26/06/22 - Durleigh

Weight - 12lb 9oz

Catch - 2 Bream, plus perch, roach, skimmers

Weather - Shower to start. Mostly sunny and windy.

Match - So Simple League rd 5 (18 fished) - 3rd overall, 2nd in section

The fifth round of the So Simple league and I’m not sure anyone was really looking forward to it as Durleigh has been fishing hard. I found myself on p2 by the sailing hut and not where I wanted to be, although a couple of regulars tried to convince me otherwise.

Will Bate was on p1 and the only advantage we had was that peg 3 was 50m away so we at least had plenty of water to ourselves.

I had intended to bring a pole, but when I saw the forecast wind of 30mph I decided against it. However, my peg would have been perfect for the pole, as it was nice and deep close in and sheltered from the worst of the wind.

On the all-in 8 balls of groundbait (river : FA1 : worm meal) and caster was deposited at 16m and then I tried to use a spomb for the first time. Let’s just say it was interesting and if I am going to do it properly I need to upgrade to a suitable rod. I managed to deposit a mixture of FA1 micros, 4mm pellet and corn at 50-55m (most of the time), as well as showering myself in micros, 4s and corn when the spomb opened on the cast. Will didn’t laugh much!

After 3hrs I was bite less. I kept both lines topped up and didn’t see the point of fishing longer than 55m, particularly in such deep water. Eventually I caught my first fish, a roach on the 16m line, fishing a small cage feeder and worm on the hook.

Up to this point Will had managed a few small silvers and reports filtered down that it was fishing hard elsewhere. I managed a few more fish on the 16m line, including a pound skimmer and was really regretting not bringing my pole.

The short line didn’t last long and I topped up with a couple more balls of feed. A couple of casts on the 55m line didn’t produce, so that was topped up again.

Back on the short line and a couple of small fish, but it just wasn’t happening. So, with 90mins I decided to stick with the long line, hoping for a pull and was very surprised when it went round with 70mins remaining on a 6mm yellow gofter, fishing a 60g XR Banjo feeder. That was a relief.

My 2^nd bream came when I added another 3m. With 15mins remaining I cast out thinking it would be my last, only to have a bite within a minute and another bream to secure good section points.

So, a little bit of luck to finish 2^nd in section and a surprise to find out I had enough for 3^rd overall.

1.    25- 4 - Gary Dennis – p4

2.    19-13 – Karl Turner – p8

3.    12- 9 – Ken Rayner – p2

4.    11-15 – Chris Ware – p17

5.      8- 5 – Andy Seery – p14 

22/05/22 - Durleigh

Weight - 12lb 13oz

Catch - 2 Bream, 5 Skimmers

Weather - Sunshine and cloudy later. 

Match - So Simple League - rd 4 (18 fished) - 5th overall, 1st in section

Just the 1 match this weekend and it was the 4^th round of the So Simple league on a moody Durleigh reservoir. As usual the shallows was the place to draw, however I drew p9 just before the spillway which meant I was fishing in what turned out to be a tough section, including Karl Turner (venue expert), Simon Poynter (bloody good angler) and Elliot Fay (chief wind up merchant). 

On the all-in I spent 25mins feeding a mix of FA1 & Baninion RTGS, 4mm pellet and fizzers at 66m via a large rocket feeder. Elliot on p10 in the meantime spent nearly an hour spombing 4kgs of pellet and since we were sat quite close to each other I didn’t feel the need to feed much more! When Elliot eventually started fishing, he netted a 4lb bream 1^st cast, soon followed by a smaller one and we both thought great there are a few fish in the area.

I started on a 60g XR banjo feeder with dead maggot, but the small fish were plucking at the bait, so switched to a 6mm yellow gofter and I soon had my own bream of nearly 5lb, plus a 12oz skimmer.

It was an hour before I caught another bream of 4lb, hoping for a few more, but by the halfway point none were forthcoming. I even tried leaving the feeder in for 30mins without success.

In the meantime, I had been feeding small balls of groundbait at 25m and caught 2 small skimmers on dead maggot on a small cage feeder. A better feeder angler would have caught more, but at least it showed the smaller fish were starting to show closer as it warms up.

Within 90mins remaining I felt a few fish would be caught so switched back to the long line going 2m past where I was fishing, topping with 5 feeders of bait. This quickly produced 2x 1.5lb skimmers, but nothing else. In that time both Simon and Karl caught big bream, so I was willing my tip to go round, whilst hoping Simon and Karl didn’t catch another.

To be honest I was convinced I would catch another bream or 2, particularly as Elliot had fed enough bait to create a new underwater feature, but it just didn’t happen.

By the all-out it sounded like it would be between Simon and myself for the section and fortunately the result went my way, beating Simon by 2lb. Speaking to Simon afterwards, he adopted a negative approach, when his positive approach didn’t work, fishing a single maggot at range catching a number of hand sized skimmers and roach. Food for thought next time.

As expected, the shallows provided the top 3 weights, but by winning my section it has pulled me up to 3^rd in the league.

1.    73- 9 – Andy Seery – p17

2.    42- 5 – Gary Dennis – p16

3.    29-11 – Dave Wykes – p18

4.    20- 8 – Chris Ware – p5

5.    12-13 – Ken Rayner – p9

24/04/22 - Durleigh

Weight - 2oz

Catch - 1 Skimmer

Weather - Moderate North easterly wind. Mostly sunny.

Match - So Simpe League - rd 3 (18 fished) - 3rd in section

After the last practice match everyone wanted to draw the top end in the shallows, as that seemed to be where most of the fish seemed to be. Unfortunately, I drew p2 which was the first peg on the lawns and I knew another hard day was on the cards.

To be honest I was just glad to be out fishing, as I went down with Covid last weekend and was quite ill, losing 10lb in weight as I couldn’t eat and barely drank for 3 days which knocked the stuffing out of me. Have to say by the time I got to my peg I was blowing a bit.

As for the match there is not much to write about. Initially set up 2 lines, the first at 66m fed with micros & 4s and another line at 40m fed with groundbait, hemp and dead maggot.

With 2hrs remaining everyone was blanking, although Dave Wykes next to me managed a 6lb pike which didn’t count, not that he was unhappy about it!

I kept chopping and changing trying to get a bite, I even fished an 8mm orange gofter on the method and left it for 45mins hoping for a carp, without success.

With 45mins remaining I hooked a small fish at 72m on a cage feeder and long tail, which came off and thought I had blown my chances, as a couple of fish had now been caught. Fortunately, next cast a little knock on the tip produced a 2oz skimmer, which secured 3^rd in section, avoiding the dreaded blank.

Needless to say, I’m not sure anyone really enjoyed the fishing. The water is crystal clear at the moment and we were probably a month too early.

1.    13-12 – Gary Dennis – p12

2.    10-11 – Chris Ware – p17

3.      7- 6 – Andy Seery – p16

4.      5- 9 – John Crotty – p15

5.      3-14 – Ken Cocks – p14

14/04/22 - Durleigh

Weight - 6oz

Catch - 1 Skimmer, 1 Roach

Weather - Cloudy, hazy sunshine, light winds

Match - So Simple Open (18 fished) - 9th overall & 2nd in section

With 18 angler’s, todays match would serve as a useful practice for next weeks So Simple league as we would be using the same pegs.

At least it wasn’t as windy as last week, however reports suggested the fishing had been hard during the week due to the bright, flat conditions

The draw put me on peg 2, with Elliot on peg 1. We were effectively pleasure fishing as peg 3 was 50-60m away, however we were probably at the wrong end, with the majority of fish coming from the shallows, so a hard day was expected.

I started at 66m, fishing a method and a conventional feeder, but never had a bite and pushing further out was unsuccessful. In fact, Elliot was the only one in our section who had caught, catching small skimmers on a cage feeder and maggot at 40m.

Being quite deep close in, I regularly fed small balls of groundbait and dead maggot at 16m, fishing a cage feeder over the top, but surprisingly no bites. With 90mins remaining I eventually caught a roach at 40m on maggot and I’ve never been so happy to catch a roach. A small skimmer followed, and I at least avoided a blank.

Out of sheer boredom I also fed 2pts of 8mm pellet at 25m hoping for a rogue carp or big bream late on, but it never happened. Well done to Elliot for winning the section with 2lb 14oz and there was a total of 9 blanks. Hopefully it will fish better next week.

1.    49- 6 – John Brown – p17

2.    24-15 – Simon Poynter – p13

3.    17- 0 – Colin Butler – p18

4.    10- 9 – Nigel Franks – p9

5.      6- 1 – Gord Meers – p15

07/04/22 - Durleigh

Weight - 27lb 4oz

Catch - 6 Bream

Weather - Cold start. Bright and sunny, and very wind

Match - So Simple knock Up (8 fished) - 2nd overall

What started as a couple of us having a bit of a practice, soon turned into an 8 peg knock up. The only issue was the wind, and it was certainly blowing when we arrived.

I didn’t care where I drew. I just wanted to try a few different things, such as trying a new 13ft Freespirit Power Feeder Special rod, but I’ve never really used braid and thanks to Roy Worth for helping me look at using power gum as a shock leader which was really helpful.

I drew p8 and fortunately a big tree provided me with some shelter from the wind. However due to that wind which was forecast to get stronger I decided to fish a sensible 55m, to keep it accurate and just build up a single swim.

At the start I fed about 2pts of FA1 groundbait and RTG’s, plus corn. I started on 45g window feeder with corn on the hook, however I soon realised it wasn’t man enough as the tow was pulling it out of position, and I didn’t have any heavier window or cage feeders. So, a trip to the tackle ship will be required.

The good news was I at least had some 60g large ICM Banjo feeders, so that’s what I fished for the rest of the match, casting every 10mins to build the swim.

2hrs in I eventually had a positive pull on 3 dead maggots soaked in BMG and a 5lb lid was safely netted. 2 more followed before it went quiet. By this point Andy and Chris who had drawn in the deeper water were walking the bank. Apparently, the wind and tow was so bad they couldn’t hold a 60g feeder!

It turned out my 3 bream put me 2^nd so far with no else catching more than 1 fish except for Rich above me on p9, who had 6.

With no more bites I decided to feed another 5 big feeders full of bait and 30mins later I had another bream, again followed by 2 more on dead maggot, before it went quiet. I did hook another with 10mins remaining but pulled out of it.

As it happened it didn’t affect the result with Rich very comfortably winning the match and watching him fish it was obvious he is very good at this long distance feeder flinging. I was pleasantly surprised to come 2^nd and more importantly picked up a number of tips for next week’s match.

1.    115-11 – Rich Phillips – p9

2.      27- 4 – Ken Rayner – p8

3.      10- 0 – Roy Worth – p6

4.        9- 6 – Colin Butler – p7 

09/06/21 - Durleigh Reservoir

Weight - 11lb 2oz

Catch - 3 Bream

Weather - Warm, cloudy, sunny periods, gentle breeze

Match - So Simple Knock Up (10 fished)

I’ve been looking forward to going back to Durleigh since I last fished it nearly 2 years ago. Today there were 10 So Simple members fishing and following reports of bream showing yesterday we were expecting bulging nets and a good days fishing.

I drew peg 6 near the slipway and with David Wykes on p7 we both thought we were in the right area, particularly since we all had plenty of space.

I had contemplated bringing a pole to fish short for roach, but decided against it and just brought 2 feeder rods, both with method feeders clipped at 51m and 75m. At the start I spent nearly 15mins feeding my ‘short’ line with So Simple Crush & BMG, micros, 4s and some corn, all boosted with baninion juice, giving them a bed of feed to graze over later.

I was expecting a slow start, but the following 3hrs were fairly uneventful, as I switched between the 2 lines, I even tried dead maggot just to get a bite. Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one. Trev on p6 and Dave were also blanking, both of whom know how to catch the Durleigh bream and the grapevine suggested it was fishing hard. Although no one had heard from Andy who was hiding behind a tree on the end peg in the shallow water.

On the 3hr mark, Dave landed 1, after losing 1 earlier and as he landed his, I had an indication and a Bream on! At nearly 4lb it was a nice start, 2 more followed within 45mins, including a near 6lber all at 75m on an 8mm yellow gofter, I thought here we go.

The following 2hrs 15mins I was biteless again. I was fairly single minded in my approach i.e. only fishing the method, but both Dave and Trev tried all sorts to get a bite and failed, so it was difficult to measure if I got it right or not.

At least this swan kept me company or was it the freebies I was giving him.

My 11lb 2oz was only good enough for 6th on the day; but 1 more bream would have brought me 3^rd, so quite tight for the minor placings.

As it happened Andy Seery found the fish in the shallower water comfortably winning with 81lb 5oz. So well done to Andy. We were all pleased for him as he works hard on the So Simple baits in the BOG shed, which we all appreciate.

1st 81- 5 – Andy
2nd 19- 0 – Chris Whitehead
3rd 14- 5 – Mike Hosgood
4th 12- 9 - Jerry