Ivy House Open, Saturday 26th September 2020

 No fishing last weekend, had a great few days camping in Cornwall.  

Today's match was spread over the canals and the match lake (Willow), I was unsure how it would fish, I had the frost warning light come on in the van once I got into the lanes near Ivy House.  I was drawn peg 45 by Andy, an area I seem to draw often.

I left the rods in the van, today would be a pole only attack - although I would take a negative approach at the start, rather than attacking the peg.  Rigs set up to fish right across, which is 16m on this peg, a margin rig and rigs for maggot short and long, finally a rig for soft pellet at 11m and a banded pellet rig.

Started by feeding some GB and maggots short and at 11m at 10 o'clock, then picked up the rig for soft pellet, feeding a few micros and an expander on the hook, this seemed to work and I had 4 carp for about 10lb in the first 30 minutes.  I had a look over the maggot line as it was fizzing, but not even an indication and this was a feature all match, feed some GB, lots of fizzing and no bites, I tried maggots, worm, corn and pellets over it.

From the anglers I could see I was holding my own and the soft pellet/micro combination was best, I did have a look across at 16m, but this produced one small F1 and one small carp, hard pellet was just not working.

I'd switched the short line to feeding maggots with no GB and with two hours to go had 40lb on my clicker and about 5lb silvers, I then hooked a big common - biggest I've seen in the canal - and played it for 10 minutes on my skimmer rig (0.10 and a 20 Guru F1 hook), I thought it was tiring and I nearly netted it, it went off again and the hooklength parted, I can only thon it was constant pressure/movement on the spade knot, as I didn't feel I had put more pressure on.

Frustratingly, after that I added only 11lb in the last two hours, not sure if playing that common through all the lines had upset the few fish that were there, seems unlikely to be honest.

I put 59lb on the scales for 3rd on the lake and 4th on the canals, managed to get a picture of the weigh sheets before they weighed the main lake, so not sure what come from there.  Not sure I could have had another 40lb from the peg to win the lake, but maybe if I had landed that common it might have been a different story.....

Ivy House Open, Sunday 13th September 2020

 Back to Ivy today, on the old match lake for a change, cafe was open and I tried the Keto breakfast, very nice too.

Only 12 of us today, I was very happy with the draw, peg 10, a peg I have won from previously albeit 2 years ago.   I had no intention of fishing longer than 13m after yesterday and not wanting to spend a week in agony, but I could push it if I had to - I find fishing a long pole on the deck OK, it slapping and swinging that cause me issues.

So a rig to fish 8mm pellet at the bottom of the shelf, two rigs for 13m on the deck, one on 0.20 with an 0.16 hooklength and the other on 0.16 with a 0.13 hooklength and I was trying the eyed Kaizen's for the first time.

Two margin rigs, both the same except one with a band and one without.  A shallow rig and two lead rods, one for bomb and pellet and one with a method, as the point of the island looked fairly inviting.

Started on the short line and had some bubbles, a carp and a couple of decent skimmers were all I had to show for it.  I gave it nearly an hour, before the activity stopped on that line, switching to the bomb and pellet, that was pretty slow going and I had one on it before I got bored.....

Spent a bit of time on the 13m line fishing a banded 6mm over 4mm catching the odd skimmer and two carp.  I had fed some 6 & 8mm pellets down the edge and had a look down there about halfway through, but not even a liner.

Back on the bomb, nothing, so out onto the 13m line again, I hadn't seen much caught apart from Chris Davis on 9 who was having a few as well as a bit of a torrid time with foul hookers, I hadn't had the foul hooking issue, as I didn't feel there were that many fish in the peg.  Ryan Shipp was having a few silvers on his usual caster shallow, but apart from that I couldn't see much being caught.

With an hour or so to go I put some GB and maggots in down the edge hoping that would draw the fish in, I had two carp over it, but pestered by roach.  Chatting to Chris Davis afterwards he thought it was the wrong thing to do, I agreed, but it was a bit of a last hope attempt to draw some fish.

I was somewhat surprised to end up 4th with 66lb as I thought I'd be further down the results than that, maybe I could have fished harder for silvers and pushed Ryan, but I really don't see where anther 100lb was going to come from to beat Chris who won - or anther 80lb for second to overtake Mark Poppleton.

Open, Viaduct, Saturday 12th September

 Phil Hardwick ran this open, it's getting difficult to get on opens on Viaduct now, real shame as it's one of my favourite venues.

Well when 126 was drawn from me, I was divided in my thoughts, I'd seen Andy Lloyd win the second day of my two dayer from there last week but not having 125 makes a big difference and 125 was in today.

I set up a meat rig for 5m, pellet for up and down long and a margin rig, to go into the spot Andy caught from last week. 

It didn't take long to realise that fishing shallow and long was the way to go, but my back was particularly bad and I gave it 30 minutes having one fish on it, before I had to make a decision to either fish rod and line or short.

It was a tough day, I had one carp and one tench in consecutive put-ins in the margin and that was it from there.  I had 30lb of skimmers on meat and 60lb of carp for 91lb and thanks for coming, not being able to fish long was the downfall (no silvers payout).

Mark Wynne won from 131, Dan squires second from 130, didn't hang around to get the weigh sheet picture.

Foxy's Two Dayer, Viaduct Fri/Sat 4th/5th September 2020

 This was the fourth year of this two dayer, which has retained the same format of fishing Cary and Campbell, with Campbell being pole only.  Initially I had it on points, but I felt that too many were out of it after day one, so last year switched it to total weight and kept that for this year.  It's a friendly affair with some good banter and very little moaning, its also a serious match with a chance to pick up decent money (£2060 paid out).

A big thanks to Steve, Helen & Matt at Viaduct, for hosting and ensuring all were kept happy, thanks to all who fished and supported the match, not exactly sure what's happening next year, I have Campbell booked, but as it stands Cary isn't going to used for matches, but fingers crossed that will be reviewed.  

36 fishing, day one is an open draw, day two separate draws for each lake, as you fish the other lake than the one you fished.  I got Matt to draw for me and he drew out 80, probably the shallowest peg on the lake and a little unknown as Cary has not been match fished apart from a couple of the holiday lodge bookings.  Consensus generally was that Cary would be better on day two, after they'd seen some bait on the pole lines, instead of the spodding of many kilos of particles into the middle. 

A waggler, set to full depth with no shot down the line, a lead rod, a rig to fish up the spit at 14.5m, a pellet rig shallow and deep and a meat rig for short, although I wasn't expecting that to be hugely productive due to the aforementioned shallowness of the peg.

I started on the lead, an 8mm pellet on a 12QM1, with a teabag of 6mm pellets.  I had walked round to remind everyone of the net limits (at Viaduct if you go over 70lb, you lose all nets....) and hadn't settled in and got evertything ready as I would usually, I realised as I was casting that I'd put the teabag on, but no hookbait...  So straight back in and the bag had mostly dissolved by the time I got it back to hand.

Second cast with a new bag and a hookbait, 10 minutes in the tip went round and after a battle, I netted a fish that was a big teen, probably not far off 20lb, stayed with it for an hour and had two more carp and two skimmers.

A switch to the waggler saw me net another, before one took me round the end of the spit, parting the hooklength as it did so.

I had a look up the spit and hooked a decent fish, it swam out into the open water and then the line parted, bit surprising, as it was a freshly tied rig and new hooklength,  the line was slightly damaged halfway down the rig where it parted, I can only think that the line went of a sharp, jagged fin on he fish.

I had a skimmer and a stockie carp from the spit before the bites dried up.  I had another look on the waggler and all that produced was a skimmer, there were a few bubbles on the short line where I'd been throwing 8mm meat.  I was hopeful a big carp was mooching round there, but it was skimmers, decent skimmers and it was weight going in the net.

I did have another look on the lead, to no avail, I was hoping the spit would come good an I did have a decent fish and 3 more stockies off it but it didn't produce as I hoped it might.

The scales gave me 136.03, second on the lake behind Phil Moris who made no mistake from the fancied peg 81, the other side of the spit from me.

Yellow denotes Campbell, Blue Cary.

Onto day two and plenty of us in with a shout, plenty of speculation about how Cary would fish, with Nick Ewers and Dan White drawing reasonably.

I was going to get Matt to draw for me again, but he wasn't around, so I passed the tin to Gary O'Shea and was somewhat deflated when he handed me 124, it wasn't good yesterday and Phil Morris ended up on 123, so the top two on Cary yesterday, ended up on the worst two pegs from day 1 on Campbell....  Still its a different day and maybe with a little breeze on the fish may have moved round.

Pole only, so nice and easy to set up, with the rods at home in the garage.  Rig for up to the empty pallet of 125, meat short, pellet up and down long and a lighter rig to fish pellet, should it be as hard as I feared.

My usual start short on meat brought that early double figure mug fish that often comes along, then a skimmer, before all indications stopped.  I could see Andy Lloyd on 126 catching odd fish shallow, so I went out long, but had no ripple, so wasn't surprised to see no action shallow, one skimmer and one carp at depth, but it was far from hectic action.  I was just trying to put something in the net, so got off my box to grab some groundbait and I fed this with some corn.  Two skimmers, but it was slow, so I put another ball in with maggots and this seemed to liven things up, as I had two carp and a few skimmers on it.

I was hoping th big fish that can show up in these pegs would be down by the pallet of 125 in the last couple of hours, Andy Lloyd had switched to fishing the edge and was catching well, just down to his left, I had a couple from the margin, but Andy was catching 4 or 5 to my 1.  Corn on the hook was better, but I then got invaded with roach and had to go back to 8mm pellet.

I'd been feeding the 5m meat line and hadn't seen the usual bubble or swirl that indicates the fish are there, so I left until the last 25 minutes, that was a mistake, as I had a decent skimmer or a carp every put in in that 25 minutes spell, had I had a last hour at it, I may just have made up enough ground to sneak into the frame.

I put 155.03 onto the scales and I am sure it could have been more, stubbornly expecting the margin to produce, beat Phil to my left, but was well and truly battered by Andy who won the lake.

Again, yellow denotes Campbell, blue Cary.

Overall Nick Ewers took the victory, well done Nick, with Dan White pressing hard behind.  The overall payout below does not include daily lake/section money or superpool, so some went home with a nice pick up.

Finally, didn't hear any moans, I hope everyone enjoyed it, even if some of the pegs didn't quite produce as well as others and hope to see as many of you as possible again next year.