Goodiford Mill Fishery. (Saturday 23rd)

A bit late for this one but have been flat out at work this week among other things, Still feeling some pain so have to have a complete MOT over the next month or so to try & find the problem, Hopefully nothing to serious. I was invited by Garbolino's Steve Tucker to fish a match he was running at Goodiford Mill fishery near Tiverton, I haven't been to the fishery for nearly ten years & back then the pegs which seemed to have underwater Bar's' were the most productive with the pellet waggler dominating, Lewis Jones also got in as did Gabo so we all stopped off on route for breakfast before arriving & having a wander around, The old favourite pegs still seemed to have fish present & choice wise my old peg 10 would of been top of the list as I had heard the pellet wagg was still working & last time I drew it I managed over 280lb on it but trust me I felt like I had been in a marathon come the end".

Their were seventeen of us today & Steve was paying the top three & two Section but no silvers payout so all or nothing today, Into the draw & I ended up with peg 12 but Steve Had numbered it himself so it turned out I was the first peg as you went though the gate, It wouldn't off been my choice as I felt I was to far from any of the Bar's & trust me I know where they are as I've swam the lake to see where they are & in one spot it was that shallow it looked like I was walking on water stood in the middle of the lake" End peg Lewis had done it again pulling peg 17 in the far end corner But Ben Hagg had drawn peg 6 which would of the been old peg 10 so fancied his chances, All I assembled was a rig to fish down the edge as close in as I could get which was still a couple of feet off the bank in 3ft plus of water,

A rig to fish shallow & on the deck at 14mts with pellet, & finally two pellet waggler rods'. I had Dave Romain on what would be the point of the channel & Mike West between him & myself, We thought we were seeing things when he assembled a pellet wagg as I've never seen him with a rod in his hand" .

I started the day feeding some meat down the edge & some 6mm pellets at 14mts but by the time I had done this & picked up my pellet wagg rod Dave was netting his second carp! I was soon out feeding 8mm's with the same on the hook,

25mins later I still hadn't caught & Dave was netting about his tenth fish, Over the far side I could see Mark Wynn who was fishing the long pole to the small island in-front of him was also bagging & thankfully I couldn't see the Bar' swims around the corner as I was sure they would be catching". The writing was already on the cards after the first hour as all I could manage was the odd fish, I persisted at it but it just wasn't happening, I had a go on the long pole but the silvers were happy to hang onto 8mm's here so didn't fair any better, Dave never seemed to stop catching & even Mike was getting a few on the waggler, Well, He Was, Until he decided to trim the top 1ft or so off it in the tree behind him" but he still managed a few the way it was". I was hoping for some fish to switch on late but it didn't happen & I never had a bite all day down the edge, Bit of a disappointing day really as I was never going to keep up with some of the pegs & with no silver pool the options were limited, As I expected Guru's Ben Hagg won the day with just over 200lb taken on the pellet waggler but you still got to catch them, Mark Wynn caught all day but a smaller stamp to finish with just over 180lb to finish second & Dave Romaine Ended up 3rd with 164lb odd again with a smaller sample of carp, Were having another match here soon but this time their will be a silvers pool should carp not be an issue & judging by the size of some of the roach & plenty of skimmers present some good weights could be had, I ended the day with 61lb odd but Lewis did ok taking the section Money with 114lb, Hopefully my next visit will be a little more productive but that's the way it goes. Just to add I did manage a few hours at Shiplate farm just on my doorstep on the Thursday which turned out to be another good visit, I had some nice fish on the waggler including this beast'

      I ended up with a couple shallow on the pole to end the day with 28 carp then had a go on the short pellet line later on catching over 10lb of silver in less than an hour on hard 6mm over 4mm's,

 Certainly a venue to try when you want to try something different with plenty of options of what to target. Fishing tomorrow at Summerhayes For Clive Cunningham's memorial match & good turnout will be on the cards & with the match being a Rover Format over Longs & Sellicks Lake it will be interesting to see where I end up??.