Viaduct Open, Wednesday 29th June 2011

Had a nice breakfast to start the day off today, free range eggs, venison sausages etc. had to cook it myself, you don't get that in the cafe. After the good weights that came from Campbell last weekend I was looking forward to today, it was to be carp or bust, with pellet, meat and paste in the bait bag - well it would have been if I hadn't left the carefully prepared paste in my bait fridge.

Just before the draw, we had the small matter of rescuing an unfortunate anglers car, trying to be gentlemanly and letting the very posh looking red Spyder convertible past, proved to be his downfall. The lush grass verge, was a mere illusion and the silver Peugeot estate proved a tad too heavy for the grass to support. One Transit van and a team of anglers anxious to get on with the draw, managed to extract the Peugeot, with not too much damage, except some dented pride.

I won't mention his name, no doubt someone will recognise the car.....

I drew a nice short walk, 110, with Dick Bull on 111. He'd had 180lb from 110 last weekend, shallow on the pole. There didn't seem to be too many fish out in front today, but I could see plenty of dark shapes up in front of 135.

I set up two pellet waggler rods, 11' Maver Reactorlites, with Preston Inception 4000 reels, rods I've only used a couple of times and new reels - I usually use TDR's, but the Prestons were slightly lighter. 6lb sensor main line, with 0.17 hooklength and a 18 PR36. I did take a lead rod from the hardcase, but it got put back at the end without a cast being made.

4 topkits set up, a shallow pellet rig, a inline dibber on 0.17 to a 16 B960, a full depth pellet rig, a MW diamond on 0.17 to a 0.15 hooklength and a 16 B960. A paste float on 0.17 to a 14 Mustad paste hook and a MW power for the margin, on 0.19 with a 0.17 hooklength and a 16 TXR hook. Once I'd set up the paste rig, I discovered, as mentioned, that my paste was 35 miles away, in the fridge. I hurridly made some up, but I prefer to make it the night before.

At the all in I started on the pellet waggler and was almost immediately a fish behind to Dick, as he had one straight away on the wag. I started to get bites and had two fish before the third snapped the 6lb sensor - brand new line!! I picked up the other rod and had another fish, but they weren't exactly giving themselves up, I could only catch if they took the pellet almost immediately it hit the water.

I decided to rest this line and had fed a pot of micros and expanders at 10m to my left for paste, a line at 14m straight in front and some meat down by the stump. I had a look on the meat and this produced a rudd and next put in, a 3lb bream, then a run of unhitable bites. A lookover the micros and expanders with paste, produced not so much as a liner and I never went back there. A try shallow at 14m, not a bite, but there was some fizzing, so I dropped the full depth rig in and had a carp nearly straight away. A couple of liners next, so back on the shallow rig to no avail.

I spent the rest of the match on the pellet waggler and had spells of catching, spells of frustration as I got snapped a further 5 times, once when a decent fish kited along to 136 and picked up a big branch, I managed to get the branch and fish back to the stump on my left, before the hooklength snapped. All looked OK and back out with a new hooklength, a smaller fish landed OK, then a bigger fish snapped the main line, on closer inspection, about 4' of the main line was abraded by the branch. That'll teach me to inspect line more closely after a snag.

I had a spell when The fish seemed to back away from the feed, I caught without feeding, then a spell where they wanted a pouchful everytime, so much so, they were boiling on the surface. This resulted in a spell of a couple of snapped hooklengths, some fish lost due to hook pulls and a some foulers. It seemed best to cast, then feed, this seemed to result in bigger fish, with a decent hook hold.

Interesting discussion with Steve Long afterwards, he put forward a point of view that when there are many fish competing for the pellet up in the water, the hooklengths may be breaking against other fish, I've no doubt this can happen. I also wonder if the 11' rods are forgiving enough for the 6lb+ fish, I've certainly had nowhere near as many hookpulls with my 13' Reactorlites - perhaps the 11' rods are best for venues with 2-5lb fish. Although I do like the way the fish pop up at exactly netting range with the 11' rods.

I eneded the match with 24 fish, a couple not far off double figures, so that adds weight to Steve's theory, not enough I was sure to beat Matt Tomes on 132 (see Matt, for bad karma, like cars off road, theres good karma like drawing 132) who'd caught steadily all day on the pole, although had I sussed out the feeding and not lost so many, I would have undoubtedly beaten him, I feel it should have been a 200lb peg. Once again my total ineptitude at gauging fish weights was evident as I was deducted 1.13 from my total of 161.12, leaving me with 159.15, third on the day and a section win. The net that was over by 1.13 had 12 fish in it. The average weight of my fish was over 6.08, so that only 11 per net from now on.

Winner on the day was Lee Werrett who chucked a lead at 120 all day from 119, apparently it just kept going round.....

1) Lee Werrett 232.05 peg 119
2) Matt Tomes 165.02 peg 132
3) Chris Fox 159.15 peg 110
4) Scott Russell 136.04 peg 124
5) Andy lloyd 110.05 peg 127
6) Paul Blake 103.09 peg 116

Silvers

1) Paul Blake 53.12 peg 116 (Tench on meat)
2) Howard Webb 43.03 peg 128
3) Tim Pallant 41.10 peg 123

Trinity Two Day Festival, Sat & Sun 25th & 26th June 2011

I was looking forward to this festival, because Trinity is a great venue and I was defending my crown of Champion last year. The weather was set to play havoc with the fish again, rain Friday night and a mini heat wave on Sunday, but dealing with the conditions is all a part of fishing.

I gave Andy (Hembrow) a hand to run it this year, although I left the collecting names and pegging up to him, we initially had the 20, we were calling a full house, but by the day before, that had dropped to 16, so the payout was slightly reduced. Its a real shame that the numbers are down, the festival used to be on both lakes (Woodland and Wildmarsh) but now with a smaller entry we had both days on Woodland.

At the draw on Saturday, I waited until everyone else had drawn and took the last swimcard, its not something I usually do and I won't be doing it again!! Peg 2, a corner peg which can produce, but I felt the wind was in the wrong direction and with peg 33 in I had no waggler chuck.

I'd decided to start fishing for skimmers and switch to carp when they came along as they inevitably do, wrecking the skimmer line, with the back up of the RH margin as this often produces carp. I set up a paste rig and a another rig with a 0.8g MW diamond to fish 8mm banded pellet/paste approx 1m infront of the point to my left, a MW diamond (1g) to fish 14m straight out, this was to be the CW&C line and a couple of margin rigs for the RH margin, as it varied in depth too much to get away with one rig.

I fed some groundbait and CW&C at 14m and some pellets in front of the point, starting on the worm, I had a couple of decent skimmers, although I had a couple more in the first hour it was slow going, during the day I had several visits to the paste/pellet line, but did not get so much as a liner there, so no more about that. The RH margin was pretty non-productive as well, 5 carp for 11.11 was the sum total from there. I had tried meat, nicked off the hook by silvers, an 8mm banded - constant 'bobbing' of the float as the bits pecked at it. An 11mm pellet reduced this, but there really seemed to be no feeding carp in the margin.

I finished the match where I started, on the CW&C, I had tried a 6mm expander over this line after introducing a few free offerings, to no avail. I had the pretty much unique experience of not hooking or even fouling a carp in open water on my skimmer line - that said I didn't exactly hook many skimmers. The ones I did hook and land went 15.08 for 3 silvers points and a total of 27.03 for a resounding last in section. That was the defence of the crown gone then... Rod Wootten on peg 4 had absolutely battered me and everyone else, to take top section points and win the match.

Day One Results:

1) Rod Wootten 102.07 peg 4
2) Mark Walsh 85.01 peg 26
3) Lewis Jones 77.07 peg 9
4) Andy Hembrow 73.03 peg 19
5) Shaun Kittridge 57.14 peg 7
6) Brian Slipper 56.11 peg 33

Silvers

1) Rod Wootten 33.00 peg 4
2) Brian Slipper 18.04 peg 33
3) Chris Fox 15.08 peg 2

Sunday dawned a bit foggy over the hills, but the sun soon burnt that off and it became the scorcher promised by the weathermen. As we had four sections, those who fished A & B yesterday, fished C & D today (and obviously, vice versa). I got Misha the fishery Manager to draw my peg, 26. I wasn't disappointed, I'd left all the meat, big pellets etc. at home, as Silvers were the only way I was going to get some cash from this affair, although it was nice when I got a payout from Kev Perry's superpool this morning, a second place, not sure who out of Rod & Brian didn't go in it.

I had brought my Drennan Match Pro quiver, a nice little rod for skimmer fishing and I did wonder if they backed off from the pole line, if I could utilise a small cage feeder with some micros and dead maggot. That was set up with 4lb direct mono reel line and 0.14 powersilk and a 18 808.

I set up the same 1g MW diamond on 0.15 to 0.11 with a 18 63-13 hook, this had an olivette around 12" from the hook, with 2 No8 stotzs 6" from the hook and 2" overdepth. I also set up a paste rig, but didn't use this. I set up a small MW slim power to fish caster shallow on a topkit to hand. Mindful that Mark Walsh had 80lb+ from the margins yesterday I nearly set a margin rig, but didn't.

This peg was around 12" deeper than peg 2 so had to remake a couple of rigs, I also felt that there was no need to go much further than 11m, especially I was going to have a feeder line at 25m. I started on CW&C, but with the addition of dead red maggot and soon stopped putting worm in as this seemed to create initial interest, but then the bites would dry up. After three or four skimmers, the line went quiet, I did try changing my ratio of micros to groundbait but this didn't increase the bites. So I had alook on the topset with the caster rig on, this was 0.11 with a 0.10 hooklength, a fish every put in on caster, but many were 30 or 40 to the pound size.

Time for a look on the feeder, whilst keeping the other lines topped up, especially the caster line, trying to feed of the micro rudd & roach. After three casts the tip plucked and gently pulled round, a classic bream bite, it felt like a bream, a dead weight, with an occasional bump. That was until it got under the rod tip, it then turned into a carp on speed. Three more chucks, resulted in two more carp and one lost, I think they were following the bloody feeder down. The last chuck, was the rod up the bank, I didn't want carp. Back on the caster and head down, the size of the fish increased, if I constantly changed depth, I sometimes had to fish in the middle of the loose feed, some times on the periphery.

With an hour to go, I could see Kev Perry starting to increase his catch rate of skimmers - on paste - back on the skimmer line with double dead maggot and two more skimmers straight away, then disaster. A carp snaffled the maggot and started plodding round the peg, it then decided to run towards peg 27, snapping the No6 elastic. So with 35 minutes to go, do I set up another rig or go back on the caster.

I went back on the caster and the fish not much bigger than the caster they were swallowing, were back, so I quickly grabbed another rig, which promptly tangled, in my haste to get it set up. I discarded that and set another up, but it was 1.5g and it just didn't seem to take the trip the same as the 1g float. So back on the caster, upping the feed for the last 15 minutes.

At the all out I had no idea what weight I had, but I guessed it was low double figures, the roach & rudd were from a couple of drams up to 4oz, with one better roach. The carp went 8.05 and the silvers were 18.14, enough for a section win (silvers), giving, bizarrely, 27.03 exactly the same weight as yesterday. A bit of totting up and it seemed I'd get second place in the silvers (by default as you couldn't win both). A welcome pick up of £100, to go with yesterdays superpool money.

On the Day:

1) Andy Hembrow 124.02 peg 7
2) Rich Lovering 102.10 peg 4
3) Lewis Jones 96.06 peg 28
4) Mark Walsh 84.03 peg 2
5) Rod Wootten 58.04 peg 21
6) Brian Slipper 50.12 peg 17

Silvers

1) Lewis Jones 31.12 peg 28
2) Brian Slipper 27.11 peg 17
3) Kev Perry 26.01 peg 15

Festival Overall:
Place.. Name.. Points.. Weight
1 Rod Wootton 8 160.11
2 Brian Slipper 8 107.07
3 Andy hembrow 7 197.05
4 Lewis Jones 7 173.13
5 Mark Walsh 6 169.08
6 Nick Harvey 6 93.13
7 Darren Vowles 6 84.02
8 Rich Lovering 5 136.00
9 Shaun Kittridge 5 107.12
10 Lance Tucker 4 68.03
11 Craig Tucker 4 53.08
12 Mark Broomsgrove 3 62.04
13 Chris Fox 3 54.06
14 Kev Perry 3 48.08
15 Dave Baker 2 46.03
16 Rich Heatley 2 35.05

Festival Silvers:
Place.. Name.. Points.. Weight
1 Brian Slipper 8 45.15
2 Kev Perry 7 40.13
3 Chris Fox 7 34.06
4 Craig Tucker 7 26.06
5 Andy Hembrow 7 20.13
6 Rod Wootton 5 39.00
7 Lewis Jones 5 36.05
8 Lance Tucker 5 21.03
9 Mark Broomsgrove 5 19.07
10 Rich Lovering 5 12.06
11 Dave Baker 5 8.15
12 Shaun Kittridge 3 13.06
13 Nick Harvey 3 6.13
14 Darren Vowles 3 1.12
15 Mark Walsh 2 4.13
16 Rich Heatley 2 1.01

Viaduct Costcutter Open, Thursday 9th June 2011

Campbell and Cary in again today, the traffic caused me to arrive right on the draw time of 09.30, so I missed my usual spot near the front of the queue - why do some folk drive so bloody slowly!!! - 112 was my reward (or punishment).

After yesterday, I thought paste might pick out the bigger fish and after waiting nearly an hour, I was proved right as a hard fighting 10lber graced the net. By this time I was several fish behind Mash who'd drawn 132, my peg yesterday, it appeared the fish were in front of 134 right from the start today. Also Dan Squire on 115 was catching shallow.

Rigs were pretty much as yesterday, except I set up a paste rig right from the off.

I had the fish fizzing, but very few bites, also very few liners, I shipped out the soft pellet rig and had a couple of decent skimmers, I can only assume that they were the culprits for the fizz. I alternated between hard and soft pellet, paste and a couple of spells on the pellet waggler, all for little reward.

I tried meat at 6m and had 3 or 4 missed bites, I tried meat in the LH margin and had three fish in three put ins, one a 8 or 9lber, then all I could get was the constant twtching of the float as roach and skimmers pecked at the meat hookbait.

In the last hour I had a couple of fish on paste, but I was a long way from framing today, It seemed that I had a few bigger fish in the peg, but no quantity. the carp went 49lb odd and my skimmers 12lb odd for a total of 61lb something.

I'm happy to use the costcutters as a practise, trial match, as at £11 they are only £4 more than a dayticket and its possible to try things out under match condidtions - a great idea. Although had I realised how low a weight (in Viaduct terms) was needed to get some beer money I may have not persevered with the paste for so long.

Mash plundered the end bank on the waggler and won with 178lb

1) Mash 178.00 peg 132
2) D Squire 160.10 peg 115
3) T Bruton 91.15 peg 96
4) P Furlong 85.4 peg 98
5) M Nicholls 80.05 peg 116
6) D Wride 80.00 peg 118

Silvers

1) J Green 61.13 peg 78
2) M Nicholls 54.00 peg 116
3) T Bruton 48.06 peg 96

Viaduct Wednesday Open, 8th June 2011

25 lined up for the draw for this regular Wednesday open, two sections on Campbell and one on Cary - I was unconcerened which lake I drew, as lately I seem to draw the lake which comes second. Todays result bucked that trend, with both lakes being pretty even.

132 was my home for the day, a end (or corner)peg, the first time I've been on this peg, the usual comments "You'll win from there" "How do you draw those flyers" were bantered around, to those on any pegs with form. Having won money on the two times I've drawn 110 (the end peg on the opposite bank), I expected to catch in a similar fashion, i'e. towards the end bank.

I set up a lead rod - that stayed in sweet repose for 6 hours - so no further mention, a 2 swan dumpy waggler to fish shallow, a rig to fish meat to the end bank, which was a MW power on 0.17 to .015 with a 16 TXR7 hook. A shallow pellet rig which was simply a MW pea on 0.17 straight through to a B960 16, a MW diamond to fish pellet at full depth and a MW slim power on 0.11 to 0.12 power silk with a 18 808 for the devils spawn - should I get desperate!! ( The 0.12 power silk is actually thinner than the 0.11 power line).

I started on the shallow waggler , to no avail, the fish that were showing shallow, were all over by peg 136. I tried the deep pellet rig and had my first fish 35 minutes in, there were fish in the peg at 14m, but not so many that they were causing issues with fouling/false bites. I then tried the shallow pole rig and had one fish, it seemed to be slow going all round the lake, so back on the full depth pellet rig and a another fish - they were small fish though.

Time for a look up to the end bank, this produced 3 fish, which were around the 2lb mark, every 20 minutes or so I had a look towards 134 where I'd been feeding pellet, but there appeared to be no fish there. Still plenty showing between the far bank and 135, but Roger Andonio on 110 wasn't fishing to the end bank, if he was they may have pushed over toward me.

Halfway through, I had an idea that paste might sort out a bigger fish or two, so made some up, I did catch on it, bigger fish, but it was still slow going. At 17.15, with 3/4 of an hour to go, I saw a fish swirl in front of 134, at this point I had 13 fish, suffice to say 3/4 of an hour was two little, too late. The last 45 mins saw 8 fish come to the net, giving me a carp weight of 99.14 and my two skimmers edged the final tally to 101.09, enough for 5th on the day - if only those fish had moved across earlier.

1) Jason Radford 147.09 peg 119
2) Mash 139.02 peg 80
3) Matt Tomes 130.02 peg 76
4) Craig Edmunds 118.12 peg 123
5) Chris Fox 101.09 peg 132
6) Dean Malin 100.15 peg 127

Silvers

1) Craig Edmunds 47.14 peg 123
2) Steve Kedge 40.09 peg 78

Landsend Topkit + 1 Open, Wenesday 1st June 2011

The last match that limited everyone to a topkit + 1 seemed to produce a few fish, so I thought I'd have a go at this one. It has to be easier than waving 16 or 17m around, trying to land a pellet on a carps nose in 6" of water aginst the far bank.....

I didn't really fancy drawing one of the 4 pegs on lake 3, for no other reason than my limited experience of it has been pretty negative - but I'd never drawn at the end the 4 pegs were today. So it was obvious wasn't it - peg 42 on lake 3..... It looked ideal for the long pole to the point of the island, although there were a signs of a few silvers topping by the small weed bed to my right at 3m.

I tried to cover all bases and set up a Malman winter wire to fish caster at full depth on 0.10 with a 20 63-13, identical line & hook were used with a small Drennan stillwater blue waggler for up in the water (topkit to hand). A MW slim power on 0.15 to a 16 808 for devils spawn at full length at the 11 o'clock position. I also set up a righ on 0.17/0.15 with a 18 xedion TXR7 hook to fish meat in the margin - which as it was very shallow (12") I wasn't too confident of catching on.

I had Phil (Fabio) Harding to my right and the large outline of a well known Whitehall tackle dealer opposite, Fabio had a confessional session before the start, openly admitting to criminal acts in the last few months - good job the EA weren't listening in...

At the all in, I fed some 3 & 4mm devils spawn and flicked a few casters to the weedbed, starting on the caster I was soon into small roach and rudd, with the odd better (2oz) specimen. I could see Tony catching the odd better silver, suggesting he'd gone to the darkside and was fishing the devils spawn. I switched to the shallow rig and this did produce fish more quickly, they were still small.

No option but to switch to the darkside and try the spawn, this produced some decent skimmers, a lone F1 and a couple of crucians, but bites were harder to come by than on caster. A switch back to the shallow rig and upping the amount of feed, saw 3 or 4 quality rudd to the net, now hoping that some caster had got through the upper layers, I dropped against the weedbed with a worm, 8oz perch first drop in, then a couple of perch so small they wouldn't have registered on the scales.

Alternating between the lines and baits kept bites coming, although at times the fish were small, still it kept my mind off Fabio who was muttering and chuntering to himself, I couldn't help thinking back to reading the hobbit as a schoolboy, was I pegged next to Bristol's very own Gollum. I think Tony must have sold him some rubber hooks, as he lost carp after carp, much to Ricko's amusement.

With about an hour and a half to go, the roach and rudd had become elusive and the devils spawn line had gone quiet - there had been no indication of fish in the peg all day, no bubbles, no blows or fizzing - so it was difficult to tell if they'd gone. I'd been down the margin where I'd been flicking 8mm meat cubes, not so much as a liner, by now Tony was catching carp from his margins and over his main line on meat. Then I hooked a carp on the devils spawn - was that why the peg went quiet, a short tussle saw it in the net, then shortly after, another, I rested the line and dropped back in by the weedbed with a large dendra. This resulted in a lost fish - a big one (isn't that always the way...).

With 3/4 of an hour to go, I saw a swirl in the margin, rudd?, nope, the big orange tail that came out of the water, definitely didn't belong to a rudd. I dropped in with a cube of meat and a 5lber was netted, no more swirls so back on the devils spawn, trying to boost my silverfish total, another carp and a couple more skimmers. Then another swirl in the margin, a bigger tail and the same routine with a fish nearer 8lb gracing the net - too little, too late as the all out was shouted, the margin was now quite evidently home to meat eating carp.

My silvers went 20lb, the 5 carp went 27lb odd, if only they'd showed up with a couple of hours left... Top silvers on the lake and second overall on the lake - not a laudible achievement out of 4 - I had to rush off at the end to go to work, so didn't get the results, see Tony's blog. Although he did ring me to tell me I'd snuck into the money, 2nd in silvers by default and he had some cash for me to spend on ebay......