Saturday Series. Round 2. Trinity Wildmarsh. 11-06-16

The 2nd round of my series on a venue that is not match fished much these days as it can be patchy and rarely does the high weights that people seem to crave these days.
That said, there is an abundance of species and in decent numbers too, they aren't easy to tempt though!!

With 18 fishing, including 3 sub anglers, most agreed the lake looked lovely and there was plenty of blowing and bubbles all over the lake. It was dull, warm and overcast, but no wind or sunshine for the day. We all expected it to be hard, though not as hard as it panned out!!

Wildmarsh p45 lhs

Trinity Wildmarsh peg 45

I took the money, I done the draw, leaving me on peg 45 and Vic had peg 55, both pegs I wouldn't have turned down for either carp or silver to be honest. Louis Jones had the near end peg 67, which I fancied for a few carp. Mark Bromsgrove was the other end peg on peg 44.

The rest of the day went smoothly, in fact most anglers had a quiet day with regards to being plagued by fish.
I decided to set up 3 lines on the pole, a long groundbait with worm and caster, hoping for skimmers/bream followed by some carp and eels.
The 2nd line was for carp down my left edge at 8m or so, this was fishless.
My last line was my usual topkit and caster line.
I also set up a method feeder, but this was only cast once.
Bait was groundbait, caster, worm, corn, 6mm pellets and a few maggots.

I wont go into much detail at all:
1st hour, 12 little rudd and roach on the topkit, Paul Nichols on peg 47 had 1 carp first drop.
2nd hour, 16 small rudd on the topkit, one 8oz eel on the long pole.
3rd hour, 10 little rudd on the topkit.
4th hour, 5 or 6 little roach and rudd, lost one big eel on the topkit, biting me off.
5th hour, bumped a decent fish on the long pole, then lost another big eel after it bit me off.
Last hour I had 1 rudd.

Not much happened for many people, Mark Bromsgrove was picking up better sized silvers and had a couple decent skimmers, Paul ended with a couple carp, one down the edge and the 2nd on the pellet waggler. Steve Nadin had a nice mixed bag from peg 50. Ziggy on 51 was getting a few silvers.
Vic Bush and Rich Lovering were having a silver fish battle opposite me.
Everyone else was struggling with the odd skimmer and odd carp.

The all out was called, the weigh-in complete and monies handed out. Most moaned how hard it was, it was very hard, sadly most never enjoyed it, but on to the next round at Sedges Brick Lake.

Results:
1st, Nick Harvey, 24lb, peg 61. (also perfect 12 points)
2nd, Steve Nadin, 19lb 7oz, peg 49.
3rd and top silvers net, Ziggy Slowinski, 18lb 9oz, peg 51
4th, Louis Jones, 18lb 4oz, peg 67

Weights, Highlighted = Envelope Snatchers

So the current standings at the top:
1st carp, Paul Nichols, 12pts
2nd carp, Louis Jones, 11pts
3rd carp, Brian Slipper, 10 pts

1st silvers, Vic Bush, 11pts (30lb total)
2nd silvers, Alex Nadin, 11 pts (20lb total)
3rd silvers, Nick Harvey, 11pts (15lb 11oz total)

1st overall, Brian Slipper, 3pts
2nd overall, Paul Nichols, 4pts (18 sub-points)
3rd overall, Vic Bush, 4pts (14 sub-points)
4th overall, Rich Lovering, 4pts (14 sub-points)

Scores on the doors....(silvers, carp & overall

Tomorrow I have the Pawlett Club's All-Winners final on Trinity Woodlands.

Until then, take care.
Lee

PSV Match, Staunton Court, 24-05-15

First up, I actually had a pleasure fishing session today, call it match practice or whatever, but I went over to Trinity Wildmarsh to see if I could catch a few silvers. This lake can be frustrating at times when fishing for non-carp species.
It was apparently fishing tricky and the lake looked rather quiet when I arrived.
I popped myself onto peg 27, on the spit, and decided to fish from 10:45 to 16:45.
As it turned out, it was frustrating, bites were coming in spurts, mostly skimmers and roach, but the odd 'bream', eel, rudd and perch kept me interested. I also lost a handful of fish, probably foul hooked bream, but 1 was either a big eel or tench.
I finished up with 58lb in total (I had scales with me) for possibly my best net of fish from the lake.

Around half of my catch.

Anyways back to Sunday's match, which was a PSV run event, up at Staunton Court.
I had never seen the venue in the flesh and finding out anything other than 150lb+ nets in the summer are common-ish, but there is also a nice head of silvers from roach, to skimmers, tench and eels.
The weather was due to be warm in the afternoon but a little breezy and a chance of rain prior to lunch, and this is how it turned out.

I made the 80 minute drive up the M5 and through Gloucester and found the lake easily enough, I was greeted by the other 13 anglers fishing, all seemed to be in fine fettle, especially the piss taking of Chris 'feeder' Gay and Adam Caswell........as the day wore on it was star angler Alan Healey whom was the centre of much mickey taking.
When it comes to catching a carp it was said by many that you cant blank at Staunton (apparently), but Mr Healey did his best but came up short of not catching a carp by netting one with maybe an hour of the match left!!

The venue is set at the back of an industrial complex with units/warehouse things, flanking 1 side and the other 3 sides are rather nice and generally 'green'. I liked the look of the far end pegs where the wind was blowing.
Into the draw and I plucked my ball around half way through the rabble, peg 12 was my location for the next 7 or 8 hours. It was also the noted 'bin peg', some said it was good, others less appreciative of it. Either way the swim was the only one on the lake with spawning carp in it......so frisky non-feeding carp, loose vegetation and a venue I don't know didn't bode well for my hope in a change of recent fortunes.

My view in front.....Staunton Court's 'bin peg'.

Left hand margin, Staunton Court's 'bin peg'.......better than the front view.

As I didn't have a clue on the lake I had found out that the average carp is between 6lb and 10lb, depths go over 8ft and most peeps fish shallow long and on the deck short.
3 rigs for carp were assembled, a shallow/mugging rig, a margin rig for topkit down to my left and at various distance further along.
The last rig for catching carp was for 14.5 down into the slight bay at the bottom of a ledge - this rig would also do for 2+2 at the 10 o'clock angle, both spots never gave a bite!!
The final rig was a deep shallow rig for silvers at topkit length at the 2 o'clock angle.
Bait was simple caster, 8mm pellet, 6mm pellet and 8mm meat.

For company I had silvers specialist Si Belcham on my right (p11) and Chris Gay on peg 13, he had to his left Steve Burgess in a rather fishy looking peg. Mr Gay also wanted a quid side-bet, so perhaps I would have to give out 2 quid today instead of the now regular £1 to Steve.

At the all in I began feeding 6mm pellets at 13.5m in front, some meat and caster went on the deeper rigs and I began by fishing against the reeds down my left edge and toss-potting meat over the top.
20 minutes in and I'd already foul hooked several carp and removed a few snags.
Luckily by the end of the 1st hour I had landed a couple 6lb fish, both took the bait on the drop down the edge. Some of the others had also landed a couple, Steve Burgess and Will Dearlove being two.
The silvers were plentiful, but rather smaller than expected.
At this point I fed a good helping of bait down the edge and spent 20 minutes catching silvers on that rig, I had some skimmers and roach up to 4oz, but Simon on peg 11 was now targeting these, so I left him to it and went out shallow.
15 mins of shallow fishing gave me bum all so I continued along my left edge. A few more carp came over the next hour or so, meat being the best bait.

The halfway stage of the match came and went and it seemed I was doing ok with 5 carp. But generally it was not fishing great.
Soon after this point I 'mugged' two fish on meat, so I wasted 30 minutes trying to 'mug' a few more in white water where it was obvious I wouldn't see any fish......but still my few happened to be a grand total of Zero...Nil...None.

I began to feed my topkit line to my left and soon enough fish were venturing in, but never seemed to settle and only 1 fish was had from this spot in the remainder of the match.
It was also at this point that up on peg 7 that Keith Ray began getting a bite a chuck from his right hand margin as was flying. Steve Burgess began a run of fish shallow (based on Adam Caswell on peg 8 or 9 catching a few that way) and had gone ahead of me in the fish numbers game.

We were soon into the last 90 minutes and I decided to try and pick odd fish off the shallow line in front and maybe a few would make an appearance down my left margins.
This ploy seemed to work as I put a few more fish in the net, I foul hooked a couple from down the edge but everyone was convinced Keith had won and it was between me and Steve for the bridesmaid spot..
Chris Gay had the silvers wrapped up hour before and his nearest rival was Simon, but by now he'd started amassing a few carp on his topkit fished corn.

The last 5 minutes arrived and Steve was on 14 carp, Simon 6 or 8, Keith had won, everyone else ahd maybe between 5 and 7, except Kev Jefferies (3 carp) and Alan Healey (1 carp). I was up to 13 carp and my 20 minutes worth of silvers.
Suddenly I had a bite down my margin and I was attached to a fish, Will called the all-out and I continued to play this fish, which felt bigger than the others I had caught all day.
10 minutes after the finish I landed the fish, a big ghostie of around 12 or 14lb, though it was empty after spawning (would have been maybe 17lb prior to it's reproductive activities).

I packed my gear away a rather happy chappy but was still convinced Steve had pipped my total.
I caught up with the scales as Keith was just about to weigh in, not much had been recorded thus far with several DNW's. Little Adam offered to help Keith and lift his nets in, which he accepted, but in typical Adam style a few fish missed the weigh sling but thankfully (for keith and adam) none ended up back in the pond!!
His 3 weighs went 42lb, 36lb 10oz and 32lb, which Adam deducted to 110lb 10oz within 2 seconds much to the astonishment of everyone else.....now Ads isn't the brightest but that was a touch of genius. Brilliant.
A couple other nets followed before Si put 61lb or so on the board before it was my turn, my silvers went 6lb which was nice for 20 minutes catching, then the pleasant surprise of 94lb of carp. More than expected obviously. My total was 100lb 4oz.
Next up Chris put 28lb of silvers on the scales and 26lb of carp. Steve Burgess put his 14 carp on the scales, but it turned out his were smaller than mine and his final weight was 78lb.
Last to weigh in was Will, he had 40lb 6oz.

So 2nd spot went to me, 10lb behind Keith. This was a nice result given my recent inabilities in both drawing and fishing......if there was less spawning activity and the associated rubbish in my peg then i may have had a few more.

Results:
1. Keith Ray (8) 110-10
2. Lee Williams (12) 100-4
3. Steve Burgess (14) 78-0 (section)
4. Simon Belcham (11) 61-8
5. Darren North (4) 56-6 (section)
6. Chris Gay (13) 54-4
7. Lee Waller (6) 54-0
8. Adam Caswell (9) 50-0
9. Will Dearlove (3) 41-6
10. Pete Uzzell (10) 31-10

Silvers:
1. Chris Gay 28-0
2. Simon Belcham 15-0
 

Weigh sheet



Next up is next Sunday at Avalon with the PSV guys, then the week after is Pawlett's all-winners final on Landsend Speci and John's Lakes.

 

Until then take care.

Lee

PSV Match, Trinity Wildmarsh, 09-11-14

A generally dry day was the forecast for today's match on the tricky Wildmarsh lake at the popular Trinity Waters complex in Bridgwater.
I made the very short trip and arrived in loads of time, so took a wander around the lake and dipped my nets while I waited for everyone to arrive.

Everyone soon arrived and the usual banter was made, but things seemed to stem around how difficult the lake can be.
11 of us were to fish and Misha had put, I think, pegs 6-12 and 23-30 to one side for us. However a couple carp anglers in 2 pegs between 7 and 9 put paid to that.
So after a walk along the main road bank (pegs 58-67) where there was loads of fish blowing and odd one topping, we decided to had 7 pegs along that bank and 4 on the spit pegs 26-30. All 12 pegs went into the tub, thus leaving one empty peg. I fancied a draw around pegs 60 to 62 or maybe peg 30 which is the point of the spit.

The draw was made and the golden peg was plucked, peg 26, a good peg, would be the winners bonus should they win from there. I picked my peg out towards the back end of the queue and pulled out peg 28 which is on the spit, not a bad area. For company I had John 'The Gimp' Bradford on peg 29 and Derrick Lucas on golden peg 26. Opposite me were Alan Healey and Ron Hardiman.



Trinity Wildmarsh Peg 28

I decided to set up 2 rigs for silvers and 2 for carp, plus a method feeder(initially a pellet feeder).
The silvers were both on 0.14>0.10>B611 size 18 and middy solid 8-10 set soft.
One of these rigs was a NG Caner in 0.6g  and was for topkit length as I found that this spot can do well, unfortunately it didn't today, only giving me a single bite from a 2oz roach. I fed maggot and caster over odd balls of groundbait on this spot.
The 2nd silvers rig was an NG Gimp in 0.8g and covered two spots. The 1st at 9m slightly left for maggot/caster over groundbait. The second line was for maggot/caster on the hook over micro pellet, this would be fished in the 11 o'clock direction at around 14m,
The 2 carp rigs assembled covered my right hand margin at 7m on the near shelf, the second rig was for 14m in the 1 o'clock direction, these would be fished over 4mm pellets and corn, with corn hookbait. I never had a bite of these 2 rigs so no more on them.
The method would be fished at around 20m in front.

The all in was called around 10:10 and we'd be fishing to 3:30pm.
I potted a couple small balls of groundbait at 9m and half a pot of micros with a few maggots at 14m.
Some pellets went in on the spots I hoped for the odd carp (or tench, bream or similar).
I began on the feeder, but after 40 minutes I was biteless. John on peg 29 had netted a couple skimmers by this point, but it was pretty quiet all round.
A switch to my topkit gave me a roach right away, but that was the end of that line for the day as far as bites was concerned.
Out to 9m and a bite was soon coming as a 3oz skimmer took my bait, a few roach of 2oz each soon followed before it tailed off. I potted in another small ball of groundbait and went out to 14m.
I stuck here for 15 minutes and never had a bite, so fed some more micros

We were soon well into the 2nd hour and some guys hadn't had a bite, John had landed a nice tench and Darren North on peg 30 was getting a few silvers, it was tough going.
A look on the method feeder, with some groundbait around the pellets was what I decided to do next, hoping for my bonus fish, and if by magic the tip shot round, it wasn't the carp I expected but a welcome 12oz skimmer, that was the last of the action on this!!

The remainder of the match was mostly spent switching between my 2 lines at 9m and 14m (I had fed some groundbait here by now as micros were not doing anything), I kept picking up the odd small 3oz skimmer in amongst the roach, topping up with odd balls of groundbait when bites tailed off. A pretty simple last couple of hours or so, with just the odd 5 minutes here or there looking on the 'big fish' lines without success.

As we approached the end of the match Ron Hardiman had his 1st fish, but soon after packed up, Alan Healey bumped a decent skimmer. Steve Burgess and Adam Caswell both picked up odd skimmers too. John's bites had slowed but I reckoned he had maybe 13 or 14lb. Also Brian Shanks on the far end peg of the road bank had landed a couple small carp and was getting some decent silvers too, but I couldn't see what exactly.

The all out was called and I began to pack away, Adam shouted that he thought that Brian Shanks would win, John Bradford 2nd and either me or Darren would be 3rd.
After I had put everything into the car I made my way back to my swim where I asked Darren what he had, he said maybe 5 or 6lb, about the same as me I guessed. John said he'd not got 10lb, but I reckoned on him having 14lb or so.
The scales soon arrived at us and the board showed Ron had 31lb+ then Adam Caswell had 5lb-odd and was in 2nd spot.
I was first to weigh as Derrick tipped his pound of fish back, which he caught on maggots I let him have, lol. My net of fish pushed the dial round to 11lb 11oz.
The Gimp's net pushed him into 2nd spot with 15lb+.
Lastly Darren tipped his fish, which had a bream of around 3lb in there, onto the scales. It was going to be close, the needle spun round a bit and was soon bouncing around the mid 11lb area.
His weight was called at 1 ounce more that me at 11lb 12oz.....bummer, the few bumped fish may have cost me, but then no doubt Darren and John lost a few.

Results:
1. Brian Shanks (58) ... 31lb 9oz (inc 7lb of carp...only ones caught today)
2. John Bradford (29) .... 15lb 10oz (inc a bonus tench)
3. Darren North (30) ... 11-12 (inc a bonus bream)
4. Lee Williams (28) ... 11-11
5. Adam Caswell (61) ... 5-8


Overall I was pleased with how the match went and picked up some money for my efforts, but maybe I could have done with a proper bonus fish like John's tench or Darren's Bream. Brian's weight was very good and unless a couple decent carp appeared for anyone else, it was unlikely to be bettered on the day.
I really enjoyed the day, I like it when it is challenging and makes a change from carp catches.  I may even head over there for a pleasure season soon.

Next up for me, hopefully, is a match on the River Parrett with Pawlett, I don't get to fish running water too often so I am looking forward to it.

Until then, take care.
Lee.

Pawlett Club Match - Trinity Wildmarsh Lake - 04/08/13

A quick write up today as need to pack the camping (and some angling) kit ready for a few days on a working farm between Ross-on-Wye and Hereford. They have a lake on site...Bargain. Plus the Wye is close enough for a barbel session.

The day started well, not, with me going to Sainsbury's to check the car's tyre pressures, 3 were ok and duly topped up to 'full load levels', but the 4th was down to 10psi....puncture. So that was topped up as well. I popped home to get my 12v pump, just in case I needed it later. Also informed the wifey to call a couple places to make sure they have tyres if that one is needed to be changed.

Anyways, back to today, it was a Memorial match on Trinity Waters' Wildmarsh lake, the largest on site and a good variety of tactics for many species can work. We had 29 fishing and were using pegs 1-15, 20, 22 and 50-67. The island and main spit pegs were not 'in'. Also, un-be known to me there was a gathering/presentation/grub do at Pawlett Legion after the match, which sadly I can't/couldn't make as I never knew and have stuff to sort.

To the draw, I hoped for a peg in the high 50's, 20, 22 or maybe peg 67(next to the car park). I didn't fancy any of the pegs 1-15 as I never see any consistency in the results I read from that area. But saying that the wind was pushing into that bank at a decent rate, which also meant the rain would be face on for those along that area.

Into the bag goes my right hand, out comes peg 8.......ball cocks. Not at all what I wanted and knew that any framing chance was unlikely. But I was here and so I trundled off. Eric Fouracre drew well (67) as did soon to be daddy- Vince Brown (59). Mike Davis was on 22, a peg that should be ok.

I arrived at my peg, the water was chocolate brown with a decent ripple and the rain blowing in.
I had Kev Crouch on my right in peg 7, he too was despondent about his peg, to his right was Brian Gattiss, who too admitted he wouldn't choose this bank.

My peg - Peg 8 on Wildmarsh

 



I duly mixed up some groundbait, 1.5kg in total, a 50/50 sensas Lake and sensas Noir mix as I hoped for some of the bream, tench and decent roach that live in the lake, I figured that the majority of carp would be up the other end, or at least along the road bank. I also had some worm, caster, corn, meat and paste with me.

Rig wise I had a standard running feeder rig on my S7 competition feeder rod, this would be cast 2/3rds of the way across towards the spit (in line with the 3rd tree from the right). 4lb maxima to a 0.14 hooklength and a 16 B911-f1 hook.
For the pole I set up a chopped worm and caster rig for almost 13m in the direction of the corner of the spit opposite, this was on middy solid 8/10 laccy. A 0.6g NG Caner float, bulked 18" from the hook with1 dropper. Lines/hook were 0.14>0.10>18 B911-f1. Depth was around 6ft.
My 2nd pole rig was for my margins and was 0.20>0.18> a size 14 B911x hook. This was under a 0.2g NG Margin float and middy solid 18/20 elastic. This was around 2.5ft deep close to marginal cover. Baits for this were meat and corn.
Lastly I set up a paste rig for 6m, slightly to my right on a shallower spot. Lines and hooks were the same as the margin, but elastic was a 14/16, hook was a 12 carp feeder hook and float was an NG Power Pencil(0.3g).

On the whistle I cupped two balls of groundbait/cw&c at 13m then balled 8 decent sized balls over the same spot. Some meat/corn went into each margin swim and a half cup of paste pieces went on that line.
I started on the feeder, with worm on the hook and was into a fish after 20 mins, a small carp of 1.5lb was netted, 10 minutes later a skimmer of 12oz landed, then it died. I also managed to tangle my feeder set-up so re-rigged.
Not much had been caught along my bank after an hour and people were already walking the banks.
Eric F. on p67 had a few carp though, but I couldn't see what everyone else was doing, except Mike on 22 and those right at the far end.

The 2nd hour saw me on the pole and it was hard work in the wind, so much so that I tangled my 13m rig and re-tied a new one through boredom. I did manage a couple skimmers and a few roach on worm. Kev on peg 7 landed a carp on the feeder. It was difficult for most.

The 3rd hour started with a quick look down my margins, and 1st drop on the r/h side I missed a bite, 2nd drop I was into a carp, it was netted after a spirited fight and the 4lb fish was a welcome bonus.
I never had another bite from either margin swim.
Alas, a quick look on the paste line never saw the float move, something that happened a couple of times, so that rig was forgotten.

The last 2.5hrs were un-eventful, I had maybe 5 or 6 roach upto 6oz, but no carp, tench, bream or other lumpier fish. A lot of people started packing up with an hour left, news had filtered round that Eric, Vince and  P. Furlong were likely candidates for the top 3 spots.

The all out sounded and most were pleased that the match was over. There was to be a lot of DNW's today as I could see swims vacant before the all out.

I loaded my car and made my way to the scales, when I arrived Vince was leading the way with 55lb but said Eric on 67 was likely to have more. But given the wide range of carp in the lake (1lb - mid 20's resident) means that it can be hard to gauge other anglers catches. ChrisWare had 21lb 3oz split almost equally carp and silvers.
I watched a few anglers weigh in and when it came to peg 63, P.Furlong put 43lb on the scales to move into 2nd spot. Next up to weigh was Eric on p67, he popped his catch onto the scales, registering 49lb 9oz putting him into 2nd.

Next up to bother the scalesman was me, my carp went 6lb 7oz and the silvers 9lb 1oz, so 15lb 8oz was not too bad given most people had DNW'd with less.
The scales moved along to weigh the last few and there were more low weights.

The weigh sheet (less p22 who weighed 6lb-ish)



So all in all it was a tough day and the highlight for most was seeing Chris Pike on peg 65 breaking his pole on a rampant carp, he duly lost the fish but retrieved the carbon about 30 minutes later. He also lost a lump 1st cast of the match, that snapped his mainline when the fish was near netting.

Results:
1st - Vince Brown - 55lb 4oz from peg 59
2nd - Eric Fouracre - 49lb 9oz from peg 67
3rd - P. Furlong - 43lb 5oz from peg 63

The best silvers weight went to Eric and Chris Ware with 10lb 5oz each, with my 9lb 1oz next best,

I am pretty sure I should have won the silvers, but lost track of time, I am sure if I started a shorter caster line I would have had a few pounds of roach. In fact I avoided caster over my 13m line as I was getting too many small roach taking caster or small bits of worm. I really should have adopted the fish for anything approach rather than hope for the bigger skimmers.

That'll do for now as need to get sorting my holiday stuff (I have to get a puncture/new tyre sorted in the morning as well).

Next up match wise is Thursday evening on Sedges, then I am fishing Durleigh with Clevedon. Pawlett have a match on Avalon, but I enjoyed the ressie a couple weeks back.

Tight Lines and Take Care

Lee.

28-04-13 Trinity Wildmarsh, Pawlett Club Match

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

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

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

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

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

 

 



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

Until then take care and tight lines.

 

Lee