Sweepstake Match at Jasons

Eight hardy members turned up for the draw at 9am on Sunday morning for a sweepstake match on Jasons Lake. With overnight temperatures dipping down to below -4deg, it was surprising that the venue was fishable! A few of the pegs were iced over but the lads managed to find eight pegs that were not too bad.

As so often happens on this lake, when the going is tough it seems to be the bigger fish that are ones prepared to have a bit of a nibble. This was the case, again, on Sunday.

Paul Cooke pulled out peg 10, usually a pretty decent draw anyway, and with the icy conditions making the surrounding pegs unfishable it was thought that if anyone would catch, it'd be Cookie!!. So it proved....Paul netted three big Carp for 21lb and took the honours with plenty to spare.

Mark Aikins, facing Cookie, on peg 19, was the only one who could put up some sort of a challenge. In fact it was Mark who caught the first Carp of the day, a beast approaching double figures! Another, smaller specimen, took his weight up to 14lb 3oz for the two fish. A lost fish earlier in the match, hooked on light tackle, would have made the result more interesting....but it was not to be....

Third place went to Simon Pepper, over on the other half of the lake. Simon, on peg 2, put together 1lb 3oz of small fish and was rewarded for his hard work with the final frame place of the day.

Sadly most of the other contestants struggled to get so much as a bite.....but it was that kind of a day.

Venue for Final Pike League Match

The Final Pike League Match of the 2011-12 season will be fished at Frisby Complex on Sunday 12th February. The last draw for pegs will be at 8.00am with fishing from 9.00am until 3.00pm. For any further details please contact Mick Geary. Mick's phone number can be found in your Membership Book.

Fish Stocking at Frisby

In the last couple of weeks or so, there has been a further re-stocking of fish to our lakes at Frisby Complex. Skimmer Bream were the species of this stocking. With 600, 7-9 inch fish going into Smiggies Lake. 600, 5-7 inch fish added to BJ's Lake and 600, 5-7 inch fish added to Sanctuary Lake.

New Years Day Sweepstake

Yes, believe it or not, there were nine members who decided it would be a good idea to blow out a few Christmas cobwebs by holding a Sweepstake Match on Colver on New Years Day! Sadly by the end most of them wished that they hadn't bothered!!.

With the last Match on Colver throwing up some remarkable weights, Keith decided to peg everyone at the southern end of the Lake. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and, with all of the recent mild weather, most were expecting to bag a few Carp.

Sadly it didn't quite turn out like that, as these things never seem too! In fact the only Carp caught were about half a dozen small stockies. The main species that seemed to be interested were Roach.

Dave Kimber was bemoaning his luck at drawing furthest away from the fancied end pegs but in actual fact his seemingly bad draw probably helped him. Whilst the anglers in the more favoured pegs were expecting the Carp to start feeding, Dave was quick to turn his attention to targeting the Roach. Two bonus Perch helped push his weight to 7lb 12oz and with that, took the first match of 2012 from peg 31 .

Second place went to Steve Beckhurst. I really fancied the peg (23) to throw up a few Carp but with a biteless first two hours, it was felt there was a need for a different approach. So I switched to another area of the swim, scaled down the tackle slightly and started to cut down on the feed. Three or four small Skimmers, two stockies and a couple of Roach came from this swim until that, too, died a death. It was then a case of catching what could be caught from all over the peg, my final tally just pipping "The Cormorant" for second place with 6lb 3oz.

Jim Shooter had a netfull of Roach from peg 14 and was easily the top weight on the Car Park side bank. Jim's Roach were small though, and his hard work was rewarded with a Section 1 win with 4lb 7oz. Section 2 went to Chris "Cormorant" Shore, falling just 1oz short of Steve Beckhurst in a ding dong battle for second place, Chris taking 6lb 2oz to the scales from peg 21.