July 25, 2009

• Hartleylands Farm Fishery. Nick’s Lake.

  Marsh AC club match.

  

  Today it’s another Marsh AC club match and we’re on Nick’s Lake at Hartleylands Farm. There’s a few guests joining us today as is usual and with the whole lake booked hopefully it will throw up a few decent weights . Loading up the car the weather looked set fair and it was a smooth run down to the Knox Bridge Café for breakfast where I’d arranged to meet up with Keith and his pal Mick who were travelling down from Milton Keynes. Stomachs filled it was a short run down to the fishery and we pulled into the car park around 8·20am .
  Along with Keith and Mick there were 2 other guests fishing with us today. Clive, who’s rapidly becoming a fixture and Dave Talbot (Faye’s Dad) who’d been able to accept the invite to join us .
  
  With 17 anglers and 37 pegs on the lake there would be plenty of space for everyone today, and Dave soon had the monies collected and the draw under way. Soon it was my turn and when peg 23 came to hand I was happy enough and pretty sure it would provide a decent days fishing . You can see where we all ended up on the pegging plan below ………….

  

  I soon had my kit in situ and found that I had Tony on peg 21 and Jim on peg 25 for company today, while I could see Clive opposite on peg 12. Now Nick’s is one of those lakes that responds to a variety of methods, and with a bit of space the pole fished shallow is normally the way to go at this time of the year, but I really fancied fishing the waggler today, as I don’t do it often enough and while it probably wouldn’t win, I was sure it would provide me with a decent days fishing , the only fly in the ointment being the wind blowing from my left to right straight up into pegs 17 & 18. So the Shakespeare 11ft Micro was set up with a Shimano Stradic spooled up with 4lb Maxima, the business end was a Dave Brittain pellet waggler while the hook was a size 14 Drennan Match Carp with a hair rigged pellet band. With and hour and a quarter to set up I did get the feeder rod out as a back up, but didn’t really plan on using it and I also set up one top kit with a margin rig as It’s possible to nick a couple of lumps late on down the margins if needed. Bait was 6 & 8mm pellet with a bit of hemp and sweetcorn for the margins.

  

  Jim and John came up for a chat while we were waiting for the off, Jim remarking that with so long to set up he could have had another half hour in bed . Tony had said that he was going to go for it shallow on the pole as he had plenty of water to go at, and it’s a method he enjoys. Looking across I could Clive see sitting at his peg and looking quite serene, obviously happy that he’d got his drawing hand back under control and looking forward to the day ahead on a water that I just knew would be more to his liking after his recent grueller of a session at Drayton Reservoir …………

  

  So at 10am Dave blew for the All-in and I fed a couple of pints of hemp and pellet into the margins before starting on the feeder to the corner of the island, to allow me to catapult some pellet out to the front of the island to prime it for the waggler. Lot’s of little taps on the feeder resulted in a couple of small Carp in the 1st 10 minutes, but as I could already see signs of fish coming for the feed in front of the island I soon had the waggler out and was into a Carp 1st put in . The wind was making things tricky however, as well as some Ducks and Moorhens that were doing their best to mop up any loose pellets . I could hear by the splashing coming from my right that Tony was getting amongst a few, and from what I could see around the lake he appeared to be out catching everyone…………

  

  My problem was that I had to drop the float within 18 inches of the island to get a bite, any further away and I couldn’t buy a bite, and feeding a bit further away had no effect. Then a couple of disasters befell me . firstly the float adaptor split, so I had to re-rig, however this time I went with a Drake 3AAA peacock waggler that I felt I could control better, then first cast out a Moorhen dashed out to the splash of the float landing and tangled with the rig. Thankfully I managed to retrieve the rig complete with Moorhen which I netted and the bird was released none the worse for it’s experience, before I could once more get down to the task in hand.
  
  Dave had come round for a stroll and confessed that he was experiencing his own “Mugger Moments©” as were a few of those pegged down to my left where it was much more sheltered, though I could see Simon down on peg 31 putting fish in the net on a regular basis, and Dave was soon followed by Colin, who reckoned that he’d only got 7 small carp to show for his first 2 hours of effort. Judy up on peg 16 appeared to be concentrating on a margin swim to put a few fish together ……..

  

  I managed to get back into some sort of rhythm and started to put a run of fish together, but a couple of times the wind got up making presentation awkward and on those occasions I took the opportunity to take a look down the margins and while this produced a couple of small Carp I soon got back out on the waggler when the wind eased . Just past halfway Tony strolled down as he took a break to have a bite to eat and was admitting to 60+ fish.
  
  Round the other parts of the lake people were having their own private battles. Keith on peg 6 was trying to get to grips with a venue that was new to him, and with the wind blowing straight into him had come shorter allowing himself to feed comfortably and was starting to put a few fish together ………..

  

  While his friend Mick was having quite an enjoyable day, having drawn peg 9 (one of the noted pegs) he was happily putting together a good net of fish on the pole …………

  

  while Chris on peg 8 to his right looked to be doing OK from what I could see as he did battle with one of the lakes resident Carp………

  

  With time marching on, I kept plugging away on the waggler and apart from Tony who was catching really well, I felt that I was holding my own against everyone else from what I could see . Clive was fishing his right hand margin, and while he was putting fish in the net, he seemed to be suffering a few blank periods in between………..

  

  Colin however was experiencing a really good end to the match and in the last 2 hours was absolutely flying, taking decent fish regularly from the margin over on peg 14 …………

  

  Jim was having a bit of a struggle and confessed to a bit of frustration as he felt he wasn’t getting the best from his swim as it seemed that wherever he looked others were doing better than him ……

  

  with 20 minutes to go the wind got up again so I took a final look down the margin with the pole, but only managed 2 more fish, they were however better fish and probably added about 15lbs to my net before Dave blew the All-out at 4pm.

  

  So with the kit packed up and back in the car it was time for the weigh-in. Terry kicked off from peg 1 with 44¼lbs and was immediately overtaken by Dave with 48lbs. Keith had finally sorted things out to record 76¼lbs , but his mate Mick was to take the bragging rights on the trip home to Milton Keynes with a fine 101lbs . Clive had 78lbs to show for his efforts while Colin had a final 2 hours “To die for” as he put it weighing 112¼lbs . Dave T declared he’d really enjoyed his day and the 60¼lbs he put on the scales . Tony’s nets rather gave the game away as they were lifted out, and when his catch was totalled up 176¼lbs was always going to be enough for the win . My own fish came to 106lbs which would prove to be good enough for 4th on the day . While Simon was last to weigh and put a fine 129lbs on the scales for 2nd on the day .
  
  So 5 Ton weights in a total of 1155½lbs weighed in resulting in an average of 68lbs per angler made for another good day out for the members of Marsh AC and their guests, and I think shows just what a good venue Hartleylands Farm is . Thanks to all that made it another enjoyable day out . The next Marsh club match is at Colemans Cottage next month, while my next outing is to Rolf’s Lake for the 4th match in The Jinx Series next Saturday.
  

  Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
  1st	Peg 21	Tony Roberts	176lbs 04ozs
  2nd	Peg 31	Simon Watkins	129lbs 00ozs
  3rd	Peg 14	Colin Sharrard	112lbs 04ozs
  4th	Peg 23	Peter Morton	106lbs 00ozs
  5th	Peg 9	Mick Wright      (guest)	101lbs 00ozs
  6th	Peg 12	Clive Pritchard   (guest)	78lbs 00ozs
  7th	Peg 6	Keith Ashby       (guest)	76lbs 04ozs
  8th	Peg 18	Dave Talbot       (guest)	60lbs 04ozs
  9th	Peg 8	Chris Withall	50lbs 08ozs
  10th	Peg 3	Dave Collier	48lbs 00ozs
  11th	Peg 16	Judy Hermite	44lbs 12ozs
  12th	Peg 1	Terry Goff	44lbs 04ozs
  13th	Peg 27	John Holdsworth	42lbs 08ozs
  14th	Peg 25	Jim Boase	36lbs 04ozs
  15th	Peg 35	Martin Hucker	24lbs 08ozs
  16th	Peg 37	Zack Johnson	16lbs 12ozs
  17th	Peg 33	Rod Turner	9lbs 00ozs

  

  

   

  • 2:00 am
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