Teams of three's

Another weekend over here in what is suppose to be hot and sunny Australia. Although at the moment I would be forgiven for thinking I was back home on the west coast of Ireland on a nice "soft" day. It has rained, rained and then even rained a bit more mind you after them having a drought here for almost the last ten years I shouldn't be complaining and me being from where I am should be well use to rain.On the plus side too it means that a few venues that use to be used for matches and pleasure fishing are now well full again and there should be a few extra venues for us to fish again soon.

I went to a venue last week that a few had mentioned that they had fished it a few yrs back but the levels were low and it was very shallow and no one had gone there for years. Yorkie, a buddy from the club was also going down for a bit too. It's in the middle of a park in a suburb about 40 minutes drive from the city and is a nice looking lake. It's got a little island on one side and could prob host about 12 to 15 pegs on it so can see a knock up or two coming up there soon enough. It must have filled up too as I had about 4 ft of water at 11 mts plumbing on it. I just had a few hours at towards the dam end on it and had 22 carp for about 50 lbs and lost prob just as many and most came from the margins to corn or meat. I got sorta bored in the end so only had a few hours but will go back there again soon. Yorkie had a fish also almost every cast and was just messing with a waggler and feeding very little so all this rain doesn't seem to have done this lake any harm.





















All these little lakes ....and no anglers.........
























.........and stuffed with carp they are too....!




Sunday was the third round of our little teams of 3 league here and was back on the same venue as the last match. I organised the team league this year but mixed the anglers around slightly and the teams were picked from our club league table results last year. The top four anglers were 4 teams and paired with the bottom four and then the middle of the table were added in in the same order and it seemed to work out pretty go for sections too as it meant the top four fished in a section,the middle guys had a section and the bottom of the table had a section. it helps also with the newer or less experienced anglers are not fishing with the top guys in a section and I think keeps the motivation going a bit more, plus the tops guys have a tight section to fish in as all finished in the top 4 last year in the league. My team was myself, Dave Woods and Yorkie (Mark York). I had won the club league last year but it looked like someone turned the sheets upside down this year....In the first 2 rounds I have finished last in my section in both matches but luckily for us Dave won his sections and other teams had mixed results so we were in second place behind the Neil Dourish's team by 8 points but we needed so good results today.

I drew A2 which was the dam end of the lake (opposite end from the last match) and was a little concerned once again it was going to be a little tough because of all the rain gone in plus the temps have cooled off a bit here the last few nights. Then I had Neil on the end peg A1 so he was going to be hard stopped too. These matches are just 5 hour affairs also

I had a bomb rod, little method rod and waggler set up but it was getting a little windy so didn't really think it would be used much today. Then a pole rig on 13 mts, a rig for left and right at 7 mts and also a rig for my margins covered me for the lot...All my rigs are .16 to .14 hooklenghts to tub 175 hooks on white hydro/pull bungs except for my margin rig. That's .18 straight to an animal hook 14 and black hydro. Bait with me was corn, maggot, a little luncheon meat, bread and I also took plenty of worms. Once the weather cools down it seems to be one of the better baits for carp here. There is quiet a bit of open water on these swims so I usually fish a few different areas and try to pick up one or two fish from each. I have noticed they tend to keep out from the feed sometimes when there is a few of us fishing there so kept that in mind .

On the all in I cupped a potful of corn and crumb into the margins, and a small ball of ground bait on each of my 7 mt pole lines, but cupped 3 balls on my 13 mt line hoping a few would settle there as they pushed out later in the match. I fished the feeder for the first 40 minutes or so with just a few liners and Neil had 2 fish on the pole as had Steve on my other side by now. I dropped in on 7 mts to my right and had a few liners and then after a very finicky bite had a fish of about 1lb or so in the net. Nothing followed it to the net untill an hour and a half into the match and it was even smaller but I was getting the odd knock and liner but the bites were finicky so I was reluctant to feed any more pots and just kept going with a little kinder cup with a few maggots and one or two pieces of corn. After the third hour just one more fish on 13 mts was all I had and Neil had been getting fish slowly but steady on the end peg and was having thoughts of it going to be a right hammering. I had another fish straight away on the bomb and a few liners but they just didn't seem to want to settle anywhere. I chop and changed around with everything but nothing showed so at the start of the last hour I made my mind up to just stick to my 13 mt line and hope a few would turn up as I wasn't getting any indications in the margins or my 7 mt lines and it had slowed down for Neil also. I was still getting the odd knock on the 13 mt line and eventually put another two in the net in one after the other but all just around the pound mark, both on half a worm. Within 15 minutes of the end I had 12 fish in the net, all by searching around, going to 14.5 mts for some or lifting and dropping the bait but it was hard work and all on bits of worms and then the heavens opened and it let it down for a good ten minutes.

I hooked my last fish on the all out but never got any big fish and knew Neil had beat me but wasn't sure how the rest had gone. Neil weighed in 9.6 kgs and was top weight on the day and I had 13 fish for 7.25 kgs for second in the section and 5th or 6th on the day...there was 3 other 7 kg weights, an 8 kg and some 5 and 4 kgs so even thou it was hard it is still a very even and fair venue and the weights were mixed all over the place. Our team finished 2nd on the day with Dave once again winning his section but Yorkie had a stinker and came last in his....Neil's team had two 1st and a second for the second match in a row so am sure are unbeatable now... we will have to try and keep ourselves up in second for the last round next month....

No matches here this weekend and don't think I will talk any out for a knock up with this rain promised all weekend but will be out for a pleasure session or two and we have a 2 day club match the following weekend so will get an up date on after that
















Are these pictures from the west coast of sunny old Eire or are the from a cold and wet Australia

...Answers on a postcard please to...........!!!





7.25 kgs and am starting to dry out a little too..

weekend over....!

Well managed to get out Saturday here on the lake, Glenmore lock which I hadn't fished for a while. I had fished one club match on it two years ago and had a 3rd place with one carp for 1.something kg's. It is like many of our venues here while they are great for pleasure fishing or small knock ups they usually turn into a bit of a gruller for matches when the numbers attending get into the 20's as most of them are pretty small in size and they are all wild fish , no venues are stocked with coarse fish.

Its a beautiful looking lake and has some big fish in it plus a good few wild goldfish, also some catfish, silver perch and some huge eels. It seems every pond and lake has big eels here, I have even seen them compete with carp to take bread of the surface in some parks in the city where people feed the ducks regularly and some big ones at that.. I would never have believed eels would take bread much never mind feed of the surface unless I seen it myself...! (will get some pics next time I am in there). The lake screams tench at you, so have also introduce some fingerling's in here recently and hope to have some more here shortly ear marked for here too. The last time I fished here I wasn't too impressed which probably explains why I hadn't been back for a bit but some of the club members fished it a short while back and done pretty good so had to give it a go. It had become a little over grown also as it hadn't been fished much but also had lots of thick pads of lillies around the margins so was the perfect spot to let my new "Hillbillys" have a good run around and see how they go....!

it's even got an aerator going all day in it.......!

The lake's got an Island in the middle and is deepest about halfway across to it about 9 to 10 ft and gently shallows up to the margins...It was about 4 to 5 ft deep at the end of the lillies in the margins and I had about 6 ft of water at 10 mts...I set up a little bomb also to throw at the island just to see if i could get many bites on it but never had a bite on it

This side of the lake I fished is the deeper side, to my right (pic below) is shallower averaging around 6 ft and has a few more beds of lillies and I could see clouds of mud blooming in the water as I got out of my car from fish feeding in the shallows when I got there. I would have liked to have fished there but there was a couple of oriental meat eaters fishing the far bank opposite and as with many venues here if they happen to see you set up and start to empty the place they come back the next day here with their mothers, dads, wives, nephews, nieces, neighbours , their whole street and the next one and fish the place till they have enough keep them all on a fish diet for 6 months.Now while I have no problem with people taking a fish or two home for the pot and it is quite the norm here esp with people of eastern European nationality here to cook a carp but some of these people do take the piss and take every thing from a few ounces to double figures, set night lines and even net lakes out. The less these people know about ground bait and other fishing methods the better !

The meat eater's corner.........!..........!

I got set up and threw some bread out on the Bomb while feeding a pole line at 10 mts and one in the margins beside the reeds with a little groundbait and some corn. Also put a little meat in the margins but kept it a meter away from my other margin swim just in case I got plagued with the "tommy turtles".....The little buggers love their luncheon meat here but I have noticed recently by feeding bigger cubes mostly 10 and 12 mm sizes they don't tend to hang around as much...they probably cant get the bigger size in the mouths and give up or maybe I just have been lucky..? After 30 mins on the bomb with only a few liners and had to give the pole a go.

I had a Hillbilly .5gm dweezil on 10 mts with .16 line to Tub175 3 with black hydro and originally had a drennan carp 3 on .18 line with an animal 14 hook to black hydro for my margins but this

went to bits after losing my 3rd fish in a row in the lillies and reeds so up to purple hydro and this sorted it out and also used .3 grizzly which also came through the session unmarked.

I did manage to lose about 12 fish but most were hook pulls as they ploughed through the lillies plus had a snag just outside my margin line which a few came a cropper on but by taking a fish or two on each line, feeding a little more and switching lines around I had a nice little session with about 15 carp and a nice size catfish for close to 30 lbs. Also I managed to avoid the turtles, had a few fish out on meat, avoid my other meat eating buddies on the other side of the lake, and had a couple of big eels bite me off at the net so it was quite an enjoyable session

I keep saying one of these days am going to dig out my old speci gear I have here some where and have a real go at these eels here but am half afraid to...I have seen pics of some almost 2 mts long ...even our own club record here is into double digit kgs and I am not a big chap to start having a wrestle with a 2 mt eel on the bank !

Eel tailed catfish....A native fish here in Oz thankfully don't grow as big as their cousins in Europe.....The eels grow big enough as it is...!

My biggest fish went over 10 lbs with a few of the same getting away in the lillies....must remember to bring a rake next time here

Sunday's match

Sunday morning and it was off to our club match here on the venue I had fished last weekend. Apologies for no pics for the match but had forgot to recharge my camera on Saturday night and it was dead when I went to get some pics on sun morning. I give Danny (our match sec.) a hand peg out in the mornings at our matches and could see how high the water had been on here during the week with all the rain we had ...it had been up about 6 ft over the bank but as this venue is a natural creek it would have run off fast and it usually means good fishing but only downside of this spot right now is that there is lots of new construction going on not far upstream on the creek itself and there was a grimy scum on the surface today and no wind, god knows what went through it during the week with the rain. I have always found it harder fishing on this venue without any wind and the fact we had 22 pegs in for today meant it was going to be even tougher. Still when I drew peg 2 which I realise was all of 2 feet to the left of where I fished last week so was at least half confident of getting a few fish, plus you have all seen the pictures from this swim also from my last blog update !

Today was also the start of our knock out champs which I have manged to get to the final in the last 2 years but got beat both times...third time lucky maybe.? Bill whom I had drawn against was on peg 3 so at least I could keep an eye on him . My attempt at winning the overall club champs this year has fallen well by the waste side...actually didn't get off to a good start with 2 blanks on the first 2 matches along with half the field on meant all I can do is just work my way up the top 5 or 6 maybe if lucky by the last 3 matches..I had a good first full league with the club here last year with having 3 wins ,4 seconds and a few top 5 finishes to win the league out but struggled a little this year and am in 9th or 10th place at the moment. Whats that saying, ?

"Some days you can be the dog, but then on other days you have to be the hydrant"

I have had some good results on the bigger interstate matches and finished top of the qualifiers for the Trans Tasman comp to represent the aussies from NSW so cant really complain too much and am enjoying the matches here sadly there just isn't enough of them from what I use to fish.

Anyway back to today. I set up a .4 critter to .16 line to a B9ll 16 with white hydro to fish a line at 13 mts where I expected the fish to settle into today faster than usual given the numbers we had on the bank. A BGT .3 shallow for a 7 mt line with grey hydro and 2 margin rigs for both left and right, 1 with a shady shallow and fox S2 14 for meat,double corn or big bread punch and also a .3 BGT dibber with an animal 14 in case it did get windy and needed something a little heavier. I had expected the wind to pick up as it usually does in the afternoons here most days...both were .18 line and black hydro...I also had a little bomb and was going to fish a little cone full of liqqy bread to the far side in case it got really hard and a waggler for same line.

It was overcast as we set up but the clouds started to clear just as we were starting and it nice nice and sunny. At the start I cupped just 1 ball of groundbait on each line with a few bits of corn and 10 or so maggots to get going and had decided just to feed with a kinder cup to see how it went. I did dump a full cup full of corn, seed and some meat on one margin swim hoping they would turn up later like last week. Our matches here are 6 hour affairs so it gives plenty of time to get the fish going closer in later on by resting it for the first while. I had a few knocks and liners on 13 mts for the first 25 mins and eventually got a little fish out, then had one about 3 lbs on the hour mark, but slowly my knocks and liner seem to get fewer and the second hour was even worse with nothing joining the 2 in the net. I had kept flicking a few bits of corn to the far side hoping I would have a few fish hiding over there later but didn't want to go at it yet and persevered with the pole lines for the 3 rd hour and kept just dripping in a little feed with the kinder cup. One more carp all of 2 ozs is all I had to show for the 3rd hour but it seemed those around me were also struggling and just picking up the odd fish here and there and all small ones too although Bill , my knockout opponent had a prob 8 at this stage and had an eel in the 4th hour but I was hoping a good fish would keep me with him.....

To cut a long painful story short I went through the book and part 2 of it also in the last couple of hours but only added 1 more small carp from my bomb line to the net and ended up with 1.9 kgs for 13th out of 22 and got knocked out of the knock out....Bill bits and eel went 3.4 kgs..! I never had as much as a liner from the margins and tried upping my feed towards the end but it was not to be ....The match was won from a peg on the other side of the lake with 14 + kgs with 13 kgs second but then dropped to 9 kgs...8 kgs was fifth and then it was all 4, 3 , 2 's and 1 plus kgs for the rest of the field. Oh well another day being the "hydrant". Not sure if it was the extra water and cooler temps or just the venue is always going to be harder with big numbers on it as most of our smaller ones are. We do have a teams of 3 league running also and the next match is back on here in two weeks and with only 4 teams fishing it will be interesting to see how the venue fishes with just 12 anglers on it.

While it is great for the club that the numbers are growing for the matches here and there will probably be twenty plus at most matches for the next league I don't think it will stay that way if venues keep producing 4 or 5 bites for half the anglers in 6 hours. Maybe it is time to think about using 2 venues on the day and keeping the numbers to 11 or 12 anglers on each and put equal league points on each , maybe then everyone might at least start getting a few more fish in the net. Sometimes it's easy to forget that all the venues here are wild and not stocked when reading alot of the match magazines and carp related articles on commercials, pegging, etc and where the stock levels per peg are far higher so maybe less pegs or further spacings between may help. We have four or five sets of double venues all close to each other here which would each hold twelve or thirteen anglers easy and would have a spot to draw pretty central to them so maybe worth looking into. We do also have one venue close to us all in Sydney that can hold 50 anglers easy but it has been a struggle the last two matches on there and can be moody plus no one wants to really fish all the league matches for the year on one venue. So will have to see what will happen for next years league. It's part of a rowing course and a series of lakes that were built for the last Olympics held here and would be a definate world champs venue if it ever came this side of the world (and of course they wanted to fish for catfish and eels...he he..there are carp too). Half the field struggled there on our first 2 league matches this year and I even blanked twice so am not sure whether I am looking forward to these or not...? Although with no pressure on me with the league or knock out I may just try something different for a change there. It's normally a feeder job but have never really tried filling it in on the pole line. I have usually got a few catfish and odd carp of it but never really fully fished it and usually just killed the first hour or so on it while feeding the feeder or slider line, anyway will see what unfolds

there next mont.

Penrith regatta and rowing center...scene of a few blanks in the match from this pic but we are back to next month here.....

yipeeeeee or yeoooooch...

We have the teams of 3 match week after next and hoping to fish some new virgin venues this weekend and the month of May is also going to be a busy month with a double club match weekend (sat/sun), the final teams of 3 match on the week after and then off to Finley (6 hours south of Sydney) for a 2 day interstate teams of 4 match the following weekend on a new venue discovered here...it's a 1500 km irrigation canal that is stuffed with carp so should be fun...

Hmmm soon we may have to start having Wednesday matches....! ?

So hopefully by next month things will be better and I will be back to Peeing on that dammed "hydrant" here

a few pleasure sessions...!

With no matches here till April 5th I just had a few pleasure sessions here the last 2 weekends

Plus I had got my new hillbilly's "Redneck floats" in the post and was itching to get out and give them a go....

One was on the venue we used last year for our winter league and it fished ok with plenty of small fish and I had about 30 lbs in a few hours fishing...I didn't take my camera but will be having a few more sessions on here in the next few weeks and take it next time..

It's Autumn here now I think..?..am still having trouble getting used to the seasons here and this craic with wearing Santa outfits on Bondi beach in 34 degrees in December even confuses me more..!,I don't think I will ever get use to Christmas in the sun, well anyway the temps are dropping a little and it has rained quite abit this week and is more comfortable to fish in

The other sessions I had are on a new venue we have started to fish just this year here and is probably our best match venue at the moment..Caddis creek...while it doesn't throw up huge weights in the matches it is very consistent and fair and lots of small fish so plenty of bites all day. All the pegs are pretty even and the same depth and so far there have been no fliers with the winners coming from all over each time. It almost all carp and there is a good head of wild goldfish plus a few koi's. It has a few catfish and bass and some huge eels (over 8 kg) but I don't normally fish for these unless it's really hard. The carp average from 2 or 3 oz's up to 1 1/2 lbs but there are some bigger ones to be had too up to 10 lbs, mostly in the edges but I found they tend to keep out when we have a full house on the venue. So far our matches have been won with 20 + kgs weights and all good backing weights with usually just 100 -300 grams separating the top 6 but pleasure fishing or a small knock ups 40 to 50 kgs can be caught easily....(excuses for the weights in kgs but its the way all the matches are done here)

Caddis creek

It can be hard sometimes to get an idea of how venues fish or whats the best methods for a match when pleasure fishing venues here on your own mainly because you will have the venue to yourself, most of the fish have never been caught before and usually you can catch on everything but once we have 20 or 25 of us on the same venue it can be a different story.....this venue has been good so far mainly because of the big head of smaller fish but think I do need to get some of those bigger fish out so with this in mind I fished these sessions at I would for the match but tried a few different things mostly with the margin swims to see what worked best

margin swim right at the reeds

For any of the matches I have normally fed 2 balls of groundbait and some corn at both 11 and 13 mts in about 3 1/2 to 4 ft of water and catch on 11 straight away and later the fish shy away a little and move to 13 mts....baits are usually corn or maggot but I have caught here on pellet and recently found a supplier here for a micro pellet which I have been using now also. There is also a small ledge at 5 to 6 mts on most of the pegs and I have got lots of small fish on this pleasure fishing but struggle in matches but found the last day even with 2 of us fishing I found I could keep fish coming all day there by dropping in a small nugget of liquidised bread on a kinder cup and fishing 4 and 6 mm punch while Richard's pole lines seem to die or slow up after a bit...not big fish but over 40 in 2 hours so maybe worth a go

I fed margin swims both left and right close to the edge about 6 mts down each side where its about 2 1/2 ft deep but one swim I just kept dropping in 5 or 6 pieces of corn and a few pellets every 5 minutes or so and the other just dumped in 2 big pot fulls of corn,hemp and some luncheon meat and left it.

In both sessions the swims where I had been constantly feeding just produced smaller fish and I did foul hook a few also but the sides I dumped the feed in all produced bigger fish and had them queued up for the last 45 minutes or so. Plus all the bigger fish came on 8 or 10mm meat punch (no need to worry about the dreaded turtles one the fish move in)

the margins were full of fish for the last hour..!

At the end of both sessions on Caddis creek I had close to 50 fish both times but my session fishing more with dumping big pots and using meat probably weighed close to 40 kgs where as the session where I fished the 6 mt line more and bread punch was about 25 kgs so plenty of ideas for the weekend's match

I used white hydro with pull kits on most of my rigs on the long lines and 6 mt line but had grey also on a rig and didn't have lost fish at all only a few foul hookers, all my margin rigs are black hydro's

25 kgs of fish...mostly on bread punch

Also all my "rednecks" made it through the sessions even with a few runsin to the reeds in the margins, they defiantly do what they say on the packet and full compliments and thanks to Neil (if he reads this) for his great service and products

Anyway am out here tomorrow (sat) for another pleasure session on a different venue and the

have our match on Sunday so will update on here later this week

Pic taken from a session on Caddis creek about 6 weeks ago....33 kgs in "summer"