt Powell (129) 55-0
15, Paul Preston (124) 46-0
16, Matt Williams (123) 45-8
17, Lee Waller (127) 39-14

Silvers:
1. Matt Williams (123) 20-7
2. Lee Waller (127) 15-8
3. Chris Szakacs (116) 13-13

Weights

So an average day really with the lake fishing hard, well hard for the lake, but this made for a close match throughout. Maybe I should have fish long down to my left and the bramble, but risking a broken pole or at least a day of tug-o-war isn't my idea of fun, I am sure I would have had a good few more fish but I quite enjoyed doing what I was doing and probably pulled out of or foul hooked enough carp to get in the top 3, but it seems most of us struggled on that front.

So as I have this week off, I think I may well go fishing, well fishing a couple times.
Tuesday I may venture to Acorn for the 1st time in around a year.
Wednesday I should go to Durleigh as I am up there on Sunday for the Pawlett Club's Silvers final (feeder? whip? feeder? whip? hmmmm), then on Thursday I am unsure of where to take myself although Viaduct has an open on Lodge and Match Lake.
Friday I shall rest and on Saturday I have my 3rd round of my Series on Sedges Brick lake.

Until then, have fun!! Lee

PSV Match, Sedges Brick Lake, 29/05/16

Not too long a blog for this match as it wasn't too interesting for around 16 of us!! 2 guys did well though!!

I arrived as normal, declined a cuppa as I was a bit toastie and had just finished one at home not 10 minutes before arriving at the venue. The carp were spawning everywhere and the wind was pushing from the north into pegs 1 and 20.....hmm I wonder where the carp would mostly be?
It was an impromptu pairs match also and I think I was paired with Matt Williams, alas that went out of the window at 2:30 when he and Lee Waller packed up!!

I drew peg 8, happy enough with that, not expecting to get into the top 2 in silvers or carp, but hopeful of a few bites. I had Adam Caswell on my left and Degsy Williams on my right.
I put up a silvers rig on soft 8 elastic for 14m in front. Maggot over groundbait here,
A pellet waggler (unused)
A short meat rig (fishless) and a pellet rig for a metre off the bank to my left away from the spawning fish on my right, this rig went fishless. I am not keen on fishing amongst spawning fish.
Lastly a long line mugging rig.

At the all in I started on the pole for skimmers and had a 6oz fish was put in the keepnet.
Then that was it.......
After 3 hours.....yes 3 hours I was up to 6 roach, 2 small skimmers and a 1lb eel. I had switched my laccy to 4-6 as I was bumping the odd silver fish.
Of the 14 others I could see, only Rich Jones on peg 20 was doing ok, the rest had odd skimmer and at most 1 or 2 carp. Pooe Adam hadn't had a bite and Lee Waller was walking the banks.
Tile lake behind looked to be suffering the same fate!!

As we approached the 4th hour I hooked a big eel, it simply hugged the bottom, and despite 14m of pole high in the air I couldn't shift it, soon enough the inevitable occurred and the rig flew back at me with a big mass of eel slime and a load of debris off the lake bed!!
I then had a skimmer of 10oz or so and popped the odd rudd in the net.
I managed to mug a carp at around 2:30 before getting off my box to set up a 0.1g silvers rig for topkit fishing down the edges.
I began feeding maggots down each edge and after a while was getting the odd small roach and stuff, I also managed a couple carp on single maggot, both landed on 0.08 hooklengths.
A couple foul hooked carp were lost and I stepped up to 0.10 hooklength.

At 3pm I think Adam had his 1st fish, he had his 2nd soon after, both skimmers. Lee Waller and Matt Williams had both packed up and everyone except pegs 1 and 20 were struggling.
I thought I had hooked another carp on the silvers kit so tried to quickly get back to my top kit when a nice skimmer popped up.....and fell off....teaches me for rushing!!

Then the all out came, I finished with 3 carp and I figured between 7 and 8lb of silvers, so unlikely to win any coin. As it happens, that skimmer cost me as Mike Wilson won the silvers with 10lb and a few ounces and Chris Gay had 6oz more than me with 8lb 5oz. I had 7lb 15oz plus 18lb 1oz of carp.
My 26lb was around 9th.
The top 2 on the day had over 320lb between then with Will Dearlove having 184lb 1oz to Rich Jones' 145lb 12oz from pegs 1 and 20 respectively. Matt Taynton was 3rd with 49lb+, the rest of the weights ranged from 2lb to 33lb and dnw's.

Results:
1st, peg 1, Will Dearlove, 184lb 1oz
2nd, peg 20, Rich Jones, 145lb 12oz

1st silvers, Mike Wilson, 10lb 15oz from peg 2
2nd silvers, Chris Gay, 8lb 5oz from peg 15

Pairs winners were Will Dearlove and Chris Gay.

So, hopefully, the fishing will now start to settle, hopefully, we will get some winds from the south, and hopefully everyone can start to catch a few as the fish spread post-spawning.
On a side note, looking at the match results across the area, it was defo a weekend where the fish were on the wind!!

Oh it is my last fisho attempt of 2016 this coming Sunday at Larford, would love to draw a good peg there, I haven't as yet. The wife is coming with me, so at least I have company on the trip up.

Until next time, have fun.
Lee

27/4/16 to 02/5/16, Various Wanderings......

A busy last few days for me, after my win over at Apex last weekend I was keen to get out and catch some more fish, I had the Makins Fishomania qualifier on the Wednesday, then I had right the way through to today (Bank Holiday Monday) off and fancied doing something different for my fishing on a few of these days.

So first up was the Makins match, I would love to say how I sacked up and qualified, or at least was in with a chance......it didn't happen.
A 2hr 15min drive took 4hrs thanks to M42 and M6 accidents......luckily I had the ultra keen wife with me, otherwise I would have turned around and fished elsewhere, but she insisted I carry on!! Around 20 peeps never bothered and a few reserves got on.
I got to the fishery 15 minutes after the draw had began and I waited in line to draw, there wasn't any sort of pegs I wanted, the weather was awful and we were predicted to get cold rain, snow, winds....nice!! Geoff Ringer was in front of me in the queue and was generally asked about various pegs by anglers as they passed.
I got to the draw, the missus had gotten herself a bacon and hashbrown sarnie and I plucked Thames peg 15........means nothing but got told 4lb-10lb fish is the norm and that it was not a good draw.
I toddled up the road to phase 3 and found my peg. I had Somerton and newly sponsored Dan Squire just behind me and along on Outer Avon.....he done worse than me and left before me, it was dire.

Thames peg 15, front and left (note Dan Squire in the bottom pic)

I set up half a dozen rigs, edges, middle and across and shallow.
All I caught, apart from a chill, was a handful of gudgeon, so had an early bath. The snow and rain was freezing....

The next day, Thursday, I had a late start for a pleasure session on a club water, a bit of long range feeder fishing and deep water pole fishing at Combwich.
After 2 hrs I had 2 roach on the feeder at 65 turns. Nothing on the pole in top 5 depth of water.

Combwich Pond

So I then made my way to another club lake, Dunwear, where I managed to get drenched in the heavy rain, and struggled at times to hold a pole.
I did manage around 15lb of rudd, roach and skimmers, plus I hooked a couple carp. I really enjoyed that couple or so hours on light gear.

Dunwear South Pond

Friday was a day spent with the wife, so Saturday I went back to Dunwear armed with just a feeder rod, some caster, maggot and corn plus groundbait.
I fished the Senior Lake, the largest on the complex, it holds plenty of bream and roach that don't get fished for much and can be patchy at times, though there has been some really big 100lb+ nets of bream over the last few years.
I fished for 4 hours at 48 turns and managed one solitary 6lb bream and around 15lb of roach, but I was totally roached out as my maggots came back ragged more than I care to mention. An enjoyable day though and I will have another bash soon.

Dunwear Senior Pit

So, onto Sunday, a PSV match at Viaduct on Campbell Lake, we had 19 fishing and I waited until peg 130 had been drawn before plucking peg 125 for myself.

Peg 125 Campbell, Viaduct

The match the day before showed peg 123 had 200lb to win and the pegs 124 to 129 were ok with 119, 118, 116 not brilliant.
To cut a short story shorter, I set up a meat short rig for carp and went trying to catch silvers, so had a 13m groundbait line and an edge caster rig. I also had a lead rod assembled for a carp or two.
The day went slowly for myself, Lee Waller on peg 123 who dnw'd and Brian Shanks on peg 126 who caught 3 of hos 4 lumpy carp in the last 45 mins or so, he also had 16lb of accidental silvers. Though Degsy Williams on peg 124 did well to catch 90lb or so.
I managed 6 carp (5 on the lead) and 10lb of silvers, mostly nice perch. And was again sat opposite the framers...!!

Results:
1. Steve Sewell (116) .... 139-1
2. Alan Healey (119) ..... 106-14
3. Ross Sewell (111) ..... 104-6...
4. Matt Williams (130) .... 99-2
5. Ron Hardiman (114) ... 94-14
6. Steve Burgess (128) .. 92-0
7. Degsy Williams (124) .. 91-9
8. Adam Caswell (118) ... 87-2
9. Mark Radford (136) .... 68-11
10. Will Dearlove (132) ... 68-8
11. Keith Ray (129) ....... 62-15
12. Mike Wilson (113) .... 58-1
13. Brian Shanks (126) ... 51-11
14. Lee Williams (125) .... 48-10
15. John Bradford (127) ... 33-9
16. Simon Belcham (112) .. 19-3
and 2 dnw's.

Silvers:
1. John Bradford .... 33-9
2. Simon Belcham .... 19-3
3. Brian Shanks ....... 16-9
4. Lee Williams ....... 10-8
5. Ross Sewell ..... 8-0
Ron Hardiman ... 8-0
Mike Wilson ...... 8-0

So last up is todays match on Trinity Woodlands, with 8 or 9 of us pegged along the far bank, the weather was due to get a bit pants later in the day with a good helping of rain to go with the already brisk wind.
Misha had 2 golden pegs, they were 17 and 6, with 17 the current in form peg and peg 6 always worth a good few fish. The Golden Peg was worth 100 quid and venue regular Mark Hanham drew it and would be the odds on favourite to win.
I picked peg 15, so again it looked like I could watch the winner all day....ho hum. For company on my right, well I could not see him, was Polish angler Ziggy Slowinski. He said Him, Me and Mark should fill the top 3 spaces, with Mark winning....!!

Trinity Woodlands p15 lhs

Trinity Woodlands p15

I set up a method feeder, only cast 3 times, so no more on that.
A rig for 11m down to my left, not too close to the margin as it was snaggy as hell....1 carp and a few skimmers from here along with a 2lb perch. This rig was also used by the bush to my right and here I had a small carp and 2 small silvers.
A silvers rig for 11m in front, 3 skimmers from here and a roach, plus 3 foul hooked carp lost.
A rig for shallow pellet, no fish on this, though if i could have fished it long then I reckon that I may well have caught on it.
Lastly a rig for 2+2 for meat over pellet, this gave me 1 tench and a couple skimmers (one I tried to swing in and it fell off....costly).
It wasn't an eventful match for me, in hindsight, once Mark started catching, after 1hr he was on around 8 carp, I should have just fished for the silvers.
It was a struggle for most as the wind was tricky.
I finished with 3 carp and 10lb 14oz of silvers, I was pipped to the silvers payout by Ziggy who weighed in 11lb 8oz, so that skimmer I should have netted cost me, ho hum
Mark won the match and the extra £100, he had 104lb, second was Phil on peg 6, he bagged up in the last hour or so once the wind had changed direction a little.

So a few nice days pleasure fishing away from the commercial type venues was really enjoyable.
The bream look to be spawning soon as everywhere I have caught them this week they have been all spotted up and rough skinned. But with the weather warming, swallows and swifts in the skies, things may well be picking up.....lets bloody hope so....oh and less wind would be awesome.

No idea where I am fishing next weekend, the following week I am at Shiplate with Pawlett.

Until then, take care.
Lee


P.S. I still have one or 2 spaces left on my Saturday series and I have started taking the £60 entry/pegs/payout fees, a good few have paid and I expect it to be a good series and laugh.

Psv Match. Sedges Brick Lake, 17-04-16

A shorter blog today, I hope, as not much happened for me, and a few others.
I arrived early so had a cuppa, chatted to a few guys, some of whom were fishing Tile Lake for the fishery's Top Two Series. 19 of us would be on Brick Lake.

I fancied, for the carp, pegs 9, 10, 11, 12 and maybe peg 20. The silvers, which would be my preference, would be pegs 3 to 7 and 13 and 14. The weather yesterday (Saturday) was cooled by a north-easterly wind and today looked to have a northerly, swirling wind,  but really sunny and may well affect the silvers fishing.

I drew with 4 pegs left in the basket and pulled peg 16, not ideal for either carp or silvers, I felt it was neither far enough towards either end for the fish that have followed or backed off the wind over the last 2 days.
For company I had Adam Caswell on peg 17, he want a quid side bet, and Ryan Radford on peg 15, he'd decided to go into the pools for a change given he has done well this year so far.

I set up 2 silvers rigs, one for 14m in front for maggot over a bit of groundbait and a 0.2g topkit rig for down each side using caster over caster.
3 carp rigs were assembled, a meat at 2+2 rig, a rig for shallow fishing and a rig for 2+2 to my right just up the margin shelf. All 3 of these rigs never caught anything so no more on them.
Lastly I assembled a pellet waggler.
Bait was 6 and 8mm pellets, meat, dead maggots, caster and some groundbait.

Peg 16 Sedges Brick Lake

At the all in I fed the pole lines and began on the waggler. My 1st carp was lost after 20 minutes, I think it was foul hooked. I landed my second fish, a 6lb mirror.
It then went quiet and the remainder of the first hour was fishless for me. Elsewhere pegs 8, 9, 10 and 11 were catching carp, also Steve Burgess on peg 14 was getting a few on the pellet waggler.
My 1st drop on the long pole line, with skimmers the target, saw me net a 1lb fish right away, this was a false dawn as I never had a fish on this the rest of the day....!!
The second hour saw me lose a couple more foul hookers and I got broke and got out my spare pellet waggler set up. I managed a couple more carp and a couple silvers on the topkit down the edge.

That was my day as the last 4hrs saw me not have a fish. I saw Rich Jones weigh in a 24lb carp caught shallow on the pole at 9m from peg 13. Steve Burgess on peg 14 caught a few more on the waggler while pegs 9 and 10 carried on catching a few.
Late on peg one, Steve Sewell, managed a few as did Steve O'Toole and Keith Ray on pegs 3 and 8 respectively. On my side, at my end, only Will Dearlove was catching a few, again on the pellet waggler.

At the all-out a few of us had more or less packed away so done the weigh in, beginning at peg 20 back round to peg 1.
I wont bore you with the weights, but on the pegs 11 to 20 we had Rich Jones, Steve Burgess and Will Dearlove passed the 60lb mark.
Pegs 10 back to 1 saw Mat Williams, Keith Ray, Chris Szakacs all pass the 60lb mark.
Silvers weights, well they didn't excite with 16lb or so being top and 9lb-ish second best.

Results:
1st, Rich Jones, peg 13, 108lb 4oz (10 carp to 24lb)
2nd, Keith Ray, peg 8, 95lb 11oz
3rd, Mat Williams, peg 10, 90lb 12oz
4th, Chris Szakacs, peg 9, 80lb 1oz
5th, Steve Burgess, peg 14, 72lb 10oz.

Silvers:
1st, Steve O'Toole, peg 3, 16lb 10oz
2nd, Chris Szakacs, peg 9, 9lb 12oz
3rd, Mark and Ryan Radford, plus John Bradford all had 8lb 6oz.

Weights...

So a less than exciting day on the bank, not much to dwell on and onwards to the next match.
Next Sunday I am on Apex Lake with the Pawlett group, so that could be a tough contest,  but I am currently looking forward to it.

On a positive note, Saturday saw me and Paul Wharton fish Walrow Lakes, the Snag pit, and we caught a few fish. Paul had a few roach and 4 or 5 bream, I ended up with 9 bream to 8lb or so and around 12lb of roach averaging 3oz, it was a bite a chuck on maggots or casters, not easy fishing and made a change to fish light gear in deep water.

Until next time, take care.
Lee

Psv Match, Harescombe Match Lake. 03-04-16

A last minute decision to book on for the PSV match up at Harescombe, a fishery that I like and was lucky enough to win on my last outing there. It's a good 60-odd miles each way for me, but it is a really fair venue and you are sure of a few bites throughout the day.
Results from Thursday showed that the fish, in the main, had followed the wind, but would they follow the wind today, which was blowing the opposite way to then?

I made good time on the journey up and arrived to find Matt Challenger loading his trolley.....keen bean. Nearly everyone else was up in the café chatting and eating. We wandered on up and waited to do the draw. I fancied anywhere from peg 10 up and around to 22, where the wind was pushing. The pegs at the café end were calm and I hadn't saw a fish top prior to the draw. I didn't fancy 30 round to 6, though peg 29 is always worthwhile.

Into the bag, 3rd from last, and I pluck peg 30, café end before the bridge. It has always been a peg that seems to pay second fiddle to both 29 and peg 2 as you tend to feel a bit hemmed in, I had the end of the central island 16m away off in the 11 o'clock direction, which as I am suffering from a dodgy back, wouldn't be a line on my menu.....but at 1 point I tried for 2 minutes, it hurt, I gave up.

Harescombe Match Lake peg 30.

So anyways, 4 lines for me today, all on the same lines, floats and hook size. 0.2ng Jordans on 0.14>0.10>b911f1 size 18 (or 911 standard for band).
These lines would be a left edge swim just before the infall, corn over 4mm pellets here.
2 lines at 2+2 on the diagonals, the left one for meat and maggots, the right hand one for banded 6mm pellets over 4's.
Lastly a rig for just near empty peg 1 at around 10m away from me , this would be for banded pellet over micros and 4's. I had 3 bites but no fish from here so no more on that.

Bait was live maggots, 6mm meat, corn and a few micros and 4mm pellets. Oh and some 6mm pellets for in the bands.
For company I had Ross Sewell on peg 29 to my left, and Lee Waller on peg 2, you can see him in the pic above. But I had a good view of the whole lake and could judge how I was doing.

The all in was soon called and I fed the two edge swims and began on maggots, 20 minutes passed without any activity for me, though Lee had netted a few fish. Further up odd fish had been caught.
After 20 minutes I had a random few minutes, I had a couple roach but bumped 3 better fish, so I changed the hook and hoped this solved the bumped fish issue. It had, though it was after 90 minutes that I landed my first carp/f1, a 2lb carp came to the maggots, this was followed by a couple skimmers and an F1. I was missing a few bites and did try coming shallower but this didn't have the desired effect, small roach methinks.

After a couple hours Lee Waller had done reasonably well, but most others were struggling, Matt Challenger, on the first pegged peg on the far bank (peg 18) was catching as were those from pegs 10 to 15. I had a look on the 2+2 pellet line and promptly had a skimmer and a small carp, but that was it for that line for the rest of the day.
A look down the left edge gave me a 2lb carp and a chub, then a skimmer before that area died.
So for the remainder of the match I struggled away switching between the 2+2 maggot and meat line and the left margin line. I found that meat would give me more positive bites than the maggots but I would have to wait a bit longer and the fish was less likely to be a roach or small skimmer.

As we entered the last couple of hours my clicker showed around 20lb plus I had a couple pound of silvers. Lee Waller was plenty ahead of me, he had a good few barbel alongside his F1's
I could see Steve O'Toole catching pretty much every drop on his short line, his neighbours further up from him and Matt Challenger were all catching.
It was at this point I started to catch well, both on and off the bottom on meat and maggots, picking up the occasional fish from the edge kept me busy until the end of the match, which incidentally coincided with the wind really lightening up. Maybe the fish had drifted down as the winds had eased?

The all out was called and my clicker showed 40lb, plus I had my silvers, so perhaps 48lb total. Lee Waller would have around 10lb more than me, though we probably had less than further up, especially Matt Challenger and Steve O'Toole.

I packed up and tried to get the gear away from the rain, which stopped by the time the weigh in began.
First to weigh was Ross on peg 29, he had 15lb of skimmers and a couple carp for 25lb 4oz.
I was next and my 8lb 12oz of skimmer/roach/chub was added to my slightly underestimated net of F1's and odd carp. My total was 56lb exactly.
Lee Waller popped 61lb 4oz on the scales, then Derek Lucas and Steve Burgess put 34lb and ounces on the sheet, this was between them, Steve just pipping Derek.
Steve O'Toole then took the lead with a cracking 83lb 4oz net, well fished that man.
Matty Taynton had 2oz less than Lee Waller then Lionel Legge had exactly 49lb.
Last up on the car park bank was Chris Szakacs who had 58lb 7oz from peg 15.

I left the scales at this point to go back and get my nets together and finish loading the car.
I caught up with the weigh sheet after the weigh in and Matt Challenger had taken 2nd spot on the day fishing worm over caster, he had 71lb 5oz. The rest had 24lb, 39lb and 44lb.

So a fair enough day, plenty of bites, though my first 2 or 3 hours were tough as it seemed the fish had followed the wind. But the last couple of hours were very enjoyable.
I wish there was somewhere as similar to this nearer home as it can give a cracking days sport, you don't need 100lb+ weights for a good match, just decent nets which give a close contest.
My largest fish was maybe 2lb today.

Results:
1st, peg 8, Steve O'Toole, 83lb 4oz
2nd, peg 18, Matt Challenger, 71lb 5oz
3rd, peg 2, Lee Waller, 61lb 4oz
4th, peg 10, Matt Taynton, 61lb 2oz
5th, peg 15, Chris Szakacs, 58lb 7oz
6th, peg 30, Lee Williams,56lb

Weights.....ignore Steve's results maths.!!

I have this week off and will try and squeeze a match in during the week, Viaduct on Saturday for the Fisho qualifier and then a silvers match next Sunday at Sedges.

Until then, take care and tight lines.

Lee

PSV Match. Shiplate Main Lake, 28-02-16

I was quite looking forward to this match on one of my favourite venues, the lake is full of silvers and carp of all shapes and sizes, and although a couple of pegs generally dominate it is pretty fair, especially the silvers.
I arrived at the car park in plenty of time to load the trolley and pay Alan the fees, but what was obvious was the chill in the air and the nippy north/northeasterly wind, not something fish like, especially in the winter.

After some chat and banter it was down to the draw, everyone wanted pegs 1 or 15, well except John Bradford as he doesn't do carp....I quite fancied pegs 11 to 13 and 6 to 8 to give up some nice silvers, the fish do follow the wind, but with it being cooler, they may be reluctant to feed!
Anyway I picked the 3rd last ticket and found 14 in my hand, not too bad really and I fancied it for some bites. Big Steve Sewell was on the famed peg 15 and he had John Bradford opposite in peg 1, much to the Gimp's un-amusement.

I arrived at my peg, surveyed the scene and set about sorting my kit. I had an island in front of me and at a decent chuck, affording me some open water.

Peg 14 Shiplate Main Lake.

I set up a method feeder to fish towards the island using corn, boilies and pellets on the hair.....
3 pole rigs were made up, the first was to fish in the direction of peg one at 13m with silvers in mind (10 o'clock direction), this was a 0.5g float, soft six elastic and 0.10 hooklength.
The second rig was aimed at carp mostly (0.14 hooklength) and would be for 13m in the 2 o'clock direction, but I never had a bite on that area.....
Lastly I set up a rig for fishing at 2+1 next to a small bush/tree in my left edge, this spot also remained bite less for the day.
On the bait tray I had dead maggots, caster, pinkies, 4 and micro pellets, corn and a variety of hook pellets. Plus I had a couple of kilos of groundbait mixed.

On the 10am whistle I put 5 proper balls of groundbait in at 13m for the silvers, a pot of mixed 4mm pellets and corn went on at the same distance to the 2 o'clock direction. A few bits of corn went in by the bushy tree thingy.
I started on the feeder and after 30 minutes a had a drop back and netted a 2lb carp, decent start.....but that was my only bite on the feeder all day despite trying it at various stages,
After an hour or so I tried the long silvers line and had to wait for 15 minutes for my 1st bite and swung in a 2oz roach. The odd one followed for the next few hours, interrupted by the odd small skimmer and hybrid, nothing over 4oz, but kept me a little interested. Carp were conspicuous by their absence and everyone was struggling

At around 2pm I had 1 carp and maybe 4lb of baby silvers, I had dropped down to a 4-6 elastic as I bumped a few fish due to double shipping (match on Westpool behind me), I had to catch a decent carp though as Darren North on peg 7 was now catching a few carp to mid-doubles after 3 fishless hours.
Things were so quiet that even The Gimp had put a net in for carp....!!! He'd had one.
Up on 15, Mr Sewell was struggling properly.

I decided at this point to put half a big pot of mixed corn and micros at 7m in front, hoping to draw any remotely interested carp to the area, plus the floats were getting hard to see and the wind speed had increased.
A few more fish on the long pole line, again all small silvers, before I dropped in on the new corn line. 5 minutes or so passed and I had a bite, I struck into something lumpy that didn't move too quickly, but with a nice amount of 4-6 elastic out, I thought it may have been a decent pike as it was a long fish, but alas it was one of the resident grass carp.
I did try to net it, but my 14" net wasn't really suitable, so I improvised by using my 3rd keepnet as a makeshift landing net, not for the 1st time though, and I shuffled the lump into the net. Bargain. It looked around 10lb and I went and got the angler and scales from the next peg and weighed it in, 10lb 10oz, I slipped her back as you cant retain them.
I then had a couple 8oz skimmers off the same line along with 3 little roach from the long line before the all outs were shouted. I had around 5lb of silvers a 2lb carp and the grassie, so maybe 17 or 18lb.
Elsewhere it looked like Darren North would win as he had at least 6 carp to 13 or 14lb and a few silvers.
Alan Healey landed a nice lump late on from his peg (peg 4?) and he had some silvers, John Bradford had 1 decent carp and not too many silvers from peg 1. Rumour also had it Mark Radford had 3 or 4 carp. Lee Waller had a late run of decent skimmers from peg 6 and maybe had that pay out sorted?
That was it really.

I packed up my gear and went up to peg 15 to see Steve, he had 2 little roach and a carp for 5lb-ish.
He had obviously struggled, we figured the fish had emigrated to the other end of the lake, or at least shut up shop.
The weigh in took place and I had a total of 20lb 2oz, which was beaten down on peg 11 by Mark Radford who's 3 carp went about 24lb, then Darren comfortably took the lead with over 60lb from peg 7. Lee Waller had 12lb+ of silvers to take that lead, Alan had 2oz less than myself from peg 4 then John had 12lb-ish from peg one. So I had come 3rd by a couple ounces....

Result:
1st, Darren North, 60-12, p7
2nd, Mark Radford, 23-14, p11
3rd, Lee Williams, 20-02, p14
4th, Alan Healey, 20-0, p4
5th. Adam Caswell, 12-12, p10

Silvers
1st, Lee Waller, 12-00, p6
2nd, Alan Healey, 7-14, p4
3rd, Lee Williams, 7-05, p14

Weights.....!!

So a hard day for all, Darren did well once the fish arrived/switched on, but when are we gonna get a Sunday with little or no wind?
I am surprised I didn't get any better 1lb+ skimmers, but that's fishing,

Next up is a knock-up, I think, next Saturday on either Brick or Tile lake at Sedges. No plans for next Sunday yet......!!

Until then, Take Care.
Lee