Sunday 20th April - Clevedon Club Match 'The Sedges Fishery' near Bridgwater

I would not normally fish over the Easter Holiday period but with the wife on lates it would be rude not to. This was the clubs first visit to the Sedges as well as a first for me. I scanned various pieces of information on the internet as well as their site http://www.thesedgesfishery.co.uk/ but it did not really tell me what I wanted to know so a picked the brains of fellow blogger and club member Lee Williams (http://woolavy.blogspot.co.uk/) prior to the match and on the day, thanks Lee. On the way down via sat nav I passed the entrance first time as its just behind a small industrial estate and the signage to me was not that obvious (or perhaps should have gone to spec savers).

On arrival I parked up and in front of me was basically two big square ponds and a canal type lake at the back of them. There was lots of activity as there was another match on and 14 visiting anglers from the midlands down on holiday who were also staying in the caravans located on site. It looks like the owners live on site as well in one of those really nice wooden lodges, I think its a Hoff type home. Overall the whole complex is very well maintained and the owners very friendly, greeted with a cuppa on arrival. 14 booked in today which is good for a BH weekend with a few faces who do turn up now and again but good to see them as everyone pays a minimum of £20 this year to join the club instead of £5 but they get to fish the rivers Kenn and Bristol Avon for that as well as organised club matches, there are a various combinations of club membership see the club website http://clevedon-fwac.webs.com/ for details.

Fishing today was 1015 - 1615, into the bucket and out comes ping pong ball No.9 which to me did not mean anything so a quick chat with Lee again who told me it had carp form but silvers as well. To honest mixing between carp and silves does my head in and just perfer to fish for one or the other, hooking a carp on very light elastic is not best use of time and bumping off silvers on heavier elastic just fustrates me. There was a fairly strong breeze on our lake (Brick, the other is called Tile so must have been an old brick works site at some time) but the top end where I was had some shelter so not as bad. Next to me on end peg 10 and a very nice margin bank was Sensas Thyers captain Lance Tucker and on peg 7 (8 was left out) was another Sensa Thyers angler Brian Slipper. Opposite me was Adie Baker on end peg 11 with a similar good margin to Lance. Their was plent of room between pegs which is another plus.

As I was setting up the other anglers were arriving to fish their pegs on Tile Lake, a chap looked over and said 'alright' in a strong Bristol accent, 'your Ivan Currie arn't you', turned out it was a blast from the very long past by way of Paul Swain who also used to fish the Bristol Post Office matches back in the day when we only fished rivers or the odd estate lake, now fishes with Carpenters Arms AC. Paul also said he follows this blog, thanks mate and was good to see you again.

Set up today was simple, straight lead with banded 8mm, nearside margin for paste, 13 meters at 2 o'clock for silvers with caster and 13 meters out in front with banded pellet at depth. On the 13 meter line I had about 8 foot, margin was around 4 foot. Silvers line and margin not fished all day. All lines baited up and began on the stright lead to start with about a third the way across, looking around most had opted for this appoach. After about 10 minutes I had a positive pull round and soon a 5lb carp was netted so nice start, I lost the next one, think it was a foul hooker but soon had another, a nice ghostie. I stayed on the lead for about 2 hours, on reflection too long and put about 30lb in the net. Lance had not far off that either and also picked up a few on the pellet waggler. As soon as I went out on the pole I started catching at regular intervals and had a great days fishing. I also picked up a flying bream about 2lb, a 3lb tench and 2 massive eels giving me a silvers net of 9lb odd.

At the all out the heavens opened and we had hail as well so no pics from the match this week including weight sheet as this turned into paper mache. The weight limit per net on this fishery is 100lbs, had I had one more fish I would have been over, will take another to the peg next time, the fishery supply all nexts including landing nets.

So my carp went 96lb plus my silvers which gave me 105lb 12oz my biggest weight for years. Lance next to me done 111lb 14oz including a siverfish in his carp net (owner not happy). Adie opposite Lance weighed 121lb 3oz but the overall top weight was Kev Perry with 130lb 3oz all on the straight lead. Only a couple of fish separated to top four anglers and look at the silver weights.

1st Kev Perry 130lb 3oz
2nd Adie Baker 121lb 3oz
3rd Lance Tucker 111lb 4oz
4th Ivan Currie 105lb 12oz

Silvers
1st Chris Parr 41lb 9oz
2nd Barry Fowler 34lb.