Lewy's Lines

Day 2 of the MFS Silvers Festival at Stafford Moor.   It was a slow start this morning with the after effects of a tequila bottle, Jack Daniels Honey and copious amounts of beer.   I drew peg 16 on Pines.   The peg is the furthest away from the car park and the walk was a bit of a pain, but at least it warmed me up. The Set-up Pines, Peg 16 is in a bay which is about 20 metres wide so another day on the pole.  The advice was to fish long and after plumbing up, the peg was a uniform two and a half foot deep, not looking promising with the cold weather.  So I set up three lines as follows: 13 metre line at 10 o’clock 13 metre line at 2 o’clock Inside line on top 3 Bait today was dead red maggots, red maggots, casters and sloppy groundbait. The All-In I was about to cup in a ball of groundbait and Steve May stopped me.  “If that’s bigger than  half a golf ball don’t put it in”, he warned, so I heeded his advice and put a kinder pot on the pole and dropped a nugget of slopp

Day 1 of the eagerly anticipated Match Fishing Scene Silvers Festival at Stafford Moor.   After a 5 hour drive from the North East, I arrived at Stafford Moor in time for a cracking Sunday lunch cooked by Colin (BNF).   This year I was in the “Lodge of Plenty” with Paul (Animal) and Dave (Shedful).   The normal banter soon started and the beers were flowing.   That day the lads had fished a Champion Leagues match and a couple of anglers had ended up going for a swim as pole sections had gone in the water.   John (RedArmy) and Pete (Merce) both looked frozen! Dave Brittain, neighbour for the day In the year since visiting Stafford Moor, Andy Seery had done a lot of work pruning back trees and the fishery looked really good. It was a great night catching up with the Matchfishing Scene lads and meeting some new ones. The next morning, Colin (BNF) cooked up a cracking full english breakfast and we had plenty of time to get to the draw at 9am.  The normal shambolic queue for

As the 2012 Mark vs Mark Championship had been decided we both fancied a session to kick off the 2013 Championship at a venue we had not fished for some time, Decoy Lakes , one which we kept promising ourselves to re-visit but never got around to fishing there.  Our last session was with Bob Nudd MBE back in 2011 . Overnight had seen a snap frost which may affect the fishing.  Decoy Lakes opens at 9am, so at least I wasn't up at 5am or 6am as per the previous days...  Decoy is a busy place, even on a Sunday with quite a few matches takiing place.  Arriving at the fishing we spoke to the owner and we selected to re-fish the Elm strip lake.  As we drove down to Elm, there were to other guys fishing it, so we decided to re-fish the same pegs that we fished with Bob Nudd, so I had Peg 6 and Mark, Peg 7. The Set-up Elm's depth is pretty uniform at around 5 foot 6 inches and it does have a healthy stock of F1's, Carp, Barbel and skimmers.  So I set-up the pole and small

Having an upcoming match in April with the Match Fishing Scene lads at Lawn Farm Fisheries in Cambourne, Cambridge, Mark and decided that this would be venue number two in our 2012 decider competition.  We would be fishing Honeysuckle lake which is the large snake lake at Lawn Farm and neither of us had fished it before. The pressure would be on Mark to peg back my 1-nil lead after the previous day at Hallcroft Fisheries.  We were both confident of a good day as Lawn Farm hasn't failed to produce great sport. Checking the Lawn Farm Fisheries website, the previous match in February, peg 25 produced 66lb of fish to a simple bomb and red maggot approach, so this would definitely be part of our tactics today. Mark chose peg 25 and I opted for peg 24 which would give me some open water to my left. The Set-Up After reading the previous match results, the bomb rod came out and I fixed the lightest bomb I had as the lake was only about 15m wide.  The rest of the attack would be

Peg 12, ice clearing time... The first outing of 2013 after a 3 month winter break.  I'm sure I'm becoming a bit of a "butterfly" angler and only coming out in the good weather... that or I'm just getting older and feel the cold more?? Since Mark and I only had 6 outings in 2012 it's not really fair to call the years winner despite being 2 up on him overall ;-)  So we decided that a 3 day fish off would determine the Mark vs Mark 2012 Champion .  As I would be driving down from the north to Cambridge for the weekend we picked a fishery that was midway between us and find ourselves at Diawa's Hallcroft Fishery , a fishery that neither of us had any prior knowledge of. Peg 11, Bacon Buttie enjoyment! We decide to fish Canal lake and teh tackle shop mentioned that pegs 11 & 12 where fishing well.  Mark chose peg 11, missing peg 12 as it was full of ice, so I sat on the peg 12 and proceeded to clear the ice.  It was only thin so didn't take

Just thought I'd pen a quick note as I've not been fishing since the very cold day at Hemlington Lake where only 3 of the field caught fish and not blogged since then. Christmas is done with for another year and the New Year Celebrations were curtailed by a coming down with a bit of man flu, but I had a great New Years Eve. I've updated my Match Calendar page for 2013 , holidays booked from work and I'm looking forward to getting out for a pleasure session to give the gear a shakedown before I hit the mighty Match Fishing Scene Stafford Moor festival at the end of February! Thanks to all the readers of this blog to date, I'm still amazed by the number of readers. All the best, Mark aka Lewy ;-)

The 7th match at Hemlington lake with Anglers Cabin .  Having had a nostalgic journey back to this childhood venue and being free on Sunday I decided to venture back to Hemlington Lake with the Anglers Cabin crew. The weather over the weekend was starting to get colder and a frosty scene greeted me when I woke up.  It will be all about the silver fish today I thought to myself!  The car also had a layer of frost which I decided to defrost from the comfort of the driver seat with all the warming devices switch to maximum heat. Nine lads turned up to brave the cold weather.  I drew out peg 3, so a very short walk for me this time.  My neighbours for the day were Adam on Peg 2 and James on Peg 4. Peg 3 had an island chuck for the feeder and I decided to fish 14.5 metres out due to the gin clear water. The Set-Up 10 foot bomb rod with micro cage feeder 14.5 metre pole line at the 10 o'clock position 14.5 metre pole line at the 2 o'clock position The depth at 14.5