Sunday 18th October - Clevedon Club Match Brick Lake the Sedges Fishery

I made the decision quite early in the week to fish this match as there was nothing else on in the form of a river match. I have only been to the venue once and that was last year and on Brick Lake which we were fishing today. I drew Peg 9 last year and came 3rd with 103lb mainly on the pole but that was in the spring. Lance Tucker was next door to me then on 10 and he beat me by about 10lb and came second. Kev Perry won that match with around 145lb catching on pellet on the straight lead.

Kev had received a text from Match Secretary Adie Baker asking him to run the match as he was still busy after only just moving house. 13 had booked in and fair play they all turned up including another new member (from Surrey Kerry Pickering who was staying with relations down this way). Between Kev and Denise the fishery owner the pegging was sorted and draw organised. I was 3rd last to draw and out comes peg 9 so happy with that and wondered if it would be a repeat performance. I had end peg 10 in the corner to my left and was hoping it had been left out but new member Kerry turned up on it while I was sorting myself out, still plenty of room.

The blue arrow shows my peg.

Two pegs to my right was Dave Stevenson and next to Dave was Kev. Opposite me in the top right hand corner was Nick Harvey and directly opposite me across the lake was silvers basher Andy Devereux (prob spelt his name wrong again). I could see almost everyone except the anglers on my bank below Kev so would be able to judge how the match was going. I had planned to fish mini popped up bollies but not allowed at the fishery so bread would be the replacement. Due to me winning a recent match on the bread at Trinity a lot of the guys brought it today or were asking for a few slices from others. Two top kits set up today, both for banded pellet and both exactly the same for fishing at 13 meters where it was about 7 feet deep at 10:00 and 14:00. The 14:00 line fed with groundbait with dead red, hemp and micro the other line just 6mm and 4mm wetted pellet. The margins were too riskly due to the overhanging vegitation and looked too dangerous. Finally the straight lead for fishing bread or pellet.

The 'all in' was called at 10:15 so fed the two pole lines and went straight out on the bread up to the floating pipe that goes down the middle. There were a lot of fish topping and I could see a could went out on the waggler. I was expecting the tip to bang around fairly quickly but after 25 minutes it didn't!

Looking around no one was catching and just as I looked down again the rod was coming off the top of the keep net which I was using as a rest. I didn't land it as it snapped the hooklength just before the net and it was a right lump. Back out on the bread and not a touch after 20 minutes so changed to banded 11mm and no sooner had it settled when the tip went around in a slow but positive way and it was fish on. It was a good fish as well at around 10lb. I had a couple more smaller ones up until around 12:00 but it was not exactly action packed but then there was still not a lot being caught from what I could see. Gave the bread a try again for a change and a carp of around 6lb took it on the drop, this time I landed it. A quiet spell of around 20 minutes saw me go back on the pellet, all the time I was feeding both pole lines but no fizz to be seen.

It wasn't fast and furious but I was putting fish in the net up until around 14:45 when it went very quiet so tried the pole lines for 20 minutes and only manged a small skimmer so decided to see the match out on the lead. Paul Nicholls on the far bank was getting a few fish on the pole towards the end including one of 18lb plus!! Mark Bromsgrove below him was also getting a few.

The all out was called at 16:15 and Kev done the honours of weighing. I had 72lb 8oz which was top weight on my bank. The weights were better opposite with a couple of 60lb pluses. Mark Bromsgrove did well and put 90lb on the scales, immediately below him on end corner peg was Lance Tucker who had 72lb 12oz.

So I had 3rd place again. Top Silvers went to Andy Devereux by default.

Results as follows:

1st   Mark Bromsgrove Sensas Thyers 90lb 8oz

2nd  Lance Tucker Sensa Thyers 72lb 12oz.... check them scales please

3rd   Ivan Currie Maver Cadbury Angling 72lb 8oz

Silvers

Andy Devereux Clevedon 9lb 4oz

Weight sheet...

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.