Wednesday 24/02/2010 - Carps AC - Bullocks Farm

Phil the fishery owner was at the draw as usual singing the praises of Bristol City. Phil also informed us that tomorrow he is restocking the venue with 10,000 fish. Apparently the split is 60% Roach and 40% Crucian's – great no Carp. Phil is putting 6000 in match Lake and 4000 in North Pool. I still think if Phil took out all of the reed beds in Match Lake he will in effect be re-stocking, as many of the Carp live and stay in these reeds all year round. I took a picture of the "Mallin" Canal which is still visible (pictured top left). Phil is also putting up the peg fee by £1 to pay for a gardener!!!

After a decent breakfast I pulled out peg 25 – one of the better pegs on Match Lake. I noticed that peg 17 wasn’t drawn – WHY ON EARTH DO ORGANISERS PUT MORE PEGS IN THAN THERE ARE ANGLERS!!!! If someone turns up late let them have the pick of the rest I say. Any way back to my flyer (again I hear). As usual there were signs of fish in the reed bed to my left. As the water was so clear (I have never seen it this clear – you can see the rubbish on the bottom) I decided to fish up to the reed bed, so I set up two rigs one for the top side of the reeds and one for about half way up. After scrounging some green ground bait off Leighton Palmer I mixed it very dry and fed this at the further point and fed wetted micro on the shorter line. I started on single white maggot over the GB and had a run of small Crucians, Gold fish and the odd Ronnie. The sun came out and it went a bit quite, so after re-feeding I went in on the shorter line with double red maggot and had a 3lb Carp. I then followed this up with a pounder. Again it went quite so after re-feeding this line with micro I went back out on the long line and had a better run of Crucians. I then had a difficult hour, as did most of the other anglers that I could see Tommy Thick was struggling and walking the bank by now. Come the last hour I decided to fish for carp on the shorter line with corn over corn. This resulted in three lost carp – one was foul hooked. It's now getting personal with these Carp in this weed bed. The next two I managed to get them free from the weed bed only to lose both at the net – to Charlie Barnes amusement. I weighed 12lb 12oz of Silvers and the Two Carp pushed my weight up to 16lb 12oz. This put me second overall and first in the Silvers and a pick up of £35. This also qualified me for the Wednesday Mania Final.

The match was won by Tommy Thick (pictured right with the Silvers winner) landing three good Carp for 15lb all caught in his RH margin this added to his 5lb of Silvers gave Tommy an overall weight of 20lb 10oz.

Runner up in the Silvers was John Bennett - Club Chairman – (pictured bottom right landing one of his Crucians) with 11lb 9oz of Crucians. Unfortunately John shook off his first four fish!!

Full Result:

1. Tom Thick 20-10-0 peg 15
2. Mike Nicholls 16-12 peg 25
3. John Bennett 13-09-0 peg 24
4. Charlie Barnes 8-10-0 peg 26
5. Leighton Palmer 8-04-0 peg 27
6. Mike Owens 7-10-0 peg 21

Top Silvers:

1. Mike Nicholls 12-12-0 peg 25
2. John Bennett 11-09-0 peg 24

Monday 22/02/2010 - Ian "Bloke" Pulsford

It is with great sadness that I was informed today by his good Wife Marg that Ian "Bloke" Pulsford (pictured right) passed away after a short illness.

Ian would have been 64 at the end of April. He knew he only had months left and hated feeling so ill and was very frightened of what was happening to him so going so quickly was very good as far as he was concerned. The funeral has been pencilled in on March 8 th late morning at Westerleigh Crematorium.

Ian got his nick name from welcoming fellow anglers with "All right Bloke" in a manner that only Ian could convey.

Ian spent the last twenty odd years or so fishing, often every day of the week. So I am sure that he will find if difficult to fish more in heaven that he did on earth - but have no doubts "Bloke" will give it a good go. Hey, make sure you sort us out a few decent swims.

Ian fished Bitterwell lake most weeks at least once. This lake isn't your run of the mill commercial fisheries, as matches are often won with Silvers, which is the main reason Ian fished it so often. These fish are not that easy to catch on this hard fished venue. I often walked Bitterwell and enjoyed watching Ian fish - sometimes he would have the waggler working well on the quality Roach, then on the next visit he would have the pole out catching good Skimmers. Ian in my mind is an extremely competent angler and if he had invested more in his match fishing he would have achieved high accolades. Des Shipp was a close friend of Ian's and I know he would support me in this view. I used to say to "Bloke" that he taught Des all he knows about match fishing. Bloke used to get very embarrassed about this comment - with out full justification in my opinion.

"Bloke" rest in peace mate now that you know the difference between the call of a Cuckoo and the cooing of a Pigeon - Kennet & Avon Canal 1989 when on the next peg you beat me by 3 oz - a memorable day for both of us off two indifferent pegs.

Sunday 21/02/2010 - Landsend Individual League - Round Five

As it was the fifth match of the series it was time for a free draw, which would decide the order in which you fished the remaining four lakes along with the anglers you will be competing with. I think this is an excellent way of running such a series because you get to acquaint yourself with more of the anglers. I hope Clint Wojtyla is in my section again, complete with his sharp sense of humour. However, I am not sure about Liam the "Clock Spring" - does remind me of myself when I was his age, but I ran my "spring" down by running every where I went. Of course this meant I could draw peg 68 or even better again - but would I?

Well I drew peg 62 on John Walters Lake, not far off numerically from peg 68, but miles away fish wise. I didn't want to be in the middle pegs of this lake as the fish appear to be at either end. As the anglers arrived I was amazed to see that both Liam "the clock spring" on peg 68 and Clint arriving at peg 46 (pictured right). Then who turns up opposite me - Tim Ford (pictured lower right - what's the story about the gloves Tim?). The water looked very clear still, but perhaps not as bad as last week. I plumbed up with the same rig as I used last week only to find that I half the depth - around 3 foot. So I switched down to a 0.2 gram Sensas Jean Desque Eric for the Silvers at 11.5 metres. I also set up one black top and one yellow top 4x12 Jolly - one for the 11.5 metre line and pellet and the other for over just up the shelf at 13 metres. I fed both lines with a few grains of micro one line with maggot added and the other caster. I started on the 11.5 metre line with a single red maggot and had a 5lb Carp first put in. I then had two more small Carp during the first hour before the swim completely died. Over the next three hours I tried a number of options around open water swims - to no avail - not one indication and no Silvers at all! Everyone that I could see was struggling. For the last two hour I decided to fish up the shelf at 13 metres. It wasn't until the last hour that I caught another Carp and quickly followed this up with another two. However, the next one I hooked I lost and didn't have another bite. The six Carp weighed in at 28lb 14oz for fourth on the lake and a section win by default and a pick up of £30.

The match was one by Tony Rixon (pictured lower right) from peg 33 on Specimen Lake. My spy on the next peg 34 told me how Tony caught hid fish, I will check his blog to make sure he owns up to using corn over 3mm pellet!!

Full Result:

1. Tony Rixon 133-09-0 peg 33
2. Dale Housen 59-02-0 peg 16
3. Anton Page 53-05-0 peg 32
4. Vince Shipp 46-10-0 peg 86
5. Larry Burns 46-08-0 peg 21
6. Pete Noton 43-07-0 peg 55

Top Silvers:


1. Tom Thick 17-0-0 peg 22
2. Ken Rayner 13-08-0 peg 36

Wednesday 17/02/2010 - Carps AC - Bitterwell Lake

Yesterday I had my blog attacked once again from spammers/virus hackers. The “pond life” is using the comment facility to feed in viruses and spam. To identify them any comments that are preceded with or contain small squares – DON’T OPEN THEM OR PUBLISH THEM - DELETE THEM IMMEDIATELY – otherwise it might be a hard drive re-format!!

I watched Bristol Rovers on the box Monday night, I thought they played very well and deserved their 2 – 1 win.

I had some good news from son Mark; he passed his professional body exams yesterday and is now able to run an Architects’ Practice – sounds like he might be giving up his “back packing” profession after all!!

It was a good turn out for this popular local venue, this combined with it being half term the lake was full. I think throughout a match you can make a number of small mistakes, which don’t really affect the overall result. However, you can make one big mistake which can! The talk before the match was of the 20 to 30 lb of Skimmers caught on the weekend and in the Monday match. I drew peg 11 which is one before the big Oak tree. I was reasonably pleased with the draw as I have won off of it before with Skimmers. So with all this in my head and blurring all of my match sense I buggered my peg in the first thirty seconds by being over positive with the green micro feed pellet. I did not have a bite on the pellet and it wasn’t until I started another line did I catch a couple of Skimmers on caster over caster. But it was really slow. At half time I decided to set up a waggler to fish maggot for the Ronnie’s. This was really slow as well, with many missed bites from tiny Ronnetts. However, as it was fishing so badly I decided to stay with the wag and towards the end as the light was fading (last ten minutes) I started to catch well, but all too late. You really can’t take all of the rods that you might need for a match - that is unless you have a Caddy. Today, I found myself using a 13 ft Preston Carbon active waggler rod which was far too power full rod for Ronnie fishing, which again cost me some coin. After bumping a few fish, I broke 0.1 mm line on the strike! I had the perfect waggler rod for the job sat at home – an 11ft 6 in Diawa Canal rod. I weighed 5lb 5oz for fifth place and ounced out of the coin for the second time this year.

The match was won by venue regular Steve Dawson (pictured right with his exceptional catch on the day of Skimmers and Roach). Steve drew next to me on peg 12 (the other side of the Oak tree) and weighed 15lb 2oz to win both the overall and Silvers. Steve alternated between the pole and waggler, catching the Skimmers on the pole at 8 metres using pellet over pinkie/pellet and small Roach on the wag and mag. Steve certainly has the feeding sorted out on this venue. It was crucial today.

Full Result:

1. Steve Dawson 15-02-0 peg 12
2. Bob Price 9-14-0 peg 4
3. Martyn Rayett 9-02-0 peg 10
4. Leighton Palmer 5-11-0 peg 2
5. Mike Nicholls 5-5-0 peg 11
6. Bill Ferris 3-01-0 peg 6

Top Silvers:

1. Steve Dawson 15-02-0 peg 12
2. Martyn Rayett 9-02-0 peg 10

Sunday 14/02/2010 - Landsend Individual League Round Four

In a previous blog:

(http://silverfoxangling.blogspot.com/2009/05/wednesday-27052009-carps-ac-tan-house.htmlI)

I was anticipating and hoping for some natural justice on behalf of poor Baby Peter – it looks as if we got a bit of it yesterday

“Steven Barker, the stepfather of abused infant Baby P has been scalded in an attack by a fellow prisoner. Another inmate at Wakefield prison, where Barker is serving his 12-year jail term, hurled boiling water at Barker, leaving him, screaming in pain. Some reports claimed it had been a concoction of water and sugar, which sticks to the skin and intensifies burns in the same way as napalm bombs. Barker who stands 6ft 4in, suffered excruciating burns to his face and arms and will be left scarred for life following the attack. Fellow inmates applauded as he was ambushed. One told the paper: 'To say Barker is disliked is an understatement - he is reviled. The other inmates all hate him with a passion’. When Barker came here every one knew what he had done to Baby P. Your card is marked if you have a crime against your name concerning kids. 'After the attack everyone was in good spirits, knowing someone had hurt Barker. The guy who did it will be getting applauded every-where he goes now. 'It will be seen as a badge of honor and it is just a matter of time before someone else takes a shot at Barker too’.

Excellent stuff – More please lads!!

It was my turn on John Walters Lake. I have always done well on this lake, but I have never drawn the near end where all the flyers are. That is until today when I drew peg 68 – an out an out flyer for both Carp and Silvers. So I was spoilt for choice – not – Silvers it was then. However, I had heard that there was a match fished on it the day before and it needed only 5lb to win the Silvers, and taking only four Carp to win the match from peg 42. The water was so clear, that it was no surprise that the fishing was poor. So it was going to be steady as she goes with the feed. However, I did notice some fish movement in the large weed bed to my left. I decided on three rigs – 1x 0.3g Sensas Jean François Eric and 2 - 4x14 Jolly’s – one black tip the other yellow. On the “all in” I feed some micro and maggot at 11.5 metres at 11-0-clock, which was in the most open water the peg could provide, neat wetted micro directly opposite down the shelf and some casters on the edge of the weed bed at 7 metres. I started with the 0.3 g float with a single maggot at 11-0-clock and first put in I lost a foul hooked Carp. Next put in I landed a 5lb Common. I followed this up quickly with a 2lb Carp. The swim then settled and I had a couple of Skimmers for about 2lb. The sun then came out and the fishing became very difficult. However, the swim opposite me was in the shade of the island to some extent and I quickly switched to this line with double red maggot and I had two quick Crucians and a decent Perch. So I fed some more micro this time with a bit of maggot (ask Ken Rayner about feeding a bit of maggot). I then had two more decent Carp and I lost one at the net because I had initially bullied it thinking it was a Silver, bollocks!! I had a couple more Perch before I decided to have a tactical walk. Ken Rayner had seven Carp on peg 42 and Adrian Clark had nine on peg 58. So I was lying third on the lake, but winning the Silvers. So change of tactics – out and out Silvers fishing. Down to the edge of the weed bed and first put in a 3oz Ronnie. I then hooked and landed a 6lb Common Carp followed up the following cast with a 4lb Common. Both fish were in pristine condition. Not bad for Silver fishing. However, I didn’t have another Carp on this line catching 3 to 4oz Ronnie’s every put in for the last ninety minutes. I was the last one to weigh in and knew I had won the Silvers by a good margin weighing in 15lb 9oz of Silvers with the Carp going 26lb 6oz, giving a total of 41lb 15oz. Little did I know but both Ken and Adrian stopped catching after my tactical walk and I managed to over take Ken and if wasn’t for the “Silver Carp” I would have taken the Lake. However, I was satisfied with the result as my weight gave me second overall. I picked up £50 which was £5 less than that which is published in the rules – I’m am sure this was an oversight by Mike Duckett and will discuss with him next week!

As stated Adrian Clark (pictured right with his catch) won the match from peg 58 with nine Carp for 44lb 4oz. Adrian caught his fish on double red maggot over NO FEED. Umm, can’t do that one!! Adrian chased the carp around his swim until they backed off completely in to the end peg.

Full Result:

1. Adrian Clark 44-04-0 peg 58
2. Mike Nicholls 41-15-0 peg 68
3. Ken Rayner 39-09-0 peg 42
4. Nick Collier 36-12-0 peg 40
5. Dave Sawyer 35-06-0 peg 72
6. Dave Hodgson 34-08-0 peg 94

Top Silvers:

1. Tom Thick 25-08-0 peg 37
2. Nick Collier 19-08-0 peg 40
3. Mike Nicholls 15-09-0 peg 68

Sunday 07/02/2010 - Hillview Open

Hillview Fishery is where the South West Anglers meet Midland Anglers. Through this forum I have heard that Gentleman Ken Giles has retired from match fishing to spend more time woolly hooking. A shame really as Ken is a mountain of knowledge and was always forth coming. He did have a spell fishing Hillview as did Max Winters, who believe it or not learnt how to fish the paste there!

It was nice to have an e-mail from Chris Fox inviting me to fish the Kev Perry series. I have decided to fish it for the first time. They are a good bunch of lads that fish it and very hard to beat on this venue. Looking forward to it; however, I might be missing one match due to another clash with the Landsend League!!

Back to Hillview Fishery with Bela again this week end. It was good to see Tim Ford there also – obviously looking for some decent fishing after finishing the various winter leagues on the River and Canal - and he did!

With number 1, 2 and 4 Canals in the draw bag this week, I was hoping for Canal 2 which seems to give the more consistent all round sport per peg. However, I did better than that I drew peg 46 on Canal 1 (see picture right of Canal 1 pegging) which was one peg away from where it was won last week. However, I know from experience the fish aren’t often on these pegs with them preferring the earlier pegs 41 and 42. I initially set up two rigs – a 4x12 modified PB14 for fishing corn at 30 inches deeps up the far shelf and a 0.3 gram – wire/wire Sensas Jean François for down the track. I had a 20 Tubertini 808 to 0.1 hook length on both rigs – but that didn’t last long! On the whistle I potted in some micro down the track and some micro and 4 pieces of corn over. I started down the track with corn, but no indications, so on to the pellet – no indication – on to the maggot and which produced one 4 oz Carp and two 3oz Ronnie’s. I was struggling down the tack and although it was far too early I decided to go over nontheless. First put on with corn and a foul hook Carp and that was the end of this rig (my rigs usually last longer than this). So on went a TBF xl 12 which takes three no 12 shot and one piece of corn. However, this time the rig had my usual 0.14 mm hook length to a no 20 808. Next cast I landed a 3lb foul hooker. After a spell of loosing three Foul hookers (Nigel Seabright on the next to me had by now lost nine foul hookers) I decide to shallow up a bit and stop feeding micro pellet instead I fed just 4 grains of corn after each fish. This worked for a while - landing Carp to 6lb. I then had a blank spell and decided to introduce some micro pellet which helped pull the fish back in to the swim. Having sorted the feeding I caught decent size carp to the end although I did only manage three in the last hour (well in the last ten minutes of the last hour). I weighed 63lb 6oz for first overall and a pick up of £50.

Bela had drawn peg 86 on number 4 Canal and did well to win that section with 43lb 9oz – all caught on maggot fished to the far bank, rotating two swims. For the record Bela Bakos name is of Hungarian decent. However, Bela is British, his parents escaping the Russian insurgents in 1956.

Runner up was Dave Greig from peg 42 with 51lb 9oz. Sorry Dave no picture my camera has broken – I don't think it was your Shrek "look alike" mug that did it though mate ( I will get a photo next time I'm up).

Full Result:

Mike Nicholls 63-06-0 peg 46
Dave Greig 51-09-0 peg 42
Gary Clarke 48-06-0 peg 58
Bela Bakos 43-09-0 peg 86
Tim Ford 41-06-0 peg 67
Neville Groves 39-08-0 peg 53

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