Southwest Super league Rd 4 River Huntspill.

Just Managed to wake as Don arrived to pick me up so it was a mad rush to get the kit ready in record time so not the ideal start to the day but the breakfast at hilltops was very welcoming after a few drinks out with the wife last night, At the draw it turned out I had drawn the first section and the second peg down from gold corner peg 13! (Owe No Doesn't Sound Promising") After treating myself to a new wheel barrow trolley which converts into a large platform I was keen to get it kitted up to take it for a spin'  I wish I hadn't as by the time I got to my peg I felt like I was having a hernia trying to keep it balanced! when I arrived at my swim Mark Harper on peg 14 was wading around in his chest waders clearing his swim of weed' and mine was pretty much the same although I don't own chest waders as there's not much point as they would be over my head..! I had time to think though as I had to take a walk back to the van to get the weigh board...

On my return Simon (Ditch) Hebditch on end peg 12 had already had done the same in his undies so I had no choice but to do the same but ended up swimming around to remove what I could as I couldn't reach as far as others could with there cutters" what a start to the day hey'. After managing to assemble my new platform down in the water with my seatbox on the top  I set up an 11ft feeder rod and an 0.04g and 0.06 gram pole rig for the eels as normal, I chose to fish at 13mts beyond any weed I had missed as the winds were light where I had around 5 feet of water.

At the all in I cupped a handful of caster and white maggot onto the pole line and had the normal 8 chucks with the feeder full of Squatts and some chopped worm, Starting with a bunch of red squatt on the hook I had a 2oz skimmer first cast followed by a ruffe and a small perch in the next hour despite switching around with different baits from worm and red maggot. By now Mark and Ditch had a Decent skimmer each but weren't getting many signs so I decided to have a look on the pole where I had been feeding regularly. I had a 4oz rudd and a couple of 6oz perch on double maggot followed by a 4oz eel so I had more in ten minutes than the first hour' small fish were becoming a problem so I switched to a single maggot and caster on the hook and had a 10oz eel before losing a better one on the way back next put-in which managed to bite me off '.

By now others were all trying the pole and were happy to add the small fish to there nets but I felt once I had fed through them I would be able to connect to some better size eels to make up for them so began to feed 3 times before each put in with maggot and casters and tryed double caster on the hook, the problem now was as normal the wind had picked right up and I was struggling to hold the pole still so I had to wedge it between my legs but I still managed to bump two more big eels" After two smaller eels and a couple more perch I had another try on the feeder but only added another roach and 4oz eel.

The pole line was the more productive so I struggled on adding another 12oz eel on double caster but I had to make the choice to take a section off and drop back to 12mts despite trying it early and not getting bites, I cupped in a good handful of casters and a few maggots and left it for 20mins and when I went on it I had a eel well over a pound and a 6oz roach next cast' wishing I had tried to make this line work earlier after I managed to bump off another big swimmer eel in the last 15mins and missed another bite as bubbles appeared around my float as the wind dropped by striking to early" In total I bumped of at least 6 eels and a couple of nice size roach late on which I thought would make a difference on the day points wise up to the anglers who choice to target the small fish or sit out for a bream?

Mark ended up having 2 bream in the last twenty minutes one right on the whistle to finish up with 15lb odd winning the section and Steve Priddle on the far end peg ended up second with 11lb odd before the weights dropped off and the next two weighed 6lb odd each before I had 5lb 2oz and ditch on the end next to me added small fish to his skimmer pipping me by two ounces ending with 5lb 4oz. finishing with 3 points was disappointing as any one of the bigger eels would of put me at least 3rd in the section along with fish I've pulled out of shipping back but I felt I made the right choice to fish for them on this line as mark and ditch didn't hook any so I must of been doing something right. Back at the results we had done better than last week buy far finishing joint 3rd on the day with Thatchers  taking the win and adding to there overall lead in the league, The best weights on the day came from the section below the motorway where I drew last week (Surprize Surprize') with the top weight being 29lb, Don was in this section and also had a few finishing 3rd overall picking up £60 so he treated me to a battered sausage on the way home. Cant go without mentioning the return trip with the trolley after being over took I reached the road nearly tipping it right over into the path of the lobbys lad after I rescued it to his amassment I got it up-right and the handle came off one side" and as I tried to remove my bucket from the opposite side the handle fell of that!" The poor lad was nearly wetting himself" Back to my boss trolley next week me thinks!..    

          

           

Acorn Afternoon Series round 2 Saturday.

Two matches two update on this weekend the first being round 2 of 3 for the afternoon match, 13 fishing today and with some pegs left to the availability of pleasure anglers we were spread from pegs 6 right around to peg 32, With the aerators being left on due to the hot weather we had to leave a gap between peg 8 and 12 as we weren't carrying stick floats' So if I had the choice peg 12 would be my choice being on the end of the lake with the slight breeze in that direction.

It wasn't to be and I ended up on next peg 14 with Lewis Jones drawing peg 12 I had him down as the winner as he does well on these type of snake lakes though I cant believe he was moaning about drawing it!. on my left I had Simon Price on 16 so at least we all had some room.

I choice to go and trim a couple of gaps over tight to the far bank which took a while thought looked nice when I returned to my peg'.

 This is where I planed to start the match in around two feet of water one line with micro and expander to start and the other with groundbait and bunches of dead maggot, the only other line I made up was a rig to fish in about a 18inches of water tight to my inside bank,

 I was going to cup some groundbait in here right from the start and feed hard 4mm pellet over the top by hand, Starting the match tight over It took me 30mins before I had a carp thought by this time Lewis had already put 7" in the net also fishing across to the far bank,

I decided to cup a large cup of groundbait over and switch to fishing a whole worm on the hook as I was getting pestered with small fish when trying maggot. this did work as I had two fish then I had to re-feed the same to draw then back again, The problem here was I new I wouldn't have enough groundbait to continue doing it for the rest of the match" I could see pegs 6 and eight were catching as well as Lewis getting a fish every put-in I had to change tactics so switched to fishing shallow across with hard 6mm pellet on the hook feeding 4mm over the top, Again I had a couple then nothing so had to rely on my inside swim if I was going to catch up. First put-in down the edge with a 6mm pellet I foul hooked a fish and lost it so shallow up half depth and had a nice 5lb common straight away, This is were I decided to spend the rest of the match feeding pellet down both sides and fishing shallow over the top, I was never going to catch Lewis as he had fish all day and I had him down for over 200lb, I was a bit disappointed to finish up with 84lb odd but lost a few fish for know reason today some of which were pushing 8lb" (Bad Angling I would say to anyone else!).

A few of my fish.

As I thought Lewis had a cracking day ending up with 208lb catch nearly all his fish across to the far bank so draw moaning wasn't such a bad peg after all" Still got to catch them though.

There were a couple of good 100lb plus back up weights so all in all the fishing was very good but my draw hand could be much better"

     

       

Southwest Super league Rd 3, River Huntspill.

After deciding to take a day off fishing on Saturday due to the forecast of thunder and lightning and not taking the risk of being lit up like a Xmas tree' It was down to one match this weekend and I was really hoping to draw an area which had been showing form so far but never the less it was a team match so where ever I ended up I would do the best I could for maximum points. With 8 teams fishing the match would be fished from Gold Corner down stream both on the north and south bank in different areas.  

After the usual hilltops breakfast with traveling partner and team mate Don we made are way for the draw, We were both surprized to see an extra section added on the north bank between the motorway and railway rather than one of the sections which had been pegged the previous two weeks, The first problem here would be that this area wouldn't of seen any bait as such, Along with the fact of the hellish walk would certainly put people off taking a pleasure trip" After all the chat of what would of wouldn't be Captain Chris Hook went off to do the team draw.

The moment he returned and placed his hand on my shoulder I just new my destiny for the day would be the section we were all talking about' Ok no big deal but please reward me with one of the end pegs" NOPE! So there I was two pegs from the end off the section on peg 267. I had Drawn this section twice last year and the first match I was in the same area and didn't have anything on the pole line but the last match I had 13lb of eels on the pole closer to the motorway bridge after the area had been fished for a few weeks.

When I eventually arrived at my peg at least I managed to get my box arranged so I didn't have to get right in the water for a change, The conditions weren't to bad with a slight wind but this place can change in moments so my normal plan was to fish the feeder to start with at a distance I could hit each time should the wind blow up although it not as wide here so that shouldn't be a problem.

 Next up were two pole rigs to fish at 12mts for eels being 0.04 & 0.06 on 0.11 main line and an 0.10 hooklength with a size 20 B520 hook. For company Mark Broomsgrove had managed to draw the end peg and we both thought he would be hard to beat with know one below him although there was a peg in the middle of the section which won both matches last year so if they were still there who knows'.

At the all in I fed a palmful of maggot and casters onto the pole line and had 8 chucks with the feeder containing red squatt and some casters, Starting with a bunch of squatt on a size 16 B611 I had a small roach followed by 2 small skimmers but 20mins in and a swap round between hook baits I had a proper bite which resulted in a 2lb Skimmer taken on caster tipped off with Squatt.

Sussed it"? No, And no matter what I couldn't muster a bite so I took the hooklength off and had 5 chucks with some chopped worm and dead red maggot through the feeder but after 2hrs on the tip and only adding a few small perch I was itching to give the pole line a try.

Starting on the lighter rig with double white maggot I was expecting to get bites almost straight away but it just didn't happen and I felt my worst fears were right, Without previous bait going in it was going to be hard to catch on the pole line and from what I could see those who had ventured onto the pole were also struggling, At the halfway point Mark on the end peg had managed a few good skimmers along with Shane Williams two pegs up although Richard Aherne from the freenze team next to me was struggling as was the guy to my right.

I keep feeding the pole line all day although with just the one bite which saw me connect with nothing I just wasn't going to be and with the wind increasing all the while I spent most of the match staring at the tip!

 

I did manage to catch 2 more skimmers and an eel on the feeder along with some smaller fish before the all out but was still disappointed not to have a few on the pole line which I had been looking forward too. Mark was first to weigh and ended up with 7 skimmers and a few eels for 14lb odd, Next peg weighed 1lb odd then it was me ending up with a total of 6lb 6oz, Richard ended with 4lb before Shane Williams on 265 had 24lb odd to win the section with ease which did turn out to be the peg that won the matches last year so they hadn't moved much! My weight on the day was enough to take 3rd in the section which was really the best I could hope for so team wise it meant 6pts out of a possible 8 which I was happy with.

Back at the results apart from Glen Calvert winning his section and Ivan Currie having 5pts the rest struggled which saw us finish last on the day which was not the result we were hoping for, These kind of matches are not for the light hearted as most of the time its hard to draw on fish so you have to stay positive right up until the final whistle and muster what you can from your peg and Shane in my section proved the point after picking off skimmers through the day he was rewarded with two 5lb plus bream in the last 20mins. After a bit of a mix up with the pegging meaning Thyers Ended up drawing 3 end pegs they went on to win the day ahead of League leaders Preston Innovation Thatchers.

Back next week hoping to draw an end or noted peg again but will be happy to draw where some bait has gone in"

     

 

      

           

Angling Trust Teams Of Ten River Huntspill.

Back on the Huntspill for the angling trust team match and with seven teams entered I was hoping for a draw near gold corner where the weights were last week, After a breakfast at hilltops we made are way to laburnham house for the draw, At the draw Captain Chris Hook was handed an envelope containing 10 numbers, Traveling partner Don Sutherland was first to pick a peg and chose the top one ending up on peg 14 at gold corner which was the right area' after quick thinking Don said take the next top one as it would be peg 16 in the next section but owe no" Chris decided to shuffle them and I ended up on peg 39, two pegs away from where I was last week" Marvellous!.

The only plus side was I was in the middle section meaning the were no end pegs to contend with, The trouble is with being on the north bank meant it was a sheer drop to the water and unlike most I like to have a pole line on the go as siting on the tip for 5hrs bores me S******S". So I Chose yet again to set my box up down in the water which took ages and was very close to the water by the time I had bumped up and down on my box to make sure it wouldn't move!

 

Already there was a good breeze on the water so I set up 2 pole rigs to again target the eels at 11mts which I thought would be comfortable? an 0.6 and an 0.4 for rig were set up both on 0.11-0.10 and size 20 B520 hook,   

  The only other thing I set up was a feeder rod to start the match on looking for a bream or some skimmers with an 0.11 hook length and an16 B611 hook. At the start I cupped in a palmful of caster and white maggot on the pole line and had 10 chucks with the feeder full of squatts. starting with a bunch of squatt on the hook in had a ruff and a small roach before I started to switch baits but after 90mins adding a 6oz hybrid and a small eel, A shout up to Thatchers star Gary O'Shea who had only managed one eel I decided to try the pole line with maggot on the hook where I had been feeding maggot and caster.

First put in I had an eel of 10oz before the next put in saw me hook a larger one over a 1lb but it wrapped around some weed on the way in and like a Prat' I gave it an extra pull to keen to get it in and it broke my hook length! TORRETS". the next 45mins gave me 6 eels from 4-10oz  before disaster struck and after striking into eel number 7 my 11mt section snapped in half and I lost the eel aswell! There was know way I could fix it so had to drop back half a section which then became apparent there was weed in my way in areas! Won day I will have the dream match??, Things slowed down from here and with the wind now blowing right up the river the rig was a case of now you see me now you don't in the waves" I did hook a couple of eels only to bump them when striking due to the wind so rested the peg and had another try on the feeder.

30mins and no bites had me back on the pole and after another on the first put in and bumping the next it slowed again, I spent the rest of the match swapping between the pole and feeder ending the day with 12 eels and a few bits, Gary sat on the tip all day and had two spells all day when he had a small bream and two skimmers in as many casts which was enough to win are section with ease with 7kg odd, Lance tucker ended up second with 4kg odd (Again Big skimmers on the feeder) and my weight was good enough for 3rd in the section being 3kg 800grams, Back at the results it turned out most of the team opted to fish the feeder all match but for most it didn't work meaning we struggled as a result, Most thought I was mad or very brave to attempt to fish the pole in the conditions but in my eyes although it cost me by breaking my section I did my best to fish for the maximum points available rather than put all my eggs in one basket, I bumped at least 6 eels through the day which would of put me second at least and with a bit of luck by the time we have the super league next Sunday the winds ease and I can present the rig properly?.

It was all about teams today and Thatchers proved there strength by dropping just 7pts between them for an easy victory having 8 anglers in the top two of there sections' Well done. Individual winner on the day was Garbolino backed Ian Didcot guesting for Thatchers finding bream on the feeder from a peg in the 50's ending the day with 26kg. Summery of the day hopefully after a chat with the rest of the team will to keep options open rather than thinking it will work.                        

Acorn Saturday Series Round 1.

Clevedon A.A are running a 3 match Saturday evening series on the paddock lake so after a nice bit of extra time in bed this morning and chance to get over last nights session" I arrived in plenty of time to clear my head, Fishing from 2 till 7 some good weights were expected and catching down the edge should be the main method later in the day. the pegs were to be spread all around the lake giving us all a bit of room so I wasn't to worried when I ended up drawing peg 15 on the straight bank, After choosing to trim a bit of grass across the far bank to start with so I could fish up in the shallow water tight in was going to be my starting line where I was keen to try out the new Drennan 4x10 AS3 floats which are designed for this type of fishing as my favourite Chanti's can take a bit of a bashing when the carp are as active as they are at this time of the year. I had about 18inches tight over so fished 0.15 - 0.13 and an 18 PR36 hook where I planned to use up some worms I've had for a good few weeks mixed with caster.

 My far line.

 

A dobbing rig to fish 6mm hard pellet on 4ft of line was also made up as there were fish swimming around on the top so I would look for an early fish or two without feeding, A rig to fish the bottom of the near shelf at 4mts to my right with dead maggot over groundbait,

 And a rig for fishing shallow tight into my inside bank on my left again at 5mts where I planned to feed 4mm pellet by hand and fish a bit of paste or hard pellet over the top, For company I had Nick ( Trolley Thief ) Harvey on peg 12 so are usual £1 side bet was struck and after lending him it at Summerhayes the other week so I planned to get it back" Mark Walsh wanted in on it so I had a £1 with him Aswell.  

At the start I cupped in half a pot of chopped worm and caster across to the far bank and cupped 6 balls of groundbait at the bottom of inside shelf to my right and began on the dobbing rig looking for an early fish but as normal the fish soon wised up to us trying to catch them and disappeared of the surface so after 15mins of trying I switched to fishing the far bank with a whole worm catapulting casters over the top, it wasn't long before I had a carp followed by some 1lb F1's, but was beginning to get pestered by small perch so I cut out feeding worm and just fed caster and fished double on the hook. This seemed to work and I added some fish to 5lb and some skimmers so at least I was catching, looking around Nick was getting the odd fish shallow and Paul Nichols on peg 8 was catching some but I couldn't see What Mark Bartlett over on peg 32 was catching, But then most of us couldn't as he had nobody near him lol'

After a while the swim was telling me I needed to rest my far line so I had a go shallow for a while down the track where I had been flicking a few pellets in by hand but with no fish here or over my groundbait line I had to try and make things happen as some people were catching better as the day went on.

 

After seeing a few swirls down the edge to my left where I had also fed pellet by hand I decided to have a try at half depth ( About 10inches) with a hard 6mm on the hook.    

 

First put in saw the elastic ripped out as soon as the rig settled so I spend most of the remaining match switching  tight to the bank on both sides pinching a fish then swapping sides, most of the time I had a bite as soon as I dropped the rig in and all the fish came off the deck dispite seeing the odd tail break the surface when I tried on the deck I would foul hook fish every time". When things did go quite I pinched the odd carp across by flicking the odd pellet towards the far bank on the same rig, The last 90mins were best for me but it was for everybody from what I could see, Nick caught better at the end of match shallow with some good size fish so it was going to be close for the quid" Paul had caught really well shallow towards the far bank in the second half of the match and put a good 135lb on the scales, Nick was next to weigh and ended the day with 85lb, My turn and I was pleased to see my silvers net go 16lb odd which was top on the day and added to my carp gave me a total of 94lb odd so Nick and Walshy better Luck next time"

 part of my catch.

  Last to weigh was Mark and as expected he had a good day finishing with a great 183lb catching most of his fish down both inside swims with worm or corn so well done mate,

 Winner Mark Bartlett.

 

Picking up £20 for the top silvers weight was a bonus along with the fact Mark and Paul had only fished the day as an open meaning I take an early lead in the series so that's a good start. Off to the River Huntspill For the team champs tomorrow so home to take all the pellet out my bag" Away from the match a big well done goes to Andy Geldart for winning Fisho" Mania today who I happened to have a £10 wager on giving me a nice £100 profit" Cheers!

Full Results -

1st Mark Bartlett (Matrix) peg 32, 183lb 6oz.

2nd Paul Nichols (Clevedon.A.A) peg 8, 135lb.

3rd Dom Sullivan (Maver/Cadbury Angling) peg 15, 94lb 10oz.

4th Nick Harvey (Sensas Thyers) peg 12, 85lb 6oz.

5th Mark Walsh (Acorn) peg 26, 84lb 3oz

Silvers -

Dom Sullivan, 16lb 4oz.     

          

 

        

Emerald Winter Silvers Only Series 2014.

I thought I would give an advance notice on this years Emerald silvers only series I am running commencing the 11th Oct 2014. It will be a series of 6 matches run every other week until the 20th of Dec 2014. All matches will be on Saturdays as not to interrupt any other leagues which will be running mainly on Sundays and it will be a maximum entry of 14 Anglers as Emerald pool is quite shallow in areas so want to put the best pegs in going on last Winters open match results.

 

 

Entry fee will be £25.00 in advance which will be for the top 5 payouts at the end of the six matches & £20.00 pools on the day. The overall results will be decided on a points basis and with the match being spread over 2 sections on the day it will mean a section win will stand as 1pt and last in the section will receive 7pts.

The best 5 out of 6 matches will count dropping your worst result and both sections will be fished twice by all anglers, In the event of a tie on points for the overall standings then weight count back will come in to play.

The £6 peg fee will be deducted from the £20.00 entry fee per match - Example -

14 x £20.00 = £280.00, - 14 x £6.00 peg fee £84.00, leaves - £196.00 daily pools, On the day I will just be paying 1st (£50) and 2nd (£35) in each section meaning there will be £26.00 left over on the day which will also be added to the overall payouts at the end of the series. Example -

6 x £26.00 per match = £156.00, 14 x £25.00 entry fee = £350.00 added together gives a total of £506.00 for the top five overall at the end of the series as follows -

1st £150.00,  2nd £125.00,  3rd £100.00,  4th £75.00,  5th £56.00 .

This will prove to be a popular little series so it's advised to book in with me sooner rather than later as I already have names, Any further questions or to book in call me on 07967243456. 

    

River Huntspill Open Match.

Back to a Venue I remember fishing as a junior when the team champs where held they came by the coach load and it was double banked' those days sadly long gone and the water has changed a lot from the early days with most of the lower south bank now being sloped with bulrushes a long way out into the river which some what filters the water so not the chocolate colour of old. Traveling with team mate Don Sutherland we stopped at Hilltops for breakfast before making are way to Laburnham House for the draw, The First Match on the river this year meant no bait had gone in as such so it was any ones guess which area would fair best but with 50 fishing the match was spread from Gold corner down to withygrove, We were both early to draw and ended up with peg 36 and Don drew peg 32 so at least we were in the same section meaning we could get to are pegs early, We had drawn the only section on the north bank not to far from gold corner but with two end pegs to contend with we were going to be up against it as these pegs prove best for the first few matches until the fish are used to seeing  some bait.

When I got to my peg I had to decided would it be best to perch myself on the edge of the bank of risk getting in knowing the clay can slope off steeply" After sitting on the edge for two seconds and the footing going straight in I had know choice but to try and get in the water. After 10mins knee deep I managed to get my seat box arrange so at least it was a start".

 

The pegs here are quite wide but with little wind I chose to set up an 11ft powerlite feeder rod with 5lb main line with a 20oz cage feeder to an 0.11 3ft hook length and a 16 B611 at the business end. Next up was a pole rig to fish at 13mts, The depth here was around 5ft and quite flat and my main line of attack here would be to target eels as they can be more reliable than targeting skimmers or bream I find.

As it was calm I opted for a 0.2g float on 0.11 to an 0.10 hook length and a size 20! B520, (Yep I had to make some off these hook lengths at home as I think I would struggle on the bank") For company I had team mate and fellow bloger Ivan Curry on peg 37 so we had a quid for the fun of it. At the start I cupped in some loose white maggot and casters on the 13mt pole swim then had ten chucks with my feeder filled with squatts which thankfully all landed on the clip in the right place so that was a good start' Starting with 6 squatt on the hook I had a 6oz skimmer first chuck followed by one of the same size the next cast, a couple of minutes later I had a drop back bite out of the blue and I had a better fish attached, after making a quick dash to the lilies I soon had it safely in the net turning out to be a bream of nearly 3lb" Quickly back out and a 1lb skimmer followed before the sun popped its head out and I couldn't get a bite despite trying different baits, After 2 hours I had to try the pole line where I had been feeding maggot and caster regularly, Starting on two white maggots it didn't take me long to get a bite and an eel of 8oz followed, Here we go' or so I thought but after 15mins just bumping another eel I couldn't get a bite so carried on feeding and switched back to the tip and double dead red maggot on the hook, a couple of small skimmers in the next hour was all I could manage. By now the wind had got up and I had to get a 0.6g pole rig out to try and pick up the trip which slightly downstream but again after one missed bite in 30mins or so I new they weren't there in numbers which I did expect really as its a bit early for it to work. I spent the rest of the match swapping between the pole and the tip and I had what I thought was a big skimmer after a lovely bite on the pole only for it to turn out to be a FRESH WATER MUSSEL" Which then came towards me and spat the bait out before drifting off..! ( I couldn't go a day without something happening") how Bizarre.. Ending the day with another eel and a couple more skimmers on the tip and squatt it was hard going for my first match on the river.
As I was sat in my little hole all day I couldn't see what was being caught around me and despite Don having a wander half way thought to say it was hard for most. Ivan had a hard day ending up with 2lb odd meaning at least I had a £1" the next few pegs below Ivan either went home or didn't weigh so I decided to weigh in end ended with 2kg 850g, As expected the end peg proved best with one having 8kg odd and the other 7kg odd, Further up towards gold corner on the opposite bank proved the place to be with peg 17 winning the match with 34kg and the next best 3 weights on the day were on the pegs opposite sides of him with 31kg and 27kg.  This was always going to be the case today if you were lucky enough to draw on a few but you still have to catch them and Ile be hoping to draw in that area come next weeks teams of 10 match.