Lewy's Lines

Peg 36 A blind pairs MFS match at Bury Hill Fisheries organised by Terry Swan was too good to resist.  My partner for the day would be Pat Pritchard who I'd had a cheeky practise session with the previous week, the blog of that day can be found here .  I was feeling good for the day ahead. An early start from London to meet Hathers and Spindle for breakfast in Dorking and then onto the fishery to catch up with all the lads, quite a few who I'd not met before, especially Skimmerman (Kev), who has just qualified to fish in Serbia for the England Disabled Squad. Kev needs a bit of support to get him there and a JustGiving page has been set up so if you can donate, please do by following this link . A text message from Pat letting me know that he'd broken down on the M25 was disastrous.  The diagnosis for the car was bent valves which sounds a bit terminal.  So a random partner from the other bank was picked for me, this turned out to be Spindle! The Draw We'd

A upcoming match at Bury Hill Fisheries I decided that a bit of practise was required.  After all, my last session here was over a year ago and I didn't do very well at all. The match will be a pairs event and Pat Pritchard is my partner for the day.  A quick call to Pat and he was available to come on down for the day too.  Pat's a bit of a good angler having just wining the MFS Champion's league final so any advice from Pat would definitely help come match day. The Peg Pat arrived a bit earlier than and headed down to Peg 40 so when I got there I picked Peg 41 with plenty of open water in front of us both. The lines I intended on fishing would be the feeder line, long and middle distance and a couple of pole lines at 14.5 metres, 10 O'clock and 2 O'clock both fed slightly differently. Bait for the day.  Expander and hard pellets (4mm and 6mm), dead red maggots and sweetcorn including a mix of fishmeal and special G Green groundbait. The Session The i

A night at the Longshoot was reasonably quiet and I slipped away early in an attempt to dodge the hangover that normally follows.  It didn't go un-noticed as Andy T busted me.  Sorry matey ;-) The final day and it would be Munkee vs Shandee.  I did not want to be on Pool 4! The Draw I was second to draw from the Munkee bucket/ cardboard box.  I drew Pool 4, Peg 75 again!!!! I was not a happy camper to say the least!  Plenty of sympathy from the lads and plenty of micky taking too... My neighbour was Callum's secret friend Tom... the less said about that the better!  Only kidding lads. Set-up Well I didn't need to worry about my rigs and also the reel was still clipped up and I knew exactly where I had fed the previous but I needed to do something different today in an attempt to get a better weight. So I added the following lines: Bomb and Pellet Long Pole towards the aerator All-In Today the weather had turned and it was raining but the positive was th

Day 2 and I'd had a quiet night with the Mercers, Daddy May, Ben and Chris Martin which of course I received abuse for at the draw for "not being social" and missing the Longshoot drinks!  Typical, but at least I didn't have a bad head! ;-) Today was the pairs event, it would be myself and Scone vs Hathers and Pikey! The Draw Pool 4, where nobody wanted to be and I had the end peg 75 where Russ Shipton was on the previous day. I had Pikey as a neighbour for the day. Set-up Feeder line to the far bank, pole line at 5 metres and down the right hand margin. All-In The wind was blowing away from this peg and I was faced with flat water, with the all-in I went straight on the feeder line, feeling pretty confident after the previous day. Second put in on the feeder and I had a fish in the net, maybe today wasn't going to be too bad after all?  Well, after the first hour I had two fish in the net... oh dear. Pikey wasn't fairing so well either with

The motley crew gather! Munkees vs Shandies 2016 and it was an early start from London to get to the 9:15am draw.  2015 saw the Shandies victorious so the Munkees pride was at stake to regain the crown! It was great to see everyone, including the usual abuse from everyone! Today would be the team event, 4 vs 4.  The team I was in consisted of Scone, Andy T and Andy Kinder. The Draw The board that was chosen consisted of pegs on Pool 5.  My placement was Peg 84 which was a long feeder chuck and also next to Pikey. We would be fishing 11am while 5pm, so plenty of set-up time with the draw being at 9:15am. Set-up I set-up the 11 foot extreme feeder rod with a 30gram gripper mesh feeder.  I also set-up a 5m and margin pole line. Bait for the 3 days consisted of worms, casters, 6mm, 8mm and micro pellets, sweetcorn and dead reds. All-In Immediately out on the feeder for a number of reasons.  To get used to the bigger cast and to try to dominate the line as I knew Pike

A pleasure session today at Gold Valley with Nathan before he went back to college.  Today my aim was to fish for the skimmers and large slabs while I Nathan was going for the carp. The Pegs Gold Lake on the canal side was our chosen area.  Permanent pegs 6 and 7. Nathan had a chuck to the island point and also in front of the island.  My peg next door had some open water to aim for. It's great to see the plant life around Gold Valley coming back after it's major hair cut some years back. Set-Up Nathan set up a 10 foot bomb rod with a hybrid method feeder on it and later he would use the pellet waggler rod. I set up the pole at 12 metres, using Nick Gilbert white amber core to a 0.6g Drennan AS2 float on 0.18 line to a size 16 pellet hook to 0.13. Baits were Gold Valley 6mm and micro pellets together with some sweetcorn.  I also decided to try some bream specific groundbait (i.e. non fishmeal). Comfortable and smiling! The Session Before I'd even set-

Day 3 for Mark and I and we had chosen to visit Kingsland Reservoir.  Large carp would be the quarry and after the previous day of lazy carping today would be a bit different. Kingsland provides their own nets so we would have an opportunity to weigh our catch to determine the winner. We picked swims on the first bank of the large lake near where we had fished back in 2014. Set-Up The fish were milling around so line would be quite simple. 6 metre line shallow Top Two margin line Bait list, casters, maggots, worms and pellets, plenty of pellets. All-In The fish were cruising around, so it made perfect sense to start shallow with a banded 6mm pellet.  Mark's tactics were the same.  The first fish came after 15 minutes of pinging pellets and slapping the float.  After an few hours I had a few fish in the net but the shallow approach wasn't consistent. The weather was very warm and the fish were cruising however they weren't taking bait from the top which