Clevedon Club Match, Trinity Woodland. Sunday 24th February 2013

With the weather forecast I had presumed that it might only take 20lb to win this match, but on arrival the wind wasn't as bad as forecast and was more northerly than the easterly pictured on the BBC website.

The pegs were spread out along the bottom bank, the far bank , the top bank and one peg on the near bank, the far bank would have been my choice, given that the wind was pretty much off your back there. I didn't fancy the top bank, as it hasn't produced many fish this winter when I've been to the venue.

Sad to hear that John lost his black GSD, Max, last weekend, he was a real character.

After a cup of Misha's coffee, which I needed this morning, after a few beers last night, it was draw time and the tickets were thrown up in the air to collect from the ground, my heart sank when I opened mine, 17 on the top bank, with the wind from right to left, two pegs I didn't fancy and this was one (Adie Baker DNW from the other I didn't fancy, 21).

I set up three pole rigs, one margin rig, which on my looks in the margin remained motionless and a couple of rigs to fish either maggot or soft pellet/corn. This was to be at 14m, over micros, which will usually produce a carp or two, but I had three bites on the pole, all on maggot, two micro roach, which fell off shipping in and one 2 ouncer, which just managed to pull out 3" of white hydro.

It was obviously fishing hard and I had set a waggler to fish caster out as far as I dare push the boundary of my peg, this was producing roach, but they were small, more like pinkie fish. As I couldn't see anyone fishing for silvers I stuck at it and at least it kept me warm. Biggest fish I had was about 4oz, the rest were an ounce or less.

Every 3/4 of an hour, I looked back over the micros and topped it up with another 15 or 20, all to no avail, as I didn't get as much as a liner on expander or corn.

I did think I might sneak the silvers, I saw Kev Perry land a couple of skimmers towards the end, so it would be close, until I saw his silvers net contained a large F1, large enough to ensure I went home without a pick up. Surely they should count as carp, it is after all, a carp.......  Not that I'm bitter about it!!

Brian Slipper won, with carp caught on bread/lead and expander on the pole. Most of the carp seemed to come to bread on the lead.

1st    Brian Slipper 55lb 4oz Peg 12

2nd   Rich Heatley 39lb Peg 24

3rd   Kev Perry 24lb 3oz Peg 12

4th   Ivan Currie 14lb 5oz Peg 14

5th   Barry Fowler 8lb 6oz Peg 8

6th   Chris Fox 4lb 9oz  Peg 17

Silvers

1st   Kev Perry 7lb 14oz

2nd  Chris Fox 4lb 9oz

Clevedon Club Match, Plantation, Sunday 3rd February 2013

After getting a few bites on Wednesday, I decided to book into this match and it's not too far to go.  Karen ex of Bullock Farm has now taken over the breakfasts at Plantation.  20 on the lake today and I picked up two cards stuck together when I drew, Kev Perry grabbed the one that was stuck inside the one I held and watched as I opened a peg I really didn't fancy, 23. He then opened his, peg 3, he was not best pleased and swore never to take a peg from me again - not bad going, drawing two unfancied pegs.  As I saw Kev walking twice during the match, I guess it was as bad as he thought.

Using Wednesday as a guide I planned to fish groundbait and caster on one line, micro's with various hookbaits over on another line, a short line for roach/perch and a margin rig to go up the RH edge and top bank.  I also had time to set up a waggler rod, in case the roach and skimmers backed off too far and I set up a bomb rod to have a look round the peg for liners, just in case there was a few carp holed up - no liners or bites, so no more of the bomb rod.

On the all in I cupped in 4 tangerine size balls of groundbait and caster at 13m in front, a few micro's at 14, off left in line with the island and some caster at 5m.  I was expecting a fairly instant response from the groundbait line, but waited 15 mins whilst I had a look round with the bomb. Dropping in over the groundbait with caster and then maggot resulted in a motionless float, so after 20 mins a look over the micros with soft pellet - again, nothing.  Back over the groundbait and a single fluoro maggot produced a positve bite and a 6oz skimmer, the only one I caught all day.

The short line only gave up a few small roach, before becoming as lifeless as the two long pole lines, by now I started to feed the RH margin with caster, but a look up there became another groundhog day of motionless float.  As the lake seemed to be fishing hard, I tried another line, this time 20m towards the islands point with a 2½AAA waggler, this did start to produce fish, roach from ½oz-2oz, caster not picking out any bigger fish, but it was taking longer for a bite, so I mainly stuck to maggot.

To rest the waggler line, I went back up the edge and started getting some bites, these turned out to be small roach, apart from a 6oz perch and a 6oz chub. This soon died off and back on the waggler for the remainder of the match and the odd small roach. My meagre net of silvers went 7.10 and it turned out that it was 2oz short of taking last in silvers money by default. Glenn ( or Faitheey as he like to be known on the interweb :)  ) had 3 or 4 big perch up to 3lb and a few decent skimmers, the only one to find quality silvers on 38, catching on caster.

1) Andy Hembrow 77.15 peg 8
2) Rod Wootten 46.04 peg 19
3) Rich Lovering 42.15 peg 5
4) Glenn Calvert 28.02 peg 38
5) Paul Nicholls 25.10 peg 31
6) Rich Heatly 25.03 peg 25

Silvers

1) Glenn Calvert 23.00 peg 38
2) Paul Faiers 11.13 peg 11
3) Brian Slipper 7.12 peg 12
4) Mark Walsh 7.11 peg 29
5) Chris Fox 7.10 peg 23