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.

3rd Round Partridge Lakes Winter League 12 Dec 2015

Hi all.

The 3rd round of the winter league was greeted with the same weather as in previous rounds. Persistent rain for the duration of the match and a strengthening wind to boot.

Team for the day was myself, Alan Lamb, Phil Clare and Rob Healey stepping in for Jon Green.

Once again it was down to me to do the team draw which gave us Alan on peg 18 Covey 1, myself on peg 48 Covey 2, Phil Clare peg 73, Covey 3 and Rob on peg 85 on Covey 4. Again we felt we could have done a lot worse, 2 pegs on spits and 85 being in usually good area. The only drawback was 18 which we were not sure how that would go as better weights have come from other pegs in that section.

For my match the peg was towards the end of the spit on Covey 2 and with 49 not being pegged I had plenty of room. I set the usual suspects rig wise, bread, 2ft maggot/pellet, 3ft maggot/pellet and a maggot rig for down the track.

I started on bread and only caught 2 small Rudd so moved onto the 3ft line feeding a few mirco's with either a 2mm or 4mm expander on the hook. It was very slow going and after nearly 2 hours I only had 2 small F1's to add to the Rudd. I could also see anglers catching so I was falling behind very quickly. I could only get bites on the 3ft line and had to keep moving swims towards the left hand side of the peg to get bites. If I tried the right hand side I got no bites. For a change I also managed to catch some fish on pellet. Once the bites went iffy changing to maggot over a few micros brought some bite back again.
It was also clear that the fish had moved to the left, as the angler on peg 46 was catching quite regular and he did say after the match that the fish had moved away from him as well. I kept plugging away catching a couple of fish from each and then moving to another area. The deep maggot line only gave up 2 fish and with out consistent bites I ended up back on the 3ft line until the end of the match. I finished with 13 F1's and the 2 Rudd for a level 20lb. The angler on 46 weighed 26lb, must admit I thought he caught more than that. So bit disappointed not to have got closer.

Unfortunately for me there were not a lot of fish in my area, as they had shoaled up nearer to the bridge and pegs 24-25. Usually the pegs on the spits hold the fish in the colder weather as they provide some shelter out of any direct wind, but not so much on this occasion.

So that was that and back to the clubhouse to see how everyone had got on.

I only managed to beat 2 others in my section so scored 8 points. Alan weighed over 15lb and got the same points as me. Phil was unlucky to only get 13lb and score 10 points. Rob Healey was our star of the show weighing in over 30lb and scoring 5 section points. This gave us a 31 point total, which still leaves us last in the league and 2 points behind the next team. For some sort of consolation there were a few teams that scored high points, proving it was a tough match for everyone.

So at least for 2015 that's pretty much it, the next match in the league will be on the 2nd Jan and to be honest I am not sure yet what fishing to do over the Christmas break. I might squeeze in a mid week match at Partridge between Christmas and New Year but will see how the weather goes.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read my ramblings and I wish you all a very Happy Christmas and tight lines for the New Year.

Best Regards, Neil.