Heronbrook Spring League Round 4 10th April 2016.

Hi all.

Fell a bit behind with my write ups so a bit of a catch up is needed.

First match to update on is the 4th round of the Heronbrook spring league.

Once again my team draw was disappointing. Jon on peg 44 on Canal, Alan on peg 4 of Match lake, myself on peg 15 on Meadow and possibly the best of a bad bunch was Neil Pritchard pegged 18 on Bridge.

Jon Green looking relaxed before the start, hopefully he will face the right way when the match starts.

Alan Lamb making final preparations on Match Lake.

One consolation was that my peg offered a long near margin to my right and the corner of the far bank to target.

My home for the match on Meadow and after the rain it was a bit of a mud bath.

 For this match I set up rigs for the far bank, deep water before the far shelf, meat rig for 2+2 and a dobbing rig. Also set up a short bomb rod for casting down to the corner to my left. After fishing on peg 13 the week previous I was not expecting a great deal, but hoping that the long margin would produce some fish. So my target was to at least beat the weight from last week.

I started on bread dobbing along the far bank where I caught an F1, this was followed by a couple of small roach. I then tried pellet along the far bank slightly to the left. A couple more F1's were netted but it was very slow going again. Next was to try bread down the margin at 13 metres were I snared another F1, but again I could get any more. I did also try casting bread on the bomb into the corner were I had seen a couple of fish roll. The only signs from this were the odd line bite.
My last throw of the dice was to try meat at 5 sections. I had fed this with meat and hemp to try and hold some fish in the peg. I did get another 2 F1's on this, but no bigger carp that I hoped for materialised.
My day was done, I weighed 22lb 12oz and only beat one other in the section. Once again some good weights were caught on the lake, I just seem to be sitting in the wrong place on these matches.

Team wise despite being in a poor area Jon managed 5 points for our best score on the day. Neil managed 7 points and unfortunately Alan got 10 points. That gave us another high score of 31 points leaving us still rooted to the bottom of the league. With 2 matches left we are desperate not to finish bottom. On to the next round.
Tight lines.

Heronbrook Spring League Round 3 Sun 3rd April 2016.

Hi all.

The third round of the spring league today. For a change there was no match the day before so everyone was raring to go.

Team stayed the same from the previous round and our draw gave Jon on Canal peg 11, Neil Pritchard Bridge 13, myself peg 13 on Meadow and I did Alan no favours by drawing him the same peg as the previous round on peg 3 on the Match lake.

Both mine and Neil's peg were a bit of an unknown, Jons peg had fish moving the stick ups on the far bank when he got there, so that looked good. Hopefully Alan would have better luck with the bigger fish on peg 3.

I have not fished this area of Meadow before and from peg 2 round to 12 more or less every peg was in. Before the start it looked like pole alley or the 110 metres hurdles along the bank Peg 14 to my right was empty and I was told that in the last match the angler on my peg caught best towards the right in the deeper water. The peg itself did not have many features just the odd small clump of spiky grass on the far bank. Plumbing up did show that the peg was deeper as you moved along the bank to the right. With this in mind I set up 2 rigs for fishing across, one for the shallower water directly in front and another for fishing in front of a clump of grass to the right at 14.5 metres. The other rigs covered the maggot track line, a rig for the deep water just before the far shelf and a dobbing rig.

As I felt I needed to make some sort of positive move in an attempt to improve my weight and section position I had decided to bring some cubes of meat with me and feed smaller pieces mixed in with a bit of groundbait. I would fish this along the far bank in front of me as I felt that the deeper water line might be more productive. So I did not use meat here in case it ruining the peg. I also had with me maggots pellets and corn.

I began fishing the match with meat, hoping to catch an early carp, but after a couple of small fish knocks and no positive bites I started fishing pellet in the swim to the right. This was not very productive and needless to say the entire match was a struggle. I tried different lines and different areas of the peg but only ended up with 2 stamp F1's  and a small carp, together with some small roach caught on either maggot or bread. I only weighed 8lb 1oz and knew I was last in the section. Such a disappointing match and a few others around me struggled as well. The better pegs like 16, 21 and 24 all weighed over 100lb and I would have needed over 50lb to get half way in the section, so I was a million miles away. As a footnote several good carp were caught on meat fishing short (2+2) from pegs 4 and 5 behind me, so at least I could try that in future.

Team wise we got it half right with Jon and Neil scoring 4 and 5 points and Alan had a struggle again on Match lake scoring 9 points. That gave us a total of 28 points and still leaves Team POHAS near the bottom of the league.

There are 3 matches left now and I can only hope that in those matches we get the right pegs on the right day and we enjoy some good weights. That will be some consolation for the time and effort the team have put in over the last 6 months.

Club matches with POHAS start again in earnest with the Spring League kicking off at Lloyds Meadow in Delamere Forest. Due to the increase in members wishing to fish matches and the pegs available there is simply not enough to go around so I will have to miss this one. I may fish the open at Partridge on Saturday then onto Heronbrook the following day for the 4th round of the Spring League.

Hopefully there is more good fishing to be had, and I will have to remember to take a few pictures to brighten up my messages.

Tight lines.  

Heronbrook Spring League Round 2. Sun 21st Mar 2016.

Hi all.

The second round of the spring league arrived the day after the Dogs Bollocks match. Several of Team POHAS and some from Poplars AC celebrated our win a little bit too much in the Hoop and Mallet Pub the night before so I was a little late getting up to be picked up. Phone call to transport co-ordinator Jon Green revealed him in a worse state than me and just getting out of bed. We hastily got our gear together and made our way down the M6. We arrived a little after 8am so not too late to be fair.

My team draw gave us Jon Green on peg 2 Canal, Bridge 33 for Neil Pritchard, I got peg 24 on Meadow and Alan had peg 3 on Match Lake. My peg had produced over 100lb the week previous and all the other pegs were a bit hit or miss.

When I got to my peg the wind was blowing into the corner of pegs 26 and 27 were I had been on the previous match, so I was hoping that the wind had not moved all the fish into that area.
The angler who fished 24 the week before had caught most of his fish against the far bank either side of the shallow gap directly in front. For the pole I set up a 4x12 rig for pellet/corn for the far bank, a 4x14 pellet/corn rig for the deep water just before it shelves up at 11.5 metres, a 4x14 maggot rig for 6 sections in the middle and a bread dobbing rig for anywhere along the far bank. Due to the gap between pegs I also set up a short bomb rod again for fishing bread. Hopefully I would not need it.

I started the match on bread against the far bank 6 inches off bottom to the right of the gap. I did not get any carp or F1's only a few small roach. So I began fishing on pellet on the far bank to the left. I caught a couple of F1;s here but it was slow going compared to the previous week. That is how the rest of the match went. I caught F1's and carp including 2 good doubles fishing either on the far bank or at 11.5 metres. Following the recent pattern the maggot line was again rubbish. I ended the match with only 12 fish and lost 6. I weighed 53lb 5oz, so the fish were a good size and I could have possibly weighed over 70lb if I had not lost so many. That's how it goes, they don't all stick. That weight gave me 6 section points, so was a little disappointing. My 10 peg section was won with 87lb from peg 21. In general the fishing was not as good as the previous match and the weights were down a bit. Still not bad fishing for the end of March.

Team wise Jon got 6 points, Neil had 9 and Alan got 6. So there is a little consistency there and Alan was unlucky in his section loosing several big fish that would have pushed him right up there. Our points total of 27 is a slight improvement but we still sit near the bottom of the league.

The next round takes place after Easter, so a little break from team fishing for now.

Tight lines.

Dogs Bollocks Team Match Sat 20th Mar 2016.

Hi all.

This match has been running now for 3 years involving 4 local clubs fishing a team of 12 at Partridge Lakes. The match is run as a friendly get together with the bonus of the winning team having the bragging rights for the next 12 months. The match was split over Covey 6, Marsh and Spey Canals. My team draw gave me peg 137 on Covey 6, which was end peg in the 4 man section but also included 133, the peg I was second off the week before, so could be a tricky match.

I set up the usual rigs for Partridge as described before and started fishing on maggot in 3 ft of water slightly to the left. I lost a fish early on and after no more bites I moved onto dobbing bread against the far bank grasses. I caught 2 fish here but had to wait for bites. I tried fishing pellet on the far bank but again no bites. So I went back to fishing in 3 ft with maggot. At one point I managed a run of 5 fish one after another but in general the pattern was to try different areas of the peg and hope to get bites. Again as of recent matches the maggot line down the middle was slow.

I ended the match with 15 F1's and small carp with a few small chub for 22lb 4oz. This was second in my 4 peg section and third in the split section, so was pleased to get a bit of money back. The results from Covey 6 were a bit mixed for POHAS and it looked as though Marketgate had done well. Back at the cabin we awaited the results and no one was sure who had won. Eventually the results were read out in reverse order and POHAS are the Dogs Bollocks for 2016 with a score of 26 points 5 ahead of Marketgate on 31. To average just over 2 points per man is a great result. To cap it off Alan Lamb won the match outright with 77lb off Spey 3, catching most of his fish dobbing bread and in the margin. Full result can be found on the following link:

http://www.pohas.co.uk/news.html

Well done to everyone in the POHAS team, all the other anglers taking part and Paul at POHAS for organising the event. Due to the popularity next year will include another match in the same format but in July so hopefully the weights will be much better and plenty of bites for all.

Tight lines.

Heronbrook Spring League Round 1. 13 March 2016.

Hi all.

Update from the start of the spring league at Heronbrook.

Team POHAS really looking forward to this again. This year the league is bigger with 30 teams entered so should be a great competition. Also the league has started a little later this year and the matches will be 6 hours, so with the weather hopefully warming all the time there is the chance of some big weights in these matches.

Team for the first round was myself, Alan Lamb, Jon Green and Neil Pritchard and this year we kept to the same lakes as previous. Me on Meadow, Alan on Match, Jon on Canal and Neil on Bridge/Island. Once again I had to do the draw which again was a bit mixed. I got 26 on Meadow, Alan on 46, Jon on peg 4 and Neil was on peg 1 on Island.

My peg is on one of the noted points giving you a wide corner to fish into. These pegs can throw up some big weights in the right conditions, only snag is that in some cases you need to fish a pole up to 18-20 metres long. Not something I can do and nor will I buy the extensions needed, especially as they would hardly get used anyway. Apart from the widest parts of the peg I could reach the far bank and some clump of reeds and grasses with the full 16 metres of pole.

The fishing follows a similar theme to Partridge in that you can catch down the middle and by fishing across to the far bank. The big difference is that Heronbrook is also stocked with plenty of big carp as well as F1's so you need to step up your tackle compared to Partridge. For this match I set up a rig for 6 sections to fish with maggots, one rig for fishing across with pellet and corn and a dobbing rig set 6 inches off deck. Due to the peg width I also set up a 9ft 6ins bomb rod to fish either a small hybrid feeder or bomb with bread.

I started the match on the hybrid feeder with micro's and a Ringers wafter on the hook cast into the widest part of the peg. After a couple of knocks I got a small carp around 4lb, a nice start but the angler on peg 24 was already catching well. No more bites on the wafter so swapped to fish 2 10
mm discs of bread on the bomb. Caught 2 F1's on this and then went on to the pole again trying bread. I caught a couple of roach and a decent carp on this fishing to the far bank at a 90 degree angle from my peg to the left back towards peg 25. Again after these couple of fish, I could not get anymore on bread despite trying different parts of the peg.

After this I moved to fishing at 16 metres against the clump of rushes and grasses I could reach along the far bank with pellet and corn. I caught a few F1's and carp including another good fish which led me a merry dance as it swam back down the arm towards peg 24. In general the wind was not too bad but it was not the easiest fishing using 16 metres for a long periods of time. The fish I caught were good but there were long periods without any bites so I was never really getting ahead. The maggot line down the middle was poor with just a few roach. The angler on peg 24 had caught regularly all day and was on for a good weight, and the angler next to me on 27 had caught steadily but had smaller fish than me so it would be close between us.

At the end of the match I weighed 55lb 7oz which is a nice weight to get. The angler on 24 weighed just short of 140lb and peg 27 weighed 50lb, so managed to beat next peg. My weight gave me 7 section points which is a bit of a disappointing start. Team wise we scored a total of 30 points with Alan Lamb our best performer with 5 points off the Match Lake. Our score left us close to the bottom of the league so again not our best start. The fishery produced some great weights with 10 ton plus catches recorded that day, so if you are on the fish an enjoyable day should be had.
Hopefully as the league continues and the weather improves so will our catches and points.

Next matches will be the inter club Dogs Bollocks match at Partridge and the second round of the spring league the following day.

Tight Lines.

Dogs Bollock Practice Match Partridge Lakes 12 Mar 2016.

Hi all.

As part of the preparations to fish the inter club Dogs Bollocks match POHAS had organised a practice match on Covey 6 at Partridge Lakes. A total of 32 anglers turned up including 5 from Poplars AC. So the lake was pretty full but the weather had warmed up so hoping for a decent day.

I drew myself peg 133 which in general is a good peg and has done well in previous matches we have fished on Covey 6.

I set up the usual rigs for Partridge, 4x14 maggot rig for down the middle, 3ft 4x12 rig for across, a 4x12 pellet rig for fishing close to the far bank grasses and a bread dobbing rig.

The peg has plenty of room and an aerator to the right so plenty of options. I started on bread and caught 2 quick fish, a small carp and an F1. Following this I tried the pellet line and only caught a very small F1 and the maggot fishing in 3ft only gave me a couple of small roach. Not going according to plan.

Therefore I ended up back on bread, first fishing across again and then next to the aerator with the float set at 2.5ft deep. To be honest I caught F1's and small carp pretty frequently from here using a 7mm punch. Most bites came quickly after the rig had settled and some bites after lifting the rig slightly or re-laying the rig in. I tried down the middle on maggot in the last hour and managed to loose an F1. In the end I managed 26 fish for 43lb 12oz to finish second in the match and 2oz's from winning, so that was a costly lost fish on the maggot.

In general the fishing was not as good as I expected, quite a few struggled and many did not bother to win in.

Here's hoping I get another peg like that one next week.

Tight lines.

Heronbrook Open Sunday 6th March 2016

Hi all.

Once again Team POHAS had entered a team into the Heronbrook Spring league, so a cheeky practice trip was in order. Luckily several other team members made the trip as well so would be good to compare notes afterwards.

My draw put me on peg 24 on Bridge Pool which is a pool I have not fished before. From last years league this lake was a bit hit and miss. In the year since the previous spring there have been some changes at Heronbrook to the pegging of some lakes and especially to Island pool. My peg was in the middle of a straight at behind the end of Island Pool. I was told after the draw that this was a good area, so hopefully the locals were right.

The peg is roughly 14 metres wide with grasses and rushes along the far bank as well as a tree with branches extending into the water slightly to the right of the peg. With a gap of 2 pegs either side there were plenty of options and must admit it looked good for a few fish.

As Heronbrook is more of a mixed fishery with the chance of catching Carp, Barbel F1's and silvers the rigs have to take all this into account. Based on this I had already re-tied the rigs I use with heavier line and made up some more hooklengths. Due to the room allowed I also set up a short tip rod for trying popped up bread down towards the corner pegs to my left which were empty. Pole rigs would to cover fishing close to the tree and the far bank with pellet or corn, a bread dobbing rig and maggot rig for down the track. Plumbing up revealed a nice flat spot by the tree just under 4ft. Across to the far bank was a little shallower at 3ft, so 1 rig (4x12 Malman Benny)could cover that. Bread dobbing rig was set 6 inches shallower than the far bank swim using a 4x12 Garbolino DC12H. The maggot rig was a 4x14 Chianti for fishing at 6 sections which was just over 5ft deep.

I was a bit late starting the match so I hastily cast out 2 10mm discs of bread down the corner whilst seeing how the others around me were doing. On the second cast I got a bite and landed a Common Carp about 3lb. By this time the angler to my right had started catching a few by fishing across with pellet. After one more cast on the bread I switched to the pole with bread using a 7mm punch against the far bank grasses. First fish was a roach and then a nice Mirror Carp about 7lb (see picture)

Not a bad start. I only managed another F1 on bread so I moved to the swim close to the tree. I started with a 4mm pellet on the hook feeding a few micro's and 2 pieces of corn. Thinking that the corn might hold some bigger fish in the peg. After a few seconds I caught an F1 and after that bites were very frequent. I kept the feeding the same making sure the feed and rig were put in the same place and carried on catching F1's and small carp quite regularly. I did switch to corn pretty early on as I was hoping to catch a larger stamp of fish and hopefully a few more bigger carp. This sort of worked as the F1's started to get bigger, but the biggest carp I could manage was around 3-4lb. Then with about 2 hours of the match this line completely died, from getting bites pretty quickly I was left scratching my head. I tried the same tactic at 14 metres which brought a couple more fish, but again it took a while to get a bite. Into the last hour I tried the maggot line. Similar to Tunnel Barn the first few fish were roach and perch and after feeding a kinder pot of maggots each cast I caught 3 F1's on the bounce and thought here we go, but again this line seemed to die off, with only another F1 added. So the last 2 hours petered out a bit. Meanwhile I must admit the anglers either side of me never really stopped catching. I ended the match with 36 F1's and Carp with a few silvers for 68lb 14oz. The guy to my right weighed 105lb and the angler to the left caught 141lb. So a good match and a good battering as well!!! Have to say it was an enjoyable day despite ending up quite far behind those around me. Looking at the website I have won the section, which must be by triple default. Only hope they have kept the envelope for me??????

The others had mixed days. Lee Clarke finished with 54lb off peg 30 on Bridge. Jon Green managed a low double figure weight form peg 27 on Meadow, and unfortunately Neil Pritchard blanked on peg 2 on the Match Lake.

After the match we were impressed by the weights off Bridge Pool, Island was a bit of a struggle for most and Meadow and Match Lake were mixed. Hopefully the weather will get warmer as the league continues and the fishing should only get better. So here's hoping the team enjoy some good days with good catches for everyone.

Got another double header on the weekend coming with a light hearted practice match for the inter club Dogs Bollocks match on Covey 6 on Partridge Lakes. Followed by the first match on the Heronbrook Spring league on Sunday. Will be tired, but can't wait.

Tight lines.

Fish O Mania Qualifier Tunnel Barn Farm 05 March 2016.

Hi all.

I was lucky enough to get a ticket for the first Fish O Mania qualifier at Tunnel Barn Farm. Once again the weather had stayed cold and there was some snow in the couple of days leading up to the match. So with the addition of cold water and a North wind the fishing was expected to be difficult.

On a match like this I would be very surprised if I had any chance of winning, so I was hoping to draw a peg good enough to get a few fish and have a decent day. I did not want to travel that distance and catch very little. I suppose that's a little bit negative for such a big match but I have to be realistic. For someone like me to win would need to draw an absolute flyer with fish jumping in the keep net and the stars to all draw bad pegs. Not very likely to happen in a one off match like this.

Anyway back to the match. I arrived in plenty of time, so registered and had a look round. Being parked in a wet field I wanted to draw as early as possible in case there were any problems getting out of the field so got positioned in the tackle shop and waited. When my turn came I pulled out High Pool peg 25. Must admit I did not have a clue and got no good or bad reaction from the organizers so went away wondering what might happen. Thankfully I got out of the field with no problems and drove round the the peg. It was situated on a narrow bank with pegs either side. There was a rush Island roughly 13-14 metres on the far bank to target as well as rush lined margins. The pegs are a bit tight on this pool. Next empty peg was 6 pole sections away.

Luckily the wind was behind me so I should be able to present my rigs without too much trouble. Due to the weather I had decided to fish it in a similar way to Partridge. One thing that I do like at Tunnel is when you plumb up the depth in certain areas it stays pretty constant in that the once past the near shelf the depth is pretty much the same all the way until the far shelf. However I must say the the depth in the deep water was close to 7ft and nearly as long as my topkits. The near and far margins were again pretty much the same at just over 3ft. So I had a rig for top 4 close in for pellet, maggot rig for 6 sections in the middle slightly to the left, a 3ft rig for maggot/pellet for the near and far bank and a bread dobbing rig for along the far bank rushes. I had been told that this pool was one of the newer ones so the fish were smaller than on the older lakes. You would need to catch a lot of fish in order to compete with the other lakes. To be honest unless the fish were really having it I doubt the winner would could from this lake, there might be a chance once the weather is warmer.

The match started and I began on pellet at top 4. I caught an early F1 but otherwise very quiet. I moved across to 13 metres and caught a nice steady run of F1's on pellet or maggot. There were some small roach and perch mixed in so after a while I changed to bread. Again some more F1's followed but nothing to get carried away with. I went back on maggot and caught a few more before switching to the maggot rig down the middle. At first I only caught small roach, so I kept potting in some maggots and by fishing double red maggot I caught a few F1's and a surprise barbel.
At the end of the match I had 26 F1's 2 barbel and a few small roach and perch. I weighed 31lb 6oz. On the older lakes catching 26 F1's could net you between 50-80lb so up against a bit when catching a smaller stamp of fish. The angler to my right had 36lb and I only seen the guy to my left catch 1 fish. The lake sections were won with over 50lb. The match itself was won by Jamie Hughes with 141lb off Canal peg 1. Well done Jamie and good luck in the final.

I suppose my day could have been better and worse, at least I caught a few and was kept busy for most of the day. On the whole I know that opinions are mixed about Fish O Mania matches, but I actually enjoyed the day. Its good to fish in the big matches once in a while, as long as you catch a few I guess.

Tight lines.

River Mersey 28 Feb 2016

Hi all.

After a long lay off from the river I decided to fish  the Sunday match. This would be my last chance to fish the River before the close starts in mid March, so thought I had better have one last go.

Must admit that since Christmas the fishing on the River has been very difficult with poor weights recorded in matches. Not helped by a seal helping itself to some fish after it was stranded above the weir following floods.

It was good see the regulars again and the banter was still there and Jon Green tagged along as well.

I drew peg 73 and with the river coloured and running at what seemed normal pace it certainly looked good for a few fish. My plan was simple to only set up a feeder rod with groundbait and caster to try and catch anything for the first couple of hours and then for the last 2 hours try for a bream fishing bigger baits, like worm/maggot or double maggot.

Well dont need to write too much about this as I blanked. I missed 3 bites on single maggot in the first hour or so. Out of practice at hitting quick bites and nothing happened when I tried to catch a bream. The match was won off the end peg 74 (yes next to me) with just over 3lb of roach and a small skimmer. After weights of around a pound were recorded. Jon also blanked as well.

So for me the rivers will have to wait until June and the re-opening of the River season and warmer weather.

My next match will be the first of this years Fish o Mania qualifiers at Tunnel Barn Farm. At the moment the weather is still cold, so I am just hoping to draw a peg with a few fish in to get some bites and have an enjoyable day.

Tight lines.

Partridge Lakes Winter League Final Round 27 Feb 2016.

Hi all.

The final round of the winter league arrived with Team POHAS hoping not to finish bottom of the league.

The team of myself, Jonathan Green, Alan Lamb and Rob Healey were looking forward to the match and wanting a good draw to get good points. Well my usual draw of some good some bad was maintained. Giving Alan peg 21 on Covey 1. Myself on peg 38, Covey 2, Jon on 67 Covey 3 and Rob on peg 93 Covey 4. Alan's peg could be good or bad and Rob's area had shown fish earlier in the week. The rest a bit of an unknown quantity.

My peg was the first onto the straight after the corner, which was mainly sheltered from the cold wind blowing into pegs 37 and 36. Once again same rigs as in previous matches were set up.
I started on the 4 ft line close in with pellet, slow start with a missed tiny bite. So I moved onto the 3ft line at 11 metres slightly to the left in front of the stick ups. Fishing single maggot I managed 5 decent F1's on this, also a small common fishing to the right in the shadow of the tree. After around an hour and a half I started using the bread dobbing rig. Firstly fishing towards the corner of the far bank island, but there were no bites there. Also tried along the far bank to the left with no luck. I then moved to fishing close to the pallet on peg 39, caught 2 here and then bites disappeared. I then fished under the pallet on peg 37 which was the best line at this time catching around 10 fish from this peg. It seemed strange to catch there as I would have thought that the fish would be away from the cold wind which was blowing into this area. The fish must have liked the cover provided by the pallet. Into the last hour and I fished the maggot rig down the middle. This line was ok, with bites coming fairly regularly, the fish were a bit smaller and even included a small Tench.

At the end of the match I finished with 22 fish for 32lb 10oz. Jamie Hughes won the section with 54lb off peg 42. Second in the section was 35lb, and third was 33lb, so my weight gave me forth in the section and not very far away from second. So again a couple of more fish would have done it. Bet everyone has that problem.

Once again the team result was mixed. Alan also managed 4 points off what was a difficult Covey 1, Rob scored 8 points and Jon had a struggle scoring the maximum 10 points. This gave us a total of 26 for the day and we waited to find out the overall result.
Eventually the results were ready and Garbolino Elton finished joint top on the day and managed to hold off Guru and win the league. Congratulations to them. Our final score of 228 points was 4 points ahead of Particroft and only 4 behind Vals Tackle, so we finished 9th overall and importantly not bottom.
Everyone in the team was pleased with the result, especially by not finishing bottom. We feel that this year we have made great improvements in the league, scoring good points and picking up some money along the way.

I must say a big thank you to Jon, Alan, Phil, Neil and Rob for supporting the team and giving their time throughout the league. Also thanks to POHAS for their support and new team clothing for this years competitions.

We now move onto the Heronbrook Spring League starting in mid March, we are all looking forward to that one.

Tight lines.

Partridge Lakes Open 21 Feb 2016

Hi all.

Fished the open at Partridge today. Drew peg 25 on Covey 2. Team mate Alan Lamb had it last week in the winter league and did not really catch until the end finishing with 41lb. Weather was warmer than of late but the wind was quite strong at times and blowing straight across the peg from right to left which would make long pole fishing a bit difficult.

The peg is at the far end of Covey 2 from the roadside at the corner of the island and a long corner margin to fish up to the unused peg 26. Club member Mark Bibby was pegged on 23 next to the bridge, so  a quid side bet was agreed before the start. Set up same rigs as last week, 3ft rig at 10 metres, track rig, a 4 ft rig and a bread set up. I started on the 4ft rig at 13 metres to the left of the corner of the island with pellet. No bites here, so tried the same rig at 4 sections to the left close to the near bank, missed a tiny bite, but nothing else happened. By this time Mark had already caught a few. So I went out to 10 metres with single maggot feeding 3-4 every couple of minutes. Managed 5 F1's from here and lost a good fish, before it slowed down. The wind would also blow the rig about a bit so presentation was not great.

After about 1.5 hours I picked up the bread rig and started at 6 sections just off a small clump of reeds, caught one F1 here, but after that there were no more bites. Added another section, and apart from a couple of knocks did not get any proper bites. Put another section on and again no bites. Moved to 13 metres and swung the rig towards the empty platform on peg 26 and after a couple of minutes I caught a nice Carp around 6lb. Similar to last week I fished this area for most of the remainder of the match catching F1 's and 3 more carp. It was easier to fish this area as the wind was blowing into that corner and I had about 2-3ft of line above the float, so the rig was not moving around as much when it was gusty. I tried the track line in the last half hour and caught 2 more F1's but it was not quick fishing so I went back to the bread and caught another carp about 4-5lb in the last 5 minutes.

Ended up with 21 fish 7 of maggot rest on bread for 43lb 2oz. The warm wind had definitely pushed the fish into the corner, so it was a case of dropping the rig in the right place. Once I found the fish bites would happen within a couple of minutes. Mark had been catching steadily for the whole match rotating lines by the bridge on along the far bank. He ended up with 46 fish for just over 50lb. I had seen him catch a few smaller fish so was hoping that I might have caught him up with my bigger stamp. In the end it was not quite enough, so my pound went his way and hopefully I will get it back sooner rather than later. Mark won the 5 peg section and was unlucky to not get on the top 6 list, missing out by 2lb.

 I have really enjoyed the last couple of matches fishing bread. Catching carp along with F1's for a change has been a lot better than previous visits and obviously catching a few fish and getting a decent weight helps as well.

Next week is the last round of the Partridge winter league so hopefully I can carry on catching a few fish and the team gets another good result.

Tight lines.

Partridge Lakes Winter League Round 7. 13 February 2016.

Hello all.

Following my previous results in the league I decided to drop myself from the team for 2 rounds in order to give another angler a go. I fished a couple of opens in between but again struggled on pegs 28 and 61 respectively, so it was fair to give someone else a chance. In round 5 on a cold day we managed to lift ourselves off bottom of the league, so everyone was very pleased. However in the 6th round we ended up back on bottom, but Jon Green finished 2nd in the match with 64lb off peg 75.

Must admit I felt a bit more enthusiastic after a little break so was looking forward to the next match.
Our team for the day was myself, Jon Green, Rob Healey and Alan Lamb. Once again I had to take responsibility for the draw which gave me peg 18 on Covey 1, Alan 25 on Covey 2, Jon peg 59 Covey 3 and Rob had to tackle peg 87 on Covey 4. Fellow team mate Phil Clare had fished the Thursday match preceding this one, ironically getting peg 18 and had told us that the pegs on the Coveys at the ends of the nearest Spey canal had produced the best. So we potentially had 2 good pegs with 18 and 25 and the other 2, although have been good in the past we were not quite sure how well they might fish on the day.

On the way to my peg I walked up with Alan and he gave me the low down, as he had finished second off it in an open catching around 50lb by dobbing bread in different parts of the peg. He also explained the depths and in which areas he caught his fish, this was really important on how my day panned out.

The peg has reeds along the left hand bank towards unused peg 19 and also reeds on the far bank running again to the left and around the bend towards the bridge. The far bank reeds extend out further so the water is a little deeper here than what you would normally expect. I set up a 4x12 rig for 3ft (Malman Benny), a 4x14 rig for the deep water down the track (Chianti), another 4x14 for 4ft (Malman Winter Wire) and a 4x12 for dobbing bread (Chianti). On plumbing up against the reeds directly opposite I found 3ft right next to them, moving to the left, the peg is deeper against the reeds, but the reeds do extend further away from the bank here. Moving to the nearside bank and plumbing along the reed line from 13 metres back towards my platform it was more or less 3ft all the way.

I started the match on 7mm bread 6 inches off bottom straight in front of me, no bites. Spent a few minutes next to the pallet on peg 17, again no bites. Fished across slightly to left in the deeper water, one missed bite. Tried bread on the 3ft line against the reeds and no bites. Swapped to a 2mm expander and tapped in a few micro's and after a while I got my first fish, an 8oz F1. No more bites on pellet, so tried maggot and 1 gudgeon later this was not looking good. By now roughly 1.5 hours had passed. The angler on peg 1 was catching steadily and all the anglers I could see had either caught carp or several F1's. I decided that I would carry on dobbing bread for the middle part of the match and hope that the track line would be good in the last hour. I could not see any other way of catching at that time. I started at 10 metres to my left with bread again 6 inches off bottom. After a while of lifting and dropping and laying in different spots, I did not get any bites. On went another section to 11 metres and I dropped the rig next to reeds, after a couple of minutes I got a bite from a nice common about 6lb. For the rest of the match I caught most of my fish in this area on bread. Once I tried a squeezed piece of corn, again no bites, put bread on in the same place and got a bite straight away. After one of the fish I caught I noticed that the hooklength knot had become damaged, so I stepped up to a 16 to hopefully stop me missing bites, however I only got bites when I switched back to an 18.

At the end I totaled 17 good sized fish including 4 carp from 5-7lb and several smaller ones with the rest being F1's and an Ide about a pound and half. I only caught 1 fish down the track. So pretty much all my catch was caught on bread in the same area at 11 metres down the left hand bank. Obviously if this had not worked I would have caught a hell of a lot less. Alan's advice before the start of the match was a godsend, hopefully I can return the favour one day.
I weighed 44lb 12oz, which was more than I thought, so maybe those carp were a bit bigger than I estimated. This gave me 2nd on the lake and won the 5 peg section money. Colin Scott on peg 1 won the lake and the match with 69lb. Well done Colin.

Back to the cabin for the team result. Alan had done really well to finish 3rd in the section with 41lb and was unlucky as the section was won with 46lb. Sadly Jon and Rob fared a little worse scoring 7 and 9 points respectively. As we feared the pegs closest to the road fished worse than those at the other end. This gave us 21 points which was joint 3rd on the day, but could not lift us above 9th place as they scored the same points as us. This is the best result the team has had so far so I am very pleased with the result and everyone who has contributed. I hope we continue on our upward trend.

So going into the last round we are still a point behind 9th place and 9 points off 8th, still all to play for.

Tight lines.

Team result at bottom of board.

Partridge Lakes Winter League Round 4. 02 Jan 2016

Hello everyone.

Happy New Year to you all.

No fishing for me during the Christmas break enjoyed the time off work, the weather has not been great but we are still waiting for our first spell of cold weather of the winter.

Yesterday the POHAS team of 4 fished the 4th round of the winter league at Partridge Lakes. Team for the day was myself, Jon Green, Alan Lamb and Rob Healey. I carried out the draw which gave us Jon on peg 6 Covey 1, Rob on peg 31 Covey 2, myself on peg 61 Covey 3 and Alan got peg 89 on Covey 4.
Again on paper the draw looked ok, could have been better or worse. Oh, and of course it rained.

I have fished 61 before in an open and managed to win my section, so I thought I would catch a few and hopefully score some better points.

As previous I set up the usual rigs for these matches and also plumbed an area near a dead reed bed on my right hand margin in case some fish settled there later on. Following my open match on this peg it was noticeable that the fish were in area between myself and the end of the spit to my right so this time a set up my deep maggot rig to fish at 8 metres to the right.

I started on the dobbing rig with bread but no bites. Also the angler on peg 59 was catching F1's every put in since the start, so I ditched the bread and started on pellet at 3ft. After what seemed like an age I managed 2 F1's in successive goes and after that it was a real struggle. My only saving grace was that I managed a run of fish on the 3ft swim next to the dead reed bed where I had been feeding some maggots. I did not get a bite in the deep water. I toiled on and totaled 11 fish for 19lb 5oz. Peg 59 weighed in over 73lb to win the match, it was a good weight but painful to watch at times. So once again Partridge reminded me how hard it can be at times, the fish go to the areas they want to be in, not were you think they should be. Even Steve Conroy struggled on peg 75 which is usually a great peg, weighing 22lb.

Back to the cabin for the results and lightening struck twice with Rob getting our best score with 5 points. The rest of us all got 8 points each, giving us a total of 29 points on the day. Although a high score we are making some small progress, as this is our first sub 30 point score of the league. Hopefully we keep on improving. Well done to Rob for  good points off what we thought would be a bad area.

We now have a total of 128 points and are still last in the league, but again only a point behind the next team. Hopefully we can overtake them soon.

Tight lines.