Kedgy's Open, Durleigh Reservoir, Sunday 24th June 2018

A chance text conversation with Mike Walker led me to head down for this match, I fancied a change from the usual, so rang Somerset Angling and booked in.  I haven't been to Durleigh or any other big reservoir for a few years now, so an expensive trip to Veals yesterday - unplanned, I was going to use what I had in the garage, but ended up with a new reel and new braid to load on it.

Yesterday afternoon was spent spooling up the braid, making and adding shock leaders to the braid and a mono spool and sorting out my big feeders from the back of the garage, all good, just needed to draw on some bream.....  in case I was up the shallow end, I did put a couple of whips and rigs in and picked up 2 pints casters and 4 pints of maggots - they'll always keep in the freezer if they aren't used.

So, onto the draw and I plucked 13 out of the bucket, meaningless to me until I saw it, close to the canal that comes into the reservoir, some weed in the margins, so I did wade out and try and get over it with the whips I would be using.

First things set up were two feeder rods, one for fishing 60 turns of the new reel I had bought and 30 turns of an old faithful reel I have had for a while, started with a big bomb and had a cast around, but couldn't find any area that felt harder or more gravelly than the rest of the lake bed.

Once the feeder rods were set up and sorted, two whips set up, 4m, to try and clear the weed fronds and get into 2' 6" of water, one with a 1g float and a 4" hooklength immediately below the olivette, the other 0.8g with 12" below the bulk.

Next up, sort out the bait and I then realised that my worms were nowhere to be seen, can't believe I managed to leave them at home, but I did, must be getting old!!   Decided that I'd still try the cage / traditional feeder route, so both rods had big feeders on ready at the start, no hooklengths attached, as I intended to have at least 10 casts before putting the hooklength on and starting fishing.

The day didn't get any better when the first cast fell short and then on the retrieve I knew the feeder wasn't there, on closer inspection, the link swivel had broken - great start, but worse was yet to come, another big weight forward feeder clipped on a new swivel, and this time it hit the clip, perfect until I struck to release the bait and the line had wrapped round the tip, breaking it...…

New tip fitted, feeding finished and 3 small fish later, I decided after an hour and a half to just have a days fishing and picked up the whip, I had a run of catching perch from micro to 4 oz, then the odd small hybrids and roach showed up.  I alternated between the two rigs to keep the fish coming, albeit some of them were a bit small.  Introducing some GB seemed to get a better stamp fish with fewer bites, but by this time, I had plenty of pike activity disrupting the peg.

I just got my head down and fished the whips for the last 4 hours of the match, finishing with 7.480 Kilogrammes, which I think was 6th on the day, some bream showed up on the very end peg at the shallow end and pegs 7/8 by the point, also put a few bream together, but the rest struggled.

I didn't take a picture of the weigh sheet, it wasn't straightforward.... with some weights in KG, another in lbs and no peg numbers on one sheet, I knew Id missed out on the overall and I missed out on the section, that was won with 9KG, if I had fished the whip the whole match I would have been on for 10.2KG - still it was a nice day, well done to Mike Walker on coming second with 17KG and to the other winners whose names I don't know.

Not a brilliant picture, but a poignant moment of reflection as the Battle of Britain flight passed over, one of only 2 Lancaster's left flying...

Cadbury Angling Evening Open, Acorn, 21st June

Work fell nicely this week to try and make amends for the last evening where I was ounced out of the money.  At the draw Vic Bush went against all sensible convention and rubbed my drawing arm to bring him good luck - he must be the only person, ever, to do that!!!

Ping Pong 37 was the one I withdrew from the bag, wasn't exactly doing cartweels round the car park when I saw it, but I was hopeful of catching a few, I had Mark Broomsgrove on 39 for company, he'd been on 37 a couple of weeks ago and struggled.  It looks like the peg isn't fished too often as I had to virtually cut out a whole far bank 'bay' to fish into as the bankside grasses had got a little wild.  Aso to get down the RH margin and get close in, again, this needed a trim before I could get very far down the edge or close in.

I still had plenty of time to set up 4 rigs before the start, I wasn't confident that there were many fish in the area, they weren't showing themselves at all, so I did set up a paste rig, as well as the usual rig for across, where I had about 15" of water, two edge rigs, one for a metre off the bank, where it was 18" deep and one for in tight, where it was about 10", shallow, but the fish want to be there in my recent experience.

Started across, pinging 6mm pellets, I think this works better than using 4mm in these 3 hour matches, an immediate reaction and a lovely looking F1 about 2lb was in the net within a couple of minutes, I had another and thought maybe I had assessed the potential of the peg incorrectly, but after a little carp, it went really quiet and I only had one more fish in the first hour.  It was a nice little bay I'd cut out, the depth was OK, not sure why the fish didn't want to be in there.

I had been feeding 8mm Skretting pellets at topkit + 1 to my left, in about 2'6" of water, I was hoping that would be shallow enough for the fish to come in over and deep enough to stop them spooking, as the fish have been very wary here for a while now.  I had a look on this line, but had no indication, I had also fed pellets in the LH edge, then GB down the RH edge.  I did try shallow off the far bank, but never had a touch.  There was some indication down the RH edge now, so I tried worm down there on the 18" deep rig and had a small perch, one more try I thought with worm and next fish was a carp nearer 4lb.

It wasn't hectic action, but by swapping to the rig set at 10" I managed to put a few fish in the net, paste was better than worm, but there was never a lot of fish in the peg competing, I knew there were 3 there at one time and I never saw any signs of more than that, it was more a case of waiting for a fish to patrol along.  I had nearly an hour of this and then it died off, so a look in the LH margin, but to no avail. Whilst doing this I saw movement of water where I had kept feeding the 8mm pellets, out with the paste rig and first drop in I had a 4lber.  I stayed with it for the final 45 minutes and added between 25 and 30lb to my net.

Last 20 minutes when the sun went in and the Northerly wind got up a bit, it went quite chilly, so I wasn't upset when the all out was called and I could put a jumper on, but I was having my best spell of the match, so for me it did come when I'd have liked another half hour.

I had 57lb on my clicker and thought I wouldn't have much chance of doing any good, walking round with the scales seeing a couple of 70lb+ and a 90lb+ weighed in from the island and back straight, I was a bit surprised to see my fish go 70.04 and frustratingly for the second evening match, one out of the money.

Did I leave it too late to go on the paste, did I stay too long trying to make the far bank work, not sure but probably, is the best answer.  I can't say I'm too disappointed as I didn't think I'd get 4th from there.  Shame work is getting in the way of the next two weeks evening matches, as they are an enjoyable way to round off the day.  Well done to Martin Rayet on the win and Vic's lucky arm rub even paid off with a 3rd place for him!!  But I am not expecting queues of anglers looking to replicate his actions,...….

Viaduct Spring League, Final Round, Sunday 17th June 2018

Last rounds result had put me out of any opportunity to end up in the money on this years league, so just a section or hopefully match to fish for today.  Then my drawing arm worked its usual 'magic' and it was looking likely that a section win would be the only thing on the cards, but I didn't even fancy doing that from 103, not a peg you'd sprint to.

Still, it's better than work and I was hopeful of a few fish, usual gear set up for Cary, two wagglers, one shallow, one full depth, a lead rod and some topkits comprising a shallow rig, a depth pellet rig, a meat rig for short, a margin rig - I cleaned out the margin down to the vacant pallet of 104 and found a lovely clean flat area to fish on, a little deeper than ideal, but it would have to do.

10 minutes on the meat at the start and a few little knocks and a 3oz skimmer told me there were no carp around, I did feel my best chance would be fishing the waggler, so switched to that, I did get a bit of fizzing feeding pellet at about 25m, the shallow waggler was a waste of time, so I switched to the full depth rig and immediately had some indications and finally my first carp, but a small one about 8lb.  It wasn't too long before I hooked another, similar size and was quite happily playing it on one of a pair of 12' Normark Titan 2000's I use for carp fishing, when quite inexplicably the top section went off with a bang, breaking clean through about 4" up from the joint.  The shock caused the tip to break of as well...…

I'm now in mourning, an irreplaceable rod that is getting harder and harder to find (if anyone has one gathering dust in their shed they want to sell, let me know).  Adrian Jeffery was behind me on Lodge and he said "that's sounds expensive" - sadly its not the cost, its the non availability of these rods. Its looking likely that I will have to find a new pair of rods to use in the future, just haven't found one that suits me as well as the Titan!!

I did manage two better fish on the waggler, so had 4 for about 38lb by just after 1pm, but the indications stopped and I never had another bite (apart from one 6oz skimmer) on the waggler.  The guy on 102 was fishing the lead and not catching, so I felt quite justified in not chucking that out - if there were fish there I would have had indications on the waggler.

I had a look back on the meat line and had a spell catching skimmers, but they weren't going to win me anything, so back looking for carp on the waggler.

With an hour and 45 minutes to go I fed the margin, this produced a couple of small skimmers before finally a decent carp had the orange Vespe streaming out of the pole tip, one of these old dark Cary fish that come to the topkit quite easily, then just swim round and round in front of your nets and they stubbornly won't come up off the bottom, I haven't found a way to get them out quicker, its just patience and constant pressure.  Finally netted it and thought it was about 15lb, so hopeful of more, but a couple more skimmers and a perch were all I managed.

Tough day, my 66lb beat the guys either side, but not 109 and the 100 and 99 were first and second in section with ton plus weights and they were moaning about how many fish they had lost...…

The league hasn't been particularly kind to me, drawing the same section for 3 matches running would be great if it was a good section, but apart from one match where mugging saw a big weight from it, its been a section you'd want to avoid.

Well done the winner and framers.

Top Final League Positions:

1. Aidan Bordiuk - 4 points / dropping 1 / 897lb 1oz
2. Trig - 4 points / dropping 2 / 1252lb 13oz
3. Gary O'Shea - 6 points / dropping 4 / 558lb 2oz
4. Mark Wynne - 6 points / dropping 5 / 762lb 5oz
5. Sam Powell - 7 points / dropping 2 / 843lb 13oz
6. Richard A'Herne - 8 points / dropping 3
7. Adrian Jeffery - 8 points / dropping 6
8. Tom Mangnall - 8 points / dropping 7

Top Weights from Today:
1. Clayton Hudson - 268lb 10oz - peg 85
2. Gary O'Shea - 204lb 4oz - peg 115
3. Mark Wynne - 201lb 9oz - peg 81
4. Rob Wiltshire - 181lb 3oz - peg 126
5. Sam Powell - 168lb 6oz - peg 114
6. Paul Elms - 167lb 15oz - peg 124

Acorn Open, Tuesday 12th June 2018

Day off, so whilst I did fancy a trip to Ivy House, the traffic is a nightmare on a weekday, so Acorn it would have to be, as its relatively easy to get to on a weekday.  Arrived in plenty of time, so a quick look round and I wasn't sure where I wanted to draw, as the wind was quite strong and blowing off the bank furthest away from the shop.

Into the tub and out comes ping pong ball 21, a bridge peg, I could never draw one when they dominated several years back, but now the peg has no recent form, I manage to make drawing it look easy!!  I'll have to be careful or I'll end up drawing as many bridges as Bob Gullick……

I'd wandered over the bridge at the start and cleared the long grass out of the corner of the bridge and above the bare mud bank straight in front, Ray Bazeley was doing the same the other side of the bridge and we did have a bit of a moan at there being 17 fishing, so plenty of room on the lake and we were the only two pegged next to each other.  I didn't think it would do me any favours having Ray there, but at least he isn't renowned for dumping huge pots of bait in.

Plenty of time to set up, so a rig to fish banded pellet tight over in 10" of water, another for the second shelf which was a bit over 2'.   I have been using a Drennan Carp 4 for the shallow water and they do seem to be ideal, the float for the 2' shelf was a homemade slim, with a tungsten wire stem, both on 0.20 with a 0.14 hooklength and a 18 LWG tied with a band.  A rig for full depth against the bridge by the middle railing upright, this was a 0.4g NG Gimp, this on 0.16 again with the 18 LWG on 0.14.  The RH margin is shallow tight in and then drops down to a shelf nearly 2', it has proven difficult to catch the carp in the shallow margin, so I set up a rig to fish on the steep slope from 10" to the 2' shelf.  I did set up a paste rig to fish down the track, as fish have been falling to it.

As it was windy and I had time, I did set up a method feeder, a 9' rod, a Guru method set up free running and a 18 hook.  Bit of  last resort, as I didn't really intend to use it.  Bait tray was nice and simple, 4, 6 & 8mm pellets, I did soak some micros for the method, dead maggots and some worms.  A bit of GB & a bag of paste completed the bait for the day.

I know some guys have success on here toss potting bait in, but I much prefer feeding with a catapult, so that's how I started, going across tight into the corner with the bridge, as I feared, Ray also started there, so our floats were only the bridge width apart.  The bites weren't really forthcoming, I had a couple of smaller fish, but decided to switch to a line in front the mud bank opposite, this was a little more successful and after the first hour I had about 20lb on the clicker and I thought if I could keep that up then have a good last hour or so down the edge, it would be a decent return from the peg.

The next hour was similar, not hectic, but putting odd fish in the net kept me on track for the 20lb target, it did start to slow and I tangled my rig, whilst I was putting a new rig on I did chuck the method over, I had two fish on it, but it wasn't right, so as usual, up the bank with it.

I had been feeding the middle of the bridge with 8mm pellets, so dropped in there with some paste, I did have 2 carp on it, but also two roach and the float just wouldn't stay still with shit fish attacking the paste.  A switch to banded 8mm pellet brought a couple more carp, but it wasn't frantic, so back across and I had several more from there.

With an hour and 45 minutes to go I put some GB down the RH edge and within a couple of minutes there were fish over it, but up on the 10" deep shelf, which I didn't have a rig set up for, so off the box and out with another topkit, to this I attached a rig which comprised a Korum blob and a hook, nothing down the line.  I dropped some paste in and had a fish straight away, then another, it went a bit quiet so I refed and dropped back in with worms this time, I had another fish after a short wait.

With an hour to go I put a third net in as I had 100lb split between two nets, alternating between worms, bunches of maggots and paste, I put 34lb on the clicker into this net before the all out. So 134lb on the clicker and I was sure that if I had that off a peg that had been out of form, someone would have more.  I had watch Paul Lasson on 14 catching one a chuck on the method for a spell and I thought he had more.

The scales came round and it turned out that my 134lb was enough for the win, pleased with that from a peg with no recent form.  Credit to Ray, he could have fed loads and buggered us both up, but he didn't.  I fed a pint of 8mm pellets, 3/4 pint of 6mm pellets and about 0.5Kg of GB.

1. Chris Fox.                               134-00 p21
2. Stuart Barnett.                       119-03 p5
3. Gary Flinders.                        117-10 p11
4. Paul Lasson.                          110-00 p14
5. Lee Waller.                             107-08 p25
6. John Miles.                           102-03 p6
Silvers
1. Mike Chapman.                      29-13 p17
2. Mike Hill.                                 12-03 p33

Acorn Evening Open, Thursday 7th June 2018

I quite like the self enforced simplicity of these 3 hour matches, as you aren't going to win by setting up a plethora of rigs and rods, then attempt to use them all. 18 fishing tonight and it was ping pong ball 33 that I plucked from the bag.  A bridge peg, the bridge pegs used to be dominant on the venue, but the last couple of years their dominance has waned, although they are still capable of throwing up weights.

It started to rain as we were tackling up, so into the van with unused kit to keep it dry, the plan was to keep it simple 4 and 6mm pellets for across, 8mm pellets for down the edge, with a back up of some GB and worms. 3 rigs, one for tight across in about 14" of water, another rig to fish down the shelf at about 30" and one for the RH edge.  The deeper second shelf line plumbed up very uneven but I found a reasonable area, just before it shelved off to the main depth.

I usually like to start pinging across, but decided to try just potting half a dozen pellets, no bites forthcoming from doing this, so it didn't take long to pick up the catapult and that induced some action, with fish coming to the noise.  It wasn't hectic, but I put 20lb in the net in the first hour, no big fish and no issues with foulers, as there was only ever one or two fish in the feed area at one time.

I had a look on the deeper line to see if it was any better, the rig was a small homemade wire stemmed float with 3 No 10's strung out. I had a bigger fish (4lber) first put in, but from then on even with the slow fall, it was liners and foulers.  Tried the 10" rig over the top, but couldn't get any bites shallow.

I had been feeding a line short down the RH edge with 8mm pellets, so had a look at that, but the float was undisturbed by the presence of fish. On the halfway point I fed the edge next to the pallet of 32, with GB.  This was only left a short time before I dropped in over it and 3 fish in 3 put ins, that was to be it from there, no more bites, the fish at this venue are very unsettled lately, it's difficult if not impossible to get a run together, a couple from the same line before having to move seems to be the norm at the moment.

I had a barren spell from 20:00 - 20:35 where I didn't put a fish in the net, I then cupped in some GB across and went over it with a single worm hair rigged onto the rig I was using for pellet across, I had 3 fish for 15lb in the last 20 minutes of the match, by lowering the worm as tight to the bank as I could, so I was kicking myself for the tardiness of my decision making and even more so when the weigh in was finished and I was 4th and ounced out of the money..... I don't think I could have had more than double the weight from the peg to beat Kev on peg 4, but I should have been second, so only myself to blame.  Well done to those who made the right decisions!!

A nice touch after these matches are the hotdogs and cider kindly supplied by Cadbury Angling, I forgo the cider as I don't drink it, but a hotdog was welcome after sitting in the rain for virtually the whole match.

Viaduct Spring League R4, Sunday 3rd June 2018

Today, only a section win would do to put me in with a chance of framing in the league, so a good draw and a good performance was needed.  Dipping into the Nescafe tin with some hope of a peg black with fish, sadly it wasn't to be and I knew that my peg, 99 wouldn't be good in the section, I had won this section last round from the opposite end, 109.

There were some pegs that looked pretty uninviting as the willow trees have been and still are shedding their horrible white fluff all over the lakes.  Mine wasn't too bad, but it made waggler fishing hard work as the fluff clings to the line, ending up a tough, fibrous ring clogging frustration.

There isn't  going to much in this blog, its hard to write about nothing much happening, which is what happened for the vast majority of the match.  Usual tackle set up, one lead rod, two wagglers, one shallow, one depth, several topkits - a long line mugging rig, a shallow rig, pellet rig at depth, meat rig, a paste rig and a margin rig, which would be good for either side, to the tree on my left and towards the empty 97 to my right.

The odd fish I could see before the start, magically melted away as the 'all-in' call drifted across the lakes.  I never got near having one on the mugging rig, the waggler was just as barren and it was about an hour and 50 minutes in before I had a fish, I had switched to the full depth pellet rig at 14m and pinging 6mm pellets with a 6mm in the band, I had a skimmer, then shortly after a carp around 6lb, that was 12:50, at 13:15 I had another as well as several other skimmers, but that was a flash in the pan.

I was switching methods and baits with regularity just to try and get a bite, but didn't have anymore joy until 16:10, when I finally had one on the waggler, it was a one off though, as the waggler didn't produce anything else.  I had been feeding 8mm pellets in front of the rushes towards 97 and finally at 16:45 I saw the rushes knocking, dropping in with a banded 8mm pellet, the float settled and buried, not the expected carp, but a small, but energetic tench made its way to the net.  I did drop back in and didn't wait long before a carp about 13lb took the pellet, by the time it was landed and I get the rig back in, the all-out was called.

My carp went 39lb and the accidental skimmers and tench 9lb, that was only enough for 5th in the section, so league over, further down the section Mark Wynne had over 200lb and Richard A'Herne who was between me and Mark said he could see the fish moving round, but they just wouldn't move up towards us.  Sometimes its possible to take positives or at least a learning experience from days like this, but if I was faced with this draw and circumstance again, I have no idea how I would get any more from the peg.

1. Sam Powell - 325lb 5oz - peg 85
2. Trig - 304lb 10oz - peg 116
3. Mark Wynne - 203lb 5oz - peg 102
4. Tom Mangnall - 189lb 14oz - peg 124
5. Lee Werrett - 142lb 4oz - peg 110
6. Leon Hubbard - 137lb 10oz - peg 113