Manor Farm Leisure

Peg 6 Island ( can't believe I've drawn it again)

77lb

1st Place

Won match

9 fished the match

Strange how fishing goes, especially match fishing as you have to draw your peg and therefore relies on a lot of luck and the moment I seem to be having a bit, as I find myself on Peg 6 Island.  This is the "best peg in Europe"......  I only said this statement in a bit of "tongue and cheek", but it seems to of stuck and every time anyone draws it there is a lot banter thrown your way, especially when I draw it.  So I have added some unwanted pressure on myself to do well.

The match started really slow and was wondering if Facebook was going to explode tonight with comments of me blowing out, especially as I post ALL my results, but thank god that the peg came alive on pole, and had a steady run on the pole.  All F1's and one carp.  Weighed 77lb to win the fishing match.

How I would approach the F1's at Manor is to fish as light as possible on the "hard pellet" rigs.  4mm coppins pellets, with a 20 hook and 0.09 Colmic Stream as a hook length and important of 1.5 mm hollow elastic as its soft but capable of landing BIG fish and most important thing is not to loose any fish, even netting range, as they swim back into shoal and spook the rest of the shoal.  Bad news.

Gear used

Colmic Airon F66 Pole

1.5mm Colmic Hollow

Jon Walker Pellet

0.135 Colmic F1 Spider

0.09 Colmic Stream

20 Drennan Carp match.

Marukyu

Liam Dennick is on fire at the moment.

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Manor Farm Leisure

Peg 33 Island Pool
54lb 10oz
No good (4th overall)
16 fished the match

I had a real enjoyable day today, caught some F1's and a couple of small carp on my new toy 😊 but took a big battering off the next peg though.  I could catch on the lead and only had 2 carp to Paul Cassiby's 6 carp.  So decided to go the pole, which was good for 40 minutes and 8 F1's but felt I wasn't completing so back on lead for one more carp, but 1.30pm I came to a standstilland knew I was never going to pull it back.....

Colmic Airon F66 pole very stiff, lovely smooth finish, super tough, 1000% built to last.

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Harescombe Fishery

Peg 24 match lake.

9lb 10oz

No good

28 fished

I was hoping to draw Field Lake, as this lake is more my style of fishing, however drew Match Lake and right in the corner, peg 24.   This was going to be feast of famine and to make matters worse I draw next to Liam Dennick, so he wasn't going to let any feeding fish pass him, which he didn't.  I really struggled and only managed 4 fish in the first 40 mintues and never caught anything afterwards.  Well, that's not strictly true as I caught some tiny skimmers.  

I never seem to do well on The Match Lake, but I look forward to the pairs match at Harescombe.  Can I win it with Mark Malin three years on the bounce??

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Manor Farm Leisure

56lb 14oz
1st place

Peg 33 Island Pool

7 people fished.

I was pleased with the draw, peg 33 Island pool today is a great winter peg normally.  Started on the popped up bread, 50cm and one 10mm disc of Toastie white loaf.  This went round straight away, happy days, nice start to the match.  However, it was dead and looking around people were really struggling.  So shipped out the Colmic Airon F66 pole, and waited a while for bite, and then had a steady run of F1's which was a relief.   The issue is the bites are some slight, and only pull the float down by 2mm, so you never see bites on the feeder or lead, only the ones that hang themselves.

Pleased to get sponsored by Marukyu

see the Marukyu.....

http://www.marukyu.co.uk/

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Thoughts of 2016

For me, the most important aspect of fishing is to enjoy it.  I had some success this year and had some blow outs...... The big matches were disappointing, I failed miserable on the Fish O Mania qualifiers, however I honestly believe I had no pegs that were capable of winning.   

Looking through my blog, I had 59 pick ups this year, which was mainly on commercials which was mainly 20 pegs or less. Which is a shame, big matches on my local circuit doesn't seem to exist, apart from the River Avon at Evesham..... 

Also I did fish for Devizes in this years winter league on rivers and canals for 10 weeks and had 70% pick up rate.  I did have a couple of flyers mind!!

Highlights

Manor Farm Leisure is still one of my favourite venues that I fish, and May Festival was kind apart from the first day, where unfortunately I couldn't catch on Ash Pool and the last day I caught 313lb on Windmill Pool.  I would like to win this event.

I fished for Devizes match group this year, which I used to fish for years ago, and was nice to return to the Upper Thames winter league.   We had some success , we won the league as a team and I won the individual league.  The highlight was fishing with the boys again and fishing with one of the best anglers I know, Kevin Rowles.   Kevin has helped me a lot when I was younger with my fishing.

Ivy House Lakes was kind to me again and had some regular success there. The best match I had was Friday evening match, the only one I fished,  I caught 114lb in a three hours, which was the highest weight there in three hours for this year.  26lb skimmers and 87lb of carp on £2 worth of bait, paste!!

Swindon go on Tour at Whiteacres was awesome, the fishing was tough, as always.  However, the 

banter was incredible.  I really enjoy this week.

Colmic

Colmic have continued to support me and helped some of my success this year.  Especially in the manor festival, catching 313lb of big hard fighting carp, really did push the products to the limit!!  The new Colmic Airon F66 pole will hopefully been me some success in 2017?  Only just got the pole and it's very impressive.

Fish O Mania

For me I aint going to chase "rainbows" anymore.  A lot of effort to very little return, in my opinion.  I ain't bitter, but becoming a Fish O Mania finalist again is not that important to me.  

Marukyu

I've just been signed by Marukyu for a bait deal, must honestly say was unsure to begin with, so I field tested some of the products and was so impressed.  Watch this space for more details.

http://marukyu.co.uk

Mick Telling Memorial 2017

The Mick Telling memorial 2016 was a great success and raised a load of money for cancer research, over £1700!!   Thanks to everyone involved.   For me this is the most important match I want to win, by mile.  Terry Hicks won 2016.

See video for my dads final

I'm really lucky to fish with some great lads, especially Frank Donachie, Glen Picton, Liam Dennick and Karl Stephens

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Manor Farm Leisure

Peg 14
77lb 10oz
2nd
Only 5 fished

Colmic 7401 x3

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Manor Farm Leisure

Peg 6 "best peg in Europe"

100lb 6oz

Won lake

Won March

22 fished the match.

I couldn't ask for a better start to the individual winter league at Manor Farm Leisure as I won the match off Middle Pool, unfortunatly had to miss the round 2 as I was away on business trip (the joy of two jobs).  So was well pleased to draw one of the best in Europe, but got off to a slow start, but caught on the pellet feeder and then had a great spell on the pole to win the section and the match.

Gear used

Colmic 7401 x3 pole

0.2 Jon Walker pellet diamond 

0.135 F1 Spider Line

0.09 Colmic Stream hooklength

20 Drennan Carp match.

Pellet feeder set up.

Colmic Next Adventure 45 rod

25 gram Matrix pellet feeder

0.145 Stream hooklength

18 Drennan Carp Match

I had 40 ish F1's and 2 small carp.  Great days fishing, and a nice welcome back present.  Ain't been there for ages.

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