21/04/24 - Shiplate - Main Lake

Weight - 67lb 6oz (22lb 6oz)

Catch - 5 Carp, 18 Skimmers, 2 Tench, 2 Perch, 1 Roach

Weather - Mostly sunny, cool northerly wind.

Match - Open (19 fished) - 9th overall, 6th in silvers

A change of scenery this week, after spending a lovely week in Pembrokeshire.

I always enjoy my trips to Shiplate and todays match was on the main lake, which I haven’t fished for 3 or 4 years. With 19 booked it also meant it would be a bit cosy in certain areas of the lake. P12 put me in a good area, although I had venue regular Gary Flinders to my left on rarely used peg 12a.

Feedback was the lake had been fishing hard, but 120lb should win and 30lbs of silvers would be good. As I was out of touch with the venue I overcomplicated my approach in the first half of the match, which wasn’t helped by a strong northerly breeze blowing left to right.

I started on a tea bag and 8mm p-nut pellet, whilst I let my pole lines settle. The 14m line was fed with p-nut micros and 4mm, and a 7m line was fed with green Uzit ReAct groundbait and micros.

With no bites on the tea bag, I tried the 14m line fishing a 6mm expander, but the wind and tow meant I couldn’t get any decent presentation and gave up after 10mins. A new line was set up at 13m fed with groundbait and micros, and I caught a few skimmers on 4mm expanders at 7m and then 13m. But again, presentation wasn’t great and I ended up switching from a 0.4g chimp to a 0.5g chimp. This helped but the 13m line was a waste of time and I persisted a little too long on it.

I had been pinging 8mm pellets at 20m, but the wind was just spreading the bait all over the place. I did manage a carp on the tea bag, but I was really struggling and needed to simplify my approach.

I binned the 7m and 13m lines, fed some meat and micros off the right of the right bush at 9m and started pinging 6s at 16m.

After a slow start on the meat line, I started catching some decent skimmers and a couple of tench, before I caught a carp. After that the skimmers disappeared.

The 16m line produced a 12lber on the lead/meat. As a nothing to lose move, I dumped a pot of micros and 4s at 7m and fished paste (Uzit green betaine) over the top, catching 2 carp late on. Annoyingly I lost 1 carp on the paste, plus 2 carp from the right-hand bush.

To be honest I wished I had another hour, as I really fancied catching a few more on the paste. Overall, a half decent day where the wind didn’t help and the better weights came from the more sheltered end of the lake.

1.    154-  3 – Chris Fox – p1

2.    132-14 – Julian Pinkett – p2

3.    121-  2 – Kurt Pinkett – p13

4.    106-13 – Tom Thick – p14a

5.      86-10 – Gary Flinders – p12a

Silvers

1.    41-12 – Steve Howell – p3

2.    36-  8 – Roy Ede – p9a

3.    35-  4 – Tony Rixon – p5

14/04/24 - Ivy House - Old Match Lake

Weight - 25lb 10oz (8lb 1oz - silvers)

Catch - 5 Carp, 14 Skimmers, 3 F1s, 1 Roach

Weather - Mostly sunny, with a cool westerly breeze.

Match - Tackle Den (22 fished) - 11th overall, 3rd in section

Only a short write as I’m a bit late writing this blog as I’ve been away for a week in Pembrokeshire.

Todays match was over the Old Match Lake and half of Willow. I really fancied drawing Willow, but got p16, which hasn’t been good recently and very few carp were caught on this bank yesterday.

As expected, I struggled to string any fish together, catching a few skimmers on expanders, plus 5 carp on the straight lead and 8mm pellet by the island.

1.    72-  7 – Andrew Black – p5

2.    58-  3 – Ian Barker – p20

3.    56-  9 – Alistair Tilney – p19

4.    47-  6 – Liam Coombley – p1

5.    43-  3 – Stuart Sutton – p27

6.    39-11 – Pete Philips – p23

13/04/24 - Ivy House - Old Match Lake

Weight - 33lb 10oz

Catch - 8 Carp, 8 F1s, 2 Skimmers, 1 Roach

Weather - Warm sunny start, became cooler in the afternoon. Breezy

Match - Open (13 fished) - 5th overall

I was happy enough with p4, as it gave me some room as peg 3 wasn’t in. Having drawn p3 last week, when I should have at least come 2^nd I thought I would approach the match in a similar way.

As it wasn’t anywhere near as windy as last week, I started at 16m tapping in 4s, fishing a hair rigged 6mm and it wasn’t until I switched to corn that I had 2 F1s.

As there didn’t appear to be any carp on this line, I switched to the method and 6mm yellow wafter tight to the island. This ended up being my best line, catching carp and F1s, however I couldn’t catch more than 2 fish at time before having to switch.

The surprise was my 13m line where I fished 4mm expanders over micros and groundbait like last week, with expectation of catching skimmers and F1 mid-match. However, 2 skimmers and a roach really wasn’t the result I was looking for.

With 2hrs remaining I felt I wasn’t that far behind Pete on p2 who was probably leading at the time and a late run of carp down my margin or over a short line would keep me in contention. Well, it didn’t work out like that, as I only had 1 carp in the last 2 hours.

It just felt that everything I caught on last week, didn’t work this week.

1.    67-10 – Stitch – p1

2.    50-  2 – Pete Philips – p2

3.    50-  0 – Neil Richards – p11

4.    41-  4 – Phil Gooding – p5

5.    33-10 – Ken Rayner – p4 

Silvers

1.    14-  0 – Richard Rogers – p18

2.    13-  2 – Dean Johnson – p11

3.    11-  0 – Phil Gooding – p5

3.    11-  0 – Neil Richards – p11

06/04/24 - Ivy House - Old Match Lake

Weight - 39lb 10oz (12lb 4oz - silvers)

Catch - 4 Carp, 7 F1s, 18 Skimmers, 5 Roach

Weather - Mild, mostly cloudy and windy.

Match - Open (9 fished) - 3rd overall

It’s been a few months since I fished the Old Match Lake and in that time Andy has stocked a lot of small F1s into the lake which will add a different dimension to the matches.

With storm Kathleen due to blow through today I had mixed feelings about drawing p3, as its not the best peg, but it was sheltered from the worst of the wind. Due to the forecast wind I decided not to fish any longer than 13m, feeding a nugget of Uzit Crushed Expander and Black Bubblegum mixed 50:50, with fishery micros flavoured with P-nut cloud at 13m and 6m.

Starting on the straight lead and pellet cone, didn’t produce a bite either on pellet or corn after 45mins.

A switch to the 13m line fishing a 4mm expander, toss potting a tiny nugget of micros and groundbait started to produce regular bites from skimmers and F1s, plus a 4lb carp.

The wind was becoming more troublesome during the middle part of the match and I switched from a HB Frostie 0.3g rig to a SM Chimp 0.4g to catch a few more skimmers on dead maggot, but presentation still wasn’t great.

Back to the straight lead which produced 3 bites on 6mm expander. A carp hooked in the cheek, which I lost at the net, another I lost after 5 seconds and a small F1 which I successfully netted!

So far, I had kept the short line topped with nuggets of micros and groundbait, and when I switched, I was immediately rewarded with a skimmer and 9lb carp. I had also been feeding micros and groundbait a metre off the right-hand margin, catching more skimmers on 6mm expanders and ended up alternating between here and the short line.

As we came into the last hour, I had 2 carp from the right margin. As for the left margin I had fed it with corn and 4mm pellet, but so far hadn’t tried it as I had been catching short and down my right margin. With 30mins remaining I decided to just big pot it with corn and micros, and see what happens. I hooked 2 carp and lost them both, one was definitely foul hooked and the other I lost at the net as the fish was only lightly hooked.

A frustrating match, as I missed out on 2^nd by 8oz. Losing the carp was frustrating, but I pulled out of a couple of skimmers using too heavy an elastic at the start and only have myself to blame.

That aside it was nice to have a few bites and a few things learnt for next weekend.

1.    58-10 – Phil Godding – p7

2.    40-  2 – Lee Seward – p18

3.    39-10 – Ken Rayner – p3

Silvers

1.    27-  8 – Neil Richards – p1

30/03/24 - Ivy House - Heron

Weight - 52lb 8oz

Catch - 31 Carp, 11  F1s

Weather - Mostly sunny, cool westerly breeze.

Match - Arthritis Charity (20 fished) - 6th overall

Only the one match this Easter weekend and it was back to Ivy House on Heron Lake for a charity match run by Louise for Arthritis.

There were 20 booked in so every peg was in except for the 4 corners and I drew p21 which is normally a good area. It’s been 2 months since I fished the lake when maggot was dominate and recent reports suggested pellet was starting to work, so that was my main focus.

On the all-in I started on a mini method with micros and Uzit green Re-Act groundbait and dead maggot on the hook, cast to the island. After 45 minutes I had 3 carp and its fair to say it wasn’t the start I wanted, however it seemed everyone was having a slow start, probably not helped by the cold night.

A switch to tapping in fishery 4s covered in Uzit P-nut oil at 16m, fishing a hair rigged 4mm pellet, resulted in me catching mostly small carp. It was slow going, but at least I was catching more than those around me, although I had noticed a few anglers on the opposite bank starting to catch.

My 16m line was proving tricky. I had expected the swim to improve, but I found I had to keep re-starting new swims slightly left or right to keep the fish coming. The stamp of fish was also frustrating, as I would get a couple of better fish, before the 8oz fish returned and fishing a 6mm pellet didn’t improve matters.

I must admit, I lost my way a little during the middle part of the match, when my catch rate dropped as I tried to work out how to improve the stamp of fish, fishing a lighter rig through the water and a shallow rig which only produced another small carp.

I had been feeding a short line with pellet, which produced a couple of better stamp fish, but the swim wasn’t as good as I hoped. This just left my right margin by the reed bed. By fishing corn over micros or 4s, I caught carp and F1’s averaging 2lb, but I felt it was too late to catch up with those opposite and that’s how it turned out.

My bank was exposed to a cool wind, blowing right to left and the more sheltered pegs proved to be the place to be. Although I came 6^th overall, I had the best weight on my bank, so I can’t be too disappointed.

There was a raffle back at the café, which helped add more money to the charity pot and Lou has raised over £700.

Lou’s dad also took some photos from a drone, which were interesting to see.

1.    93-12 – Jamie Dixey – p15

2.    79-  0 – Paul Giddings – p17

3.    70-10 – Mick Lane – p10

4.    67-  2 – Andy Dixey – p11

5.    53-  6 – Ross – p9

6.    52-  8 – Ken Rayner – p21

24/03/24 - Harescombe - Meadow Lake

Weight - 5oz

Catch - 1 Roach

Weather - Cold during the week. Bright and sunny, with a cool NW breeze

Match - Teams of 3 (36 fished) - 11th of out 12 section

The last round of the teams of 3 and we had a very outside chance of a top 4 position assuming we won the day and others messed up.

I was on Meadow and handed p2 which was on the dam wall for the first time. Looking at the past results, it showed 1lb came off the peg in the last round and 6oz in the first round. However, there had been a 1^st and 3^rd off the peg, which would have mostly been caught on the waggler.

When I got to the peg it was quite tight between p1 & p3, which meant I didn’t have much of a margin and the strong NW breeze was off my back. To be honest I didn’t fancy it but I didn’t expect it to be as hard as it was.

My one and only fish came after 90mins on dead maggot at 13m, I did hook a carp 30mins later which felt like a big fish, although it may have been a foul hooker, but the hook pulled out after 5mins so will never know.

I tried the straight lead, the waggler with pellet or maggot and shallow on the pole, but the wind had pushed the fish out of the area. I had also kept a short meat line topped up, where I thought I would get at least one carp, but I never had a bite.

Surprisingly I didn’t come plumb last as someone only weighed 3oz and to illustrate how hard the lake fished 1 6lb carp would have got me 6^th in section. The whole lake had just switched off, probably not helped by the recent colder weather and the exposed nature of the lake whereas the more sheltered Field Lake fished well.

A really disappointing day and I probably wouldn’t change my approach if I was to fish the match again.

1.    84-  8 – Ricky Mills – p1 (Field)

2.    77-10 – Ed Bryant – p9 (Field)

3.    74-  3 – Andrew Black – p11 (Field)

4.    69-  1 – Ben Baron – p6 (Field)

5.    62-12 – Harry Hyde – p8 (Field)

6.    51-  8 – Jack Arpino – p2 (Field)

17/03/24 - Harescombe - Meadow Lake

Weight - 48lb 5oz

Catch - 10 Carp

Weather - Heavy overnight rain. Cloudy with sunny periods

Match - Open (9 fished) - 2nd overall

Well, I got my car back and with no guarantee that the electrical issue has been 100% resolved, I decided to part-exchange it and brought another V90!

Only the one match this weekend and back to Harescombe for their open on Meadow Lake. More heavy overnight rain meant some of the roads on the drive up were flooded and it was also likely to have an affect on the fishing.

My draw put me on the 2^nd peg out of the corner on the left bank and when I arrived the water was all coloured up in the left-hand reeds as the fish were still rooting around, which raised hopes of catching a few.

Plumbing up revealed the lake shelved away quite quickly and I didn’t see any point fishing long on the deck in what would be at least 7ft of water. Therefore, pole rigs were set up to fish each margin and a 3+2 line next to some lily pads in 5ft of water.

After feeding some meat covered in Uzit A-Krill cloud and 2mm p-nut pellet on the 3+2 line, I immediately started down the left margin fishing meat. Surprisingly, I never had a bite although there were still fish knocking the reeds.

Next, I tried the 3+2 line and the pellet waggler, but I was struggling for a bite. After 90mins I caught my first fish on the straight lead and 6mm p-nut pellet with a small tea bag of 2mm p-nut pellet.

So far, Luke Seabrook was already on 4 or 5 carp, whilst I was 1 of 4 who had caught at least 1 carp. As expected, it was fishing hard and over the next couple of hours I kept rotating lines managing 2 on the waggler, losing a 3rd. 

With 2 hours remaining I caught my first carp from the 3+2 line on meat, catching another 2 over the next hour, however I just felt I was fishing too deep. So, with an hour remaining I started feeding meat and micros down the right margin where I caught 2 more carp, plus a further 2 from the left margin.

5 fish in the last hour was very handy and I knew it would be close with Luke who had struggled in the last couple of hours. However, 2 fish late on swung it Luke’s way.

I was pleased to finish 2^nd, but I feel I need to find a way to catch more during the middle of the match. None the less, a tricky but enjoyable day.

1.    55-  9 – Luke Seabrook – p9

2.    48-  5 – Ken Rayner – p6

3.    34-  3 – Neil Martin – p1