A drop in temperature over the past week made this match a little less inviting, but given the opportunity to put a few more faces to names would make it a worthwhile affair. Plus I’d already paid for my peg. After a superb brekkie in the Fuller Monty in Kiveton, we made our way to the venue for the draw. Good job my co-pilot knew where it was or I’d have probably still been driving round now.

Pegs 1 & 10 were the fliers according to the regulars and pulling peg 2 from the bag could mean that I’d spend most of the match watching someone else bag. Unless of course no one drew it, but alas Matt aka Final Whistle was already there!

Initial attack was going to be maggot feeder clipped tight to the far bank and two pole lines, one at 10 metres, the other at 13. As there was only 5 or 6 inches between the close and long pole lines one rig would suffice.

Hookbait was to be a mixture of 4mm & 6mm expanders, corn and maggot.
At the all in close line was fed with half a pot of hemp, corn and a few pellets and the long line just pellet. If the fish showed a preference, I could alter my feed on the other swim.
As a fair few previous matches had been won on maggot feeder, this was the first line of attack while the pole lines settled. Matt on peg 1 set off like a train while Corndawg’s brother, markm and myself all sat biteless. Things got worse as Marks tip went round, although he was cursing two minutes later when it shed the hook. I got my first indication after about 20 minutes in the form of a line bite. I dropped short the next couple of casts to see if I could find where the liners were coming from but got nothing.
After to close on an hour it was time for a change and out came the pole at 10 metres with pellet on the hook. My first bite came after about 10 minutes, resulting in the elastic streaming from the pole. I’d heard these fish put up a good fight and boy did they! Unfortunately he hook pulled and this one got away.
Next put in resulted in another bite and a fish of about 4lb came into the net and another the chuck after that. The fish were fighting hard but the pull bung I was using allowed me to tighten up the elastic to net the fish. Under normal summer circumstances I’d have probably used black but as the fish were coming infrequently I didn’t want to risk any hook pulls with heavier elastic.

Bites slowed so I tried the longer line which resulted a few fish. The wind was picking up making it more difficult to fish at 13 metres so when bites dried, I switched all my attention to the 10 metre line and fish this line only. I was fishing with a small pot on the end of the pole to introduce a small amount of feed after every fish.
The bites dried up with an hour and a half to go and even Matt’s bites had dried up on peg 1, although he did suffer the curse of the second net after finally realising he had been bagging all morning.
A couple more small tench came on the maggot feeder in the last 20 minutes but it was too little, too late.

My 33lb 7oz was only good enough for 8th overall beating Mark’s 22lb 14oz at one side but no where near Matt’s 66lb 3oz at the other side. Well done to Dan, who won the match with 89lb 10oz from peg 12.
It wasn’t a bad match if only the fish would have fed a bit more consistently through the day. Cheers again to Si for organising it and roll on the next meet.

Full results:
1st Dan Gavan 89.10
2nd Matt(final whistle) 66.03
3rd Dave Pellet 51.10
4th Kirsty 44.00
5th Glenn Archer 39.00
6th Rodger Pryor 38.12
7th Monster Crab 34.06
8th Maxwell Hung 33.07
9th Matts’ Mate 28.04
10th Corndawg 25.04
11th Mark M 22.14
12th Bingos’ mate 17.12
13th Killerkarp 13.10
14th Duzabit 10.08
15th Bingo wings DNW
15th Wayne Boulby DNW
15th Rhino DNW
15th James Charters DNW
15th Danny DNW

Spending most of the night up with the new born put paid to any form of mental preparation I might have wanted to do for this match. A 200+ turnout meant this was the biggest match I’d fished for a long time, probably since I was about 18.

Luckily due to the numbers there was a rolling draw allowing me to have a lie in and still turn up in good time and draw peg 70 on Bonsai, a decent peg from what I was told. I managed to grab a buttie and buy some raffle tickets all ready in time for the minutes silence at 10.

After finding out where my peg was it was time to get myself tackled up. My peg was at the corner of a point with an island (just) to my right and one a feeder throw away to my right. The wind was coming from the left, not too strong as I was setting up but would get a lot worse as the day wore on. I’d got Cleggy two pegs to my left with a spare peg in between, although the pegs are that close together you would hardly notice (sorry Neil).
A few or the regulars had informed me that fish were still to be caught up in the water, with that in mind and the fact I’d had an awful nights sleep I decided to make it my main line of attack but with an on the deck rig at 7 metres to the right available as a backup.

At the all in I potted in some pellets from a height at the 11 metres I’d decided to fish out into the main water and began firing approx 10 pellets every 40 seconds or so. I wanted to feed more pellets less frequently to slowly come up in the water following the feed that I’d initially put in and also to stop them coming too high in the water. I tend to use skinz as hookbait when fishing up in the water as they’re more robust especially when there’s a few smaller fish around. I tend to dye some red as a change of hookbait colour. The first fish came to the net after about 5 minutes, a nice size F1 probably just over a 1lb. I caught steadily until the wind picked up from the side and made it nigh on impossible to feed and hold the pole at the same time. Cleggy was also suffering from this and I noticed he’d switched to a rig about 5 meters fishing caster I think.
I fed a pot of pellets on the 6 metre line while I persevered to give the pellets time to settle. First put in the float dipped and a small F1 came to the net. The fish closer in on this line were noticeably smaller that those I caught further out shallow.
The smaller fish coming off this line meant that not a great deal of weight was being put in the net but at least I was catching. If the wind hadn’t picked up I think the shallow line would have produced, especially as the stamp of fish was better.

I ended up with 25lb odd which was good enough to get me the section by default, one of the regulars picked up 3rd place overall from a few pegs down.

Well done to Si and Juzzy for organising the match, and to Neil for allowing us to use the venue and to put his own cash up for the prize fund.
As a bonus I managed to win a raffle prize of some elastics, hooks and bits and bobs.

The last match in our club league saw us visiting one of my favourite waters. Having one a match here two weeks previously I was optimistic that I would be the business, especially with the title at stake. I came into this last match a couple of points behind the current leader and if I could get a half decent draw and see him blow out I could be in with a chance of retaining the title. My hopes seemed to be dashed at the draw when my closest rival drew peg 12, a flier by anyone’s standards.
I drew 28 so I knew I should be in a for a few.

I setup up two 17′ rods, one with a Drennan upside waggler and one with a stick float. Both had 6′ rigs attached which were made up of 0.12mm Trabucco Diamond Race to a 0.12 Reflo Precision hook length with a size 18 Middy 73-13. These would allow me to fish caster shallow.

I also setup up two pole rigs:

At the all in I put in a handful over casters over the stick line, put a few casters on the close line and went out on the stick. Here’s where it all started to go pear shaped. First cast saw me hook a small ide but as I was bringing it in the hook pulled as the rig ended up in the tree. Rig no 1 trashed! After attaching another rig I was back out. I was playing catch up to the next peg after only 10 minutes.

I was catching steady up until lunch time when my nearest rival on peg 30 had two decent size carp to put me even further behind. Knowing that there are some big carp down the edge and the had been feeding I decided to give it a go to see if I could claw my way back. A couple of foul hookers later and I’d lost another hour with no fish to show for it.
With nothing coming close in on caster it was back out on the stick line started catching again. I began to get bigger skimmers, up to about 1.5lb which meant I was able to start clawing back some of the deficit. I managed to hook a carp on this rig but pulled out of it, than managed to trash another rig with about 30 minutes to go. I finally managed to hook and land a carp with about 10 minutes to go which was probably close to double figures.

At the weigh in I weighed 53lb, not far behind the 64lb that won from peg 30. Looking back if I had stuck to my original plan instead of wasting an hour looking for a bonus fish, I reckon I could have won the match comfortably. Lesson learnt!

As it was I didn’t do enough to win the league again, the leader up to this point won his section and ended up second in the match with 56lb. My points were enough to put me in second overall which I was still reasonably happy with.

Provided the weather doesn’t turn too much over the next couple of weeks this match would give me a bit of insight for our final club match on October 15th. I wasn’t too keen on pulling peg 22 out at the draw. I’d brought 4 pints of casters to fish the trawler so I’d have preferred a low teens peg where the chub tend to reside. Rumour had it that peg 22 won the previous week with 122lb so we’d see.

I originally thought 22 was the island peg but it’s next door, although you do get a chuck down the side of the island. I’d set up two rigs of the 17′ rods both with the same rig 0.12 Trabucco Diamond race with a size 18 Middy 7313 tied 0.12 Preston Precision. One had a 3gm drennan upside down waggler to chuck down the side of the island, and one a stick float for closer in. I also set up 3 pole rigs.

All the pole rigs were made close in as the a lot of fish can be caught down the edge here especially the lumps as well some good skimmers. The paste line was pretty much at the end of my keepnet to my left to allow me to keep feeding it by hand as was the caster line but which was to my right.

At the all in I fed the close in lines and fired a pouch full of casters down the side of the island and threw in a handful of casters for the stick line. I pulled out one skimmer from the waggler before it became aparent that the stick line was solid. Each time I fed the ide were swirling for the bait as soon as it hit the water. I switched over to the stick and started catching ide up to 12 ounce straight away. I carried on for much for the rest of the match
catching ide, the odd roach and a couple of skimmers about a pound and a half each.

I had a bit of a ‘mare half was through as my closed face reel decided it wasn’t going to release the pin so I couldn’t get any line from it. A quick swap of rods saw me back on track.

As the rain came down and wind picked up a little, the fish backed off a bit so for the last hour I fished down the edge to see if I could glean any info on how the carp were feeding. Nothing came of corn or meat but I had two lumps on paste and lost 4 fish, a couple of these were foul hooked. By the end of the match it was solid down the edge, you could see swirls from the tails as they’d got their heads down over the paste line.

By the time they reached my with the scales 60lb was in front. I didn’t think I’d got as much as that but when the scales tipped at 63lb 10z I’d done better than I thought. Not knowing what had been caught in the earlier pegs I was in for a nervous 10 minutes until everyone had been weighed. By the time I’d driven round, everyone had weighed in and I’d won.

Overall a good insight into the upcoming match, weather permitting and a good win to boot.

Results:
1st Matt Williams (63lb 1oz, peg 22)
2nd Mick Wilson (60lb)
3rd Chris Lee (49lb, peg 21)

The penultimate match of our club league saw us visiting Lodge Farm again, only this time on Field pond. Our last encounter saw me drawn on a golden peg and winning the match until the last hour when Gav lent his rod to the guy on the next peg, who was also on a golden peg. Upshot was I get beat in the last hour by 2lbs to miss out on about £250.

The draw brought me peg 16, which apparently was a non starter but the fact I’d drawn a golden peg again was a good incentive to try and not make history repeat itself. As we arrived at the lake it became clear that due to the low numbers I was on an end peg, all the corners had been left out to make it a fairer match.

I set up 3 rigs initally for the match.

Plumping up at 13 metres found me about 5′ of water and down the edge at 3 metres I had approx 2′. My shallow rig was made up starting at about 2′.

At the all in I dumped a pot of soaked pellets at 13 metres and went straight over it with the shallow rig and a 4mm expander. Feeding approx six 4mm hard feed pellets every 30 seconds I was getting bites instantly but was losing the pellet. After rebaiting a few more times it became apparent that the pellets were getting hammered by the smaller fish as it was falling through the water.

For the first time I had bought some of the new Skinz hook pellets to try. It seemed like the prefect opportunity to try them out. I’d soaked and dyed them red the night before to soften them a little. As they were a little though I pulled out the point to reduce the risk of the point not emerging on strike. After a few more dips the float burried and the grey hydro was streaming out. A few minutes later an F1 of about 1lb was in the net.

This carried on for the couple of hours or so until bites dropped off. I came to try the short paste line whilst carrying feeding the long line up in the water. Two F1’s and a skimmer follwed off this line before the paste was getting hammered by the smaller fish.

I changed back over to the shallow rig and immediately started catching again but was getting more dips from the smaller fish. To make sure I wasn’t getting liners I set up a rig with a poly ball set at 6″ deep. The indiciation were still the same leaving me to believe they were in effect smaller fish attacking the bait.
I went back to the main shallow rig and carried on at a steady pace. With a couple of hours to go I decided to feed a few more pellets to try and get the fish feeding more aggressively, this seemed to work and I caught pretty much non stop till the end of the match.

The scales registered 53lb 13oz for 1st place and the golden peg that eluded me on our last visit.. The owner commented that I’d fished well to win from that peg as our end of the lake rarely produces any weights.

The section point puts me on 7 overall for the league. The leader at the moment is on 5 so I need a good result on the last match at Lakeside in October.

A while ago a created an online fishing shot calculator. It allows you to work out the shot, styls required when shotting pole floats or similar, either by floats that are marked in styl leads (4×12 etc.) or by gramme weight.
You can create as many complex or simple shotting patterns as you require.
Please feel free to give any feedback or comments on this page for any improvements.

There’s also a Pocket PC version available on the page.

View the calculator.

After finally taking the plunge and buying a new Rive box I thought I’d write a review after using it a couple of times.

First impressions

After first put all all the parts together the first thing that struck me was how big the actual box is, I was originally hoping to downsize in terms of box size as well as in what’s in it, after all the Rive trays are marginally smaller than the Milo modules. The width of the frame plus the huge hand grips put paid to that.
The legs that are also supplied with the box are very long, two of them extending. I assume this is so that if you don’t add any extra tray, you can still sit at a comfortable height with the cassette footplate in place.

Underneath the seat is a 30mm cross drawer unit. The is the new type with a little catch to release the drawer, this is much better than the old system where you could break the handles trying to open the drawer.

To complement the box I purchased a 60mm drawer/30mm tray unit and 30mm tray. This should give me plenty of room for all my kit.

When I purchase a new box I always set the box up at home on a level surface to set the footplate at the correct height and get the box level before I reach and sloping banks. I also use the telescopic legs on the front legs with the footplate attached. The enables me to adjust the legs on the bank to suit without the need to adjust the height of the footplate, which I’ve already set to the correct height.

On the Bank

Although the box is bigger than my old Milo it is noticeably lighter even with the extra trays added, this is probably to be expected though given the materials used to make the respective boxes. One thing I did notice carrying the box is that it does have a tendancy to tilt over easily. This is down to the strap catches splitting down to a V shape I suppose to try and distribute the weight a bit better. I wouldn’t know how to get around this, and it’s really not that much of a problem.

The handles are really easy to use and it’s very easy to get the box setup and level in no time at all. The bank was pretty steep and was made up of rock/clay but the big mudfeet did a grand job of keeping the box in place without it slipping down the bank any further.

The footplate is nice and compact, which I like. It doesn’t feel like you’re sat miles away from the bank which sometimes how you’d feel with the Milo footplates which are big in comparison.

The only issue I have with using the box is the seat. I don’t like pole seats at the best of time but the cushioning on the seat is pretty useless. In less than 30 minutes the foam is flat and you’re left sitting on hardboard. Not good when you’re in for the long haul. The seat top is currently with a local upholsterer having a foam refurb.

Original Rive accessories for the box are pretty expensive and can be quite hard to come by. Luckily the Preston accessories fir with the help of the green Rive adapter that can be purchased. Preston Innovations have a good range of accessories and they widely stocked so finding suitable accessories shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

Conclusion

First impressions of the box are very good. It’s lightweight, has a good, cheapish range of drawers available to build a box to meet your requirements. A good range of accessories are available, even if the Rive originals are expensive. It feels very sturdy to sit on.
The only real downside is the seat. I could get over the fact that it has a pole seat if the foam was better quality.

Priced at a very reasonable £199 for the basic box including footplate 30mm tray and 30mm drawer, I’m suprised there aren’t more of these on the bank, especially for those that want a good seatbox without the price tag of it’s bigger brothers.

It’s been a long time since I fished Dam Flask, it must be pushing 14 years or more. Given the fact that pretty much all my fishing now is based around commercials I was looking forward to fishing there again. Having not really had any up to date info or been able to practice I wasn’t really fancying my chances but we’d see.

The dam is a big expanse of water and it doesn’t take much of a breeze to turn make it look more like the North Sea, so opening the curtains on Sunday morning and seeing it not only chucking it down but the trees swaying in the wind led me think we may be in for a battering.
These concerns weren’t eased when we arrived at the dam. The rain was still pouring down but it wasn’t quite as windy as first expected. To make matters worse I’d left the brolly at home. Not a good start.

I drew peg 10, which was about half way down the plantation I was pretty pleased with what I’d drawn. Upon arriving at the peg, the wind had dropped considerably and the rain had stopped, things were looking up.

The main line of attack was going to be groundbait feeder which was a mix 50:50 of Sensas Bremes 3000 & Sensas Lake 3000. To this I was going to add casters and chopped worm. To stop the worms drying out and casters floating, thee were going to be added directly into the feeder and plugged with groundbait just prior to casting.

I spent about 10 mins casting around to find a suitable spot. As the lake is deep I didn’t want to clip up and pull the feeder back towards me on cast so to keep the cast in approximately the same spot I tied a stop knot onto the main line. As you cast you can hear the knot rattle through the rings, this enables you to feather the line and keep the feeder hitting in roughly the same spot. I contemplated setting up a waggler rod but didn’t want to risk missing out on any Bream if/when they turned up so I’d stick with the feeder.

At the all in, I spent 10 minutes casting the feeder to get some bait down onto the bottom, then attached my hooklength with a single caster burried. The first bite came after about an hour with a small roach coming to the net. Only one more roach followed in the next hour, but not much was being caught around me so it wasn’t panic stations yet. Changing hookbait between worm and caster didn’t bring no more joy. After about 3 hours the tip slowly but positively wrapped round, a gentle pull on the rod and it was on. Not wanting to risk losing the fish I took my time landing it and into the net slipped a skimmer about 1.5lb. Hopefully this was the first of many. Alas it wasn’t meant to be, one more roach followed and that was the end of that. With about an hour left I switched to the waggler, which brought a few more bites and one roach.

I’d liked to have switched to the waggler sooner if to break up the monotony of sitting cross eyed looking at the tip. I don’t think it would have caught me any more fish but it would have been a bit more interesting.

I weighed in a mighty 2lb 6oz which got me nowhere in the section which was won with 4lb odd from lower down the section. The match was won with just over 20lb of bream from the other bank down at the bottom end.

Although the fishing was dismal, it was still an enjoyable day and I’m looking forward to having a couple of pleasure days back up there and having another go next year.

The 4th Bernard Brian memorial match saw some glorious sunshine at last. We were hoping the fishing was going to be as good as the weather. Er…… no!!!!
Early indication weren’t good. some of the lads had been practising in the week and though a lot of fish were caught on Wednesday, Thursday was not so good. They just weren’t having it.

I drew peg 2, which was towards the top right hand side corner of the pond as you come up from the car park. Last years winner came from peg 4 so I thought I might be in with a shout.

I set up one pellet rig at 9 metres to my left and fed caster to the right by hand for the stick as well as with the catapult long for the waggler.
I started with the waggler and slowly the fish started coming, luckily they were of a fairly decent size. I caught steadily most of the morning but things slowed after lunch. I came in on the stick and caught a couple but then that dried up too.
I had kept feeding the pole line with half a pot of pellets every hour just as a back up, it was time to try it.
I had a few skimmers and a couple of roach about 6 oz which were more than welcome.

The last hour or so saw the odd fish coming off each line before having to move onto the next. I kept feeding all the lines the same just to tempt a few fish before they backed off again.

At the weigh in I thought it was going to be a close one between me and peg 3 who’d been catching steadily all day albeit smaller fish. I thought he’d done enough to beat me though. No one else on the lake seemed to be catching at all so I thought it was between us both.
I weighed 13lb 9oz with 10lb 5oz coming off peg 3. It was enough to put me in 1st and finally get my name on the trophy.
Next weight was 7lb 10oz from peg 1, then the weights really went down.

All other weights were around 5lb or less with far too many around the 2lb mark. Very poor weights for a venue like this.

Cheers Bernard