Sunday 13th November - Manor Farm

Drew peg 25 middle. A good area normally.
Fished a really negative pole match and caught on pellets at 14.5m on my Trustee Colmic Airon F44.
Fish a JW float. To 0.15 mainline to and 0.10 hooklength. Size 20 B911. Coupled with the colmic Pink elastic.

I caught all F1s. Didnt hook a carp!
I weighed in 41-12-0 which was second on my lake. 45lb the lake so I need 1 or 2 bigger fish.
Roll on next time!

Saturday 12th November - Hillview open.

I was reall keen to draw on one of the lakes at Hillview and today I did!
Peg 7 on moorhen.
Started off on the bomb and bread and caught a few f1s then went 2 hours without a bite. Then caught a few fish late on the pole at 14.5m.
Weighed 30-0-0 enough to win the section by default.
Well done Gary Donachie on the win.

Sunday 6th November- Manor farm leisure

Peg 23 middle pool.
With a sudden drop in temperature I thought it would fish hard... I was right!
I fished a really negative match. Fished a little boilie and bag on the bomb and had to be really patient for bites.
The wind was far to strong to fish the pole however last 30 minutes it did drop and I caught a few F1s on it.

I weighed 31-12-0 which to my surprise was enough to win the match.

Sunday 30th October - Hillview open.

Today I decided to go to hillview. A venue ive never been to.
A good turnout saw 27 anglers fishing.
With 1 lake (heron) and 3 canals in I fancied drawing on the canals.
I drew peg 58, which is on canal 2.

Decided to keep my approach dead simple. Maggots up and down at top 5 which is almost down the middle of the canal.

And 2 pellet lines against the far bank.

A margin rig for a top kit to my right.

At the start of the match I filled my cad pot with micro pellets and fished a 4mm hard pellet on the hook. Caught 3 fish on this really quick. But the guy on my left was beginning to catch really well short so I came onto my maggot line earlier than Id of liked to. Just throwing in a few maggots by hand I caught some on the deck on this line. Then they began swirling for the maggots..... time for the shallow rig.
It took me a while to sort out the rig and feeding to get it how they wanted it and I was flying. Catching some decent F1s really quickly and I probably put 50 F1s in the net in an hour.

By now it was beginning to fade which i expected. So i rested it. Caught a few fish against the far bank hoping theyd come back... however they didnt! They seemed to vanish. From then we had about 2 hours left so I had to work really hard catching a few fish down the edge and shipping some small fish from the 2 far bank lines.

Felt this is what cost me framing as the other anglers down the other end began catching really well last 2 hours so maybe they just drifted down???
I clicked about 80 decent f1s but had loads that I didnt click as they were only ounces. So had over 100 fish.

They went 97-8-0 which was only good enough for second overall.

Great venue with some great weights! Will be going back very soon!
I forgot how much I enjoy snake lake fishing!!!

Saturday 29th October - 1st round of the manor farm winter league

Drew peg 6 middle and got it totally wrong. Struggled with foul hooking fish. Weighed 49-0-0 which beat one in the section.
Must try harder!

Sunday 23rd October - Hawford Bridge team match

I had been looking forward to this match for some time. The banks' team match. 15 teams of 4 fishing. Which last year was held at cob house fishery which we managed to win so wanted to retain our title this year!

Hawford Bridge is a venue im not familiar with. I fished it maybe 2 years but couldnt remember a lot about it.

The team consistes of me. Iain Jennings, Will Beasley and Simon Pickering.

The draw was done prior to the match and our team drew peg 9 on the 4 different lakes.

I was on Penn. Peg 9.
Iain Jennings - Broomhill Peg 9.
Will Beasley - Bridge Peg 9.
Simon Pickering - Riddings Peg 9.

After we had all had a walk round togther to look at our pegs I loaded up my trolley and was soon at my peg.

It looked really nice. The reeds as you can see above were about 14.5m away and I had my own water. The only thing I was concerned about was if the fish werent in my little bay id struggle to attract any fish in, becasuse there was pressure on the lake I thought they could back off.

The lines I set up were as follows.

Top kit plus 2. Whered id feed hard pellets by hand and fish a banded pellet.

11.5m of my Colmic Airon F44. Where again I would feed pellets via a catipult.

Top 6 to my righ down the edge. Where I had a bit of cover where id feed micros and maggots.

I began the match with half a pot of bait down the edge. A small offering of pellets short and a similiar amount long.

I began the match short where I could just to watch what everyone else was doing. With not knowing the venue I didnt know if anything I was doing was right. It was clear there were some fish there as I had indiactions straight away. I foul hooked one which came off. So cut down on the feed by hand slightly. This resulted in 3 quick carp as quick as I could get in. Then they soon disappreared.

Had a quick look down the edge without a bite so decied to look on my long line. And after 20 minutes I didnt have a bite.

By now and hour had past and a couple of people were catching off fish and the one chap I could see was really catching!

So I put my plummet on and set up a new line to my right nearer the reeds. This resulted in one quick fish and I hooked and lost 2. Didnt really know where to go from here so I potted another bit of bait on each line and decied to go back to my original 11.5m line and sit there and be patient. It tooked 20 minutes to get a bite which turned out to be a little mirror about 3lb.

It was around 12:45 now and I was reslly stuck. Id set up 2 new lines and still couldnt catch so I could only think that I caught the few fish that were there early then they disappeared resulting in no fish coming back into the peg!

As a bit of a gamble I put half a pot of pellets in on my short line, give it 10 minutes then go straight on it.

What a decision that proved to be! On the first put in my float barely settled and I was into a fish. I couldnt get in quick enough by now and I knew I was chasing the guy who had been catching all day so played my fish quite hard in a hope to narrow the gap. For the next hour and half I was flying. I must of had 25 carp in that time.
All the while I had been potting a bit of bait down my edge in a hope to catch on it late as I thought my short line might die.

With 20 minutes to go I had a look down the edge and foul hooked one. So put some more bait in to try and pin them down because it was around 3ft down there. I manged another one that was a better stamp maybe 7lb and hoped id get chance to have one more. But it wasnt to be. The hooter sounded and I didnt have another fish down the edge.

But had I done enough?
I knew id done ok but I felt I was always chasing the chap who caught all day.

I managed to weigh 102lb which was 2nd on my lake of 15. I needed 146lb to win the lake so was way off. However if I could of found a few more fish earlier on I  could of got a little bit closer. But I honestly felt there were no fish in my peg to begin with.

As a team we managed 2nd overall which I was really pleased with!

Iain came 3rd on his lake.
Will came 5th on his.
Simon came 4th on his.

I really enjoyed this match and hope to fish it again next year!

Saturday 22nd October - Larford lakes.

This is my first visit to Larford and seeing some of the recent weights its been fishing really well.

I drew peg 45 on the match lake and deiced to fish pellets short and long.
Margins to the next pallet
A method feeder and a Bomb.

Caught a few short to begin with then caught long on the deck and a few shallow.

Weighed 61lb which was 7th overall.
Will deffintly be going back though!