11-04-15. Gary Bull/England Disabled Fund Raising Event, Summerhayes Fishery, Bridgwater.

Today wasn't about the fishing (which for some was a bonus), but it was organised and arranged in large by Mark Cox and Norman Sterry. The ambition was to raise a bit of money to help the funding to send Gary Bull and the England Disabled angling team to Portugal for their World Champs.

There were plenty of donations to the raffle from many people and companies, so massive thanks to them (the list will be on the Gary Bull Fundraiser page of Facebook).
Summerhayes Fishery was the chosen venue and Pete (plus he amiable team) were a great help.

I arrived at the lakes around 7:15 and there were still a few people there but I managed to find myself indulged in the sorting of things, mostly helping with the 'admin' side of things, oh and the weigh in!!
There was plenty of banter flying around and we had a few very good anglers fishing as well as a couple of guys who'd never fished a match and a fair few venue regulars.
These guys included Des Shipp, Vince Brown, Alex Murray, Giles Cochrane and plenty of other very capable anglers.

The draw was meant to be 8:45 and fish 10:30 to 16:30, but in the moment of re-jigging the sections/payouts as we had a few no-shows. We began the draw, with raffle tickets being sold at the same time. This went smoothly enough, but by the time 47 of the lads had drawn and mine and Mark's pegs were left, we still had to sort the monies and envelopes etc.....I pulled peg 5 on Sellicks and left Mark with 10 on Longs (although someone else was on there....ooops, but sorted). It left us both with 45 minutes less than everyone else to get ready.

I unloaded my car and rapidly got to my peg, it was windy!! I didn't know if it was good or bad, but a few guys said its ok for both carp and silvers,
I set up a small feeder and 3 top kits for the pole, 1 for silvers at 11m, a deep rig for tight over with carp in mind but could be shallowed as was for banded pellet, a margin rig for top kit+1 to my right with meat and a rig for meat at 13m (no fish caught here).

Summerhayes , Sellicks peg 5.

I sorted my bait out, 6mm meat, dampened 6mm pellets, a few maggots and some damp micros. I also had some groundbait mixed as I planned on 2 silvers lines, one with micro and 2nd with the groundbait.

At the all in I fed the relevant areas and started on the feeder, 20 mins later I switched to the pole and quickly foul hooked a couple carp which came astray. It was hard going it the awkward breeze and the fish didn't seem intent on joining the fun.

The rest of my match was spent rotating all my lines, I managed to snare a 4lb bream on the feeder and a few smaller skimmers over the groundbait, my micros line only gave me 1 bite.
My best line was my right hand margin which gave me 6 of my 8 carp, but they were on the small side.
The silvers never really got going in my peg, but further to my right Ray Wickham was getting a few up to near 6lb, but he'd not entered the silvers pools. Down to my left someone was picking up a few decent skimmers and odd carp.  It was tricky for everyone I could see. The lad on peg 6 also packed up early as he was biteless.

As we headed to the end of the match, rumour came in that Des Shipp on Longs peg 37 was doing really well, he had plenty of room and you don't give 'possibly' the best angler in the room any advantage. Also Vince Brown and Scott Russell on my lake were doing ok. Lilly lake was consistent and Longs was seeing a few people catch some fish late on.

View down Sellicks and you can see Lilly lake in the background

Looking over Longs, note Des Shipp's 'spacious' peg!!

The all out sounded and as I had been nominated for weigh sheet duty, I packed up just my top kits and moved my kit to one side to sort out later on!!
I reckoned I had 20lb of carp and 5lb of silvers but nowhere on the lake or overall.

The weigh in started on Longs and we worked our way through the pegs with 26lb and 24lb (14lb+ silvers) the first couple of weights, then we move around a few more anglers to find Paul Homewood on peg 14 put 30lb on the scales, we soon got to Alex Murray on peg 17. He had 64lb+ from what looked a really wide peg, nice. Jamie Rich down on peg 19 amassed nearly 20lb of silvers that included 4 big bream, a very decent silvers net.
We headed up the road bank to see Giles Cochrane and Dom Sullivan put 49lb+ and 44lb+ on the board respectively. Then Glyn Wickham showed his silvers fishing skills and placed a top silvers net of 25lb 9oz. Last on Longs to weigh was Des Shipp, he had 1lb 1oz of silvers before his 2 weighs of carp went to a limited 80lb (knocked back from 87lb 15oz).

Next up we weighed one side of  Sellicks which saw me weigh 32lb+ and 34lb the only weight better on my side of the lake (section) but Ray Wickham did catch 17lb of silvers from peg 3 and the lad on peg 7 (Steve Rees) had 12lb+ of silvers too.
Lilly gave consistent fishing with a good few nets between 30lb and 42lb, Bob Gullick winning the lake(section). There was a silvers net of 12lb off this lake to Tony Welsby.

We moved back to Sellicks to weigh Paul Preston who was the last angler in my section, then we weighed the far side of the lake.
Vince Brown, a very tidy angler, put a healthy 10lb 3oz of silvers on the board, topping this up with carp moved him to 2nd spot with 69lb+.
Gary Bull himself weighed in 31lb and there wasn't much more until Julian Nurse plopped 29lb of topkit caught fish on the scales. Lastly was Scott Russell on the end peg. He did well to catch 10lb 13oz of silvers and another 40lb+ of carp.

All the weigh sheets!!

 



 



Results, top 15:

1st Des Shipp 81lb 1oz (revised from 89lb) (longs p37)

2nd Vince Brown 69lb 3oz (sellicks p14)

3rd Alex Murray 64lb 12oz (longs p17)

4th Scott Russell 52lb 7oz (sellicks p23)

5th Giles Cochrane 49lb 2oz (longs p29)

6th Dom Sullivan 44lb 9oz (longs p33)

7th Bob Gullick 42lb 7oz (lilly p2)

8th Paul Clayton 38lb 13oz (longs p27)

9th Glynn Wickham 37lb 2oz (longs p35)

10th Gavin Jones 36lb 7oz (lilly p3)

11th  Andy Gard 34lb 7oz (sellicks p8)

12th Simon Hales 32lb 15oz (lilly p8)

13th Lee Williams 32lb 5oz (sellicks p5)

14th Gary Bull 31lb 8oz (sellick p15)

15th Andy Hembrow 30lb 5oz (lilly p11)

Silvers, top 6:

1st Glyn Wickham 25lb 9oz (longs p35)

2nd Jamie Rich 19lb 13oz (longs p19)

3rd Ray Wickham 17lb 1oz (sellicks p3)

4th Geoff Boycott 14lb 13oz (longs p4)

5th= Steve Rees 12lb 11oz (sellick p7)

         Chris Boulton 12lb 11oz (longs p6)

 

So overall I did ok really, 2nd overall in my 10 peg section, 3rd silvers in section (6th lake) and 4th on the lake overall. I did lose a few foul hooked fish and maybe I could have done better if I had been able to fish across better.

 

After the weigh in I sorted the payments out and everyone had a burger given to them courtesy of Summerhayes.

We held a minutes silence in memory of Clive Cunnigham who sadly died this week, he was a part of the furniture at the lakes and will be missed by many.

The presentation was done and as the payment were well spread, there were no less than 17 different anglers picking up today.

After that we held the raffle which was popular as there were plenty of super prizes to win.

 

OVERALL WE RAISED OVER £530 TOWARDS THE COSTS NEEDED BY GARY BULL etc...

 

Des Shipp, today's match winner. (pic pinched off Norm Sterry..!!)

So again a massive well done and thank you to all involved.

 

Next up for me is tomorrow at Sedges in a silvers only match.

 

Until then take care.

Lee

PSV Match, Shiplate Hawthorn/Westpool. 05-04-15

Happy Easter boys and girls, I hope you all got lots of eggs and visited church today.....!!!

Today's gambit was taken up by 15 of us across the 2 canal style lakes down at Shiplate, not my fave style of fishing but I must learn. I didn't want to draw Hawthorn as I have only fished it a couple of times before and (I think) drawn peg 11 and not done too great, yet on Westpool I have done okay.

I arrived in plenty of time but the car parking area was building up as there was a match on the Main Lake. I unloaded the car and found myself chatting to a whole bunch of people and a good few hello/how's you? Titch Williams, Steve King and Shawn Larkham were fishing the match on the Main lake. After paying my fee's to Steve Burgess in his last match as Match Secretary I went and chatted to Kingy, it ended with me telling him to draw either peg 1 or 15!!

Back to the PSV match, we had 8 on Hawthorn and 7 on Westpool. I must say I fancied being on Westpool from around peg 11 up to 15. As usual I waited to the end of the draw, Adam Caswell drew H15 and that won a midweek knock up and I think it was todays golden peg. With the last 2 remaining tickets left being H11 and W11.....I picked H11 and left Mr Burgess W11, I would have 1000% preferred his peg to mine.

I made my way to my peg rather disgruntled, but at least the weather was good, I stayed in short sleeves all day which was rather nice.
At my peg there seemed to be a few fish present but most pegs did also. For company, not that I could see them, were Darren North on peg 9 and Mike Wilson on peg 13.
In the other match Steve King did draw peg 1....No pressure.

Shiplate Hawthorn peg 11.

I began by mixing up some groundbait and wetting some pellets of various sizes.
My bait tray was filled with groundbait, wet micros, maggots, meat, hemp and a few 6mm pellets of in the band. Oh and a few 4mm and 6mm expanders.
I made up a few rigs, a silvers rig for 2+2 in front where I would feed regular small balls of groundbait, a rig for my left hand margin with was within an inch the same depth as at 5m in front!!
A shallower rig was made to fish towards the bottom of the far shelf at 13m-ish at a couple spots at 10 o'clock and 11 o'clock directions.
Lastly a shallow pellet rig was made, ideally for tight over should the floating crap be blown away, plus I have noted from previous visits they will come shallow anywhere in the peg.

At the 10am all-in I cupped some groundbait and maggots on my 2+2 silvers line, and a nice helping of hemp and meat down to  my left.
I started across on 6mm expander (11 o'clock line) and went 15 mins biteless, toss potting micros.
A quick look on the other long line proved fruitless.
So it was 30 minutes in and I came onto the silvers line and plucked a few plippy roach on the drop using maggot, I kept feeding groundbait nuggets regularly.

At the hour point I had a quick drop of the shallow pellet rig down my left margin, this gave me my 1st carp but was a false dawn and I never had a bit down there all day despite my efforts,
At this point I was a good way behind the likes of Adam Caswell up on 15 and Darren North and Alan Healey on pegs 9 and 7 respectively. Mr Wilson on peg 13 had a few silvers but was struggling too.

The next hour was spent between the 2 longer lines and I began to suffer from foul hooked fish and had to change the way I was feeding. I did manage another carp.
The next few hours were dire for me, giving me a solitary carp. Darren was up to 8lb of silvers and looked likely to have that tied up, he also had a good few carp as had Alan and Adam.
I took a few minutes out to re-asses the situation. The silvers were not producing but I kept feeding nuggets of groundbait over that same line but instead of maggots I added a few pieces of meat to the mix. I also re-plumbed the far side and found a shallower area at the 2 o'clock direction against the reeds as opposed to grasses. I fed a decent helping of hemp and meat and carried on between the longer lines at 10+11 o'clock directions, losing a couple of fish to the keepnets

As we entered the last hour I was probably last over the whole match but I hoped/knew a few carp would appear on the converted silvers line. But I went across to my new far line in 2ft of water, drip feeding meat. A couple of carp in a row gave me hope before a 10 minute spell saw me re-feed and come short on that line which had a few bubbles blowing. A 4lb carp from here gave me a little more enthusiasm, a second carp from this spot was welcome before I went back over.
So this last hour was my best, giving me 11 carp to add to my 5hrs amount of 3!!

As I packed up I didn't think I had snuck ahead of Adam, Darren and Alan, but if we had another 30 mins to an hour I would maybe overtaken them as their lines had died and were struggling though Darren had a last gasp carp that trashed a section of his pole.

We were all soon packed up and waiting for the scales to arrive from Westpool so I went and chatted to a few peeps on the main lake which had fished ok but it was assumed that Kingy on peg 1 had won. He'd fished method to the island mostly and even landed a rod & reel.....Nice!
The scales arrived at Adam and a look at the sheet saw weights of 80lb, 74lb and 63lb. Adam's nets went around 61lb, Mike weighed 19lb-ish before I had to weigh, 1lb level of silvers and 55lb or so of carp was slightly more than expected, I suppose 40lb+ came in that last hour spell.

I didn't follow the scales from then on as I made my way back to the car, stopping to chat to Steve King on peg 1. I was soon loading the car before Steve called the results:

1. Matt Challenger (H3) 80-9
2. Steve Burgess (W11) 74-13
3. Matt Taynton (W13) 63-10 (section win)
4. Adam Caswell (H15) 61-9 (section win)
5. Alan Healey (H7) 59-7
6. Lee Williams (H11) 56-2
7. Lee Waller (W5) 55-9
8. Darren North (H9) 55-8
9. Ryan Radford (W15) 48-10
10. Julian Nurse (H1) 46-6
Silvers:
1. Darren North (H9) 11-8
2. Matt Taynton (W13) 10-10

So a pretty fruitless day for me, I just cant get my head around that lake, or maybe I am just pants or maybe the fish just take the mick......a bit of each I think!!
Matt caught on paste across, so well done him.

Weigh sheet, Shiplate Canals

Next up for me is the Gary Bull fundraiser next Saturday at Summerhayes (we have nearly 60 fishing) before a match on Sunday at Sedges, a silvers match with Pawlett.

Until next time, take care.
Lee