17/12/23 - Ivy House - Moorhen

Weight - 26lb 14oz

Catch - 17 F1s, 8 Carp, 4 Skimmers, 3 Roach, 2 Chub, 1 Perch

Weather - Mild and overcast, with a south westerly breeze

Match - Winter League - rd 4 (48 fished) - 1st in sectio

No fishing last weekend, as my car had developed an electrical issue and it’s now in the garage. Fortunately, Volvo organised a hire car so I could at least fish this weekend and hopefully I will have my car back before the next weekend.

Today was the 4^th round of the Winter League, which so far hasn’t gone my way, and it was my turn for Moorhen, which is a 9 peg canal lake. Typically, in the winter you need to draw either end of the lake and avoid the middle, so I was less than impressed to draw smack in the middle which is also the narrowest part at 13m and so far this series 5^th in section has been the best result.

The only solace I could take was the space peg to my left. The first 30mins was spent dobbin firstly bread and then maggot along the far bank, catching 1 tiny chub. I tried feeding maggot, but this only produced a roach. In the meantime, everyone to my right were catching from their far banks and to be honest I thought a bad day was on the cards.

A switch to fishing at 13m to my left at the bottom of the far shelf, feeding a tiny nugget of Uzit Crushed Expander and micros, fishing a 4mm expander flavoured with Uzit Pineapple Cloud (a new product with 8 flavours). After a slow start, I started to catch a few F1s and the occasional bigger carp, feeding a tiny nugget of feed every put in. I was starting to enjoy my day and whenever the swim started slowing, I would move slightly further left.

With 2 hours remaining I felt I was doing OK as everyone had stopped catching, except for Andy Burns to my left on p29 who was catching across by the reedbed, including some better sized carp and was probably ahead of me.

My swim had slowed, so I tried my short maggot line which I had been feeding since the start, but this only produced a couple of silvers and felt I needed some carp to catch up with Andy.

I started fishing tight to the reeds, again fishing pellet over crushed expander/micros and fortunately started catching until the end, again moving further left to stay in contact with the fish.

It was a pleasant surprise to win the section as Andy came 2^nd with 22- 6 and Jamie Durrup on the end peg 35 had 21- 3.

1.    71-  8 – Matt Hamilton – p21 (heron)

2.    58-  2  - Rob Guppy – p20 (heron)

3.    57-  0 – Dave Strafford-Way – p2 (heron)

4.    54-  4 – Phil Godding – p46 (kingfisher)

5.    52-14 – Nigel Reeves – p39 (kingfisher)

6.    52-  6 – Steve Martin – p22 (heron)     

03/12/23 - Ivy House - Heron

Weight - 10lb 10oz

Catch - 4 Carp, 2 F1

Weather - Light rain to start, cleared later.

Match - Winter League rd 3 (48 fished) - 19th overall and 4th in section

The 3^rd round of the Winter League and my turn for A section (top and bottom bank) on Heron Lake.

Yesterday’s freezing conditions had been replaced overnight by rain, but I still expected the fishing to be tough going. That said I was still confident of catching a few, as I really like this lake in the winter, although I was really disappointed to draw p17 as it has come 7^th & 8^th in section in the first 2 rounds, so not a great draw.

I had also arrived without my bib & brace, so a big thank you to Abi for driving over with it, plus a dry pair of trousers and some lighthearted abuse!

Back to the match, I started on the usual lead and bread without any bites, so tried maggot over a little Uzit crushed expander, flavoured with bubblegum for no bites. This wasn’t going well, and another hard match was on the cards.

After an hour I eventually caught a 3lber on the lead & bread, which is a good size fish for the lake and other than Roy Booth next to me who had a tiny carp no one else had caught along my bank!

The rest of the match was simply a struggle, I just picked up the odd fish on maggot over crushed expander at various points along the bottom of the far shelf at 16m.

I finished with the best weight along my bank, but unfortunately got beat by 3 pegs along the bottom bank to only come 4^th in section, which is the best I could have hoped for to be honest.

1.    46-  1 – Jason Crump – p46 (kingfisher)

2.    41-12 – Gary Herman – p21 (heron)

3.    38-  8 – Jamie Dixey – p10 (heron)

4.    34-  0 – Graham Spiller – p37 (kingfisher)

5.    33-14 – David Stafford-Way – p10 (old match lake)

6.    32-  4 – Steve Waters – p22 (heron)

02/12/23 - Todber Manor - Ash

Weight - 21lb 8oz

Catch - 6 Carp

Weather - Overnight frost. Freezing fog all day

Match - Christmas Open (50 fished) - 6th in section out of 12

50 of us at Todber for their Christmas match across Hillview, Homeground and Ash. To be honest I wanted to avoid Ash, as I felt the other 2 lakes were likely to fish better, based on last week’s match. Therefore, I was disappointed to see Ash 67 staring back at me and the general feeling was I would be on the edge of the fish, with p69-75 likely to best area.

Despite the heavy frost there was only a little bit of ice around which was a relief and meant the ice breaker stayed in the car.

On the all-in I cast the lead and bread to the far bank without success. So, after 15mins I came onto the pole at 14m where I tapped in some micros and fished corn over the top and again no bites. In fact, very little was being caught, therefore I decided on a complete change of tactic and quickly set up a maggot feeder, cast 5m off the far bank for 45mins but again no bites. I even tried the pole and maggot at 16m, which at least produced a bite, but lost a large skimmer as the elastic had frozen in the top kit.

A few fish were now being caught to my right, but very little to my left. After 2hrs I eventually caught my first carp on the maggot feeder, quickly followed by another on double maggot sprayed with Uzit P-Nut.

In the last 90mins I had 4 more fish, 2 on the maggot feeder, then 2 more on the straight lead and corn.

I was definitely at the wrong end of the lake today as P62 & p63 both blanked which included Pete Upperton, Ash Tomkins managed one carp 30mins from time, so really hard. The further you moved up the lake, the better the weights, with only 58lb needing to win the lake, so well done to Simon Stacey who caught on the lead and bread.

Despite not getting above freezing all day the fishing was excellent on the other 2 lakes. I didn’t hang around for the prizes and got a surprise text from Mark when I got home to say I picked up £30 for 3^rd in the section super pool.

1st: Pemb Wrighting 242lb 6oz (78 HG)

2nd: Martin Rogers 236lb 0oz (49 HV)

3rd: Gary O'Shea 214lb 10oz (87 HG)

4th: Mark Poppleton 214lb 4oz (58 HV)

5th: Roger Hayton 207lb 6oz (48 HV)

Section A: Pete Neate 204lb 12oz (47 HV)

Section B: Adam Tester 166lb 4oz (55 HV)

Section C: Simon Stacey 58lb 6oz (74 ASH)

Section D: Tony Gilbert 157lb 0oz (84 HG)

30/11/23 - Ivy House - Heron

Weight - 53lb 14oz 

Catch - 25 F1s, 11 Carp

Weather - Overnight frost. Cold & grey.

Match - Open (5 fished) - 1st overall

I booked a day off to fish the Thursday open on Heron to practice for Sunday’s winter league. However, due to the freezing conditions only 5 turned up, although I was pleasantly surprised to see the lakes weren’t frozen.

It probably didn’t matter where we drew, but I was happy with p10 which is my favourite winter peg as you can reach the bottom of the far shelf at 14m. Also, the F1s seem to migrate into this area for the winter.

I started on the lead and bread cast to the island and caught an F1 on my 2^nd cast. Over the next 90mins I would catch a couple of fish and then have to cast a bit further along the bank to stay in contact with the fish catching a further 11 fish.

When bites dried up on the lead, I switched to the pole at 15m over crushed expander flavoured with Uzit bubblegum, toss potting maggot over the top. To keep the fish coming I had to set up new swims right and left, moving out to 16m, still feeding a little crushed expander and toss potting maggot over the top.

Other than a 30min spell when I couldn’t get a bite, I had a lovely day despite the freezing conditions.

1.    53-14 – Ken Rayner – p10

2.    31-  8 – Tim Hadland – p8