29/06/14 - Shiplate - West Pool

Weight - 55lb 12oz (4lb 14oz - silvers)
Catch - 16 Carp, 9 Skimmers, 2 Roach, 1 Perch
Weather - Warm & sunny
Match - Tony's Float Only - 10th out of 40, 2nd on lake

Today I was making up the numbers for Tony’s float only. I had wanted to fish the whole series, however I couldn’t attend all the dates, so made myself available as a stand in for the dates I could make. I have only fished Shiplate once before 2.5yrs ago on West Pool and didn’t know too much about the place other than what I read on a few blogs, but know its popular with the Clevedon based anglers. Arriving at the venue it became clear I wasn’t the only one fishing “blind”.

Peg 9 on West Pool, sounded familiar and when I arrived I realised it was the same peg I drew the last time I was here – what are the chances? With the payout per section, I was disappointed with my peg, because Paul Blake on the end peg 3 with the wind blowing into that end, Bob Gullick on p5 (the first peg were it narrows, Martin McMahon on p6 and Trigger on p8. So all had space, whilst I had none because I was the 2^nd angler in a line 4, with Joe “tourettes” McMahon the other side of me on p10.

Fortunately the far bank was 15m away and Joe’s pole didn’t quite reach, so I hoped that would work to my advantage, but to be honest I thought I would be up against it. There was plenty of fish moving around so I was at least hopeful of catching a few.

Plumbing up revealed the far bank was shallow and the near margin was even shallow at 8in and I honestly couldn’t see me catching that close in. So rigs for the day
- border 4x10 > .14 > 16B911 – far bank
- MP paste > .19 > 12 carp feeder – far bank
- Ackoo Carrat 0.3g > .16 > 16 B911 – meat @ 5m
- SM Chimp 0.3g > .12 > 16 silverfish pellet – expander at 12m

After feeding meat/hemp at 5m and micros/4s with a little groundbait at 12m, I started on the paste rig fishing tight across simply toss potting a few 6s with paste, hoping to pick up a few early fish using a big target bait and slowly build up the swim. After 30mins I had a few liners, but no fish, but no one had caught except for Bob, so decided to stick with it.

A quick look with maggot only produced a small roach, so switched back to the paste rig which resulted in a 2lb skimmer, but still no carp. A switch to pellet only produced a few nibbles from small silvers, which meant after 90mins I didn’t have a lot in the net, which went for most of us on the lake. Bob was still catching, Trigger had managed to snare a couple of fish from his margin and Steve Tucker on p12 had caught.

Today was a lot warmer and brighter than expected and I think the fish were more interested in sunning themselves than feeding. I had kept my pellet & meat lines topped up every 15mins. Since I couldn’t catch a carp I switched the 12m pellet swim and soon caught a few small skimmers and eventually a small carp.

3hrs in and I had about 6lb in the net. Whilst fishing the 12m line I kept pinging 6s to the far bank, which had the undesired effect of  attracting the attention of the ducks and moorhens. The ducks in particular where a nightmare, especially for Trigger as they cleaned out his margin everytime he fed it.

Fishing across with 6mm meat on the hook and I soon landed a few fish, but the moorhens had flatten some the sedges back into the water, making presentation difficult. There was nothing for it, but to go round and re-clear the swim. I ended up doing Triggers and Bobs as well!

The meat line produced a carp first drop in and I thought great I’ll catch a few now, but the next fish was roach and I started to get little knocks from silvers. I returned to the swim later but no carp.

As for the far line I had kept pinging pellet in and caught a couple of carp, but had a 20mins when I couldn’t catch, so decided to toss pot 6s instead which worked much better and the last 90mins was the best spell of the match, where I overtook Trigger and nearly caught up with Bob.

Overall really pleased with how the match went, particularly from my peg. The old cliché of a match of 2 halves was very much the case today.

1^st 101- 9 – Tom Mangnall – p1 main lake
2^nd 100- 5 – Glenn Bailey – p2 main lake
3^rd 87- 9 – Sean Townsend – p14 main lake
4^th 74- 8 – Eddie Wynn – p15 main lake
5^th 71- 7 – Tim Ford – p6 hawthorn
6^th 63-10 – Gordon Cannings – p15 hawthorn

Silvers
1^st 10-14 – Rich Lacey – p3 main lake
2^nd 8- 4 – Dave Haines – p12 hawthorn
3^rd 7- 4 – Gary O’Shea – p13 main lake
4^th 6- 6 – Neil Mercer – p5 main lake
5^th 6- 0 – Eddie Wynn – p15 main lake
6^th 5-14 – Mike Nichols – p14b main lake

28/06/14 - Fishponds

Weight - 219lb 4oz
Catch - 31 Carp, 1 Eel
Weather - Muggy
Match - Club - 2nd out of 10

A nice easy start to the day, with a 1pm draw, fishing 2-7pm. There were 10 of us today and I drew p10 which is the deepest peg (7-8ft) on the lake, so hardly ideal for a summer evening match, however it also has some deep margins close to the reeds of 5ft, which is where I intended to stay most of the match.

3 rigs were set up, 1 for paste, 1 for banded 8mm pellet and a shallow rig, because I had seen a few fish moving around. Feed was 8mm pellet, so nothing complicated.

Starting in the left margin, mainly because it was easy to catapult pellet 13m to my shallow line, I had 8 carp in the first hour all on paste, including a couple of double figure fish. The following 90mins and the wheels fell off some what. The left hand margin was slowing so switched to the right side, but it wasn’t anywhere as good as the left. The shallow line didn’t produce, I lost a  rig in the reeds thanks to foul hooker and pulled out of a couple more, which meant I had only added a further 3 carp to my tally. To add insult to injury, a 10lber managed to jump out of the keepnet, past the landing net that was in the net to stop such action and landed at my feet, before it flipped back into the water.

In the meantime a number of anglers had caught up and overtaken me. Time to take stock. I decided to bin the shallow line and just concentrate on the 2 margins. A brief look with the pellet rig only produced 1 carp, but paste was much better. A handful of 8s (fed 8pts of pellet during the match) into each margin after hooking a carp, kept them coming, adding 20, plus a big eel (1lb 12oz) in the last 2.5hrs.

I was fairly sure I had overtaken most during those last 2hrs, but wasn’t sure. First to weigh was Glenn on peg 1 who I couldn’t see from my peg and he put 229lb on the scales, which was enough to win. My 219lb was enough for 2^nd and the acrobatic carp may have cost me a win. However it was nice to catch a few fish and give the new Power Legion a good work out as a few carp were determined to seek sanctuary in the reeds.

1^st 229- 5 – Glenn Putterill – p1
2^nd 219- 4 – Ken Rayne – p10
3^rd 164- 5 – Andy Bradley – p23
4^th 159- 0 – Dave Bradley – p16
5^th 154-13 – Craig Davidge – p5
6^th 144- 0 – Andy Lord – p21

21/06/14 - Lands End - Johns

Weight - 50lb 1oz
Catch - 10 Carp, 2 Rudd, 1 F1, 1 Roach, 1 Perch
Weather - Hot & sunny
Match - Open - 5th out of 11

With Ridgeway fishery currently closed a few of the regulars, such as Vince and Ryan Shipp have been coming to Lands End and bolstered the numbers to 11. We also had a nice sensible draw time of 10am so no rush to arrive on time.

  

Today’s match was on the no3 lake otherwise known as Johns Lake (not Sydney’s, which is the lake behind Johns – please take note Mr Nicholls). Now the dynamics of this lake seems to have changed in the last 12 month, following the introduction of the small carp from Sydney’s lake. Normally the end pegs are the draws to have, but more recently the middle pegs have been more consistent, particularly for the bigger fish.

 

I found myself on p42, which is usually good for a few fish, but not what it used to be, following the removal of the bush from the island. For company Rod Wootton was on p41, Dave “Beanie” Wescott on p68 and Andy Hembrow on p70. Must say there was plenty of banter between the 4 of us for most of the match.

 

On arrival there was plenty of carp swimming around, so a conventional shallow rig was set up, as well as a long rig mugging rig. Whilst setting up Ray White was walking and said meat hadn’t been as good as normal, but paste was working. So decided to hedge my bets feeding pellet & paste by the weed bed and meat/hemp at 6m to my left.

 

On the all-in Rod, Andy & I all went shallow chasing the cruisers, but none of us caught, the carp were just shying away and didn’t seem to be in the mood for feeding. Dave in the meantime had 3 or 4 carp on paste by the weed bed, so I switched to paste by my weed bed, but managed to bump/lose 3 carp in 20mins, eventually landing one on the 4^th attempt.

 

Since I couldn’t get a bite from anywhere else I stuck with targeting those shallow fish, by keep feeding 6s off the end of the island. There was no point feeding tight to the island, because of the overhanging sedges. It turned into a real frustrating match. Rod had the carp climbing out of the water up the bare bank, with his float in the middle of the melee, but no bites.

 

I had brought 2pts of caster, because I thought I would be on Match Lake and since the carp were proving difficult I thought something different might work, so started feeding the caster. Scaling down to .14 bottom and 18 hook buried inside a caster, but this only produced 2 rudd. I even dropped the well disguised bait onto the nose of a passing carp, but still no take.

 

I wasn’t the only one, Rod had given up chasing the cruiser around, Andy started catching down his right hand margin and Dave was still catching the odd fish on paste. I eventually did catch a few, even taking 3 carp in 20mins and I thought great they started feeding, but no. I had a few carp that were gently taking the bait before rejecting it, even scaling down to 6mm pellet didn’t help.

 

My 6m line only produced 1 small carp and my margin which I started feeding after 3hrs eventually produced 3 carp towards the end of the match.

 

As it turned out my weight was the best along my bank, which just seems to typify my fishing at the moment, drawing OK, but not quite on the fish.

 

1^st 164- 5 – Ryan Shipp – p58 (meat)

2^nd 93- 3 – Vince Shipp – p61

3^rd 88- 7 – Andy Hembrow – p70

4^th 66- 4 – Dave Wescott – p68

5^th 50- 1 – Ken Rayner – p42

6^th 33-12 – Rod Wootton – p41

 

Silvers

1^st 20- 5 – Rod Wootton – p41

2^nd 8-14 – Andy Hembrow – p70

16/06/14 - Glebe - Pool 1

Weight - 121lb 8oz
Catch - 33 Carp, 1 Tench, 1 Crucian
Weather - Windy, cool & cloudy
Match - MFS - 13th out of 20

Apologies for the latest of the blog, however loads going on, mostly work related, including an overnight stay in London, means is the first chance to catch up with my blog.

 

Today’s match was organised by MFS, with 20 anglers on what I think is the best lake on the complex. Driving up to the Glebe, Mark & I expected a day shallow fishing, because the recent weather has been very pleasant and the carp seemed to have got the spawning mostly done. On arrival however, it was cloudy & cool with a NE wind blowing, but there was a few fishing showing themselves.

Peg 1 was my home for the day and it can be a very good peg, although the fish can be on the smaller side. Putting my box down and there was a few fish moving around, so I was quite optimistic of a good day. As I said the expectation was for a day’s shallow fishing and with the wind blowing into me, pellet rather than caster would need to be used.

As well as a couple of shallow rigs, 2 margin rigs were also set up, 1 to fish by the reeds and another to fish the shallower water tight to the bank. And finally a paste rig at 5m.

With 2hrs to set up I was ready with 30mins so went for a walk. By the time I got back to my peg the fish had disappeared in the increasingly strong cool wind and I was glad I had brought my fleece.

Starting shallow on 8mm pellet, I soon had 3 carp after 20mins, but then nothing. Typical, I’ve been looking forward to this match for a little while, we have had a week of warm weather and now it was cloudy, windy & cold.

Toss potting pellet and corn by the reeds, I soon started catching carp either on 6mm expander or corn, before the action slowed down. The rest of the match was case of chopping & changing to keep to the fish coming. Throughout I managed a few carp shallow, either on pellet or caster, but the cool wind was an issue, because they didn’t seem to want to come shallow, although having the wind blowing at me didn’t help blowing the rig under the pole.

The 5m line was regularly feed with 6mm pellet, which produced 4 carp on paste, but again it was slow going.

After the rest the swim by the reeds produced a few more carp, before it died. Towards the end of the match it was time to try the margins, which had starting feeding after 3hrs with caster/corn. This line only produced 5 carp, so overall a little frustrated, because the fish were a smaller stamp and I couldn’t catch enough of them.

Saying that I think I made 2 mistakes. The first was the 5m line, where I should have brought hemp and more corn, since this doesn’t work very at the Glebe. The second mistake was the margin line. I should have set it up closer to me to make it easier to feed, also you really need groundbait at the Glebe. I’m back again in 4 weeks so hopefully a few lessons learnt, but really hope it will be a shallow days fishing.

The best weights came from the other end of the lake, with Pete Bailey nearly breaking the venue record. As for me I needed another 20lb to claim 2^nd in section and a pick up, so disappointing.

1^st 372- 8 – Pete Bailey – p24
2^nd 187- 8 – Mark Poppleton – p21
3^rd 181- 2 – Ian Simpson – p27
4^th 175- 8 – John O’Driscoll – p30
5^th 169- 4 – Robbo – p17
6^th 168- 0 – Stevie B – p23

14/06/14 - Tylers Lake (Brinsham Green)

Weight - 43lb 3oz (36lb 3oz - silvers)
Catch - 27 Roach, 25 (F1s, Fantails, Crucians), 7 Skimmers, 1 Perch, 1 Carp
Weather - Warm & sunny

Today I didn’t have time to fish a match, so decided to fish here, arriving early and finishing a 5hr session at 2pm. The intention was to catch loads of skimmers, fishing pellet on the deck over micros & 4s. Due to the recent warm weather the fish didn’t want to settle on the deck. Starting on pellet, I soon switched to corn, then worm without any real success. The fish simply wanted to be shallow and after 90mins of struggling to hook a fish properly, a shallow rig was sorted on an 18 B911 and banded 6mm pellet. The first 5 fish were roach and I was beginning to whether it was going to happen when I had the first of many F1s/Fantails/Crucians, plus more roach.

I also caught a 7lb carp early, on a long line shallow rig. I swung the rig at a few carp during the session, but they weren’t really interested in feeding. A very pleasant way to spend a Saturday morning.

08/06/14 - Lands End - Match

Weight - 36lb 4oz (18lb 4oz - silvers)
Catch - 4 Carp, 14 Perch, 10 Skimmers, 6 Rudd, 4 Roach, 1 Crucian
Weather - Mostly sunny and windy, later heavy showers
Match - Club - 3rd out of 13

I think it’s fair to say the carp really need to spawn, because they are just not feeding properly at the moment. Following a couple of days of warm weather 2 weeks ago, they were ready to go, but since it’s been cool & cloudy. Hopefully this weeks forecast of constant warm weather will prove correct and the carp can get it out of their systems.

Following yesterdays struggle, I was expecting another for today’s club match at Lands End. 13 anglers turned up, which is a sensible number for Match Lake, but was disappointed to have P24 as my home for the day. I have some good days and some poor days on the peg, so it was a case of see what happens.

There was no silverfish pool today, so payout was for top 3 overall, so the intention was to fish meat short and along the end bank looking for carp, with 2 pellet lines at 13m out in front and to my left for skimmers & hopefully a few bonus carp.

Starting along the end bank on 8mm meat, feeding meat & hemp via a toss pot I soon had a bite, which turned into a perch. After a couple more perch and rudd, I eventually landed a carp, but after an hour that was all I had to show for my efforts. Unfortunately Brian opposite wouldn’t be fishing long, which meant the fish had plenty of space to back off and were unwilling to venture far from the cover of the trees.

Fishing meat just didn’t seem right, so switched to fishing double caster over potted caster and I had a 45min spell of continually catching mostly perch & rudd up to 8oz, plus a pound crucian, but I wasn’t going anywhere fast. So the swim was converted again, to pellet in the hope of pulling a few fish to my side of the tree.

Both my open water pellet swims had a regular consignment of damped 4s dusted with groundbait and by toss potting one swim and fishing the other I caught a few skimmers on banded 6mm pellet. I had hoped for a few carp, but other than 2 foulhooker I didn’t have any. Unlike Craig on p22, who was adopting the hook and release policy. He did eventually get a few in the mouth.

Had we had a silverfish pool, I would have been quite happy sticking with it, but really needed carp to at least frame. My short meat line turned out to be a complete bust, I didn’t have a bite on it. Down the end bank on pellet didn’t produce either and I really wasn’t sure where I was going to get a carp from. 

With 2 hours left, what had been a bright sunny day with a strong wind blowing from behind it became very dark and the heavens opened, which had everyone scrabbling for umbrellas and coats. As for me I ended up running to the car for my coat.

Following the storm, the air was very still and a few carp were now showing themselves shallow. I had tried at 16m behind the willow stump on a conventional shallow rig, slapping for all I was worth but nothing. So I quickly attached a long line rig and mugged a 6-7lber, which was followed by 2 smaller carp, by swinging the rig towards the overhanging branches at 16m. I was hoping that those 3 carp in the last 20mins would see me sneak into the frame, which fortunately they did. 

Overall, many complained about foul hookers, which wasn’t a surprise, particular on the island pegs. Hopefully the carp will be back feeding properly soon. Had I been able to stick with the silvers, I’m sure 25-30lb would have been on the cards.

1st 51-13 – Chris Davidge – p5

2nd 46-7 – Craig Davidge – p22

3rd 36- 4 – Ken Rayner – p24

4th 32-13 – Tim Allen – p17

5th 26-13 – Andy Bradley – p13

6th 25-13 – Dave Bradley – p21

07/06/14 - Viaduct - Campbell

Weight - 52lb 8oz (15lb 2oz - silvers)
Catch - 32 Bream, 8 Carp
Weather - Rainy start, becoming warm & sunny
Match - Open - 11th out of 16, 3rd silvers

Following the MFS 2 dayer a few weeks ago Calum decided to book another match at Viaduct and fortunately got Campbell. However the recent cool rainy weather meant the carp haven’t spawned properly and we really need a good week of warm weather so they can finish off. This meant the fishing was likely to be tough and the weights in recent weeks have borne this out.

 

Speaking to a couple of regulars the far bank of Campbell has been fishing poorly and P131 was one of the few pegs I didn’t want to draw. For company, Ben Hagg was on p132 and Mike Walker to my left on p129 so at least I had some room. Since no one had a good word to say about my peg I decided to just catch what I could, hoping for the best.

 

A long line shallow rig, short meat rig and margin rigs were all set up, but each only got 10mins of unproductive action, so those won’t be mentioned again.

 

On the all in I toss potted 4s & 6s at 14m, with worm on the hook (Ackoo Carrat 0.2g > .16 > 16 B911) and by the end the first hour had a couple of small skimmers and a carp. Of those I could see most were struggling except for Terry Green on p110, however with the wind blowing up the lake I expected the winner to come from that end.

 

I decided to stick with the 14m line continue toss potting bait, but switched to a lighter rig (Ackoo Carbon Carrat 0.3g > .12 > 18 B911) fishing 6mm pellet and soon started catching skimmers regularly. Most were only 6oz or so, but at least I was catching. Then I had a run of better sized skimmers, before the carp moved in and buggered it up. They were proving to be a real pain, losing several foul hookers, although I think some were hooked properly, but around the mouth. After losing a number carp the better sized skimmers didn’t return over the 14m line.

 

In the last 90mins the carp finally settled down a little and I managed to hook a few properly, as well as a couple more skimmers. I had also been feeding 4s at 5m, which also produced a few bonus skimmers as a well as a few more carp.

 

I had hoped to pick up in the silvers, but too many small fish and not enough of the proper skimmers meant my 15lb was only good enough for 3^rd. Dan White won my bank with 99lb, including the best overall silvers from p123 and Ben moaned his way to 2^nd with 63lb. However the opposite bank fished a lot better, producing all the framing weights.

 

Despite the difficult fishing, I was quite pleased with the end result and honestly not such I could have done much better.

 

1^st 203- 1 – Roy Worth – p119

2^nd 136-10 – Fred Roberts – p111

3^rd 133-11 – Terry Green – p110

4^th 119-11 – James Guy – p116

5^th 99- 4 – Dan White – p123

6^th 70-14 – Calum Craig – p114

 

Silvers

1^st 27- 6 – Dan White – p123

2^nd 21- 4 – Calcum Craig – p114

3^rd 15- 2 – Ken Rayner – p131

01/06/14 - Acorns - Paddock

Weight - 19lb 2oz
Catch - 8 Carp, 2 Roach, 1 Crucian
Weather - Warm & Sunny
Match - Pole Only Series - 25th out of 30 overall, 8th out of 10 section

A recent article in this month’s Match Fishing Magazine by Jon Arthur in the Room 101 section made me smile. It referred to anglers who only promote their good results on social media, but stay quiet when they don’t do so well. You know who you are! Being a blogger means I don’t have that luxury, plus I think it’s good to write about your bad days, well sometimes. There have a one or two days in the past when I felt digging a hole and staying there! However, usually the bad days are those when I learn the most.

 

Today was the 6^th and final round of the Pole Only series and as you can see from the header I didn’t do very well! A quick note for Chris Fox and Paul Faires who have run a well organised event – well done chaps.

 

It was my turn for the good section and following last week’s success with paste decided I would concentrate on the putty for today’s match, knowing if it worked I could have a big weight. Ideally I would have preferred one of the pegs without a bridge, but ended up on peg 6 in the corner and the bridge opposite.

 

Starting on pellet by the bridge/island I got plenty of liners and hooked 2 carp, but both fell off. On the paste I hooked 2 carp but lost them both as well. In the meantime I was getting battered by Dom Sullivan on p40 and Mark Bromsgrove on p7.

 

After 3 hours I had 1 roach in the net and was becoming a little concerned it wasn’t going to be my day. I wasn’t concerned about the slow start, because I knew once the fish turned on to the paste I could build a weight very quickly. The problem was the fish never truly switched on. I managed 3 carp on paste by the bridge, followed up by 3 more on pellet against the island or the right hand bank in the second half of the match.

 

The big surprise was my banker swim at 5m which only yielded 2 carp, despite being fed constantly with 6s and a few bits of paste.

 

I did take a boom or bust approach to the match, when in hindsight I should have fed micros & 4s, instead of 6s and probably had some worm or dead maggot for the hook. However, I had nothing to lose and needed to win my section with a big weight to even consider getting close to the payout positions and hope others slipped up.

 

Well done to those whose who picked up. For me I fished a poor series and didn't do myself justice. Ironically I did better from my poor draws and messed up the good draws. For the rest of the summer I'm hoping to make a few visits to Viaduct, Lands End and the Glebe.