August 14, 2010

• Colemans Cottage Fishery. Pathfield Lake.

  Marsh AC club match.

  

  It’s off to Essex for me today to Colemans Cottage to fish just my 4th club match of the year. Hopefully it’ll be a decent day and everyone will catch a few . However I nearly didn’t make it today having woken at 1·30am and been violently sick for no apparent reason . I finally got back to sleep around 3am, so only got about 3 hours sleep before the alarm went off. A grey drizzly day wasn’t the greatest incentive, but I figured I would probably feel better on the bank out in the fresh air .
  
  I arrived at the fishery just after 8am and decided a small breakfast was in order to check out the state of my stomach . Dave soon had the monies collected and the draw underway. Now normally the low numbers are the favourite pegs on Pathfield Lake, so you can imagine my delight at drawing peg 26 down on the shallow newer part of the lake. Dave of course had his usual low draw and I’m sure I detected a little smirk when he recorded my draw on the sheet .
  
  So out to collect my nets and a stroll down to take a look at my peg, an end peg effectively as peg 25 was empty today and there seemed to be a few fish feeding, so back to the car park to collect my gear and stroll back down to the peg. I’ve got Kevin for company today on peg 28 so I should be good for a mid match cup of coffee courtesy of Jean .

  

   It’s probably 13mtrs to the island, and the targets today are Carp, Mirrors and Commons + a decent head of recently stocked F1′s along with silvers which include Barbel. Now I said it was shallow but even I was surprised when an initial plumb up revealed a maximum of 15 inches down the track at around 5mtrs and just 12 inches in the margins . Now given that there are some decent carp present and they tend to take off like bullets in such shallow water I set up a couple of modified Rolf’s rigs, and these were Malman Adam 4×10′s on 0·20 Power Match with a size 14 QM1 hooks adjusted to suit + a Malman MTD2 on 0·20 Power Match with a size 16 QM1 hook for shallow. I also set up a 4X12 Middy Paste Float, it’s a really strong line through design made up on ·20 Ultima Power Match finished off with a Drennan size 12 Carp Method hook to fish paste in both margins. Bait was just 6 and 8mm hard pellet, 6mm GOT Baits Expanders and GOT Baits Atomic Paste .
  
  So at 10am Dave signalled the All-In, a hand full of pellet onto the 5mtr line and a pinch into each margin. The plan was to concentrate on the 5mtr line and regularly flick pellet into the margins, but not to touch them till a tail pattern showed. Out to the 5mtr line which was already bubbling and fizzing with a 6mm expander produced an instant bite, a small F1 which was immediately followed by it’s twin, not quite what I was hoping for, but I was off the mark . I swapped to a banded 8mm in the hope of attracting something slightly larger, but all I got for my trouble was a couple of foul hookers which tore off at a rate of knots before shedding the hook . A change to banded 6mm produced a series of frustrating little digs at the float until it finally buried and I connected with a feisty Common of around 3lbs which battled all the way to the net. This seemed to set the pattern for the next 3 hours, I wasn’t setting the place alight with maybe 30lbs in the net, but nobody else was apparently from what I could see and gather from a couple of anglers that were strolling around, though Chris Newton on peg 23 reported having had around a dozen fish ……..

  

  …… and I’d noticed that Chris Withall had strolled down from peg 20 to collect a second carp net quite early on .
  
  Around half way through I spotted a tail pattern in the left hand margin and soon had a couple of better Commons of around 5lbs a piece safely in the net . Clive appeared at this point and I had another of around 3lbs which he captured on camera before returning to his peg…….

  

  

    Unfortunately the next fish proved to be a foul hooker which absolutely trashed the margin before shedding the hook .
  Rather than risk wrecking it further I decided to re-feed both margins with a couple of handfuls of pellet and take a stroll with the camera to allow it to settle.
  
  Graham was on peg 30 which had plenty of marginal cover along with fish obviously feeding, but he was having a bit of a struggle trying to tempt them to take a bait ……
  

  

   Martin opposite seemed pretty quiet with what looked like a feeder rod set up to try and tempt a few…….
  

  

   Next was Keith on peg 33, who I noticed already had a second carp net in, he was pretty cagey about it though reckoning that it was empty at that point, but he’s a damn good angler and I couldn’t be sure that he wasn’t telling porkies …….
  

  

   Tony on peg 36 hadn’t broken any BeastMaster sections, but said that he was struggling to get to grips with things today……
  

  

   My last port of call was to Clive who was on peg 3 today. He had an overflow pipe trickling water into his left hand margin, and it was here that he was fishing, and judging by the tail patterns the fish were there too …….
  

  

   He said that he was being plagued by foul hookers though which was really frustrating him, but as I went to return to my peg he hooked and landed a lively pearl white Ghostie  ……
  

  

   As I made my way back down the bank I noticed Tony was also into a Ghostie himself, this one a lovely brassy flanked fish ……
  

  

   So it was starting to look that a few people were sandbagging with their tales of struggle, and with Keith also sliding a Carp over the landing net as I passed him, I knew that I was going to need a decent final couple of hours……
  

  

   Ever the optimist I grabbed a second carp net for myself as I returned to my peg and staked it out on my return. Jean supplied a welcome cup of coffee  as I made my mind up to ignore the 5mtr line and just fish paste in the margin for the remainder. It was slow at first with a few hesitant bites that I missed, but I soon got into a rhythm feeding and fishing both margins close to my nets……

  

  …….. taking a fish from either side before swapping over to avoid to much disturbance, the odd foul hooker disturbed this, but on the whole the last hour and a half saw my catch rate increase nicely .
  
  By the time Dave called the all out at 4pm, I was confident that I had high double figures, but had lost track a bit having mislaid my clicker, but I was kicking myself a bit for not having fished the paste sooner and hoping that it hadn’t cost me to badly.
  
  With the gear back in the car, the inquests started, Keith was owning up to 60-70ish as was Clive, all would be revealed by the scales. Clive soon set the mark with 77½lbs which he seemed reasonably pleased with , but in general the low numbers hadn’t fished as well as expected today with Dave Colliers’s 66lbs being the next best. Indeed it wasn’t till we got to peg 17 that we saw another weight to overtake Clive’s, Ken Walker following up his 2nd place on the previous club match at Blasford Hill with a fine 80½lbs today , which would bring him a similar result . Chris Withall on peg 20 had a busy day, his 77½lbs equalling Clive’s weight . Round to my peg and I was honestly surprised when my weight was called at a level 131lbs  which would prove to be the best of the day . The last weigh of note was Keith’s at 78½lbs which gave him 3rd overall , just pipping Clive and Chris.
  
  The nice bit about Colemans is going back to the clubhouse for the results and being able to get a cuppa and a bite to eat while Dave sorts the results and dishes out the section pools, before we bid our farewells .

  The next club match is at Rockells Farm which is always one to look forward to, but before that I’m back at Rolfs Lake next Saturday for the final Jinx Match of the year.

  Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
  1st	26	Peter Morton	131lbs 00ozs
  2nd	17	Ken Walker	80lbs 08ozs
  3rd	33	Keith Ashby	78lbs 08ozs
  4th=	3	Clive Pritchard	77lbs 08ozs
  4th=	20	Chris Withall	77lbs 08ozs
  6th	8	Dave Collier	66lbs 00ozs
  7th	6	Terry Goff	55lbs 00ozs
  8th	5	Mick Wright            (guest)	51lbs 08ozs
  9th	30	Graham Manning	51lbs 00ozs
  10th	36	Tony Roberts	50lbs 00ozs
  11th	9	Nick Bondeau           (guest)	38lbs 08ozs
  12th	11	Colin Sharrard	36lbs 00ozs
  13th	22	Judy Hermite	35lbs 08ozs
  14th	28	Kevin Loveland	32lbs 08ozs
  15th	35	Jimmy Etherington   (guest)	28lbs 08ozs
  16th	23	Chris Newton           (guest)	26lbs 08ozs
  17th	2	John Holdsworth	24lbs 08ozs
  18th	16	Simon Watkins	23lbs 08ozs
  19th	19	Martin Hucker	20lbs 00ozs
  20th	13	Zak Johnson	19lbs 00ozs
  21st	14	Rod Turner	18lbs 00ozs
  22nd	7	Eddy Dobson	13lbs 00ozs
  23rd	32	Ron Mannister	9lbs 00ozs

  

  

   

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