Weight – 111lb 4oz
Catch – 25 Carp
Weather – Mostly sunny and light breeze
Match – MFS Float only – 7th out of 16
24hrs before this match it was fully booked with 20 anglers. However, on Monday 1 dropped out due to a bad back and the other because the first was his lift. Mark was unable to fill the spaces, so 18 for the match. Uh no, after managing to track down 1 non attendee who forgot!! The 4th drop out however with the best (and genuine?) excuse. 5 miles from the fishery he had a car accident…. with a police car – ouch!
With a north/north easterly breeze, I really fancied a draw in the middle of the lake, since there was more likely to be ripple on the water. I was last to draw, with only 18 & 26 left in the bucket, I really wanted Herbie to draw 26, but he didn’t, which meant I was on 26 for 2nd time.
Whilst setting up I was concerned about the flat calm condition, with the ripple starting in front of Nick Merry on p24. As for p18 it looked spot on and I was a touch envious.
Today was all about keeping it simple concentrating on catching shallow, feeding caster. Unfortunately the day was anything but simple. As well as 2 shallow rigs, 2 rigs to fish the 5m line (1x paste and 1x corn) and 1x paste margin rig were set up. I really didn’t fancy the margin today, because the water looked a touch clearer than last time. I did give it a few minutes, but was soon binned. The 5m also failed to produce, so all fish came shallow at 13-14m.
The opening 2 hours was a case finding something that worked. There was plenty of fish coming to the feed, but getting them to take the bait was turning into a mare. I tried various shallow rigs, from only a couple inches to 2ft. I was thankful I brought my pellet waggler rod and fished a loaded puddle chucker, finding it best to fish with a 12” hooklength with 3 or 4 floating maggot to create a really slow fall. In the flat conditions the waggler definitely seemed to be best.
The 1 thing I will say about the Glebe carp is they are fit. I’ve never come across fish that run so hard, I had 1 that managed to straighten a B960 and Mark had a couple straighten a carp feeder hook.
After 3 hours I had 15 fish and after the initial slow start was pleased with my progress, but the following 3 hours became difficult again. The main issue was the Puddle Chucker floats I was using. I had 2 were the clear plastic body popped off the loaded weight attached to the line. The 3rd puddle chucker used had a longer body and wasn’t right for the job. I also went through a period where I lost a few fish, which didn’t improve my mood.
I was disappointed to finish with only 25 fish, but surprised to weigh over a ton. Mark drew the end peg 30, but also had the same problem catching shallow, but his 29 fish weighed 163-0, included 50lb from the margin so obviously some bigger stamp fish.
Nick won from p24, mostly shallow taking advantage of the ripple. As for peg 18, Herbie weighed 111-8 pipping me to the section money by 4oz – gutted!
This was the 6th match in as many days on the lake and the weights still remained impressive and with a more favourable wind, I’m sure there would have some bigger weights.
Immediately after the match I was pretty p****d off, not only because I missed out on a pick up by 4oz, but I knew hadn’t my waggler’s failed I would have caught more. Now is the next day and putting everything in perspective that’s 2 visits to the Glebe and 2 tons, whilst I was disappointed, I was unlucky not to have the ripple and I know I would have caught more. So despite the difficult condition, I think the method was right. Ben on peg 28 fished the pellet waggler, as well as fishing on the deck, but struggled for 51lb.
1st 198-12 – Nick Merry – peg 24
2nd 163- 0 – Mark Poppleton – peg 30
3rd 159- 4 – Holwell – peg 1
3rd 159- 4 – Pete Bailey – peg 4
5th 113- 8 – Tim Suttle – peg 14
6th 111- 8 – Herbie – peg 18
7th 111- 4 – Ken Rayner – peg 26
8th 107- 0 – Clive Pritchard – peg 20
Wednesday 27 July 2011
Sunday 24 July 2011
23/07/11 - Fishponds
Weight – 239lb 6oz
Catch – 31 Carp
Weather – Mostly sunny and breezy
Match – Club – 1st out of 7
Only 7 for today’s afternoon/evening match, but I won’t be surprised to see a few more turn up for the next one. Fishing 2.30-7.30 see us fish the best part of the day.
8 pegs went into the bag, because I didn’t know which one to leave out, so decided to let fate decide. I found myself on peg 1, down the bottom of the arm and with the westerly wind blowing into it I fancied it for a few. In fact when I arrived I had a quick walk around the lake and it looked spot on for some big weights and I wanted to try and beat the current 5hr match record of 228lb (although I still hold the 6hr record of 218lb).
Only 1 pole rig was required to fish paste, left and right at the bottom of the shelf. I also set up 2 pellet waggler rigs to cast 30m to the far side.
After the 1st hour I had 5 fish all on paste. During the 2nd hour I noticed a few swirls over the waggler line and managed 1 carp, plus 4 more on paste. At this point the wind switched from a south westerly to a more northerly direction and the arm of the lake was now flat calm and the fish over the waggler line disappeared.
Another 5 fish in the 3rd hour, all on paste meant I was just keeping ahead of Chris on p3 and Tim on p22. During the 4th hour the carp started to show again over the waggler despite the flat calm conditions. It was best to wait for a bite (no more than a minute), but found a more visual 10mm white boilie was better, catching 2 fish on the waggler, plus 4 on the paste, including my best fish of 14lb.
The last hour was by far my best with 10 carp, 7 on the paste and 3 on the waggler. During the last 90mins I managed to pull away from Chris. Throughout the match I had fed a handful of 8mm every put in and kept pinging pellet over the waggler line meant I had the fish cueing up.
Ok there were only 7 today, however really pleased to have got the match record back, it’s the 3rd time. More importantly for me, it is a great confidence booster, particularly after what has been a difficult couple of months of fishing.
1st 239- 6 – Ken Rayner – peg 1
2nd 187- 0 – Chris Davidge – peg 3
3rd 150-10 – Marcus Harker – peg 12
4th 150- 4 – Tim Allen – peg 22
Catch – 31 Carp
Weather – Mostly sunny and breezy
Match – Club – 1st out of 7
Only 7 for today’s afternoon/evening match, but I won’t be surprised to see a few more turn up for the next one. Fishing 2.30-7.30 see us fish the best part of the day.
8 pegs went into the bag, because I didn’t know which one to leave out, so decided to let fate decide. I found myself on peg 1, down the bottom of the arm and with the westerly wind blowing into it I fancied it for a few. In fact when I arrived I had a quick walk around the lake and it looked spot on for some big weights and I wanted to try and beat the current 5hr match record of 228lb (although I still hold the 6hr record of 218lb).
Only 1 pole rig was required to fish paste, left and right at the bottom of the shelf. I also set up 2 pellet waggler rigs to cast 30m to the far side.
After the 1st hour I had 5 fish all on paste. During the 2nd hour I noticed a few swirls over the waggler line and managed 1 carp, plus 4 more on paste. At this point the wind switched from a south westerly to a more northerly direction and the arm of the lake was now flat calm and the fish over the waggler line disappeared.
Another 5 fish in the 3rd hour, all on paste meant I was just keeping ahead of Chris on p3 and Tim on p22. During the 4th hour the carp started to show again over the waggler despite the flat calm conditions. It was best to wait for a bite (no more than a minute), but found a more visual 10mm white boilie was better, catching 2 fish on the waggler, plus 4 on the paste, including my best fish of 14lb.
The last hour was by far my best with 10 carp, 7 on the paste and 3 on the waggler. During the last 90mins I managed to pull away from Chris. Throughout the match I had fed a handful of 8mm every put in and kept pinging pellet over the waggler line meant I had the fish cueing up.
Ok there were only 7 today, however really pleased to have got the match record back, it’s the 3rd time. More importantly for me, it is a great confidence booster, particularly after what has been a difficult couple of months of fishing.
1st 239- 6 – Ken Rayner – peg 1
2nd 187- 0 – Chris Davidge – peg 3
3rd 150-10 – Marcus Harker – peg 12
4th 150- 4 – Tim Allen – peg 22
Friday 22 July 2011
21/07/11 - Rood Ashton
Weight – 56lb 14oz
Catch – 15 Carp
Weather – Mostly cloudy, humid. No wind.
Match – Wiltshire Angling Evening Open – 5th out of 9 (2nd out of 5 – section)
At least I managed to avoid breaking anything this week and with a pleasure angler sitting in the “pipe” swim when we arrived (despite there being a sign saying the left bank of the lake was closed!) which meant I couldn’t draw it, I thought my luck may change. Unfortunately peg 3 soon dismissed that idea. Not the best peg and one that has previously been left out. Situated between 2 trees, it’s a little narrow and there isn’t any real margin to speak of.
Decided to fish paste again at 13m, feeding heavily with 6mms. Also decided to only feed lightly under the trees, just in case, but never caught, so no more about that. I also set up a pellet waggler, hoping the wind would pick up to create some ripple.
After 2hrs, I only had 5 fish and already behind Pete on peg 1 and Bill on peg 4, both catching on meat. Although I had caught on paste, the fish just didn’t seem to settle, I kept changing my feeding pattern from stopping feeding to 3 quick pouchfuls of bait, but the lack of ripple was making the fish a bit edgy.
There was certainly plenty of fish on the waggler line and I managed to hook 2 fish, losing 1 under the branches of the left hand tree, but without the ripple the fish were proving to be very cagey. I kept feeding 3 or 4 8mm pellet every 30 secs and finally got the fish into proper feeding mode and the last 75mins proved to be my best of the match, however I still had periods where the fish just backed off. I really needed some ripple, because I am certain I would have challenged the winning 80lb weight.
1st 80- 0 - Tony Gilbert – the point - meat
2nd 73-14 - Pete Neate – peg 1 – meat – fished into the corner
3rd 67-7 – Steve Martin – peg 6 – 15 fish down the edge
4th 63-10 – Gary Etheridge
Mark proved he is fallible, by struggling for 40lb. He was having similar issue to me fishing the paste. The fish didn’t really want it and I think the recent heavy rain and cool conditions affected their desire to take the bait.
Catch – 15 Carp
Weather – Mostly cloudy, humid. No wind.
Match – Wiltshire Angling Evening Open – 5th out of 9 (2nd out of 5 – section)
At least I managed to avoid breaking anything this week and with a pleasure angler sitting in the “pipe” swim when we arrived (despite there being a sign saying the left bank of the lake was closed!) which meant I couldn’t draw it, I thought my luck may change. Unfortunately peg 3 soon dismissed that idea. Not the best peg and one that has previously been left out. Situated between 2 trees, it’s a little narrow and there isn’t any real margin to speak of.
Decided to fish paste again at 13m, feeding heavily with 6mms. Also decided to only feed lightly under the trees, just in case, but never caught, so no more about that. I also set up a pellet waggler, hoping the wind would pick up to create some ripple.
After 2hrs, I only had 5 fish and already behind Pete on peg 1 and Bill on peg 4, both catching on meat. Although I had caught on paste, the fish just didn’t seem to settle, I kept changing my feeding pattern from stopping feeding to 3 quick pouchfuls of bait, but the lack of ripple was making the fish a bit edgy.
There was certainly plenty of fish on the waggler line and I managed to hook 2 fish, losing 1 under the branches of the left hand tree, but without the ripple the fish were proving to be very cagey. I kept feeding 3 or 4 8mm pellet every 30 secs and finally got the fish into proper feeding mode and the last 75mins proved to be my best of the match, however I still had periods where the fish just backed off. I really needed some ripple, because I am certain I would have challenged the winning 80lb weight.
1st 80- 0 - Tony Gilbert – the point - meat
2nd 73-14 - Pete Neate – peg 1 – meat – fished into the corner
3rd 67-7 – Steve Martin – peg 6 – 15 fish down the edge
4th 63-10 – Gary Etheridge
Mark proved he is fallible, by struggling for 40lb. He was having similar issue to me fishing the paste. The fish didn’t really want it and I think the recent heavy rain and cool conditions affected their desire to take the bait.
Friday 15 July 2011
14/07/11 - Rood Ashton
Weight – 25lb 8oz
Catch – 6 Carp
Weather – Sunny & breezy to start. Later calm
Match – Wiltshire Angling Evening Open – 5th out of 9
I thought my luck had changed when I found a spare unused no5 section from my old K47, which fits my current N47, which will save some money on repairs, particularly since I had now broken the section in 2 places.
However, with 9 people booked in, the 1 peg you didn’t want is the “pipe” and that’s exactly where I found myself. The peg really is crap, it’s shallow and set back in a small bay, so I was 6-8m behind Gary Etheridge on the current flyer to my right. Fortunately I keep a pair of wellies in the car, so made the decision to sit in the water, which meant I could more easily fish the 2 corners of the bay. I had also brought 2 pellet waggler's.
After 2hrs and no fish was a serious problem, particularly in a 3.5hr match. Going home was a definite possibility. A quick walk revealed the lake was fishing poorly. Gary had 4 or 5 carp, whilst I saw Mark land his 6th. Steve Martin was in the same boat as me, so I thought I got to keep going, because I wasn’t that far behind.
So far 3pts of 6mms had gone into the margins and 3pts of 8mms had been fed over the waggler, but the fish seemed to have backed off for everyone. I was surprised the waggler didn’t work, but I never had a sign of fish moving, despite there being a breeze, the water in front of me was virtual flat calm.
Since nothing was working, I decided to fish 13m in open water, but negatively only feeding a pouch of pellet at a time and it worked. A 5lber was shortly followed by a PB for this lake of 11-2, however the fish were easily spooked and the margins still didn’t produce.
In the end, I was actually relieved to have caught, but the overall weights were poor and had the fish turned up ½hr earlier I could have framed.
Mark won from his “easy” section and Steve Martin picked up the section by default with 3 fish for 21lb! As for my section, I was sat in the worse peg and had Gary Etheridge and Tony Gilbert to contend with – not a great evening. Mark is talking about getting me a violin, I told him where to shove it.
1st 66-8 Mark Poppleton
2nd 39-12 Pete Neate
3rd 35-0 Gary Etheridge
Catch – 6 Carp
Weather – Sunny & breezy to start. Later calm
Match – Wiltshire Angling Evening Open – 5th out of 9
I thought my luck had changed when I found a spare unused no5 section from my old K47, which fits my current N47, which will save some money on repairs, particularly since I had now broken the section in 2 places.
However, with 9 people booked in, the 1 peg you didn’t want is the “pipe” and that’s exactly where I found myself. The peg really is crap, it’s shallow and set back in a small bay, so I was 6-8m behind Gary Etheridge on the current flyer to my right. Fortunately I keep a pair of wellies in the car, so made the decision to sit in the water, which meant I could more easily fish the 2 corners of the bay. I had also brought 2 pellet waggler's.
After 2hrs and no fish was a serious problem, particularly in a 3.5hr match. Going home was a definite possibility. A quick walk revealed the lake was fishing poorly. Gary had 4 or 5 carp, whilst I saw Mark land his 6th. Steve Martin was in the same boat as me, so I thought I got to keep going, because I wasn’t that far behind.
So far 3pts of 6mms had gone into the margins and 3pts of 8mms had been fed over the waggler, but the fish seemed to have backed off for everyone. I was surprised the waggler didn’t work, but I never had a sign of fish moving, despite there being a breeze, the water in front of me was virtual flat calm.
Since nothing was working, I decided to fish 13m in open water, but negatively only feeding a pouch of pellet at a time and it worked. A 5lber was shortly followed by a PB for this lake of 11-2, however the fish were easily spooked and the margins still didn’t produce.
In the end, I was actually relieved to have caught, but the overall weights were poor and had the fish turned up ½hr earlier I could have framed.
Mark won from his “easy” section and Steve Martin picked up the section by default with 3 fish for 21lb! As for my section, I was sat in the worse peg and had Gary Etheridge and Tony Gilbert to contend with – not a great evening. Mark is talking about getting me a violin, I told him where to shove it.
1st 66-8 Mark Poppleton
2nd 39-12 Pete Neate
3rd 35-0 Gary Etheridge
Monday 11 July 2011
10/07/11 - Cuckoos Rest
Weight – 19lb 10oz
Catch – 27 Bream, 14 Roach, 1 Carp
Weather – Mostly cloudy with sunny periods. Very little wind
Match – Club – 3rd out of 17
I reckon I must have run over a black cat or something, because I not getting the rub of the green at the moment. A poor draw and then my 3rd broken pole section in as many weeks, together with scrapping my car against a metal bollard the other week has left me wondering. The first pole section broke when I sat on my number 4, the 2nd was when I stepped on my number 5 and today my number 8 section just collapsed on the strike. Fortunately Mark knows someone who does reasonably priced repairs. Looks like I’m in the market for a new pole when I get some money together.
Back to today. 17 had booked in and the best draws are on the side right of the island, because you don’t have anyone opposite. The left side of the lake would have people pegged all round, although most had plenty of room either side. My peg saw me half way down the left side of the island and it was 1 of the few pegs I didn’t want, because there were no features to fish to.
Since I was on this side of the lake, both tip rods stayed in the bag, so I could concentrate on the pole, fishing 6m with caster/maggot, 13m feeding mostly 3mm’s and 13m to my right where I could fish towards a willow tree that extended 8/9m out into the lake. I also set up a rig for the margins, but without any cover close by I never had a bite, although bank walkers didn’t help.
The 13m line was fed with ½ a cup of 3mms with some Gimps gold, a few 4mms and corn. Whilst a bigger cup was dumped towards the willow tree. The intention was to feed little & often at 13m and dump feed to my right.
Started at 6m with maggot, feeding caster, but it was 10mins before I caught a small roach and by 50min I had 11 fish for about 1½lb, which was really slow going. I had already topped up my 13m line and started catching immediately on soft pellet. Mainly hand size skimmers, but a big bream was very welcome, this was followed by more skimmers, before I had 2 more proper bream.
Whenever I had a quiet spell I would switch to the RH swim, which only produced small fish – I had hoped to pull in a few better bream, tench or carp on this line, but it never happened. I had kept the 6m line topped up, but it simply didn’t happen so it was abandoned.
At the half way stage, it was obvious that Andy behind me would win as he continually caught skimmers from the “flyer”. The grapevine, also suggested Roger had caught a few carp again from the right side of the island. As for my part of the lake, Graham on the opposite bank was making use of his end peg, fishing long down his margin and Ian on the 1st peg over the bridge also had a few.
The fish now were getting finicky and I had to keep rotating baits, between pellet, double maggot & worm to keep the fish coming. The 13m line died completely, so I started toss potting 3mm’s at 13.5m, but fishing at 14.5m and this resulted in more hand size skimmers right to the final whistle.
Unfortunately the complete lack of wind meant the lake was flat calm and as we know those skimmers do like a bit of ripple above their heads.
In the end was pleased with how I fished and it came as no surprise that 1 & 2nd came from the right side of the lake.
1st 40-4 – Andy (bream/skimmers - pole/pellet)
2nd 27-0 – Roger (carp/bream - method)
3rd 19-10 - Ken
Catch – 27 Bream, 14 Roach, 1 Carp
Weather – Mostly cloudy with sunny periods. Very little wind
Match – Club – 3rd out of 17
I reckon I must have run over a black cat or something, because I not getting the rub of the green at the moment. A poor draw and then my 3rd broken pole section in as many weeks, together with scrapping my car against a metal bollard the other week has left me wondering. The first pole section broke when I sat on my number 4, the 2nd was when I stepped on my number 5 and today my number 8 section just collapsed on the strike. Fortunately Mark knows someone who does reasonably priced repairs. Looks like I’m in the market for a new pole when I get some money together.
Back to today. 17 had booked in and the best draws are on the side right of the island, because you don’t have anyone opposite. The left side of the lake would have people pegged all round, although most had plenty of room either side. My peg saw me half way down the left side of the island and it was 1 of the few pegs I didn’t want, because there were no features to fish to.
Since I was on this side of the lake, both tip rods stayed in the bag, so I could concentrate on the pole, fishing 6m with caster/maggot, 13m feeding mostly 3mm’s and 13m to my right where I could fish towards a willow tree that extended 8/9m out into the lake. I also set up a rig for the margins, but without any cover close by I never had a bite, although bank walkers didn’t help.
The 13m line was fed with ½ a cup of 3mms with some Gimps gold, a few 4mms and corn. Whilst a bigger cup was dumped towards the willow tree. The intention was to feed little & often at 13m and dump feed to my right.
Started at 6m with maggot, feeding caster, but it was 10mins before I caught a small roach and by 50min I had 11 fish for about 1½lb, which was really slow going. I had already topped up my 13m line and started catching immediately on soft pellet. Mainly hand size skimmers, but a big bream was very welcome, this was followed by more skimmers, before I had 2 more proper bream.
Whenever I had a quiet spell I would switch to the RH swim, which only produced small fish – I had hoped to pull in a few better bream, tench or carp on this line, but it never happened. I had kept the 6m line topped up, but it simply didn’t happen so it was abandoned.
At the half way stage, it was obvious that Andy behind me would win as he continually caught skimmers from the “flyer”. The grapevine, also suggested Roger had caught a few carp again from the right side of the island. As for my part of the lake, Graham on the opposite bank was making use of his end peg, fishing long down his margin and Ian on the 1st peg over the bridge also had a few.
The fish now were getting finicky and I had to keep rotating baits, between pellet, double maggot & worm to keep the fish coming. The 13m line died completely, so I started toss potting 3mm’s at 13.5m, but fishing at 14.5m and this resulted in more hand size skimmers right to the final whistle.
Unfortunately the complete lack of wind meant the lake was flat calm and as we know those skimmers do like a bit of ripple above their heads.
In the end was pleased with how I fished and it came as no surprise that 1 & 2nd came from the right side of the lake.
1st 40-4 – Andy (bream/skimmers - pole/pellet)
2nd 27-0 – Roger (carp/bream - method)
3rd 19-10 - Ken
Saturday 9 July 2011
07/07/11 - Rood Ashton
Weight – 45lb 13oz
Catch – 16 Carp
Weather – Sunny, cloudy periods. Variable wind and cool.
Match – Wiltshire Angling Evening Open – 4th out of 6
There is certainly a fine line between failure and success, and occasionally fate isn’t in your hands. My poor run of match results continues and it’s certainly one of my worse runs, however I am confident it will end, although it will be nice to get a result which didn’t require too much effort.
Only 6 turned up tonight. It appears those early matches which attracted 17 anglers many have dropped out as it became obvious who would pick up. So rather than work out what works and compete, they would prefer to stay at home in front of the telly saying the venue is crap.
Anyway back to tonight’s match. For the 3rd match I found myself on peg 2 and I had Mark next to me for the 3rd match. Also Tony Gilbert found himself on the best margin peg – again, whilst Gary Etheridge was on the other.
Tonight I decided to bring a pellet waggler, because on previous matches there was a lot fish boshing out in the middle of the lake. I started on paste at 13m and within 10mins had 2 decent carp, but as I kept the 6mms going in, the fish seemed to back off and bites stopped.
In the meantime I was pinging 8mm’s at distance. As the match progressed I spent more time on the pellet waggler and started to catch, but only when there was a decent ripple. This prompted Mark to say I was going to win, but I could see that Gary was catching and the fish I was catching were a smaller stamp.
Going into the final hour, the wind dropped and the ripple all but disappeared and I struggled to keep the fish coming. My margin failed to produce (for the 3rd match and the regulars confirmed it is a poor margin peg) and the 13m line was still a struggle. In fact the fish didn’t seem to want the paste tonight, because I would get what looked like a proper bite, but no fish. Mark was suffering with the same problem. Gary caught on pellet, whilst Tony who had struggled, until the last hour when his margin finally came good and he caught some proper fish on meat.
Unfortunately the smaller stamp of fish, combined with the drop in the wind counted against me. I had 12 carp on the waggler, which prompted a few questions from Tony and Gary. Normally 16 carp would be worth 55lb, but I had some proper “squeakers”.
1st 88-8 Tony Gilbert
2nd 69-8 Gary Etheridge
3rd 51-0 Mark Poppleton
4th 45-13 Ken Rayner
5th 41-0 Steve Martin
6th 23-0 Terry Fell
Catch – 16 Carp
Weather – Sunny, cloudy periods. Variable wind and cool.
Match – Wiltshire Angling Evening Open – 4th out of 6
There is certainly a fine line between failure and success, and occasionally fate isn’t in your hands. My poor run of match results continues and it’s certainly one of my worse runs, however I am confident it will end, although it will be nice to get a result which didn’t require too much effort.
Only 6 turned up tonight. It appears those early matches which attracted 17 anglers many have dropped out as it became obvious who would pick up. So rather than work out what works and compete, they would prefer to stay at home in front of the telly saying the venue is crap.
Anyway back to tonight’s match. For the 3rd match I found myself on peg 2 and I had Mark next to me for the 3rd match. Also Tony Gilbert found himself on the best margin peg – again, whilst Gary Etheridge was on the other.
Tonight I decided to bring a pellet waggler, because on previous matches there was a lot fish boshing out in the middle of the lake. I started on paste at 13m and within 10mins had 2 decent carp, but as I kept the 6mms going in, the fish seemed to back off and bites stopped.
In the meantime I was pinging 8mm’s at distance. As the match progressed I spent more time on the pellet waggler and started to catch, but only when there was a decent ripple. This prompted Mark to say I was going to win, but I could see that Gary was catching and the fish I was catching were a smaller stamp.
Going into the final hour, the wind dropped and the ripple all but disappeared and I struggled to keep the fish coming. My margin failed to produce (for the 3rd match and the regulars confirmed it is a poor margin peg) and the 13m line was still a struggle. In fact the fish didn’t seem to want the paste tonight, because I would get what looked like a proper bite, but no fish. Mark was suffering with the same problem. Gary caught on pellet, whilst Tony who had struggled, until the last hour when his margin finally came good and he caught some proper fish on meat.
Unfortunately the smaller stamp of fish, combined with the drop in the wind counted against me. I had 12 carp on the waggler, which prompted a few questions from Tony and Gary. Normally 16 carp would be worth 55lb, but I had some proper “squeakers”.
1st 88-8 Tony Gilbert
2nd 69-8 Gary Etheridge
3rd 51-0 Mark Poppleton
4th 45-13 Ken Rayner
5th 41-0 Steve Martin
6th 23-0 Terry Fell
07/07/11 - Cuckoos Rest
Weight – 38lb 4oz
Catch – 11 Bream, 6 Carp, 1 Rudd
Weather – Sunny, cloudy periods. Windy.
The eagle eyed amongst you (Mr Nichols) will notice this blog is a little late. Unfortunately a migraine meant I didn’t feel like writing a blog yesterday.
Today’s session was intended to be a practice for Sundays match, however road closures and diversions, meant it took me twice as long as expected to arrive. Combined with leaving home slightly later than intended meant todays sessions would be shorter than intended, before leaving for tonight’s match as Rood Ashton. Therefore decided to concentrate on the method and the long pole.
Settling on the right side of the island, with the strong wind blowing from behind, I spent the 1st 2½hrs on the method, fishing micro pellet and gimps gold around the feeder with a hair rigged 10mm white boilie. After 30mins I had 2 carp of 6 & 7lb, but after that I began to struggle, landing 2 small carp, as well as losing 3, 1 which broke me and the hook pulled out of the other 2 as I tried to pull the fish away from the various snags on the far bank.
I spent longer than I should on the method, but it was time well spent, improving my casting tight to the far bank and hitting the clip.
The next 2½hrs was spent fishing at 13m, feeding micros & 3mm pellet, with a few 4mm’s and corn. I caught bream up to 3¼lb, plus 2 more small carp, mostly coming to 4 or 6mm soft pellet. I did try worm and corn, but pellet seemed to be best.
My silvers net went 18-13, which I was more than happy about in only a couple of hours fishing, however it unlikely it will fish this well on Sunday. Fingers crossed for some cloud cover and a manageable breeze.
Catch – 11 Bream, 6 Carp, 1 Rudd
Weather – Sunny, cloudy periods. Windy.
The eagle eyed amongst you (Mr Nichols) will notice this blog is a little late. Unfortunately a migraine meant I didn’t feel like writing a blog yesterday.
Today’s session was intended to be a practice for Sundays match, however road closures and diversions, meant it took me twice as long as expected to arrive. Combined with leaving home slightly later than intended meant todays sessions would be shorter than intended, before leaving for tonight’s match as Rood Ashton. Therefore decided to concentrate on the method and the long pole.
Settling on the right side of the island, with the strong wind blowing from behind, I spent the 1st 2½hrs on the method, fishing micro pellet and gimps gold around the feeder with a hair rigged 10mm white boilie. After 30mins I had 2 carp of 6 & 7lb, but after that I began to struggle, landing 2 small carp, as well as losing 3, 1 which broke me and the hook pulled out of the other 2 as I tried to pull the fish away from the various snags on the far bank.
I spent longer than I should on the method, but it was time well spent, improving my casting tight to the far bank and hitting the clip.
The next 2½hrs was spent fishing at 13m, feeding micros & 3mm pellet, with a few 4mm’s and corn. I caught bream up to 3¼lb, plus 2 more small carp, mostly coming to 4 or 6mm soft pellet. I did try worm and corn, but pellet seemed to be best.
My silvers net went 18-13, which I was more than happy about in only a couple of hours fishing, however it unlikely it will fish this well on Sunday. Fingers crossed for some cloud cover and a manageable breeze.
Monday 4 July 2011
03/07/11 - Lands End -Sydney's Lake
Weight – 31lb 0oz
Catch – 16 Carp, 15 Skimmers, 2 Rudd, 1 Roach
Weather – Hot, sunny, light breeze
Match – Avon Angling Open – 11th out of 21 (5th on lake)
Today’s match was split between Johns & Sydney’s (lakes 3 & 4) and I was disappointed to draw peg 78 on Sydney’s, half way down the lake with Johns lake behind. I’m still waiting to draw a flyer on this lake, so a difficult day was likely, particularly with the forecast hot & sunny weather.
Whilst Mike is away doing his trade shows, he needs to get Nick to do some work and tidy up both lakes, because the undergrowth is getting a bit unruly. I couldn’t see my margins properly, so had to so some gardening, but due to all the vegetation I couldn’t see anyone expect Dean on 72 and end peg 71 thanks to the curvature of the lake.
At the all in a large cup of Gimps Gold/3mm pellet went in at 6m and started firing 6mms towards the point of the island. There was a small bed of lilies 12m to my right and I went straight over with paste, with a few 6mms in a toss pot, without any additional feed. After an hour, I had 5 carp and doing ok from what I could see, although the end 71 was probably ahead.
I kept the pellet going in towards the point of the island and topped up my 6m line. Staying near the lily bed, I started getting silly bites and a small rudd confirmed silvers had moved into the swim. A switch to hard pellet produced a few skimmers and another carp, which prompted me to change back to the paste rig which provide me with 2 more carp, but that was it. The skimmers were causing problems, if they were a decent size it wouldn’t be a problem, but at 3-4oz they became nuisance.
A quick look at the point of the island didn’t produce, although there were carp moving around, so decided to keep the feed going in to give the fish more confidence and switched back to the 6m line, fishing 4mm soft pellet. However this line was very slow, in fact much slower than I thought it would be which was disappointing.
At the half way stage, I felt I was ahead of Dean and had caught up with the end peg, but I needed to keep the fish coming. I started feeding my margins for later, as well as setting up a new line 14.5m to my left towards the point of the other island. In the meantime I made a few adjustments to my shallow pellet rig. I would catch 1 or 2 fish, before they backed off. I really needed some ripple on the water, but it remained bright and flat.
Unfortunately my margin, 6m line and the new 14.5m failed to produce anything of consequence, which meant the last 2 hours was a struggle, catching only a few carp. The end peg had stopped catching, but Dean had a good last couple of hours, catching shallow next to a large bush. I knew I had beaten the anglers either side, but other that I didn’t know. Also I couldn’t see the anglers on the opposite bank due to the islands.
Dean won our lake with 46lb and the only other person to beat me on my bank was Ron Crandon on the other end peg with 39-8 for 2nd on the lake. He included 2 carp for about 11lb, which are big carp for this lake.
In hindsight, I misjudged how the lake was fishing and spent too long fishing the 6m line, expecting regular bites from skimmers & odd carp, when in reality I didn’t catch nearly quickly enough. The other issue was I concentrated on the end of the island to the left of a large tuft of grass, when I should have also tried to the right of the tuft in the shallow. I felt like a right muppet, but Tony confirmed that’s where he caught last time he fished the peg, although to be fair the weather condition didn’t help today.
1st 157- 2 Tony Rixon – peg 57 (shallow 8mm pellet)
2nd 62- 8 Steve Seagar – peg 65 (paste)
3rd 61-12 Craig Edmunds – peg 42
4th 47-12 Paul Elmes – peg 68
5th 46-4 Dean Malin – peg 72
6th 39-8 Ron Crandon – peg 83
Catch – 16 Carp, 15 Skimmers, 2 Rudd, 1 Roach
Weather – Hot, sunny, light breeze
Match – Avon Angling Open – 11th out of 21 (5th on lake)
Today’s match was split between Johns & Sydney’s (lakes 3 & 4) and I was disappointed to draw peg 78 on Sydney’s, half way down the lake with Johns lake behind. I’m still waiting to draw a flyer on this lake, so a difficult day was likely, particularly with the forecast hot & sunny weather.
Whilst Mike is away doing his trade shows, he needs to get Nick to do some work and tidy up both lakes, because the undergrowth is getting a bit unruly. I couldn’t see my margins properly, so had to so some gardening, but due to all the vegetation I couldn’t see anyone expect Dean on 72 and end peg 71 thanks to the curvature of the lake.
At the all in a large cup of Gimps Gold/3mm pellet went in at 6m and started firing 6mms towards the point of the island. There was a small bed of lilies 12m to my right and I went straight over with paste, with a few 6mms in a toss pot, without any additional feed. After an hour, I had 5 carp and doing ok from what I could see, although the end 71 was probably ahead.
I kept the pellet going in towards the point of the island and topped up my 6m line. Staying near the lily bed, I started getting silly bites and a small rudd confirmed silvers had moved into the swim. A switch to hard pellet produced a few skimmers and another carp, which prompted me to change back to the paste rig which provide me with 2 more carp, but that was it. The skimmers were causing problems, if they were a decent size it wouldn’t be a problem, but at 3-4oz they became nuisance.
A quick look at the point of the island didn’t produce, although there were carp moving around, so decided to keep the feed going in to give the fish more confidence and switched back to the 6m line, fishing 4mm soft pellet. However this line was very slow, in fact much slower than I thought it would be which was disappointing.
At the half way stage, I felt I was ahead of Dean and had caught up with the end peg, but I needed to keep the fish coming. I started feeding my margins for later, as well as setting up a new line 14.5m to my left towards the point of the other island. In the meantime I made a few adjustments to my shallow pellet rig. I would catch 1 or 2 fish, before they backed off. I really needed some ripple on the water, but it remained bright and flat.
Unfortunately my margin, 6m line and the new 14.5m failed to produce anything of consequence, which meant the last 2 hours was a struggle, catching only a few carp. The end peg had stopped catching, but Dean had a good last couple of hours, catching shallow next to a large bush. I knew I had beaten the anglers either side, but other that I didn’t know. Also I couldn’t see the anglers on the opposite bank due to the islands.
Dean won our lake with 46lb and the only other person to beat me on my bank was Ron Crandon on the other end peg with 39-8 for 2nd on the lake. He included 2 carp for about 11lb, which are big carp for this lake.
In hindsight, I misjudged how the lake was fishing and spent too long fishing the 6m line, expecting regular bites from skimmers & odd carp, when in reality I didn’t catch nearly quickly enough. The other issue was I concentrated on the end of the island to the left of a large tuft of grass, when I should have also tried to the right of the tuft in the shallow. I felt like a right muppet, but Tony confirmed that’s where he caught last time he fished the peg, although to be fair the weather condition didn’t help today.
1st 157- 2 Tony Rixon – peg 57 (shallow 8mm pellet)
2nd 62- 8 Steve Seagar – peg 65 (paste)
3rd 61-12 Craig Edmunds – peg 42
4th 47-12 Paul Elmes – peg 68
5th 46-4 Dean Malin – peg 72
6th 39-8 Ron Crandon – peg 83
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