September 18, 2011

• Rockells Farm. Saffron Walden. Essex.

  Marsh AC club match.

  

  It’s Rockells Farm that is the venue for the latest Marsh AC match today. It normally throws up some phenomenal weights so hopes will be high for a good days fishing today among the club members . I’d arranged to meet at Dave’s house and follow him to the venue, so with the cats fed and the car loaded I made my way over there arriving around 6·45am. Chris was strolling down the road, he was tagging along today as a spectator, his broken arm preventing him from fishing. Dave appeared and we were off and we made good time arriving at Rockells around 8am .
  
  A few of the lads set off to peg out as the pegs aren’t numbered and I soon had the kit loaded on the trolley, and that’s where it all started to go pear shaped. There’s a bit of a slope up from the car park to the lake, and halfway up the slope I felt a searing pain in my left calf that brought me to a halt! A couple of the lads came to my aid, but I was left hobbling around and feeling pretty uncomfortable, not the best of starts to my day .
  
  Anyway Peg 13 came my way in the draw, a number that seems to follow me, and I hobbled off with my kit to set up for the day ahead. John had Peg 10 with Jim for company on Peg 11, while Peg 12 was empty. I arrived to find that I had Simon for company on Peg 14 today, Terry was through the gap on Peg 15 ( where Dave had 344lbs last year) Vic was on 16 with Clive on Peg 17 (my peg last year).
  
  I have to say that my initial impression was that the swim looked spot on with an overhanging willow to the right and another to the left , but with my box set up I got a bit of a shock as I put my nets in, finding that the water barely covered them, and a closer look confirmed that the water level was at least a foot down, if not a bit more on the normal level when I’ve fished there previously ! It’s not deep at the best of times and as I sorted out the rigs for the day ahead it became apparent just how little water I had in front of me.

  

   

  I ended up with 3 rigs, all pretty much identical, being 0.2 NG Edger’s on 0·20 Ultima Power Match finished off with size 16 Guru MWG’s, plus a 0·2 NG Margin paste on 0·20 Ultima Power Match finished off with size 12 Guru MWG that was set up on my margin pole, these were set between 6 and 18 inches deep as that was all the depth I could find regardless of where I plumbed up. Bait today was 8mm pellet and paste with 6mm pellet for feed. but I also had some 6mm floating pellet as these have proved deadly in the past for sorting out the better fish .
  
  On previous visits I’ve caught well on a top 2 tight in to the margins, but that line was dry today, so I would be looking to fish a line at the end of my nets and across to the overhanging trees. With a bit of time before the off I had a hobble along to see how the others were. Pretty much in the same boat, but someone had been doing some gardening removing a lot of cover, most notably in Clive’s swim where an overhanging bush had completely vanished and he was struggling to find any depth of water . Vic’s platform was way off the water, but at least he’d managed to get set up in front of it at water level, but again all the bank side vegetation had been cut back. Thankfully Kevin had brought a cup of coffee round and I sat down to drink that as I contemplated the two 3 hour sessions ahead .
  
  So at 10am Dave called the All-In and a handful of pellet to the end of my nets and to the edge of both trees was followed by a banded 8mm to the end of my nets, and I also flicked out a few floaters to the edge of the right hand willow. The float soon slid away and a scrappy little Mirror of no more than 8ozs got me off the mark. Simon was off the mark as well and I soon had another couple of similar sized fish to keep the first one company . Now Rockells isn’t really about finesse normally, it’s a question of keeping the feed going in and catching quick, but it was noticeable that with so little water, playing fish was making the rest back off, so I was alternating between the end of my nets and across to the willow, while feeding every put in to hold the fish. The floaters weren’t drifting out of the swim, but nothing was touching them either .
  
  Across on the other side I could see Keith who seemed to be picking up a few fish down his margin line ……

  

   

  While Dave on the next peg looked like he’d set out his stall to fish his usual floater tactics that work well for him here ……

  

   

  After about an hour I had about 12 fish, not enough by the usual standards so gave the paste rig a try, this is normally a banker for me here as it tends to produce a slightly better stamp of fish, but it wasn’t having the desired effect today as I was having to wait to long between bites and the fish that it did produce were of a similar size to the pellet fish so after 30 minutes that was up the bank . Despite keeping a few floaters going in nothing had shown for them so I just had to keep picking off odd fish here and there and at the end of 3 hours when Dave called the All-Out for a half time Weigh-In I had around 35 fish, the biggest of which might have gone 2lbs if I was lucky.
  
  With a set of scales on each side of the lake we soon had it underway. John had 51¼lbs and Jim 29lbs. I weighed 41lbs and Simon 46½lbs. Terry had 25¼lbs while Vic managed 40lbs and Clive could only muster 19¼lbs. Not the greatest weights and we could tell by the pace of the weigh-in across the lake that there had been some better weights over there. Martin appeared with another coffee from Jean and the news that Dave and Al had both had 80lbs +.
  
  At 2pm Dave called the All-In for the second half and it was just a question of carrying on with my approach and hope that some better fish would put in an appearance, and I kept flicking out a few floaters hoping they would do the job, but the only thing they seemed to attract were 3 geese ……

  

   

  The small fish were still there, but were once again coming in fits and starts and at around a pound a time weren’t really large enough to build any sort of weight. I could see Dave across the lake was still taking fish at a steady rate and they appeared to be of a better stamp than the ones I was getting ……

  

   

  Another look with the paste proved to be nothing but a waste of time, still yielding little fish, but at a slower rate than fishing pellet. The strange part was that Simon was catching on floaters in the next swim, whereas they were doing nothing for me. Meanwhile John down on Peg 10 was having a cracking session and steadily building a decent weight , as was Vic on Peg 16 who was finally finding some better fish on paste ……

  

   

  I just plugged away amid rain showers to the end, and while I’d caught more in the 2nd session when Dave called the All-Out at 5pm I didn’t expect my 55 fish to weigh more than 60lbs . Thankfully the showers had stopped as we packed away, and with a set of scales at Clive’s peg we decided to get our part of the Weigh-In over and done with.
  
  Poor Clive’s day hadn’t got any better with a meagre 16lbs to show for his efforts . Vic’s second half had been a definite improvement with 100¾lbs . Terry had 41¼lbs and Simon once again beat me with 71½lbs to my 65¼lbs. Jim had added 38¼lbs to his morning total, but John had the best weight on our bank with a fine 128½lbs .
  
  So with our gear returned to the car park we all assembled as Dave worked out the results and monies. Winner on the day was Mr Chairman Dave with a total of 196¾lbs closely followed by Al on 193¼lbs while John’s total of 180¼lbs gave him 3rd on the day just ahead of Keith’s 176lbs. Six more ‘Ton+’ totals followed including my own 106¼lbs so while it would be harsh to say that it had been anything other than a good days fishing , however such is the level of catches that Rockells can produce that it’s safe to say that there were a few disappointed anglers that made their way home after the match.
  
  Anyway the final club match of the season lies ahead at Hartleylands Farm on October 15th when we’ll be fishing The Reservoir, however prior to that I’m at Rolfs Lake on Saturday for the final match of The Jinx Series.

   

  Position	Peg	Angler		Morning	Afternoon	Total Weight
  1st	Peg 7	Dave Collier		89lbs 04ozs	107lbs 08ozs	196lbs 12ozs
  2nd	Peg 2	Al Loader		85lbs 08ozs	107lbs 12ozs	193lbs 04ozs
  3rd	Peg 10	John Holdsworth		51lbs 12ozs	128lbs 08ozs	180lbs 04ozs
  4th	Peg 6	Keith Ashby		62lbs 00ozs	114lbs 00ozs	176lbs 00ozs
  5th	Peg 1	Martin Hucker		72lbs 00ozs	96lbs 12ozs	168lbs 12ozs
  6th	Peg 4	Tony Roberts		62lbs 08ozs	91lbs 12ozs	154lbs 04ozs
  7th	Peg 16	Vic Nugent		40lbs 00ozs	100lbs 12ozs	140lbs 12ozs
  8th	Peg 14	Simon Watkins		46lbs08ozs	71lbs 08ozs	118lbs 00ozs
  9th	Peg 13	Peter Morton		41lbs 00ozs	65lbs 04ozs	106lbs 04ozs
  10th	Peg 9	Mick Wright	Guest	50lbs 00ozs	54lbs 12ozs	104lbs 12ozs
  11th	Peg 11	Jim Boase		29lbs 00ozs	38lbs 04ozs	67lbs 04ozs
  12th	Peg 15	Terry Goff		25lbs 04ozs	41lbs 04ozs	66lbs 08ozs
  13th	Peg 5	Zack Johnson	Guest	16lbs 00ozs	26lbs 00ozs	42lbs 00ozs
  14th	Peg 17	Clive Pritchard		19lbs 04ozs	16lbs 00ozs	35lbs 04ozs
  15th	Peg 3	Rod Turner		5lbs 08ozs	20lbs 00ozs	25lbs 08ozs
  16th	Peg 8	Kevin Loveland		17lbs 12ozs	5lbs 00ozs	22lbs 12ozs

   

  

  

  

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