PSV Match, Viaduct Campbell, 27-07-14

14 of us lined one of  Somerset's finest lakes yesterday looking for big hauls of carp averaging 5 or 6lb, with recent match weights in excess of 300lb, expectations were high. However it had been fished a great deal last week, so no doubt the fish will have an 'off' day......

Campbell Lake from peg 110

I arrived in plenty of time and loaded my trolley, chatting to a few of the guys, including a couple I hadn't met before. Most were keen on getting the hot pegs of 128 (the inform peg!!), 110 and 119. I must say I fancied 116 or 118 myself as there are almost always carp between these pegs amongst the brambles and trees fishing back behind you to peg 117.
I had arrived with silvers in mind, unless I drew on one of the above numbers. With silvers in mind, I wanted peg 123, probably the best silvers peg on the complex.
So I paid my monies and the draw was soon made. I let most draw before me before plucking peg 126 for myself. Not a bad draw, but in my mind neither here or there for carp or silvers....

I made my way to my peg to find myself flanked by Kev Jefferies on hot-peg 128 and (again) I had Lionel Legge on my left (peg 125). Peg 123 was taken by Mike Wilson.
I took a look at the water in front of me and could see plenty of carp around, so my silvers approach went out of the window. The sun was very strong though, shining right at my side of the lake, and peeps had said shelter had been key on the better catches, hence the hot pegs having the most shelter.

Viaduct Campbell peg 126

With the carp being present I set up a few rigs, 1 for shallow pellet fishing at 13m, 1 for down my margins either side using meat and hemp, 1 for 6m in front to my left slightly and an identical rig for fishing over my shallow line at 13m. All were set up on 0.20 mainline to size 16 B911x's and middy solid 14-16 elastics. Hooklengths were 0.18 diameter.
Bait was simple 6mm and 8mm pellets, some 8mm meat, hemp and a few assorted pellets for a change in the band.
I did have some soft pellets, groundbait and dead reds for silvers, but these stayed in the carryall.
I did set up a waggler, but other than the first 10 minutes, it remained unused.

I was soon all set up so decided to go and get the rest of my nets from the car....fate? more like fanciful thinking!!
The all in soon sounded and I baited the various lines before starting on the wag, after 10 minutes this went up the bank not to be used again....
After 10 mins I had fizzing over both my 13m line and the 6m line, so I went out shallow on the pole, then I went on the same line deep, nothing in the 10 minutes doing that. So in on the 6m line with a banded 8 used for bait, 1st drop I had a knock and hit into a carp, which was hooked in the side, only for it to come off just before netting, back out and I had another indication, another fouler lost, then a 3rd. So back out long, a couple foul hooked fish lost. They were feeding, it seemed like they were mooching around.

By the end of the 1st hour I had lost a good few foul hooked carp and landed a single 3oz roach I caught shallow on banded 8mm pellet. Elsewhere Kev had landed a couple and mullered a topkit, Chris Davis over on 118 too had landed some carp and Steve Burgess (p116) had some, I think, on the pellet wag.
Lionel on peg 125 was in the same predicament as me, he'd had odd accidental silver and lost a few foul hooked carp.
That seemed to be how the next 2hrs went, I loathed to start fishing for silvers as it only really seemed that Chris Davis was catching well, though most of the opposite bank had a few, so I then decided to adapt my carp rigs into silvers rigs, swapping hooklength and hook sizes from 0.18/16 to 0.16/18. Bait would be 6mm pellet or meat pulled onto the band.

The next 3 hours was spent picking up skimmers and roach from my 6m line and left hand margin on topkit distance. I also picked up the bonus tench, but it was the tench or big skimmers I wanted, however most skimmers were 4 to 6oz fish.
Lionel had began to fish for silvers too with corn. While up on peg 123, Mike was doing well with skimmers, plenty of decent stamp fish were being netted by him, so myself and Lionel were well behind him at this point.

As we went into the last 90 minutes, my bank became more sheltered and the carp came onto the feed, which was annoying as they were now a pain in the bum and I found myself feeding 6 pellets in different spots, picking up a silver fish or 2 before I would be interrupted by a carp. Even when I tried at topkit distance in front, feeding 10 grains of hemp, I would catch a small skimmer or roach before the inevitable carp was hooked.
Mike on the other hand, although getting a few carp, was netting skimmers of a decent size. Lionel was having my sort of problems, but both of us tried to get enough silvers for the 2nd silvers pot, as we were so far behind Chris Davis, Ron Hardiman and Kev Jefferies (and pretty much everyone on the opposite bank) that we wouldn't be able to have enough in that time to make any difference.

The all out sounded and I shouted down to Lionel that I had 15lb of silvers, he admitted to 8lb or so.
Mike must have had 30lb+ easily. On the carp front, Chris Davis got through a multitude of sections and net handles etc but looked to have more than anyone I could see.
I did manage to land 8 or 9 carp in the last 90 minutes, I also pulled out of at least 10 fish ( about half fouled I think). They were coming onto the feed massively on my bank where as the far side had slowed as the sun shone on them.

I packed up my kit and collected a net I lent to Kev, he'd done well on peg 128.
Soon enough the scales were at me, a quick look at the board showed a silvers weight of 25lb from Colin Ellaway on spit peg 129. So any chances of money were gone.
Anyways I plonked my silvers on the scales and the needle spun to 23lb 5oz, which surprised me.
My carp took my total to a shade over 67lb.
Lionel's silvers went 13lb (I think) before Mike plonked 37lb 11oz on the scales, that would win the silvers.

I made my way to the car and loaded my kit away before waiting for the final tallies.
I also went and gave Steve Burgess his quid, which has been a while since I had to do that, so maybe it's his run of pound coins that'll increase over the next few months....we shall see.
As it turned out, other than Kev Jefferies on peg 128, my side of the lake was poor while 110-119 had done somewhat better.
Chris Davis took the honours with 217lb+, mostly fishing back along the brambles and toward peg 117. 45lb behind was Ron Hardiman on peg 112.

Results:
1. Chris Davis (118) ... 217-13
2. Ron Hardiman (112) ... 172-0
3. Rich Britton (114) .... 146-15
4. Will Dearlove (119) ... 138-2
5. Kev Jefferies (128) ... 132-9
6. Pete Uzzell (110) .... 131-5
7. Steve Burgess (116) ... 106-1

Silvers:
1. Mike Wilson (123) .... 37-11
2. Colin Ellaway (129) ... 25-8
3. Lee Williams (126) ... 23-5
4. Merv Sivell (115) ... 20-1

So not a great match for me and pretty much pegs 123 to 132, with the exception of Mike and Kev.
Maybe I should have stuck to my plans to fish for silvers from the off? I am sure I would have run Mike close. All in hindsight I guess.
Maybe fishing for the carp in the last 3hrs may have push myself (and Lionel) up the leaderboard?

Anyways, next up for me is another PSV match, at Landsend (match lake).

Until next time.
Lee

Clevedon Club Match, Avalon Fishery, 20/07/14

Today's match for me was the Clevedon Club match on the match lake at Avalon fisheries down on the Somerset Levels. A venue that is pretty fair, but the end pegs often do slightly better, whichever permanent peg they fall on. With plenty of silvers in the lake and a very decent head of very hard fighting carp, weights were expected to be decent, but with bright sunshine and only an iffy, yet awkward,  breeze swirling around the lake we knew it may be tricky.

I arrived at the lake to see that John Wolstencroft, Scott Smallwood and Dave Stephenson already present and chatting about various things, especially how well the River Kenn has been fishing, plenty of roach and rudd, but the bream catches have caught the eye, check out the club's Facebook page Clevedon FWAC.
I had decided to fish for the silvers today and bought baits to suit, micro's, groundbait and expanders. Also some caster and maggot for the whip were in my bag.
However, as it turned out we only had 11 guys as there was a superleague match on the Huntspill, so the usual Thyers faces were not present.
This meant that we'd only have top 3 pay outs and no silvers pool......bugger!!

The draw was made, I wanted to have the last peg and hoped for pegs 5, 19 (end peg) or maybe peg 7, with 19 being the obvious choice as it was sure to show in the overall results.
Anyway, Vic let me have the last ticket (I think) and it was peg 16, not a peg I have fished before, but one I wasn't too unhappy with, though peg 17 looked better as it was the end of the island. Peg 16 is also probably the narrowest peg on the lake and the island was maybe 20m away, but the reeds meant I couldn't get as close as I would have liked.

Peg 16, Avalon Fishery.

For company I only had Darren 'Nuddy' Vowles who was on peg 17. Further along, on peg 19, was Paul Nichols and to my right on peg 13 was Steve Bonwick.

My main areas of attack would be the pellet waggler cast as close to the island as the wind and reeds dictated, I also set up a shallow pole rig for 14.5m in front. A depth rig too fish banded pellet over this line was made up, but only gave me a skimmer, so no more on that then.
A margin rig and a paste rig were assembled, but other than a stray tench on the paste I never gave them more that 10 minutes during the match.

Baits were 6 and 8mm pellets and a sort of paste I made from wet 6's and groundbait (it turned out ok!). I did have some maggots and casters, but they were bird food!

The all in sounded at 10am and I deposited a big pot of 6's at 6m for paste over the top, some 8mm baits went over to the reeds courtesy of a catty and lastly I began feeding 6mm pellets over the long pole line via the catapult.

My match began ok on the wag with 4 baby carp in half an hour, but like last time I was down here, bites were hard to hit and the fish were swirling at the feed and hard to nail. They still pulled as strong and used the reeds as much as possible as hooklength cutters!!
By the end of 90 minutes I had 6 small carp in my nets and a couple decent hybrids, further along on peg 19, Paul Nichols had been catching most casts on the pellet wag and had switched to the pole shallow and kept the fish coming, Nuddy on peg 17 hadn't had any carp as of that point, but had lost a waggler to a tree and was doing his best to catch something, but it was slow,

As we approached 12pm I took a look on the long pole line, where I had seen a few fish swirl at the feed, plus it was fizzing like mad, so I eased off the feed amounts as I find too much fizzing isn't great when shallow fishing.
Twenty minutes on this line gave me a few roach and hybrids, sadly only 1 carp of around 4lb. This line wasn't fished again as I pretty much chose to stick to the waggler for the rest of the match.
The halfway point of the event was soon upon us and I had upped my total of carp to 8, though a couple small 1lb stockies were also netted. So I had perhaps 25lb or so.
Nuddy had one carp and a few silvers. Paul on p19 was emptying it!! I couldn't really see anyone else and nobody had taken a walk up so I guess they were doing ok.

I continued to feed my long pole line, but things didn't seem right there, only the odd swirl, so I stayed on the waggler, but had switched to a 6mm pellet in the band and lengthened the hooklength in hoping for a slower bait fall, this seemed to work and I began getting a few more fish. Though I did have to keep busy, which I what I like, and I was re-casting every 10 seconds or so, feeding every 3rd cast. I stopped feeding each cast as the fish began to follow any feed that went too far and they were sucking up tight to the island where I couldn't get my bait due to over hanging reeds.
Nuddy had a few more silvers and a couple little carp from his margin and I kept an eye on how he was doing here.

With 90 minutes left in the match it seemed peg 19 had won as he must have had 100lb or more in his nets, I was on 12 carp, maybe 32lb in total. A couple looks on my pole lines gave me a big fat nothing so it was back on the wag!
A ghostie of 6lb was a welcome bonus, but the fish began coming more regularly, this also increased my lost fish, these were simply lost as the 0.20 hooklengths were being run through the green reeds and breaking it. It was hit and hold stuff and these fish do tend to tear off at a million miles an hour.
Nuddy had also given up and decided to go and sit and watch Paul on peg 19.

At the all-out Nuddy had told me that Paul had easily 40lb in the last hour while he was sat there, so guessed him to have 180lb, I thought maybe a bit more.
I ended up with 20 carp, 5 or 6 of them being 1lb stockies, so I guess I had 60lb or less.
I admitted to Vic as he walked by that I had my usual 40lb in my net....which was true!!
I packed my stuff away and was soon down watching Paul weigh in, he had some decent lumps in his nets, plus plenty of small stockie sized carp.

Paul Nichols, part of his 175lb+ catch (p19)

His nets gave him a great weight of 175lb 3oz, well done him.
Darren 'nuddy' Vowles weighed next on peg 17, his few carp and 5lb of silvers gave him a level 15lb.
Next up was me, my silvers weighed 7lb 6oz, half of which was that tench. My 1st carp net went 42lb 3oz, my 2nd net went 40lb 5oz. So my 40lb in a net was spot-on, I just didn't say 'nets'. So 89lb 14oz was a very decent total. Slightly more than expected.

I left the scales to continue along the bank, but Vic was sure my weight seemed ok for 2nd.
I loaded the barrow and soon caught back up with the weighing in, and my net was still second as we got down to peg 7, Simon Ryall put 40-09 on the scales to temporarily move into 3rd, top bagger Andy Hembrow on peg 6 DNW'd much to some amusement.....Adie Baker on peg 5 troubled the scales with 44lb exactly. Last up was Scott Smallwood, he scooped the 3rd place pay out with a 45lb 13oz catch from peg 3.

Weigh Sheet

Results:
1st, peg 19, Paul Nichols, 175lb 3oz
2nd, peg 16, Lee Williams, 89lb 14oz
3rd, peg 3, Scott Smallwood, 45lb 13oz

So all in all it was a fair match, with the winner being the exception. My late run of fish boosted my weight, but my faffing with hook baits, feeding and presentation definitely worked for me.
I fed around 4 pints of 6mm pellets and 3pts of 8's over the course of the match and lost around 7 fish to the reeds and 2 hook pulls. My holiday fund gets a bit more added to it, which is nice. But it was an enjoyable day.

Next up for me is a match on Viaduct's Campbell Lake, with the PSV guys.

Until next time, take care.
Lee