Lewy's Lines

The final day of the Silvers festival and an open draw, so I could be on any of the three lakes that we had fished in the previous three days.  I drew Tanners, Peg 9 so on the lawns again just a few pegs up from where I started on Monday.  My neighbours for the day would be Mark Mcdorch and none other than my adopted dad, Herbie, our festival organiser. We were great by an iced over lake and ice breaking was the order of the day.  Ice breakers were going in all over the lake and I borrowed one from Pete (PerfectPete) and spend 15 minutes cleaning the swim. The Set-up After breaking the ice to about 13 metres, I set up the following lines: 13 metres at 45 degree’s to my platform 13 metres straight ahead 8 metres at 2 o’clock Depth wasn’t ideal at around 4 feet the 13 metre lines, 3.5 feet on the 8 metre line.  Bait was dead and alive red maggot, casters and chopped worm. The All-In I decided to fish one 13 metre line positively and the other as I’d being doi

Day 3 of the MFS Silvers Festival at Stafford Moor.   The odds of Dave (Shedful) drawing against Colin (BNF) again today had been calculated at a 1 in a 3000 chance.   Dave decided to draw last to see if that would change his luck.   I drew peg 34 on Woodpecker which is right at the back of the lake and another long walk to my peg.   Dave’s luck held steady and two other “victims” had picked the pegs either side of Colin, he was one happy man! Arriving at Peg 34 on Woodpecker I was in a bay area, the wind blowing across me with a slight ripple on the water.  It looked promising, but the previous weights from this peg were low.  Plumbing up I found a pretty uniform 3 foot of depth in the peg. The Set-up I decided to set-up a feeder rod in case the pole didn’t produce and I could explore the bay area.  I opted for two main lines at the normal 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock postions.  Plumbing up to find two area’s of the same depth so I could utilise a single rig, set up another rig as

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