Sunday 20th May Clevedon Club Match Apex Lake Highbridge

Well I am kackered! Went to Twickenham yesterday to watch Ulster play in the Hineken cup, we got slaughtered but there was much merryment! Up at 6:30 this morning to allow enough time to sort the tackle (and me) out and also to call into Olivers in Clevedon for some maggot, I had some pellet and worm.
Anyway here is the press report and pics, I got beaten into 2nd place by a carp, it was a struggle but enjoyed it never the less.

Clevedon Freshwater Angling Club headed down the M5 again to hold the next leg of their match programme, this time it was on Apex Lake at Highbridge. New member and local resident Kevin Lawer made a good impression on his first outing with the club winning with a total weight of 9lb 7ozs. Kevin catch consisted of one good carp which was caught in the first hour on the method feeder and some small bream which he caught later on the pole at 13 meters off peg 39 using maggot. Second on the day with 8lb 11oz was club press officer Ivan Currie who caught skimmer bream consistently through the day using a pole at 13 meters with red maggot on the hook and feeding dry ground bait with a small amount of mirco pellet and maggot. Third was the winner from a few weeks ago John Woolstencroft with a sing carp for 8lb. The next match is Monday 4^th June at Acorn Fisheries, for more details go to http://clevedon-fwac.webs.com/

1st Kev Lawer

2nd (himself) Ivan Currie

3rd (and not a duck in sight) John Woolstencroft

Right, it's 20:25 and bedtime for me!

Not sure what I am doing next week.

Sunday 13th May Clevedon Club Match Woodland Lake Trinity Waters

What a great day to be outdoors, pity the fishing was not as good as the weather, I had 3 carp on the wag up in the water for a total weight of just over 20lb. They were breaking the surface most of the day but there was a massive fly hatch (should have brought the fly gear!). I did loose 4 and then another one in the margins but would prob not have done me any good as pegs with plenty of room produced the goods. Press report sent off as follows;

Clevedon Freshwater Angling Club returned to Woodland Lake on the Trinity Waters complex near Bridgwater on Sunday 13^th May as part of their continuing match programme. There was a good turnout and for the first time in weeks T shirts were the order of the day in the warm sunshine and light breeze. Fish could be clearly seen breaking the surface of the lake but catching them was far from easy. Top angler on the day and the man to beat at the moment was assistant match secretary Adie Baker who off peg 24 fished pellet and paste at depth 13 meters out for a matching winning 75lb 9oz of carp and silver fish. Second and on peg 6 was venue expert Andy Hembrow who used his local knowledge and took advantage of an end peg to put 74lb 5oz of carp on the scales. Andy caught the majority of his fish presenting pellet shallow up in the water at 14 meters. Glenn Calvert was 3^rd with 64lb 2oz and done well to catch up on the leaders and who had nothing in the net after 2 hours. The next match is on Sunday 20^th May at Apex Lake near Highbridge, for more info visit http://clevedon-fwac.webs.com/

Pic below of the top 3 and from left to right…

1^st Adie Baker 75lb 9oz

2^nd Andy Hembrow 74lb 5oz

3^rd Glenn Calvert 64lb 2oz

The top 3 between them caught over 200lb of fish.

Next week we are on Apex Lake near Highbridge.

Bank Holiday Monday 7th May Clevedon FWAC Ruscombe Lake Bullock Farm

Well another wet start but it did stay dry for us to set up and there was the odd bright spell during the day but when it decided to rain in rained. I ended up with 25lb 10oz, carp on the meat at 11 meters across halfway up the shelf. I had a good first hour and a good last two hours in between it went dead. 1st on the day was John Woolstencroft who fished a tidy match for 43lb (meat) pic below, last time I took a pic of John he was trying to land a duck.

2nd was the photogenic Adie Baker with 41lb 12oz.

3rd was Barry Fowler with 32lb 12oz, pic is a bit blury because Darren aka 'Nuddy' in the background unfocused the camera lense!



Press report as follows - Anglers Mail, North Somerset Times and Top Peg.

Clevedon Freshwater Angling Club fished their latest competition on Rushcombe Lake which is part of the Bullock Farm complex in Kingston Seymour. This was a rescheduled match due to the horrendous weather conditions the previous week end but Bank Holiday Monday was not that much better. Anglers stuck it out for the 6 hour duration and everyone caught. Top weight on the day came from seasoned match angler John Woolstencroft who fished meat across to far bank cover at 11 meters and then nearside margins during the latter half of the day for 43lb of quality carp. Second and not far behind with 41lb 12oz was Assistant Match Secretary Adie Baker who from peg 5 pole fished scopex flavoured maggot across to the far shelf. Third was Barry Fowler with 32lb 10oz. Next match is at Woodland Lake Chiltern Trinity on Sunday 13^th May, for more information visit http://clevedon-fwac.webs.com/

1^st John Woolstencroft 43lb

2^nd Adie Baker 41lb 12oz

3^rd Barry Fowler 32lb 10oz

4th Ivan Currie 25lb 10oz

Lets hope the weather is better for next week.

Sunday 6th May - Trout for tea

The Clevedon Club Match which was cancelled last Sunday due to adverse weather has been rescheduled for tommorw, BH Monday, we are on Rushcombe Lake Bullocks Farm so hopefully will get a few bites.
I didn't fancy loading up the car today with all the gear so headed of to Barrow Tanks for a bit of fluff chucking. I fished for 5 hours and had 3 trout all within the same hour, 2 of them on a black buzzer and one on a pheasant tail nymph. Anyone around me caught a few fish as well in the same period and then it just switched off. Pic below of the fish.

Off to a bbq now with a few cold beers, Mrs. C is the driver and my car is already loaded up for the morning (just in case) all I need is the soft pellet from the fridge.

Sunday 29th April Clevedon Club Match cancelled but here's a blog from last year 'coaching at Trinity Wildmarsh'

This morning I woke up around 6:45 and could hear the wind howling and the rain beating against the window. I was still in bed at 7:00 when Mrs. C says ' are you not getting up to go fishing' my reply (and she nearly fell out of the bed) 'I don't want to', she had NEVER heard me say that before. I could just see a couple of us turning up at Bullock's Farm, have a breakfast and then go home. I decided to send a text to Steve Bonwick who was down to run the match today to see if it was still on. It didn't take long for a response - match cancelled due to adverse weather, another first for as long as I can remember.

So...... here is a good news blog from last June (and I was not fishing!).

I promised to take a friends son fishing for his birthday (he wanted to give itg a go) so arranged to pick him up one Saturday morning last June in Axbridge and we would head down to the Trinity Waters complex just outside Bridgwater. I planned on setting him up on Woodlands Lake in the hope he would get some carp up in the water on the pellet waggler, I would feed for him and he would hang on, that was the plan. On arrival there was a match on Woodlands but Wildmarsh a lesser carp venue was free, all I had was pellet and corn. A quick chat with Misha at the fishery suggested bream were coming out on the pellet. Wildmarsh was busy but we fould peg 48 to be fairly attractive with plenty of room either side. George the birthday boy was quite surprised at the amount of kit I loaded him up with!

I decided to keep the set up simple, 12' medium feeder rod, 4lb line, small method feeder with wetted micro and a 6mm banded pellet to a 16 Maver MT6, the banded pellet not buried inside the micro. I clipped up for him at approx 30 meters and showed him how to cast and tighten up. George was a natural and his concentration was amazing for a young lad who was probably more familiar with playing coumputer games or just chilling out (sleeping). Although in the pic below he does look asleep.



After about 10 minutes I could see there were fish in and around the swim, the 2 oz tip went into a gentle bend I told him to lift into it, if he had of made contact the fish would have come flying out of the water like a polaris missile from a submarine. Suitable words of advise were given and he was soon back out waiting for the next bite. A short while passed, tip went around and this was the result.

George's first fish and as you can see he is clearly delighted. Due to his early success he was soon back out waiting for the next bite and didn't have to wait long, skimmer after skimmer followed and then he lost a carp. He did have a carp about an hour before we packed up, carp and skimmer catch below.

A great days fishing for a 'first timer' Wildmarsh although a commercial fishery is a more natural lake, will definetly spend some time there this year, roll on the summer or did we have it a few weeks ago?

It's now 12:30 and still persisiting down, I might take a walk over to Acorn and Plantation to see how the anglers are doing in the Kev Perry Series about 2:30 also need t plan my next outing, maybe todays match will be rescheduled for next week. To all you hardy souls that fished today, well done and hope you dry out before next week, tight lines.



Sunday 22nd April Summerhayes open

This was my second visit to Summerhayes, the draw was 10:00 fishing 11- 5. Personally I much prefer an earlier start as I wake up about 0630 so I found myself taking the dog for a walk and then cooked a breakfast before heading down the M5 at about 0830. On arrival at the fishery a mug of tea was thrustin my hand and had a bit of banter with the locals before the draw. Longs Lake was pretty calm and there were a few fish showing, into the draw box and out comes ping pong ball 35 which is a reasonable draw but with 28 fishing today it was going to be tight. On peg 34 I had venue expert Bruce Hunt who I remember from my days on the Grand Western Canal at Tiverton, I think they had 0500 draws then and fished 7 - 12 to avoid the horsedrawn barge. Peg 36 was also occupied with a local angler called Jim I think. I set up a banded pellet shallow for 14 meters across, banded pellet for the bottom of the far shelf, a rig for fishing in the deep water 11 meters straight in front with soft pellet or worm and a paste rig for the inside (very limited margins).
On the whistle I fired over about 12 fishmeal 4mm pellets and went straight over on the shallow rig with banded 6 mm, second lift and drop I had a pasty carp about 2lb, the reeds were twitching all the time. Soon I had another but hooked in the tail then lost 3 on the trot so I left it for a while. Out on the 11 meter rig with soft pellet and kindercupped in some mirco's, 2 skimmers about 1lb and 2lb came within 10 mins of each other. The wind got up, the rain came and I was unable to fish the far bank all day, nothing in the margins on paste or worm then I had a small tench towards the end. All in all a nightmare day, peg 36 weighed in approx 23lb on paste mainly down the edge, pegs 38 and 39 blanked, Bruce to my right had 6 carp all on paste, quite a few others DNW. Bruce actually packed up 20 mins before the end. Not sure what the winning weight was as I left for home once I had packed up. I did speak to John Dursley at then end who I hadn't seen for years, he now owns and runs Enterprize Angling in Taunton, John was admitting to 10lb of silvers. The far end of the lake towards the motorway apparently had fished better which was also out of the wind.
Not the day I had hoped for but I will be back.
http://www.summerhayesfisheries.com/
Next week we have a Clevedon Club Match on Rushcombe Lake 'Bullocks Farm' (lets hope it's not), I really need a few fish and a bit of luck.

Sunday 15th April Windmill Fishery north Bristol

There was no club match on this weekend and as usual I tormented myself during the week regarding what to do. We had friends around Saturday night so there was sure to be drinking involved plus my daughter and her partner were coming around for Sunday Lunch at about 5.30. I finally rang Pete at Summerhayes to see if there were any spaces for his Sunday open but as he was holding the match on 'sellicks' he had to cap the anglers to 18 and yes you guessed it there were no spaces, serves me right for not booking in earlier. I had seen a few reports in Roy Garlands match press http://www.toppeg.co.uk/id12.html concerning a new fishery not far off the M32 towards Pucklechurch in north Bristol which is only about 30 mins up the M5 for me. They have a website http://www.windmillfishery.co.uk/ and according to the info hold Wednesday and Sunday opens. A quick look at the website and past fishing reports lead me to phone Terry the fishery manager  for a bit of info and within a few minutes I was booked in.The match lake is 32 pegs with plenty of room I was told and depths ranging from 5' to 11' so that was it sorted.

 I went to bed about 01.15 on Sunday morning and the alarm woke me up at 07.00 to be honest my head was not that great and I felt knackered, the spicy mexican dish that Mrs. Currie made and went down so well was also causing me a few probs but I'll spare you the detail. So after a piece of toast cup of coffee and some asprin I was loaded up and heading up the road at 7.45 for a 9.00 draw. I got there about 8.20 and met Terry the fishery manager, there were no other anglers around except for someone on the carp lake. I asked Terry were everyone was 'they'll be here soon, it's early yet go have look round'. The venue still looks a bit young but the design is great and there is plenty of room. To cut a long story short only 2 other anglers turned up Bill Ferris who I have heard of before and seen that he has done well on other venues, he is also a local, retired and spends quite a bit of time on this fishery. I think he won a club match on it the day before as well. The other guy was also retired and local. Anyway it was a day out and a bit of a knock up. We elected to fish in the more sheltered part of the lake as there was a bitter cold north wind and we spaced out 4 pegs apart, I was on peg 12 looking down the lake.

There was plent of water to go at. The locals told me to set up a straight lead to fish on the far shelf which was about 25 meters away which I did along with a banded pellet rig and a rig for fishing maggot at depth which was about 6' 13 meters out on a gravel bar 'simples'. On the whistle I went straight out like the other two on the lead with hair rigged lunchen meat and fire over a few 8mm fishmeal pellets. Within 10 mins the tip went around and a 3lb mirror was in the net, that was to be it for the remaining 51/2 hours although I did have a couple of skimmers about 10oz on the pole. Bill 'the mugger' Ferris caught his first carp after 2 hours and then had another 7 on worm (they didn't tell me that bit), he also had a 4 skimmers for 8lb again on the worm, the other local did not catch at all. Like I said it's a bit new but is owned by the Windmill Leisure Group who also are developing a Golf Materclass Course just down the road from the fishery. The fishery itself is being developed all the time with a tackle shop, cafe and toliets also planned. This will a very popular place very soon (bring some worm though lol). No club match next week either so will be booking into Summerhayes tomorrow,