PSV Match, Sedges Brick Lake, 24-08-14

Today saw myself along with 19 (ahem 13...!!) other guys pegged on the popular Sedges Brick Lake.
Now originally we had a full quota of 20 due to fish but we soon had a few drop outs during the week, this meant that 14 of us would be spread 7 on each bank.

I arrived in enough time, a rather full car park was my greeting due to a match on the Tile Lake.
I loaded the barrow and went for a chat with a few guys. Also I was instructed by Vic Bush to nab his tenner from Adam Caswell, an outstanding world cup bet I believe, but young Ads never had the dough, so that's one for another day.

The fancied pegs were as usual the 4 corners, p1, p10, p11 and p20, peg 3 was also a decent draw with a mixed bag of silvers and carp on that peg likely.
Me, I wanted to fish for silvers and therefore any pegs half way along either bank would be my preference. Now I always draw down the right hand bank when on Brick lake, so I would have liked pegs 3 to 8, but reality was 14 to 18 would do me.
I was 3rd last to draw and plucked the number 12, a peg I have fished before, but an iffy peg for both carp and silvers. It is probably 1 peg short of the skimmers and 11 is obviously a better carp peg, though 12 can do well of the carp are up that end in good numbers.
I wandered up to my peg to find I had Chris Gay on peg 11 and opposite I had Alan Healey and young Ryan Radford on pegs 9 and 10 respectively.

Brick Lake peg 12

I set up a few top kits, 2 for silvers, 1 shallow for carp, 1 for 6m out for carp, these 4 went fishless all day, along with the pellet waggler, so despite my efforts,  no more on these.
My last 2 rigs were a margin rig down to my left using worm over groundbait, and a depth pellet rig to fish at 13m in the 11 o'clock direction with 8mm bait in the band.
Baits were maggot, worm, caster, 8mm meat, 6mm pellet, 8mm pellet, expanded 6mm pellets and a couple of kilos of groundbait.

The all in sounded at 10am and I deposited various baits in various areas before starting on the waggler, this gave me an indication right away but it was a fouler and a scale soon came back.
I stuck at this for 40 minutes as nobody had much, but I remained fishless.
A look on the silvers line didn't give me a fish in the next hour......

It was soon 12pm and I had my 1st carp on the banded pellet, a nice 6lb fish was netted, soon followed by a 2lb skimmer and a smaller 3lb carp.
That was my action for another hour or so, it was 1:15 before my next fish, a 2lb skimmer on the banded pellet. The silvers were not playing ball for nearly everyone it seemed.
The carp were not in feeding mode either, though Chris on peg 11 had a few and lost a few due to a blunt hook!!

2pm soon came around and I had landed a good double figured common and a small skimmer. But foul hooked fish were a problem, the carp seemed to be hanging off bottom and reluctant to take a bait even when lifting/dropping or shallowing up. Over the course of the last 2.5hrs I must have hooked/pricked 20 carp, thankfully/unluckily I didn't land any and they didn't cause my swim much hassle.

Elsewhere I could see that Chris Szakacs on peg 1 landing a few, plus the guys further down to my left seemed to be having a few carp and skimmers. Oh and Chris on peg 12 was getting plenty on whatever he tried. Will Dearlove over on peg 6 had a few carp, Alan on peg 9 didn't seem like he had many (or rather I never saw him have many!!) neither did Ryan.

As we went into the last hour I had maybe 30lb of fish in the nets which seemed well behind the pace, but a 8lb fish was soon netted. As the all out sounded I was playing a 5lb fish caught on the worm down the edge, the fish were present too late as there was now swirls and tails waving in the edge. Oh well.

I began to pack up, rather annoyed that the skimmers never played ball despite my efforts, plus I struggled to get the carp to feed properly, but it did turn out to be a day like that for most except the two Chris's in corner pegs 1 and 12...!!
I soon had my kit on the barrow and waited for Jamie to arrive on our bank, I thought Chris had around 90lb and me, I thought that 45lb would be about my total.
The scales arrived and a look at the board saw Chris S. on peg 1 had 85lb+ and Alan on p9 had snuck 68lb+ into his nets. There were a couple 45-55lb nets but that's it. Mike Wilson was leading the silvers with around 12lb at this point.

Anyways, Chris Gays nets went over 98lb to push him into the lead.
My nets weighed a total of 59lb 9oz, this included 6lb 8oz of silvers, which although at this point would have gave me 2nd in silvers by default, but that was unlikely to last as I was told that Colin on peg 17 would have a good amount.
Peg 14 never weighed before young Adam Caswell plonked 57lb 12oz on the scales, Colin had 17lb 5oz of skimmers in his 28lb 6oz net (peg 17) and Rich Jones had 51lb 5oz off peg 18. Peg 20 dnw'd.

So my net was enough for 4th on the day, which was frustrating as I am sure a couple more fish would have been possible from my peg, though 87lb was unlikely for me I think.

Results:
1st - Chris Gay (p12) 98lb 8oz
2nd - Chris Szakacs (p1) 87lb 2oz
3rd - Alan Healey (p9) 68lb 14oz
4th - Lee Williams (p12) 59lb 9oz
5th - Mike Wilson (p3) 58lb

1st silvers - Colin Elaway  Butler (p17) 17lb 5oz
2nd silvers - Mike Wilson (p3) 12lb 9oz

So a tricky day all round with lower than expected weights, especially the silvers. But I enjoyed it and am glad the rains stayed away.

I am unsure what is next up for me, maybe I will venture to Summerhayes next sunday as I don't have a scheduled match as Plantations have stopped summer matches.
The following week I have Pawlett's day out at Walter Lake/Ridgeway in South Cerney, a canal/lanes type venue I fished last year for an Maggotdrowning match, that's on Saturday. The following Sunday sees me at either Viaduct Campbell or even the Huntspill at Wooolavington....decisions!!

Until then, Take Care.
Lee

River Huntspill, Withygrove, Pawlett Club. 17-08-14

Today was the club's match on the famous River Huntspill, with the Withygrove section being the area used, with 22 of us fishing we had 11 on each side of the bridge.
I grew up fishing the 'Spill and part of the reason I stopped match fishing previously was the decline in numbers fishing matches on this river (plus the KSD and Bridgwater/Taunton Canal).
Also the fact the banks had been totally changed since yesteryear with plenty of reeds and weed in the venue, plus it is clearer and fishing is tough at times.........predation too hasn't helped.

I arrived in plenty of time despite not getting to sleep until gone 4am..!! A short while was spent chatting before everyone was ready to do the draw. I fancied a pug upstream towards the motorway, so permanent pegs 155 and 154 would be good, otherwise maybe pegs 147, 148 or 149. All these pegs are a touch wider than others and often hold a few more skimmers and bream.
We paid our dues and the golden pegs were picked. I waited 'til 3rd from last before plucking my peg, that turned out to be number 151. Not too happy, not too dis-pleased.

River Huntspill, Withygrove, p151

After getting my kit over the gates and back onto my trolley, I made the long-ish walk to my peg...........we have it so much easier on commies, especially given we carry tonnes of kit!!

At my peg I surveyed the scene, the wind was rather strong so I didn't bother with the pole (that's twice in 2 weeks!!). I had some weed that was patchy right up to about 11m out, which could be a pain when playing fish.
So I set about mixing my groundbait with bream in mind, 21/2kgs of Sensas Red Lake, 1/2kg Sensas Bream and 1/4kg of Sensas squid/octopus just to add some fishmeal type scent to the mix, plus it does help binding.
I had on the side tray some hemp, caster, worms and maggots.
I then set up my tackle, this was a 3.5m whip and 2 feeder rods and 2 waggler rods, but I wont mention the wagglers again as surprisingly I never had a fish on it all day, I though they'd be bankers.
My feeder set-ups were one on braid with a 2oz open end cage feeder, the 2nd was on 4lb mono and a standard 25g open end drennan jobbie. Both rods had 0.10 hooklengths of 2ft and size 18 B611 hooks. I also had some method feeders with me as I know peeps have been catching on that once the skimmers arrive, mostly using a couple maggots as hookbait.

The all in sounded at 10:30 and I fired around 10 tennis ball sized balls of groundbait over my feeder line, some maggots were chucked on the whip line and some hemp/caster went out to around 18m for my waggler. I had hoped to fish the wag further out but wind decided that I shouldn't.
I began on the larger feeder for half hour before swapping to the smaller one.
Not much happened for a while with myself, Vic Bush(p152) and Eric Fourace (p153). My 1st fish came in the form of a 6oz skimmers, the time was 12:15,
The angler to my right on p150 had been catching a few bits on the waggler. That's all I could see, though word filtered down that Giffy and Keith Clapp on 148 and 146 respectively, had caught a few fish each.

My next fish arrived thanks to the whip, a single 3oz perch. Back on the tip I waited a while before another skimmer was netted at around 2pm. This was soon followed by a little roach on the feeder and another roach on the whip.
Not a lot was happening, but Vic had landed a couple fish on the feeder, but he wasn't catching the world on fire either.
At around 2:30pm a solid pull round on the tip saw me connect with something substantial, I gingerly played it in and was pleased to see a bream of about 6lb surface out in front, only a couple turns from netting...........then bam!! A big swirl on the surface saw a pike (not a big one either) attack my bonus, sadly the poxy pike was pulled off my hook......bollocks!!
Next cast saw a smaller bream of about 2lb engulfed by said pike, then a decent perch was made lunch by my new resident fish........poxy friggin pike!! Nearly 10lb of fish stolen off the hook in a mad 15 minutes.

Soon after I had a stroke of luck, I landed a perch of 5oz and a 4oz eel. I also managed to snare a big bream/roach hybrid of around 3lb, it took my maggot hookbait on the retrieve......I actually thought I was attached to a pike so I bullied it a bit before realising it was a 'countable' fish.
So with and hour to go until the 4:30 finish I had around 5lb I thought.
Vic had landed a decent proper bream and a few other fish.

The last hour flew by without a fish, but I had switched to worm and maggot cocktail hoping for a proper bream or a couple skimmers.

I was soon packed away and took two trips to the car before catching up with the weigh-in.
A glance at the board saw 2 weights of 8lb+ on the pegs below the bridge. No other weights of note.
I managed to get to see Keith Clapp on peg 146 put just over 20lb of fish on the scales before Giffy on peg 148 amass 16lb exactly.
Peg 150 weighed in 6lb 8oz, I honestly thought he'd had close to 10lb as he'd been catching small fish most of the match, plus a couple skimmers. But his last hour was poor.
Next to weigh was me, and when I pulled my net out I could see I had around 7lb, but everyone was keen to see my hybrid, I reckoned on 2nd look, that it was pushing 3.5lb, It was a gorgeous fish, in hindsight I should have taken a photo.
My weight was infact 7lb.

Next to weigh was Vic Bush, I thought he'd be on around 10lb or more, but the scales gave him 8lb 14oz,
I didn't follow the scales any further but made my way back to the car park.
I chucked my nets in the car and waited for the board to arrive back, which wasn't too long. The last few weights had been less than mine and no proper bream were caught from the end couple of pegs.

Mark soon called the results and dished out the winnings, surprisingly I had picked up the section money by default x3, with the top 3 overall coming from my section.

Results:
1st Keith Clapp, 20lb 1oz from p146
2nd Giffy (Chris Ware), 16lb, p148
3rd Vic Bush, 8lb 14oz, p 152

Sections went to myself and Vince Brown.

Weigh sheet

So all in all it was a tough match and that poxy pike cost me at least 3rd, probably 2nd. But cant be sure as fishing isn't that simple.
I do enjoy non-commie type venues where silvers are the target, sadly we don't see many matches on these venues.

Next up for me is a match on Brick Lake at Sedges, with the PSV mafia.

Until next time, tight lines.

Lee