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The Oaks, Sessay, Poplars, 11th September 2011

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After my day at Drayton, I headed North for the rest of the weekend and decided to fish The Oaks at Sessay, Thirsk.  I have an upcoming match with the Anglercabin guys in October that is on the Poplars lake, so this was my chance to familiarse myself with the venue. The Wilton Angling Club were also fishing the lake, they had pegs 20 through to 54, so the pleasure anglers could select pegs 1-19.  After having a bacon buttie from the friendly and well stocked on-site cafe and buying some 4mm and 6mm fishery pellets I headed down to the lake and found peg 6 looked inviting.  Results from the Wilton Angling Club match on Poplars can be found  here . A couple of anglers had already taken up residence on pegs 1-5 and a few more a bit further up.  I had peg 7 free and thought I could use that to my advantage later in the day. Set Up Plumbing up I found two and a half feet in the channel, just under two foot in the margin and that the far shelf extended quite far out from the bank

Drayton Reservoir, 10th September 2011

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The best of the day - 14lb Mirror The story of 4 fish and two new personal bests!! After a month of not fishing due to other social activities such as tackling and conquering Helvellyn in the Lake District I was itching to get out on the bank again. Mark and I had discussed fishing Drayton Reservior for sometime.  The lure of large carp, averaging 12-18lb was just too tempting...  unfortunately Mark couldn't make the day so I set off on my own. After a call to the baliff, he confirmed that the middle of the dam wall would be the best area to target, between pegs 35 to 55.  Tactics for the day would be Bagging Waggler, Pellet Waggler and Method feeder. Drayton opens at 6:30am, I managed to get there from London at 6:45am... the place was packed!  I managed to secure Peg 53, so within the area that the baliff had recommended.  Drayton has platforms for each swim, with the exception of the beach swims.  The platforms are very well made and quite large with a metal rein

MFS - England Ladies Fundraiser, The Glebe, 2nd August 2011

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My second MFS match at the Glebe in Leicester and a fund rasier for the England Ladies team.  What a great day out! I arrived around 8:30am and quickly met up with the MFS massive, BNF, Animal, Scone, Woody, Slider and Snooty Fox.  BNF was looking forward to giving out another "Battered by BNF" t-shirt, but today would be different... Colin (BNF) walked me round Lake 1 at the Glebe and helped with a match plan as I'd never fished the venue before.  The Glebe layout for the match lakes is fishing one bank only, so it would be feeder to the far boards for the first hour and then after priming the pole lines keep checking them for fish. So, 9:30am quickly arrives and we all form the normal "orderly" queue for the draw.  BNF pulls out an end peg on Lake 6, so he is over the moon, Slider then pulled out the peg next to him... Would Slider be the next proud owner of the BNF t-shirt? I drew Lake 1, Peg 2, just missing out on the end peg.  The bonus was that

Maver Match This, Makins, 30th July 2011

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During a moment of madness a few weeks ago I realised that my diary was free to allow me to fish the Maver Match This qualifier at Makins Fishery in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. I arrived at Makins 40 minutes before the 9am draw and was greeted was a small number of anglers including the likes of Tom Pickering, Steve Ringer, Jon Arthurs, Derek Willan and other faces I recognised from the fishing magazines. The anglers I was chatting too figured that Reptile would produce the winner and the place not to be drawn on was Paddock . The Draw So the time for the draw, I got into the not so orderly line and reached into the bag.  I pulled out Paddock, peg 19... not the favoured lake, oh well I thought, it's my adventure into match fishing so I'll just enjoy the day. Set-Up Arriving at Phase 2, the anglers on Paddock where faced with a small trek to the lake.  This was the view from my peg, right in the middle of the section, but with a spare peg to either side, plenty of room.

Renny Lakes, East Harsley, 22nd July 2011

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One of Jacob's first fish My other nephew, Jacob expressed an interest in fishing after some friendly "uncle" persuasion.  So no better venue than Renny Lakes. I decided to fish the same swim as I'd fished with Owen in his first fishing adventure as blogged about last month. I arrived at Renny Lakes around 6:45am and secured the peg.  Only one other angler had arrived, but he was fishing the front lake. I selected the margin swim to the left as the main attack.  I knew that I could go further up the left margin if this swim wasn't producing. For Jacob, it would be top 2 of the pole directly in front of him. I would also go into the right hand margin later in the day just to see what was there.  I wasn't going to disappointed with that swim later in the day. The Session I am smiling, honest ;-) Potting the swim with 4mm & 6mm pellets, Casters and Maggots using the large pole pot and also pinging out 6mm pellets soon brought the first f

Wold Farm Fisheries, Northants, 17th July 2011

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Well after my day with Bob Nudd, Mark and I decided to try out our new tips at Wold Farm Fisheries , near Santa Pod in Northants.  To fish Wold Farm, you need to have an appointment, so call Dax on 0797 4000 230 to make one before you just turn up. Finding the place proved a challenge beyond getting to Santa Pod, google maps doesn't really help.  So to help with directions, as you drive down Airfield Road you will basically come to the end of the road and have a choice of turning right down a road that has a lot of junk cars scattered around or to open a gate onto a private gate.  Follow the road with the junk cars on.  This will take you down behind the private road and around the back of Airfield Farm.  The entrance to Wold Farm is a small gate that is in amongst a fir lined set of trees that says, "no public right of way".  I've indicated on the google imagery the road that is not shown and also the entrance. We met Ron, Dax's dad, as we had decided

Bob Nudd Masterclass - Decoy Lakes, Whittlesey, 16th July 2011

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40th birthday present from my Mum and Step Dad, Mike, a day with Bob Nudd MBE and 4 times World Champion. What a day!  We had everything, pouring rain to sunshine, ambulances, the AA turning up and non-stop fishing action! The Venue Mark and I met Bob at Decoy Fisheries, Whittlesy near Peterborough at 9am.  The fishery was very busy, but the owners at Decoy had allocated one of their strip lakes, Elm, for myself and Mark to fish with Bob.  So, firstly a big thanks to the owners at Decoy for the cracking venue it is. Arriving at Elm, Bob walked us down the side of Elm explaining that he had never fished this lake before, that the fish will follow the wind in this weather and that a bit of surface ripple was needed.  As the wind was blowing a gail at the end pegs on Elm, we settled on Pegs 4 & 5.  As I was leading the "Mark vs Mark" battle, the person behind has choice of peg, so Mark took Peg 5 and I set up on Peg 4. Setup Bob advised that we wanted t