Wednesday 25 July 2012

24/07/12 - Glebe - Pool 1

Weight - 134lb 12oz
Catch - 23 Carp, 18 Bream, 2 Chub
Weather - Hot & sunny, light winds
Match - England Ladies Fund Raiser - 5th out of 47, 4th out of 10 section

Today was a fund raiser for the England Ladies team, organised by Julie Abbott via the MFS website so they can compete in the World Championships. Whilst they get some kit, the cost of travelling etc has to come out of their own pockets so any money raised is very useful, including part of the £10k the men's team won at the Home International at Cudmore.

With 47 anglers fishing between pools 1, 5, 6 & 7 drawing a peg with some space would be important, plus everyone wanted pool 7 which has been fishing very well. However todays conditions were very different from my last visit, with a really hot day and little wind on the cards, fishing was likely to be tricky.

I found myself on pool 1 in the 20s again, peg 25 to be exact. I cant keep away from that end of the lake having now drawn it 4 times in 6 matches. Initially, I wasnt overly happy with my peg, since this end of the lake hasnt been the best, with the better weights coming from the bend and the middle of the lake.

For company I had Steve May on p26 and Colin (Billy No Fish from the MFS site) on p23. Included in my 10 peg section was Steve's son Andy May on p19 and Ian Toplis (scone) on p20 which is the best margin peg on the lake, so a really tough section.

I set up rigs to fish pellet, corn and paste down the left margin and at 5m, but was hoping I wouldnt need to spend too much time here, relying on catching shallow at 13m, feeding caster. I had brought 12pts (someone help Mike Nicholls off the floor!) which had been frozen.

On the all in the wind dropped and the ripple disappeared, so decided to start at 5m on paste whilst I built up the 13m line. After 20mins I had 1 bite, whilst Steve already had 6 small carp on the feeder cast to the far bank.

With a few carp now showing I set ablout catching shallow. As well as a pole rig I also set up a puddle chucker waggler to chase the carp around the swim. After nearly 3hrs Mark called to say he had at least 100lb already from peg 13(which he had moaned like hell about it being the worst peg on the lake!) and wanted to know how my end of the lake was doing. At the time I had 6 carp, plus about 12lb of silvers.

As the match progressed, there was more carp being drawn to the feed, but they didnt seem to be feeding properly. I had to keep switching between the waggler and the pole. When it was flat calm the waggler seemed best, plus I had most of my silvers on the waggler, whilst the pole was used when there was a ripple or when the carp came in close enough to mug. Steve was doing much the same thing, there was plenty of carp around, but they were just drifting between the 2 of us.

I did have a look down my margin, but only had a couple of knocks from silvers, so soon binned that. I also tried the 5m line where I had been feeding 6s and had a couple of decent skimmers and a carp.

At the all out I knew it would be close between Steve and myself, because we were matching each other carp for carp, although I had 18lb of silvers, but Steve had those early carp on the feeder. As it turned out it was very close, as Steve hooked his first fish down the margin on the whistle and landed an 8lber 10mins later, beating me by 4lb.

Pool 1 was definately the place to be with the top 5 weights coming from the lake. In hindsight the first 20mins of the match cost me 3rd in the match. I should have gone shallow straight away, because Steve finished 3rd, whilst Ian on p20 had 12 carp for 120lb in the last hour down his margin to finish with 136lb.

Mark won with his best ever match weight. He even had the cheek to say he was getting bored catching. Whilst I had to continually chase the fish around the swim, Mark just dropped his bait in and waited for the elastic to be pulled out.

I was just pleased to put an end to my worse run of 6 matches without a pick up, as I collected the section by default.

The day raised £850 thanks to a raffle and Roy not charging a pegging fee.

1st 280- 8 - Mark Poppleton - p13 (pool 1)
2nd 246- 4 - Andy May - p19 (pool 1)
3rd 138- 8 - Steve May - p26 (pool 1)
4th 136- 8 - Ian Toplis - p20 (pool 1)
5th 134-12 - Ken Rayner - p25 (pool 1)
6th 129- 4 - Shaun Little - p95 (pool 6)

Monday 23 July 2012

22/07/12 - Trinity Waters - Wildmarsh

Weight - 26lb 0oz (9lb 8oz - silvers)
Catch - 3 Carp, 96 Rudd, 79 Roach, 4 Motherless Minnows, 2 Perch
Weather - Hot & sunny.
Match - Avon Angling Open - 7th out of 30 (3rd out of 10 - section)

After yesterdays fiasco, I really needed a good match and Wildmarsh Lake has been quite good to me in the past. With 30 booked in, Tony split the lake into 3 sections, with 1 section made up of carp pegs, with most concentrated around the island.

I drew 16 which was in the carp section and the feedback suggested it wasn't the best, however with the wind blowing my way, although not much ripple I was hopeful. The peg itself is set at an odd angle, facing pegs 14 (Mike West) and 15 (empty corner). I had a reed bed and small tree down my right hand side, but due to the angle of the peg and the height of the reeds, I ended up setting my box to the far left of the peg making full use of the extending legs, so I could get out into the water as much as possible (next time I fish this lake I bring my penrose platform).

Once I finally got myself settled I noticed a few rudd in front of me and knew from experience that generally the carp dont show in any numbers, so a back up line was required. I also set up a line 13m to my left into the open water, feeding 3 pots of groundbait, caster, worm and pellet. To be honest this was a throw away line, since I didn't expect too many skimmers to be in this part of the lake and that's what happened, after 2 attempts during the match and only 2 roach, this line was binned.

On the all in, I went straight over to the reeds with paste hoping for an early carp, but after 20mins and only 1 roach it was obvious there was none around. A switch to my top and I was soon catching tiny rudd on maggot, feeding caster. After a few rig adjustments and a switch to caster I continued to catch slightly better rudd, but more roach began to show. As the match progressed, I had to fish top 3 and by fishing a little deeper managed a few better roach up to 3oz.

In the meantime my margin swim was topped up every 30mins with 1/2 pot of meat & pellet. I also set up another swim at 11m straight in front and this got a regular top up as well.

With 75mins to go my short line was slowing and it was time to catch some carp, having given them plenty of time to settle. First put in on meat produced a carp after 5mins, followed by a better one 10mins later on paste, before the small fish re-appeared. The 11m line failed to produce anything other than a couple knocks from suspected silvers, whilst Mike had 3 carp for 30lb in 3 put ins from his long line. Back into my margin and I had 1 final carp on paste.

Just 1 more carp would have seen me claim the section by default, with Dean beating me by 2lb, but I had an enjoyable day with plenty of bites.

1st - 58-12 - Paul Locke - p22 (paste @ 13m)
2nd - 57- 07 - Mike West - p14 (paste)
3rd - 38-11 - Anton Page - p11
4th - 30-14 - Tony Rixon - island 3 (paste!)
5th - 30-13 - Dave Roper - p6
6th - 28- 4 - Dean Malin - p42

Silvers
1st - 34- 0 - Paul Lock
2nd - 20- 8 - Tony Rixon
3rd - 20- 3 - Nicky Collins

Sunday 22 July 2012

21/07/12 - Fishponds

Weight - 100lb 9oz
Catch - 14 Carp
Weather - Warm & sunny! What no rain?
Match - Club (rod & reel match) - 6th out of 7

With 7 of us there should have been plenty of space for everyone, however I drew peg 7 which the 1 peg that didn't offer any space, yet there was only 1 angler pegged in the arm of the lake and 1 angler on the long bank. Needless to say I wasn't happy and my run of poor draws continues.

The peg itself isn't that bad when there are more anglers on the lake, however it is a pole peg rather than a rod & reel peg (starting to sound all bitter and twisted now). Its set back in amongst the reeds at the mouth of a small bay, with no real open water to attack, otherwise you are interfering with peg 12.

With flat calm conditions, my options were fairly limited, so decided to attack the far bank. I could have used the feeder, but I much prefer to fish the float and set up a waggler to fish on the deck in 6ft of water and a pellet waggler, feeding 8s.

After 90mins I had 3 carp from the far bank, but going nowhere. I had been feeding short and managed a few carp. As for the far bank I had started been feeding fewer pellets more often, to try and encourage the fish up in the water, but some ducks appeared and I promptly hooked one , which then dived deep into the nearside reeds. A trip in the boat was required to free the bird and recover my rig.

The rest of the match was just plain frustrating. I had to work really hard to avoid the carp kiting into the reeds and I did lose a couple, simply because the peg is set back too far to get any purchase on the carp to pull'em away, hence the reason why this more of a pole peg.

In the end I lost 7 or 8 carp, a couple were a result of simple hook pulls, but I was always going to struggle, unless the wind is blowing into the bay.

1st 195-3 - Glenn - p3
2nd 152-15 - Eddie - p12
3rd 109- 2 - Marcus - p16
4th 104- 0 - Chris - p6
5th 103- 8 - Andy - p12
6th 100- 9 - Ken - p7

Sunday 15 July 2012

14/07/12 - Glebe - pool 4

Weight - 86lb 4oz
Catch - 30 Carp, 14 Skimmers, 2 Perch, 1 Roach
Weather - Heavy overnight rain. Cool start, warm & sunny later.
Match - MFS website - 3rd out of 6 section

Peg 73 on pool 4 was my home for the day. At least I managed to get away from pool 1 having fished it 3 times in 4 visits.

Pool 4 is one of the strip lakes with 10 pegs, unfortunately the feedback was it is a great feeder peg, but generally not a great draw and checking the results from yesterdays match and only 13lb came from the peg for plum last!. Peg 66 which is the end peg was suppose to be the best peg on the lake, so it looked like I was at the wrong end again, although at least this time there was a nice ripple on the water.

Yesterdays after match chat was a little mixed. Corn didn't work for some, but worked for others, also expanders seemed to be working for 30-40lb bag of skimmers at 6m. The one thing that didn't seem to working was pellet shallow, with most catching on the deck.

I had decided to use caster shallow, but due to the heavy overnight rain, the start of the match was quite cool & cloudy so started on the deck feeding corn & hemp at 13m and then 6mm pellet & corn at 6m. The 13m line was a waste of time with only 1x 1lb carp caught on double corn, whilst the short line produced small skimmers and carp up to 2lb on either 6mm expander or corn, feeding a small handful of pellet & corn.

After about an hour I had about 10lb and already feeling like today would be better than yesterday. The sun was starting to make an appearance making it feel a lot warmer, so I also started to feed caster, whilst I stayed on the 6m line.

The rest of the match was spent mostly fishing shallow, switching occasionally back to the short line and my margin. Initially I was really struggling to catch shallow. There was plenty of fish showing, but they just didn't seem to be feeding properly and it was only after an hour that I started to get a run of fish together, but I had to keep chasing the fish around the swim, including some caught shallow at 6m.

Then the wind dropped completely and the fish became really difficult to catch - again. It then just became a case of feeding 2 or 3 pouches of caster in one hit to pull the fish is then try to drop the bait on the nose of a passing carp. I had a few on the waggler when they shyed completely away from the pole.

Normally I would expect 30 carp to go at least 100lb, but today I had quite a few squeakers, as well as a couple of 8-9lbers. The disappointment for me was not being able to make my margin work. I had been feeding it with corn and hemp, but when I went over it with double corn I would get loads of little dinks and the odd  "proper" bites but no fish. I only needed a couple of decent margin fish to claim 2nd in section. So I obviously got the feeding wrong and need to approach it differently next time I'm here

1st 152- 4 - RossN (Glebe) - p100 (pool 7)
2nd 140-12 - Neil Powell (Hillbilly) - p85 (pool 5)
3rd 137- 6 - Martin Church (Wales) - p70 (pool 4)
4th 137- 0 - NoHope - p98 (pool 7)
5th 126- 8 - Rob Dickinson - p102 (pool 7)
6th 124- 8 - Hathers - p109 (pool 7)

13/07/12 - Glebe - Pool 1

Weight - 53lb 0oz
Catch - 10 Carp, 12 Skimmers
Weather - Rainy start, cleared later, light winds
Match - MFS website - 38th out of 45 - 6th out of 7 section

Today was the first of a 2 dayer at the Glebe. I travelled up with Mark and we ended up having a pig of a journey with 3 lanes closed on the M42, we managed to get on the M6, but due to restricted access we had to go northbound and it then took 3 junctions before we could turn around and head back in the correct direction. Despite this it was still better than sitting in stationary traffic.

With the Angling Trust Masters next month I wanted to get some practice and today we had 45 anglers booked in over 5 lakes. I was just thankful to actually be fishing after pulling my back last weekend, but a rather intense osteopath session sorted me out. I also brought a Velcro strap belt to support my lower back and it really worked.

I found myself on peg 29 on pool 1 which was at the far end of the pool, one peg from the end. Reports suggested I was at the wrong end of the lake, with most of the recent weights coming from around peg 8. Steve on peg 30 said he struggled from the same peg a few weeks ago. Although there was no ripple in our part of the lake there was a few fish moving around on the surface, so I was actually quite hopeful of a good day, plus I had a spare peg to my left.

On the all in, I swung out the mugging rig with 8mm pellet and I had a 8lber straight away - perhaps I was going to have a good day after all. This was followed by a smaller carp 10mins later, but all the surface fish soon disappeared.

I had cupped in sweetcorn and hemp at 6m, as well as 13m. The 6m line produced a small carp, but the 13m had failed and with 90mins already gone I only had 3 carp.

A few skimmers had started to show over my 6m line by continually feeding corn and hemp, switching to just corn later, but they were coming too slowly and any carp I caught on the deck were only small.

Since the 13m line failed to produce I started to catapult 6s, switching to 8s later to try and catch shallow, but neither had the desired effect and with half the match gone I still only 3 carp, plus a few more skimmers from my 6m line.

I had brought some caster with me, but as yet hadn't fed any, mainly because I hoped to catch properly on pellet and keep my caster (by freezing them) for the more important matches at the Glebe, but it was frustrating that I couldn't catch so started to feed the caster over the 13m line. This would also show the difference between caster and pellet.

Well the caster certainly pulled a few fish in, but with no ripple as soon as I shipped out the pole, the carp would shy away and all I could catch was skimmers and a couple small carp. After an hour of this I was getting more frustrated, so I got off my box and set up a waggler to chase the carp. 1st cast I almost had the rod pulled out of hand, unfortunately the next carp didn't come quite as quickly. In fact I had to work really hard to get a bite, continually changing the depth of the waggler.

Going into the last hour Steve on p30 had stopped catching altogether, whilst I kept picking up the odd fish, including 2 carp in the last 10mins shallow on the pole. I thought it would be close between Steve and myself, but due to bankside vegetation I couldn't really see down the lake. As it happened, Steve weighed 49lb for last, whilst my 53lb was 2nd to last in the section, whilst the weights just got better the further down the lake you went. Today was a genuine case of drawing poorly, which was disappointing having travelled all that distance.

So onto our overnight accommodation which Mark booked. Image our surprise when we entered the room to see a double bed! Today just keeps on giving! Mark eventually got a twin room which involved 2 single beds being pushed together, which we soon separated! Then we dicided to eat the carvery at the hotel, which  was dry and horrible. So not a great day all in all

Having checked the results from Saturdays match a venue regular fished the peg and only managed 65lb for 30th overall. So definately not fishing well at this end of the lake.

1st 156- 4 - Woody - p66 (pool 4)
2nd 133-12 - Mark Poppleton - p92 (pool 6)
3rd 127-12 - Andy Toplis - p22 (pool 1)
4th 123- 5 - Hathers - p83 (pool 5)
5th 119- 6 - SBW - p102 (pool 7)
6th 119- 3 - Ron Byus - p104 (pool 7)

Sunday 8 July 2012

07/07/12 - Lands End - Match

Weight - 84lb 0oz (18lb 3oz - silvers)
Catch - 16 Carp, 20 Roach, 6 Bream, 4 Perch, 3 F1, 1 Chub, 1 Rudd
Weather - Wet & windy again! Cleared up later
Water Temp - 23.6c > 23.7c
Match - Open - 5th out of 5

I should be fishing the 4th round of Tony's float only instead of writing this blog, however I twisted my lower back, which is tedious.

Despite the wind and rain I wanted to go fishing today, well it was that or watch bugger all on TV. With only 5 turning up, there would be plenty of room for everyone and it was decided to put 15,17,20,22 & 24 in. It was also decided to pay overall and a top in silvers. Personally would have preferred top 2 overall, but it was eventually decided on the flip of a coin.

I found myself on 15, which today was at the windiest end of the lake. Initially whilst setting up the surrounding trees provided shelter from the worst of the wind, however almost as if on cue, as soon as the all-in was called a big gust of wind turned my umbrella inside out and the wind starting coming directly down the lake.

Mike West was on p20 and I fancied him to win, so decided to target the silvers, starting on the far bank by potting caster. I would have prefered to have catapulted the caster, but the strength of the wind won't allow it. In the meantime I potted some 4s at 8m and regularly topped up hoping for skimmers later.

Originally set up a 0.1g frostie for the far bank, but with the increasing wind I had to swap to 0.2g which sat better in the water and I picked up a few silvers and a couple of small carp mostly on worm, but the wind was proving really troublesome.

After an hour I tried the 8m line, but unlike Jim on p17 who was catching some big skimmers I was mostly catching roach. Unfortunately I forgot to bring any expanders, so brought some from the on-site shop, but to be honest, they weren't great, so resorted to using 6mm meat. This produced my first decent skimmer, but there was still loads of roach around, when what I really needed was those skimmers. I kept plugging away on the 8m line as well as the far bank, still picking up a few silvers, plus a couple of carp, but with Mike catching carp and Jim catching silvers it was difficult to decide which way to go.

I had been feeding meat down my margin, plus by the bush to my right, but as yet haven't yielded anything of consequence. I had also been feeding 6s further down the island towards to the point and there was a few carp starting to mill around the feed. So on went an 8mm pellet, I soon hooked a carp, only for it to snag on some underwater vegetation, losing the rig.

My back was starting to feel the pain of battling the wind, but it was twisting round trying to sort out my umbrella that had turned inside out that I pulled something in my lower back. In hindsight I really should have fished with a bump bar, which I retrieved from the car, plus some pain killers. The irony is I went to osteopath yesterday, because I could feel it getting tight.

For the next hour, I couldn't fish longer than 8m, but picked up a couple more skimmers, before a couple of carp intervened and then the roach returned.

The pain killers took the edge off the pain, plus the wind had eased. So I switched back to the far bank (with the aid of my bump bar), deciding to focus on fishing worm over caster, because I really didn't want to be lifting and dropping pellet. By cupping the caster, I had a run of carp, plus a few F1s and I lost a near 3lb ide, when the hook pulled out at the net.

In the last couple of hours it was a case of rotating the far bank, with the 8m line and my margin was also showing signs of life of a few carp in amongst some quality roach on meat. I was really hoping for some quality silvers, because Jim had stopped catching skimmers and was now catching carp from his margin, so I was hoping to pick up in the silvers by default, however I was catching mostly roach, instead of the skimmers, plus the carp had decided to turn up. So quite a strong and enjoyable finish to the match, although my back was definitely sore.

In the end the lake fished well, admittedly we had plenty of space, but even so I wont have expected to be last with 84lb. My best spell was once the wind dropped and I feel 100lb plus would have been possible if it wasn't for the early strong wind and me pulling my back.

1st 125-0 - Jim Jenner - p17 (35-0 silvers)
2nd 123- 0 - Mike West - p20
3rd 86- 0 - Mark Walsh - p24
4th 85 - 0 - Dave Wescott - p22 (59- 0 silvers - ide, F1s on caster)
5th 84- 0 - Ken Rayner - p15

Sunday 1 July 2012

30/06/12 - Viaduct - Campbell

Weight - 88lb 7oz
Catch - 18 Carp, 6 Skimmers, 1 Roach
Weather - Mostly sunny with showers & windy.
Water Temp - 25.2c > 26.1c
Match - Match Fishing Scene - 11th out of 20

I arrived at the venue in real need of a decent breakfast and I wasn't disappointed, which made we feel less groggy. Yesterday (Friday) I spent at Lords watching England beat the Aussies in the first ODI. I was invited by one of the companies I do business with, which meant free food and booze all day. Needless to say, not being the big drinker, I certainly felt the effects of what was a great day out, but due to a rain delayed start, it meant a late finish. So a really long day and an early start today with a hangover is not recommended. Fred Roberts suggested I was being a lightweight - yep, not going to argue with that.

Today there are 20 members from the MFS site and I was pleased to find myself on 110. Campbell and Cary had been hammered all week due to a private "festival" and the most consistant area was the bottom end. I didn't expect that to change today, because the wind was still blowing down that end, although we were greeted by spawning fish.

As mentioned before Viaduct is a bit of a bogie venue for me and I have struggled to get to grips with it and I received plenty of advice from the regulars on how to fish the peg. I was in danger of confusing myself, however the one bit of information that was repeated was to fish to the end bank. So I had a pellet waggler, a drake loaded insert waggler to fish on the deck and the lead which I hoped I wont need. The pole rigs were easy, one for meat and one for paste, which would do for fishing 13m as well as down the left hand margin since the depth was fairly uniform.

I started down by the stump on meat and soon had a carp and a couple of skimmers, but those were the only fish I had from here. A few more skimmers and a carp came from the 14m line again on meat.

However, whilst a switch to the pellet waggler, saw an immediate response. The problem was that stump. Any hooked fish would kite left into the corner, which in itself wasnt that much of issue, but the foliage on the stump as well as the overhanging willow branches (which included someones pole rig), meant I couldnt manoeuver the fish and I got done several times.  I got fed up of this and had to go round and pull out the offending foliage. Unfortunately I couldnt do anything about the overhanging branches. When I did fish down the edge I got done again! In total I lost 12 carp, some were foul hooked, but most were in the mouth and I got a little irritated (as everyone heard!). This wasnt helped by the fact I was starting to fish like a muppet, as I was losing my composure - I was hooking my keepnet, rigs were tangling and to really illustrate how things were going, I landed a carp that I had pulled out of the margin, which had managed to wrap someones loaded pellet waggler around my rig. The fish dived to the near margin as I netteded it, but with this waggler swinging around it got caught up on one of my spare top kits that was in my pole roost.

With 2hours to go, my frustration reached its limit as another lost fish meant I needed to go for a walk for 5mins. After having a word with myself I actually had a good last 2 hours, losing very few fish, catching on paste down the edge, then on the full depth waggler towards the end bank and a couple on meat at 5m.

I really should have framed today and had I landed half the fish I lost I probably would have. Taking the positives out of the day, this was my best weight at Viaduct (told you it was a bogie venue) and I ended up wishing the match would finish later as I was having a nice time on the waggler.

1st 191-2 - Richard Wyatt - p119 (pole/pellet shallow to the end bank)
2nd 131- 8 - Gareth Boycott - p128
3rd 117- 8 - Ian McCulloch - p132
4th 115-13 - Mark Poppleton - p112
5th 98-11 - Craig - p117
6th 96-13 - Fred Roberts - p113