Viaduct Spring League Round One, Sunday 23rd April 2017

Travelled down with anniversary couple, Tony & Judith Rixon, who both had conveniently left their wallet and purse at home, so anniversary breakfast on me..... Cannards Well, it wasn't too bad, service was a bit slow, but the food was edible.

54 fishing the league and a good standard of angler, so no slip ups, drawing a bad peg isn't an option really, so into the tin and out comes 57 - so much for getting Lodge out of the way yesterday!!   Well its in with 53 and isn't the worst section draw but I felt the chance of any sort of frame position was gone.

Tony had drawn 71, my peg from yesterday, I wasn't too upset not to draw it two days running, I had seen Roland catch a few from 57 yesterday, so fingers crossed they were still in the peg. Rigs were pretty much the same as yesterday, but I could get into shallower water today, in front of the pallet of 58and down to the pipe that comes in in the corner, same rig would do for both.

Same as yesterday, start short on meat, but again, no sign of a carp, just one missed bite and one skimmer.  Bob Giles on 59 was catching on the waggler casting to the aerator, I was casting to the aerator, but my float was motionless, its a phenomenon that I can't understand, how its possible to have two floats landing either side of a rope and one going under and the other motionless- seen it happen on this lake before.  I did finally hook a big fish, I got it under the rod tip and estimate it was 17 or 18lb.  I thought I was going to net it OK, when it took off and the reel line snapped - not happy, a new line (to me) that I was trying out, think I'll be going back to good old Sensor.

With an hour and a half gone I had one skimmer in the net and it was deja vu from yesterday, I had been pinging a few bits of meat down to the pipe and had a look down there, hooking a fish straight away, safely landed, about 8lb.  I went in there again and hooked another, this was foul hooked and ran out into the lake and kept going, as the elastic bottomed out I was getting concerned as to what would break first.  Then luckily the hook pulled before there was an expensive crack, I was somewhat surprised to see the hook opened up, first time I have seen a Guru XS do this, but it was a very big fish, going very fast.

The rest of the match was spent at 16m to the pallet of 58 taking an occasional fish from there, mostly on meat, but I did take two on maggots.  I could see the lake was fishing hard apart from Bob Giles and I thought Calum Craig on 73 was catching well, but I think he lost a few when I saw him weigh in. I managed 73.11in the end which was good enough for second in section behind Bob Giles who had such a flying start.  Miles away from the 4 200lb+ weights on Campbell, but its a better start than last year, so long may it continue.

Lodge weigh sheet, didn't get pics of the others.

Viaduct Open, Saturday 22nd April 2017

First chance to get down to Viaduct for a while, bit of a practise for the Spring League the next day and hopefully, as this match was on Lodge, to get it out the way and draw another lake in the league.  Only 14 booked in, so it didn't take long to get the draw done and I was on my way to peg 71, not too disappointed, as I have framed from this peg before.  Getting to the peg, I could immediately see that since I last drew it the bramble bushes between 71 and 72, which was vacant, had spread out into the lake and you can no longer get along to the pallet of 72 and they stop you getting into the shallow water, so the peg no longer has a fishable margin.

I did have a tentative plumb round the edge of the brambles, but their tackle stealing fronds stick out under the surface and I was very, no totally reluctant to go in there, as I know exactly what would happen if a fish was hooked that close to such a tangle of sinewy nastiness.  As I had time I set up a lead rod, that stayed in sweet repose on the bank all match, so no more about it, no idea why I wasted my time setting it up..... Two wagglers, although that was because they ready made and I wasn't convinced a pellet waggler would work, but I set it and a depth waggler up anyway.

4 topkits completed the array of tackle on display, a rig to go near, but not in the brambles, a home made slim wire stemmed float to fish meat at 6m and a NG float to fish pellet at 7m and 14m.   As the sun was threatening to come out I also set up mugging rig.

I started short on the meat hoping to get an early mug fish, but after 20 minutes without any indication I switched to pellet at 14m, this brought a skimmer, but it was painfully slow going.  A couple more skimmers swapping between 7 and 14 metre lines and a couple on the waggler, but it was impossible to put a run of fish together.  I walked up to the shop and bought a bag of Thatchers, to try and get a few more skimmers.  I mixed this up and put it in at 7m with a few chopped worms and went out on the waggler again, I managed a carp about 8lb, but it was a one off.

Dropping in with a worm section, over the GB saw a couple of skimmers come to the net and then a 6lb carp, but it was not much better than the pellet line, I persevered with it as carp seemed unlikely to show up.  Even the expected carp bonanza in the last 1/2 hour didn't materialise, so it was sit and wait for a skimmer, maybe I should have fished for skimmers the whole match as I chucked back the 2 carp and weighed 25.13 for 3rd in the silvers and nowhere in the match.

1. Mark Cullerton - 174lb 8oz - peg 66
2. Roland Lucas - 143lb 3oz - peg 57...
3. Craig Edmunds - 140lb 1oz - peg 68
4. Charlie Dalton - 100lb 7oz - peg 55
5. Jeb Attwood - 75lb 14oz - peg 73
6. Phil Hardwick - 73lb 4oz - peg 64

Silvers
1. Nigel Bartlett - 32lb 15oz - peg 59
2. Matt Tomes - 31lb 4oz - peg 60
3. Chris Fox - 25lb 13oz - peg 71

Landsend Costcutter, Tuesday 18th April 2017

Travelled down to this one with Tony, a stop off at Shipham for breakfast and it wasn't too bad.  Tony is trying to get this to be a monthly match, but support is a bit thin on the ground with only 8 fishing this one, be good if it took off and gave an alternative Tuesday venue.

Match lake was all ours, so the pegging was spread around to give everyone some space, I dipped into the tub and pulled out 13, not a peg I usually draw and first time on that side of the lake for a long time.  I had Tony next to me on 15 and Gordon Canning opposite on 11.

Four rigs set up, a margin rig which would cover just down to my left under the bushes, further along the end bank and RH edge.  A homemade float with 4x11 stotz to fish meat through the water at 5m, a Drennan crystal dibber to fish across to the island and a rig to fish pellet at full depth.

Bait tray was simple, pellet and meat, I did have a few dead maggots and the best part of a Kilo of worms, left over from the Frenzee festival.  Starting short on meat, I missed one bite, but that was the only indication and after 15 minutes It was over to the island, which is 16.5 metres away, so in for a back aching day...... There were fish visible across in 12" of water, but as expected I had a couple and they just melted away.  Tony had a good view of them and said they came back when I took the pole away and disappeared as soon as the pole went out again.

It was fishing fairly hard all round and I tried the line immediately to my left under the bushes and had a small carp from there, but that was a one off.  Back on the short meat line and all I could get from there were little knocks and a 8oz roach.

With a couple of hours gone and everyone struggling I decided to chop up a few worms and start a new line at 11m feeding just neat worm.  This gave me some bites, a perch, then a carp, a 8oz hybrid and then a run of small perch.  I tried going back over to the island, but my shoulder was complaining at holding 17m on an angle, even the painkillers weren't working, so gave that up.

I tried GB and maggots along the end bank and meat down the RH edge, never had a bite on the RH edge and one perch from the endbank.   I did manage a couple more carp from immediately to my LH side under the bushes, but there were no indications of many fish there, just a bite out of the blue.  I did get a decent skimmer over the worm, but he appeared to be a lonesome soul, as I never got another.

I just kept rotating round all the lines until the last half hour when I stuck it out on the 5m meat line for a couple of big roach, a hybrid and two carp, Tony had been catching across and I knew he'd caught me up and overtaken me in the last 90 minutes and the scales proved this to be the case, with Tony being the only angler breaking the ton today. 

1: Tony Rixon  102.04 peg 15

2: Chris Fox 74.00 peg 13

3: Dave Blakemore 73.07 peg 18

4: Rich Heatley  59.01 peg 6

5: Adam Palmer 55.03 peg 24

6: Gordon Canning  43.08 peg 11

Silvers

1: Gordon Canning 28.02 peg 11

Ivy House Open, Tuesday 11th April 2017

Its been a while since I visited Andy Lloyd & Karens's fishery, not for any other reason than weekend clashes and it can be a pretty horrendous journey on a weekday.  As it is the school holidays Tony Rixon and myself decided the roads would be clear enough not to endure a 2 hour trip like the last time we went.

The roads weren't too bad and it took an hour which passed with the usual fishing talk and putting the world to rights, got there in plenty of time for a large breakfast & coffee. Andy had 17 booked in and was looking for volunteers to fish a section on Kingfisher, the recently filled and stocked canal lake.  I said I'd give it a go, as did Tony, a couple of others did and Gary Ethridge was late so was conscripted into the canal section.

The canal has a large head of small carp and a selection of decent silvers, so hopefully a few bites to be had.  Into the tub and out comes peg 10, meant nothing, but it had been the 'cold' end of the lake when Tony & I walked it before the draw.  Peg 6 was rumoured to be the flier, regular Val drew that, Tony on 4 and Gary managed to pull himself 12, the end peg.

Simple approach today, stockie fish like pellets, so the bait tray had 4 & 6mm pellets on it, I did have a tin of corn and some dead maggots, as well as a kilo of worms, which had been brought expecting to be fishing the match lake.  Four rigs today, of which two were used, first was a Hillbilly Chump 0.3  on 0.16 to 0.14 with a 18 LEG and a hair rig band, this was for fishing short.  Next set up was a float I used on 4 out of 5 days during the Frenzee festival, a homemade diamond with a carbon stem - its amazingly stable in the wind or tow.  This was on 0.15 (just using up some old Powerline I had lying round) to a 0.12 hooklength and a 18 LWG again with a band,

I did set up a rig to fish across and found a shelf tight to the far bank at 16m, but never went over there, so no more about that one.... Also a margin rig, which I did try for about 5 minutes, but had seen no signs of fish, so that was all that had.

On the all in I started at topkit + 1 and had bites straight away feeding 4mm pellets with a 6mm in the band, I took the +1 off and still caught on the topkit, I stayed with this, not feeding anywhere else for the first hour, taking 45 small carp, reviewing it on the hour mark, I decided to keep going and put 40 in the net in the second hour.  To encourage bites when it slowed I put an occasional nugget of micros in on top of the float, but too much just seemed to send them scatty.

By the start of the third hour, things had slowed considerably, I could see Gary on 12 still catching, but he was feeding caster and I felt some caster or live maggot would have been the thing to revive my peg.  As usual Gary was topkit at arms length, stood up, loads of elastic out and I thought he was getting better stamp fish, turns out he wasn't, he was just using No1 Zim or something similar....

I went out to the joint of 6/7 section resting on my knee and fed some micros and 4mm, trying 6mm and corn over the top, this was a lot slower and only 15 fish came to the net in the third hour - not having maggots was costing me I felt.  I switched between the topkit line and the middle and there was enough bites and activity to keep my trying to increase the frequency, rather than go right across.

I had made up some GB to try down the edge, I wasn't confident as there is no flat ledge along the margin, just a steeply shelving slope.  I decided with about 40 minutes to go to dump a pot of this down the track over the micro line, GB and dead maggot.  I went over this with a hair rigged worm section and immediately started catching skimmers and bream, bugger why didn't I do that earlier!!!
I had 4 or 5 and then it slowed up, I topped up and immediately hooked a 5lb carp, which ran around the peg for a few minutes on the 0.12 and No8 elastic. I didn't have a bite for 20 minutes after that and then had two more decent skimmers in the last 5 minutes.

It turns out I should have tried the GB earlier, as I put 71.10 on the scales for 3rd and was 6.14 away from Tony who took the win, poor decision making cost me this match, but it was interesting and whilst I wouldn't want to fish for carp that small all the time, I am going to try and get back before too long, as the combination of a couple of hours frantic topkit thrashing followed by some trying to get the big skimmers makes for an enjoyable day.  Its good news that Andy and Karen didn't sell up, they are now working hard to improve the fishery and attract anglers to matches, there is a Thursday Costcutter every week on Kingfisher if you fancy plenty of bites.

Landsend Open Sunday 9th April 2017

27 fishing today, so match lake and No3 lake in, I wasn't thinking about pegs to draw or not draw, as that seems to have a detrimental effect and I never draw where I fancy.  So first into the tub and out comes 41 on lake, usually worth a few fish, but they can be small.

Simple bait tray for today, meat and hard pellets and a couple of bags of dead maggots, along with some groundbait for the margin.  The spit is an obvious place to target, but as mentioned, the fish are small, its also a horrible bottom to plumb up, as it goes up and down like a sine wave.  I set up a simple homemade float to fish pellet on the flattest bit of bottom I could find. 0.16 hooklength and a 16 LWG hook with a band, with the intention of fishing 6mm pellet and feeding 4mm.

I also set up a meat rig to fish short, a Malman Roob, again a 0.16 hooklength, this time with a 16 Kaizen hook.  A wire stemmed NG Gimp to fish pellet on the deck out to the aerator, another 16 LWG and a band.  Two edge rigs, as the LH margin and RH margin are very different depths, the RH being 18" - 2' deeper.  Finally a rig for mugging, as Tim Ford and Paul Faiers opposite could see lots of cruisers, although they weren't showing my side of the rope.

I started in the open water on the deck fishing 6mm pellet, feeding 4mm pellet by catapult, first drop in  I had an F1, then a roach, then a hybrid and several more roach. I hadn't come to catch roach, so swapped to the line against the spit, which I had been feeding since the off. This produced a run of F1's and a couple of small carp, but this was also going nowhere fast.  I saw a couple of bigger fish and they wouldn't go down and pick up a pellet, so a switch to the shallow rig was in order, but this only saw a couple of fish netted and the bigger ones were having none of it.

I started feeding the RH margin, as it was deeper I fed it with 8mm pellet and meat and had an early look, I did have 2 fish from it and hooked a third, which was a good fish, but it was plodding around and then caught me out by heading to my left and into the weed bed between 41 and 42, as soon as it touched the weedbed the 0.18 hooklength gave up - bugger!  I was surprised to find that this put an end to the bites down this edge, as the fish was lost so far from the fed area.

Back across to the spit and a couple more F1's and a small carp were netted, before I fed the LH margin with GB and maggots.  Virtually instantly there were signs of fish and whilst I left it settle for 15 or 20 minutes, I couldn't resist and went in there amongst the swirls.  I had three fish straight away, biggest just about a double, but then swirls stopped.  I had another fish, but rather than several in there at once I had to wait for a fish to come along.  I did refed it and leave it, going back in the RH margin and taking a couple more on meat, before going back over the GB in the last half hour and managing another double.

I thought I had about 125lb and it turned out I wasn't too far out, putting 133.02 on the scales for a lake win (and happy that Tony was paying it continental style, with the lake winners rather than overall winner picking up).  Enjoyable day, it was bloody cold sat in the shade all day, but at least I had a few bites and something to work at.  Beaten by two weights on Match lake, Tony Rixon and Gary O'Shea weighing 185 and 150 respectively.

1: Tony Rixon 185.15 peg 6
2: Gary O'Shea 150.02 peg 5
3: Chris Fox 133.02 peg 41
4: Ryan Radford 132.13 peg 16
5: Joe McMahon 1177.07 peg 1
6: Shawn Townsend 110.07 peg 46

England Disabled Team Fund Raiser, Barston Lake, 2nd April 2017

I had been looking forward to getting back up to Barston, this time a fund raiser organised by Terry Swan, in aid of the England disabled team.  Decent run up with Tony Rixon and good breakfast at the Premier Inn.

I drew peg 45, it is on a little point where the lake overflow into the stream is, so does put you out slightly further in the lake.  Whilst I was tackling up I could see a carper on the opposite bank casting a big white thing out, then winding back in what looked like a dead seagull - I found out later that was a Spomb - I'm still none the wiser really........

I set up a method to fish about 65 yards and a bomb to fish at 30yards, a pellet waggler and two rigs, one for 14m and banded 4mm's and finally off to the LH side at 11m with GB, worm and caster.

To cut a long story short I had one roach after about 2 1/2 hours and had to walk back to the golf clubhouse to take advantage of the facilities, this let me know it was fishing hard,  when I got back I had on skimmer on a hybrid pellet feeder and a chocolate orange wafter, that was it, nothing else - an awful days fishing.

Not much else to add, a decent run back, after checking the lottery and finding that our luck was out as well, so a barren day in the van today,

Upwards and onwards, I'll try and find a match I fancy next Sunday.

Frenzee Festival, Whitacres, March 27th - 31st 2017

After last years disastrous Bait Tech festival, I was looking forward to this to try and make sure that this year was more successful.

Travelled down on Saturday and met up with lodge mates Paul & Glenn in the café at Whitacres, also Dave Stephenson was there.  After a decent breakfast we headed onto Pollawyn for a practice session, me and Paul headed for one of the points and fished 19 & 20, Glenn and Dave went round to the high bank.   We had a lovely afternoons fishing, I mainly fished meat short and caught skimmers, Barbel, F1's and Carp. Paul had some huge F1's that must have gone 5 or 6lb each.  He also had this Barbel which was 6-7lb.

The usual Saturday night social in the bar and then onto Sunday, decided to have a fish on Acorn, that was tough going, but we did end up with a reasonable day once we sussed out the F1's were shallow. I had bought a couple of packets of the new Guru Kaizen hooks to try whilst practising, not intending to use something untried in the festival, but I was so impressed by them, that I did use them in the matches.

Onto the festival itself, I had drawn in the same section rotation as Paul and Glenn, first time that had happened, we had the rotation of Monday on Pollawyn, Tuesday on Twin Oaks / Trelawny, Wednesday on Jennys / Trewaters, Thursday on Canal / Acorn & Python and Friday was Bolingey.

The draw put me on 21 on Pollawyn, the next peg to where I fished on Saturday, Paul drew 20, so we felt that we knew how to catch, as the short meat line had been so prolific.  I could also reach the point of the spit, so set up a rig to fish tight against it in about 2' of water. I set up waggler and lead as well as the same rig I had all the fish on Saturday.  I started across against at 16m the island with meat and had a carp about 5lb straight away, then a F1 and then hooked a big carp, which took ages to get back from 16m I got it down to the topkit and saw it, I'd estimate 18lb, then inexplicably, as sometimes happens, the hook pulled and that was my bonus fish gone.

I managed to catch more F1's across and a few skimmers and a 12lb carp on the short line, but it was nothing like practice day, as the F1's and Barbel didn't show up on that short line at all.  I weighed 57.02 which was enough to win the section and 4th on the lake, that lost fish costing me a third place. (Top three on the lake are paid out and section winners).

Tuesday saw me draw peg 12 on Twin Oaks, not an out and out flyer, but not the worst draw, I set up two lead rods, two wagglers one deep and one shallow, a margin rig and rig for meat short. Starting across on the lead was pretty unproductive, either with bread or meat, I did have one fish and a switch to the waggler wasn't any better.  Peg 14 was catching well and I was falling behind, I had to try and make something happen, so I started firing pouchfulls of corn across and fished corn on the waggler, this made a big difference and I started to catch - mainly F1's, but the odd carp.  The short line was totally dead until the last 30 minutes where I put 5 more carp in the net. Peg 14 won the section, with 172lb, I put 124.06 on the scales and was 12lb behind 2nd place, but I only managed 4th, so an earlier switch to corn may well have seen me get a couple of extra points.

Wednesday, I was hoping for a draw on Jenny's as Trewaters is a bit of a bogie venue for me, it wasn't to be and 31 Trewaters was home for the day and I had Paul for company on 29.  The wind was right to fish 16m and long line, but I didn't set it up, as my shoulder is buggered up and there is no way I can swing that around all day. There were some old bulrushes on the far bank, I could see them knocking, these lakes with islands are my least favourite and I hate the way the fish stick so tight to them.

First cast with bread and the tip went round as I was sinking the line, a small carp, then another, but typically for this lake, that was it, I fished the waggler across and had a couple more, but they would back off into the rushes and casting tight to the rushes meant the wove their way into the back of the stick-ups and snagging everything up.

The short line was totally non productive and I did manage a couple down the edge towards the end, I just had to keep leaving the far bank and then going back to it and taking an odd fish.  I knew the pole at 16m with about 6m of line would be better, but couldn't risk making my shoulder so bad I couldn't fish the rest of the week.  I ended up with 60.09 and the same points as Tuesday.

I got back to the lodge and then discovered that Paul's van had broken down leaving Trewaters, so me and Glenn went down to find him.  Couldn't do anything to help, I hadn't taken any tools or my code reader. It sounded like there was no fuel getting through,  The tow truck took him off to the garage, where the next day they informed him the cambelt had snapped...... ouch.

Thursday I drew 19 Canal, Alex Nadin had popped down for a couple of days staying with his dad and he was good enough to give Paul and Glenn a lift to the lakes.

Having listened to Trigger who won his section on Canal earlier in the week, so I set up to fish meat short, I also set up a waggler, a lead and a long line, as well as a shallow rig and one at 2/3 depth.  Starting on meat short was a good move, as I caught steadily for a couple of hours, then I started missing bites and had a couple of foulers.  A switch to the 2/3 depth rig resulted in a few more fish, before the same happened.  Switching again to the shallow rig saw a few more fish netted.  I wasn't sure how much I had in the net, so dropped another in - kiss of death - had to switch to chucking a waggler and corn down the peg to get an odd fish for the last couple of hours.  I weighed 63.08 for a section win and third on the lakes.

Friday, the draw was at Bolingey, I took Glenn and Allan Oram was good enough to take Paul, I drew 25, not too over joyed, but then found I had no one either side and loads of room.

I set the usual, lead, waggler and long, short and an edge rig on the pole.  Two chucks with the lead and bread, not so much as a liner and up the bank with it.  A look on the short line saw me get off to a great start, 42lb on the clicker in the first hour, carp and big F1's, I did think a big weight might be on the cards.  The second hour knocked that back, as I put one carp and one F1 in the net for 12lb, the third hour was as bad. Luckily the 5m line came back to life in the last couple of hours and I had a few from the margin. I fed both sides, one with maggot and one with corn and meat, the maggot line just produced roach, so no more about that.

The LH edge produced 4 or 5 fish, but there wasn't loads of fish there, the 5m line was better and there was some bubbles and signs of fish there towards the end, shame about the quiet mid section of the match, as I put 132.14 on the scales, which was second in section behind peg 10 which won the section 4 days out of 5.  That was also enough for 3rd on the lake, so a pickup again to end the week.

Shame I couldn't have nicked a couple more points on Twin Oaks as that would have seen me scrape into the top ten, I guess I can't complain at 19th as I have a had a good weeks fishing in great company, thanks to Lodge mate Paul and Glenn, the evening company in the bar, Steve and Alex Nadin, Chris Albiston, Dave Stephenson and all the others from our local circuit and those I only see at big matches or Whiteacres.

I guess I'll have to get booked on the Preston Festival now.......