PSV Match, Sedges Brick Lake, 13/07/14

This weekend's foray saw myself and a dozen other 'men' heading towards the Sedges Fishery in Bridgwater, for what was expected to be a good match with decent weights.
Pay outs would be top 3 and top two silvers.

As usual I arrived in plenty of time for the 9am draw and the lovely Denise provided me with a nice cup of tea, now she is like me in the use of tea spoons, so please bear in mind when you are there that 1 spoon is to tip your sugar in the mug, another is used to stir the drink - separate spoons!!
Anyways, Sedges were also holding one of their 'top-two' series of matches on Tile lake, where the anglers are only allowed to use the topkit of their pole only, no other sections allowed, it's very popular and with catches to 160lb+ and fish to 20lb+, it is fun. There were a good few anglers present all enjoying the craic.

Back to PSV's match, most of the guys fancied the usual pegs, 9,10, 11, 12 and maybe 20 for the carp weights, pegs 3, 5, 7, 14 and 15 for the silvers. Personally I hoped for 9 or 10, and given I haven't even been on these 2 pegs, I knew that was very slim.
Adam Caswell usually nets a corner in these matches as it gives him dry land to snag up on, and true to form he drew peg 1 and only ended up hooking the end bank no less than 3 times.....
Steve Burgess never drew a corner so that made a change for him, but Chris Szakacs (p11), Darren North (10) and Mark Radford (20) were lucky enough with the balls they chose.
Me, well I picked peg 14, so silvers were my main target should I not get carp within the 1st hour.

Sedges Brick, Peg 14

For company I had Lionel Legge on peg 15 and on peg 12 was Ryan Radford.
Arriving at my peg the first thing I noted was the stiff breeze push across at me and slightly right to left, so any kind of distance for the pole may be a struggle and feeding with the catapult would be tricky, especially the 8mm pellets for the wag/lead line.

I never had worm/caster with me due to my pure laziness of buying any, it is a great bait on these lakes.
My baits I did have were 6 and 8mm pellets, some 8mm meat and some expanders for the hook. I also mixed up a kilo of sonu crushed expander/sensas lake/sonu method mix in a 40/40/20 per cent mix, this was well wetted and riddled twice to create a lovey fluffy mix. I did have some 10 day old maggots which remained pretty much unused as I think I would have been 'bitted out'.

Rigs were:
NG Decker in 0.6g , 0.14>0.10>B911f1 size 16. Elastic was solid 6. To be fished at 13m slightly right over groundbait for skimmers.
NG Power Pencil, 0.4g, 0.20>0.16>B911 size 16 with a band on a hair. Laccy was solid 14/16. Fished at 13m to my left a bit with an 8mm pellet in the band over 6's and 8's fed mostly with the catapult.
NG Power Pencil, 0.3g, 0.20>0.18>B911 size 14. Laccy 14/16 again. 2+2 line with meat over meat.
NG Margin 0.2g, 0.20>0.16>B911 size 16 again with a band and 14/16 elastic. Shallow 13m line over the pellets, but remained unused.
NG Margin 0.2g, 0.20>0.18>B911 14 for use with meat tight in close, but remain pretty much unused.
I also set up a waggler and a lead for just short of the central rope. Both for 8mm pellets in a band.

Anyways after an hour I was ready, which was good as the all in was at 10am (well 10:10am).
I cupped in 2 lightly squeezed balls of gb on that line, a decent cup of mostly 6's on that line and a small amount of meat on the 2+2 line, which I would top up every 20 mins with 8 cubes of meat.
I began on the waggler, which was tricky in the wind, but I stuck at it for 20 minutes without a bite, and those I could see hadn't had a fish either. Switching to the lead gave me a skimmer of 12oz first chuck, but this was a false dawn. I spent the next 40 minutes fishless rotating the lead and waggler.
By the end of the initial 60 minutes a few carp had been caught including Brian Shanks on peg 9 and Adam on peg 1.

The 2nd hour saw me switch to the groundbait line and my tactics would be mostly to get some silvers, this proved fruitful and I began picking up the odd skimmer and roach. But it wasn't prolific, well not as prolific as Chris Davis on peg 3, he seemed to be catching at around 5m, but had calmer water and could feed accurately by hand. The 2+2 line was hopefully going to be my banker later on in the day.
As we headed into the 3rd hour I kept trying the lead/waggler but without success so I left them alone for the rest of the day. The pole line at 13m was really tricky to fish in the wind, but gave me odd skimmers. By now I had around 10lb of silvers in the net, which seemed ok. I had to keep switching between my pellet line and groundbait lines to keep fish coming, with the 8mm banded pellet being slightly better. It seemed like I had to keep feed going in on the pellet line, yet the groundbait needed leaving once cupped in, but would give me a longer run of slightly smaller fish on 6mm expanders or 8mm meat.

Looking around as the clock came to 2pm led me to believe Brian Shanks (p9) was well clear, he'd had plenty of carp on the wag and odd one on the pole. Adam had a few carp. I also heard pegs 20 and 11 were catching too. Over the other side Chris Davis was bagging away on silvers and I guess he had around 40lb thus far, plus a few rogue carp. The others were catching odd skimmer and carp.
This hour also saw me land a couple carp on the light set up, these did take a while to net though, especially the bigger of the 2 which was around 10lb.
I also gave the 2+2 line a try which gave up a 2lb tench and a 1lb skimmer, but that was my action from that line for the match.

The last couple of hours flew by with me netting a few more skimmers and roach by switching between the 2 longer lines, but presentation was hard as was holding 13m of carbon.
Lionel, next to me, was picking up odd skimmer and had a carp, but I could see elastic regularly being stretched further down to my left, which I had hoped would be carp as I was hoping to snatch 2nd silvers money, Chris Davis was bagging 3 fish to every one of mine so he was well clear in the silvers.

The all out sounded at ten past five and we all began to pack away, I had a couple carp and I thought just over 20lb of silvers.
Lionel packed away and tipped back, I figured Brian must have 100lb as he was on his 3rd net. Chris Davis looked like he had a comfortable 50lb of silvers plus some carp. That was really all I noted really. But everyone seemed to say the carp came on well in the last hour, which rung true for most. I'd just tried to keep putting skimmers in the net.

I wandered down the lake, just in time to meet Adam, who'd decided to be his usual keen self and wanted to start the weighing, he said he'd had 9 carp but lost 13 lumps (re-occurrence of weekly tale).
So first to weigh was Chris Szakacs on peg 11, his total was 93lb 13oz. Ryan was next with 33lb and then came me, my 2 carp gave me 14lb 5oz, added this to my under-estimated 40lb exactly of silvers gave me 54lb 5oz.
Steve Burgess weighed in next, I expected to give him a quid for a change, but it turned out he'd caught a few carp and totalled 50lb 4oz included in this was 15lb of silvers.
Ron Hardiman put 20lb 10oz of silvers on the weigh sheet from peg 18 before Mark Radford's 85lb 9oz moved him into 2nd spot form corner peg 20.
Peg 1, Adam Caswell, weighted around 60lb of fish.
Peg 3 saw Chris Davis pull out a great net of silvers, 2 weighs of these produced 67lb 7oz while his 52lb+ of carp pushed his total to 119lb 9oz.
As we shuffled along the bank we had 28lb to Mike Welling and 64lb+ to Alan Healey, then was Brian Shanks on peg 9. We knew he'd done 100lb, he said just under, but we were not surprised to see his weighs amass 118lb 7oz, just pipped by Chris Davis for the win.
Lastly saw Darren North put 36lb 3oz on the scales.

I soon made my way back to my kit and loaded the car before the winnings were presented.

Results:
1st, Chris Davis, p3, 119lb 9oz
2nd, Brian Shanks, p9, 118lb 7oz
3rd, Chris Szakacs, p 11, 93lb 13oz

Silvers 1st, Chris Davis, 67lb 7oz, p3.
Silvers 2nd, Lee Williams, 40lb, p14.
Silvers 3rd, Ron Hardiman, 20lb 10z, p18.

Weigh Sheet

So I picked up the Silvers winnings by default, putting some more money in the holiday pot. Plus my quid from Mr Burgess, which goes into my car-park fees pot.
It was an enjoyable match, if not spoilt a bit by the wind and the fish taking a while to get their heads down. Chris' net of silvers was brilliant, he caught on 8mm meat over 8mm meat at 5m for most of the day.
I wish I could have caught on the same line from my peg, but feeding by hand was difficult with the wind. But I am pleased enough with 40lb of silvers and in a way I am glad I didn't hook many carp, landed 2 from 3 I actually hooked, the 3rd fell off at the net as it was hooked in the pec and looked 3lb or so.

Next up for me is a match down at Avalon with Clevedon next Sunday, which could be good, I do hope to get the better of the carp this time around and will take my stronger waggler set-up this time round. Plus I have put my 3.5m whip in my holdall.

Until next time, take care.
Lee

P.S. Sedges' top-two match on Tile Lake was won by Vic Bush with over 160lb with plenty of back up weights, he fished mostly worm and paste. Tile lake is currently on fire at the moment with various match records going almost on a weekly basis,

Pawlett Club, Silvers Winners' Final, Quantock Lakes, Nether Stowey. 06-07-14

Today was the club's dedicated match to all those who had won the a silvers match or had the best silvers weight at matches during 2013, I qualified by winning the silvers at Viaduct in early 2013 in freezing conditions.

Anyways, we had 16 fishing today on a lake which 12 of us or so hadn't seen up close or fished. The venue was chosen by Dave Nash, he likes the place.
It is set in the ground of a converted barn set-up which is used to host weddings, in fact I went to have a look yesterday but turned around at the entrance as I didn't want to gate crash someone's special day.

I arrived at the sensible hour of 8:15 for a 9am draw. A few guys were there already and had a look around, there seemed to be a good few carp at each end of the lake, these fish wouldn't count as its a silvers match. The owner told us that there was bream, skimmers, roach of a decent size and some rudd and perch. He said there were no eels or tench!!
We did the draw at just before 9am and I pulled my ticket halfway down the queue and out popped peg 9, last peg on the side bank up the far end of the lake. For company I had Jamie Cook on peg 11 (end bank peg) and on peg 8 I had Dick Hurford. I could also see Jason King and Mike Davis opposite.

I arrived at my peg to see that there were a few carp in the upper layers, but not much in the way of silver fish activity.
I decided to set up a small waggler for just past my 13m pole range, 2 top kits were assembled (both NG Silverfish Caners on 0.14>0.10>B911f1 size 20 to 6/8 middy elastic. One was 0.6g and the other 0.3g) and a 3.5m whip was rigged up too.

P9, Quantock Lakes. Nether Stowey.

Bait wise I had mixed 2.5kg of sensas lake and sonu crushed expander mixed 50/50 and riddled 3 times and mixed on the dry side. I had 1pt of each maggots and caster, plus some corn and 4mm expanders for the hook.

I plumbed up a line for 13m and found 4.5ft, this was the same depth right the way in until we got to the top kit +1 line where I found the bottom of a shelf where it was 6" shallower. The waggler line was the same depth as the long pole.
The whip was set to fish shallow, but in hindsight I used a float which was too heavy, but we had a brisk wind which increased during the day.

I was ready in plenty of time, so I was ready at the all-in. When the 10:30 was called I cupped in 4 small balls of groundbait at 13m along with a few casters, maggots and expenders in. I was to fish the heavier float on this line. Alas I wont mention this line again as I never had a bite on it before the wind got too much, it also became too awkward for the waggler so that wasn't used other than a couple chucks (did give 1oz rudd each time).
I then cupped in some caster and maggot at the top kit +1 line before throwing some maggots at the whip line.

I began long and remained biteless for half an hour, with the guys I could see also not catching, though further down I could hear that a few carp had been hooked plus some silvers.
I came short to the +1 line and managed a couple 1oz rudd, but it was quiet. All the while I had been feeding the whip line.
After the 1st hour I had a handful of 1oz plips and that was it, Mike over on peg 12 had a nice silverfish of some sorts.

Into the 2nd hour and I had a look on the whip line, this gave me plenty of bites, but the fish didn't seem to get any larger than a couple ounces. This hour was pretty productive compared to the 1st, I put about 25 fish in the net for probably a pound or so. I also noted that Eric Fouracre had landed one of the non-existant eels and Jamie Cook had began his carp-quest.

The start of the 3rd hour saw me look on the pole lines, without success, so I decided to stick with the whip line, however I did have the occasional look on the short pole line plus I tried the pole rig over my whip line in case any better fish were present on the feed that would have gotten to the lake bed.
I found that on the whip I would get a couple bites and then the fish would move up or down in the water. A switch to feeding nuggets of my groundbait every 3rd fish definitely helped bring bites.

So the last 4 hours were pretty much spent on the whip picking off fish averaging maybe an ounce, with the odd bonus 2oz fish!! Jamie meanwhile was bagging loads of carp, I think he hooked around 25 during the day, landing a good percentage. Rumour had it that Vic Bush had landed a couple decent skimmers and a few other guys had some nice roach, rudd and odd skimmer too. So I wasn't doing great.....

The all out was called at 16:30 and I thought that I had 5lb of bits, a mix of roach and rudd, but no better fish, casters didn't make a difference to the size, plus I tried towards some reeds in my margin, but that area gave me even smaller fish, I had 150+ fish by the end of the match, but with a lot of them weighed 1/2oz each or less.
I packed my kit away and soon found the scales at my peg, with Dave Nash, Vic Bush and Pete Manning all put double figures on the scales. I also knew Eric Fouracre had around 10lb from what I could see.
I tipped my 5lb of bits onto the scales and it swelled to 8lb 12oz. which at that point gave me 4th spot.

I continued to pack away as the scales made the way along the far bank, and from what I could tell, I had more than those anglers with the exception of Eric.
Back at the car park I loaded the car and waited for the results. There was lots and moans though, but it was a fair venue, if not ideal or liked by many. Dave Nash likes it though as it suits his fishing.

The results were called:
1st Dave Nash - 12lb 9oz - peg 1
2nd Vic Bush - 11lb exactly - peg 5
3rd Pete Manning - 10lb 10oz - peg 7
4th Eric Fourace - 10lb 7oz - peg 19
5th Lee Williams - 8lb 12oz

Section winners were:
Chris 'Giffy' Ware (pegs 1-8) with 4lb 11oz off peg 6
Eric Fouracre (pegs 9-22) with 10lb 7oz off peg 19

My weight was good enough for 5th on the day, but if Eric had landed 4oz more then I would have won the section, lol.

Weigh Sheet.

So all in all it was a fair match, plenty of carp made an appearance, but thankfully I never connected with any. I fed 3/4pt of caster, the same of maggot and almost 2.5kg of groundbait, I enjoyed the fishing, just a shame I couldn't find a bonus fish or 10....a lot of the better roach (4oz+) were caught further back down the lake where the wind was stronger.

Next up for me is a match on Sedges with PSV, it is on Brick Lake.

Take Care.
Lee