Mathern Mill saturday open.

That short drive again today to Mathern for a practice match hoping to go for silvers. 12 fishing and with the torrential rain we had in the last 36 hours I really didnt think it would fish that well today. I was almost expecting to find one big lake instead of 2 today. I dived into the draw first as I wanted to draw down the motorway end of the lake. But peg 22 come out, as far from the other end as I could get. Its a corner of the lake Ive never done any good from. A big lily bed where you can loose loads of carp and a resident shoal of tiny rudd that stop just about every bait getting to the bottom. I set up to fish caster or maggot over groundbait at 5 and 13 metres for the skimmers if any were around, and also a carp rig to fish over the same lines. A rig to fish along to my left in shallower water as the carp can come in on this line. There was a nice big gap in the dying lily`s where I could guide them out if hooked. And a bomb rod to fish the other side of the bay as another option. I started on the bomb while the groundbait line settled but after 25 minute and no pull rounds I ditched that for the time being. Out to 13 meters and I got a skimmer first drop in. Only 5 ounces but it was a start. Nobody was catching at that time so the cold rain had done a number on the fish and they were not feeding. A couple more bits came to hand before the first carp was hooked on the silvers rig. 10 minutes later it was landed. Squeaky bum time at about 10lb. that just about killed the silvers line and all I could get then was blippy rudd. Another try on the bomb was biteless. I took a couple of smaller carp at 13m down the edge but they werent there in any numbers. After about 3 hours I had my first pull round on the bomb, and it was a bruser at 18-7. I think thats the biggest fish Ive landed in a match. the restof the match was spent swapping around all lines. The silvers lines only pruduced rudd and on the carp lines I did manage another 5 fish. But it was a struggle to get anything going. The last hour was crap and bites were a premium. At the end my guess was around 70lb for nowhere, but was pleased my fish went 80-8 and got me third on the day. The skimmers just never showed up today for anyone. Top dog on the day was new resident to the area Rich Heatley, who now calls this place his local water, on peg 2 with 99-4 second was Rich Lovering on peg 25 with 86-3. Top silvers on the day went to venue expert Norm Sterry with 25-11 from peg 8.

Mathern Mill silvers series round 1

A nice short 7 minute drive to Mathern today for round 1 of the Silvers series run by Norm Sterry and Andy J Fuller. There`s loads of decent skimmers in this place so we were all hoping for a good day. Into the draw bucket and I get peg 8 in my hand. A peg known as "The Hole" as it has a very deep hole to the left at less than a top kit length that use to win all the winter matches. Andy Fuller was to my right and had a good moan about drawing peg 11. The plan today was to fish maggot and caster over groundbait laced with casters and micros. I was trying some new floats today, all wire stemmed. I set up a 4x16, and 4x14 to fish two lines at 7m and 13m. Also set up a 4x12 to fish a slower drop but the water was a bit deep for that at close to 7 foot. Also set up a maggot feeder to fish out in the open water to start with while the groundbait lines settled. Started on that and was straight in to a few rudd and small skimmers. Had around half a dozen before the first decent skimmer came in at 1 1/2lb. I gave it another 10 minutes before I came in on the 13m line and was into the same stamp of rudd and skimmers as the feeder line. But they were coming regular so I kept on it. Andy was getting a few good skimmers to my right and had stopped moaning about his peg. Another good skimmer came before I tried the short line, Plenty of bites but only small stuff.  Then it went a bit tits up as after two hours the carp moved in and the silver just about disappeared. The rest of the match was spent switching lines looking for a few silvers but I just got carped out wherever it dropped in. And some of them were right munters. I had one over the net that was never gonna go in the landing net in a million years. It was 20lb plus and after a couple of times trying to fold it up enough to drop in the net the hook pulled. I did manage a few small fish and four more decent skimmers with the biggest 3lb plus 15 minutes from the end but I was never gonna compete for top honours today. Top spot today went to Andy who managed to avoid the carp today for the first 4 hours with 41-14 of nearly all good skimmers to the 3lb mark. Second was Norm Sterry on peg 19 with 28-15. Not too many big skimmers in his net but a boat load of smaller stuff. Third was tom Baker on peg 20 with 25-15 of decent skimmers. My net was just over  21lb for 5th. Not done much silvers fishing for years so it made a nice change. Just need to get a bit better at it. Any other day those carp would have been most welcome. Maybe next match Ill feed less and keep the buggers away.

!st Andy Fuller 41-14, peg 11
2nd Norm Sterry 28 15, peg 19
3rd Tom Baker 25-15, peg 20
4th Matt Roden 23-11, peg 25

Landsend saturday open 5/10/19

A disappointing turn out today with only 5 of us turning up. Not sure why more are not coming as its fishing well at the mo. Started off by pinching Beanies parking spot and suffered a bit of a tongue lashing from him lol. And no Russ peck today so I was always going home a quid short 😜.
All pegs today were going to be on the far side of match lake so everybody would be in with a chance for a few. Into the draw bucket and peg 18 sticks to my fingers. Had this two weeks ago in the 3 dayer  and had a good day catching mainly to my right by the tree stump.

Started off today straight down that edge as there were fish showing and I just couldnt resist it. About two minutes after the first drop in fish number one was hooked and a good 7 pounder was netted. By that time Dave Hodgson to my left had two in the net. They were hungry. but that was it for now down that line, but I expected that being so early. So it was out on 2+2 with 6mm pellet. I had a couple there before it died. Across to the island for a while and had a quick couple before they got picky on what they sucked in. It was black with fish and good ones too. But even when I could see 6 or 8 feeding they worked around the hook and I struggled to get anything.

So most of the rest of the match was spent mainly down the margin to my right  switching from corn and pellet. It wasnt hectic but it kept ticking over with the odd decent fish coming to the net. I did have a short run of fish at the bottom of the far shelf but they were all small fish. The last hour sparked into life down the edge and I caught really well. On reflection I should have caught a lot more as I fed fairly lightly most of the match and it wasnt until I decided to really up the feed down the edge did they come in in any numbers. Lesson for next time. My guess at the end was I had around 120lb. Ray White on 13 did his usual silvers approach and had 7-4 of them for top silvers weight in his total of 29-2. Dave Hodgson on 16 weighed 87-00. My net of all carp went a surprising 144-06 for top weight on the day. Dave Westcott on 21 struggled for 21-00. Nice matching numbers Dave.  And Mike Duckett on 24 has 121-1, where he caught nearly all his big fish in front of platform 23 on meat. Full weigh sheet below. Next week its the Mathern Mill silver series for me. Ill have to check all my elastics and buy some of those wriggly things.