February 15, 2004

• Lavender Farm Fishery. The Old Lake.

  Hawthorne AC club match.

  

  Well it was off to Lavender Farm today for a Hawthorne AC club match.
  For a bit of added interest i was being joined by 3 guests (all Maggotdrowners) in the shape of Dave the Fish, Colin the Pike and last but not least Malc “The Jinx”
  
  After various bits of banter in the car park it was time for the draw. Peg 92 was mine and low and behold Dave drew 93. Fortunately Malc drew on the dam wall which was about as far away from us as it was possible to get , though poor Colin only managed to get 4 pegs away. I was planning to start on the straight lead fishing corn, with a possible switch later on to the end of a dead reed bed on my left, into about 4 feet of water.
  
  At the whistle Paul potted in 2 big cups of maggot at 11mtrs, and in his first 3 put ins had 3 carp for about 10lbs in the net.  My tip meanwhile refused to move.  A hasty change onto the pole and out to about 10mtrs in 9ft of water with corn on the hook, resulted in a couple of tentative bites and my first carp, but I was going backwards as Paul was off to a flyer .
  
  At the start I had fed a couple of handfulls of micro halibut pellets into the reedbed on my left along with a few grains of corn, and after about an hour the stems started waiving as fish moved through them. I’d normally wait till later in the match before going onto that line, but i was getting battered by Paul and had to try something. Bites for the most part were tiny little dips, but slowly I felt that I was pulling back the deficit. Paul having seen me catching close, moved onto his margin and while not getting as many as me, seemed to be catching a better stamp of fish.
  
  Dave had decided to concentrate on the other side of the reeds to me, and was slowly putting a few together. Malc was happily adjusting to a smaller stamp of Carp than he’s been used to at Drayton & Stockton, but unfortunately Colin was having a hard time of it in his peg, fish proving hard to come by .
  All to soon for me the scales arrived, with Paul weighing 66lbs 06ozs for 1st place, to my level 63lbs which gave me 2nd overall, Pauls better stamp of fish making all the difference. Dave managed 17lbs 12ozs for 8th on the day and Malc managed a creditable 34lbs 14ozs for 5th. Colin tipped his back without weighing.
  
  Also today the club was fishing its Pairs Cup and with my partner on the day Mark Smith weighing in with 48lbs, we were the winners with 111lbs.
  So a good day for me,and i hope that my 3 guests enjoyed themselves.

  

  

   

  • 11:07 am
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