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Colemans Cottage Fishery. Cottage Lake.

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Marsh AC club match.

Well it was down to Colemans Cottage today for an impromptu final match on Cottage Lake with Marsh AC to give Kevin a fitting send off before he and Jean leave for The Bahamas . Now Cottage Lake is the original more established lake at Colemans and doesn't get used for many matches, so it's a bit of a trip into the unknown for most of us.
With very little info available anywhere about this lake and the nights getting colder it was anyones guess how it would fish, but I always enjoy fishing a water that's new to me, so I soon had the motor loaded this morning and was away in good time and pulled into the fishery at around 7·50am to be greeted by Tony who'd already been for a scout round the lake . First things first, up to the lodge where Terry, Eddie, Kevin and Jean were already in attendance and a 'Full English' was soon ordered and dispatched , and as the rest of the crew arrived a few of us set off to peg the lake.
First impressions were that it looked a little gem , only 19 pegs but well established in comparison to the newer lakes at the fishery and having decided which pegs to leave out we made our way back to the lodge, where Dave got the draw under way for the 13 of us present. Today for a bit of fun Dave had drawn 3 teams, 2 teams of 4 and one of five, with the team of 5 being able to drop their worst result, and I was in the team of 5 along with Colin, Graham, Zack and Rod . Into the hat and Peg 2 was mine, so gear collected from the car and down to the lake. For company today I had Rod on Peg 1 to my left and Kevin on Peg 4 to my right. The platform on my peg had seen better days, but nothing that couldn't be sorted thanks to my box's telescopic legs.

From the little info I'd managed to glean it seemed that there was a fair head of Carp, including some proper lumps and plenty of silvers. Looking at my peg, I had a tree overhanging the left hand margin and a bush to the right. The wind made it feel pretty chilly though luckily it was off my back. I decided on a pole approach, setting up 3 rigs. The 1st being a 4X12 Malman Adam on 0·20 power match straight through to a size 14 QM1 for a line at around 8mtrs where I had around 3½ ft of depth, and 2 Malman MTD1's similarly rigged for down the margins 2ft deep in the left and 1 ft in the right hand. Bait for the day was going to be 6mm GOT expander pellets and corn with 6 mm pellets for feed.

10am and as Dave called the All-In I shipped out a pot of pellet with a few grains of corn to my 8mtr line and fed some pellet down both margins. Tony was in to a fish almost straight away while I shipped out my rig baited with a grain of corn. No instant response for me however despite lifting and dropping the rig to try and provoke some action, just little dinks that I couldn't connect with. Looking around a few people appeared to be taking the odd silver, but nobody appeared to be off to a flyer. 30 minutes in having changed to expander on the hook a good positive bite resulted in several feet of elastic, and after a spirited scrap a pristine Common of around 3lbs was safely netted to get me off the mark . A second followed soon after, a Mirror this time of a similar size.
I could see Colin over on Peg 8 fishing tight to the bush overhanging his left hand margin and he seemed to be matching me fishing his favourite paste......

Twenty biteless minutes followed before the next bite, this time however it felt like a much more solid fish as it plodded off, steady pressure took it's toll however and after about 5 minutes I slid the net under a Common that must have been close to 10lbs . Another couple of fish soon followed, sadly not of quite the same stamp, both of them being closer to 2lbs than 10, but very welcome none the less. So 5 fish in the net for around 20lbs and things were looking good, the next bite however resulted in me being attached to something that felt more like a submarine than a fish , It just steadily headed off across the lake and all I could do was hang on with the pole tip under the water till the hook pulled. Unfortunately it trashed the rig . With a new rig sorted it was back out, but it took a good 20 minutes till another bite produced a small but perfectly formed Mirror of around 8ozs. A look down both margins produced nothing at all, so I decided to re feed and have a stroll with the camera while things settled.

Rod appeared to be having a bit of a struggle with just a solitary skimmer to show for his efforts , while Graham was taking a steady stream of small silvers from his peg . Eddie seemed to have a decent feature to fish to, but the fish didn't seem to agree and he was working hard for little reward ......

Terry was another who was having trouble getting to grips with things and it was becoming pretty obvious that the overnight drops in temperature during the previous week had taken its toll on things . Young Zack had managed to winkle out a couple of Carp on the feeder however and was looking reasonably happy with his lot ......

Martin had nicked a Carp as well and had also encountered a submarine that had seen him off. Round to Dave who was plugging away fishing maggot which had produced some silvers and a couple of Carp for him......

Tony was in pretty much the same position as Dave and fishing for anything with fins, while Colin's paste attack had produced 5 Carp for him, though he'd lost 3 fish which he felt were foul hooked, and while Jean watched on from behind, Kevin had managed a couple of Carp on corn......

Back to my peg and I decided to try a banded 6mm on the hook and almost immediately it produced a plump Common of around 1½lbs swiftly followed by a 12oz skimmer. I struck into the next bite and all hell seemed to be let loose as a big Carp charged off then boiled on the surface, a large Mirror that was hooked in the tail!!!!! Steady pressure saw me making progress, but the fun was still to come. Colemans supply all the nets at the fishery, but the landing nets are only 18" spoons. Somehow and more by luck than judgement I managed to get the fish up and it's head in the net 1st time, then the hook fell out . The fish was a stunning Mirror of around 10lbs, the orange of it's tail contrasting wonderfully with its dark brown flanks. Dave arrived and was surprised that I'd got it in so quickly as he felt sure that I would still be playing it. A quick chat during which I missed a couple of bites then Dave was on his way.

The afternoon settled into a pattern where I would get a couple of fish then have to wait 15-20 minutes before I would get another couple, and I felt this could be down to the fish patrolling around rather than settling and the water starting to loose a bit of it's colour as it got cooler making the fish a little spooky. Still I was putting fish in the net though I always felt that Colin had the edge as he was keeping up with me and his fish seemed to be of a better average size .

Rod at last seemed to have had a a change of fortune hooking a decent Carp only to suffer one of those horrible moments as he played it all the way to the net only to have his 8lb line break for no apparent reason . Dave however had better luck when he latched into a decent fish, and although it gave him a bit of a runaround he soon had it safely in the net ......

My last fish proved to be a Tench of around 1¾lbs and when Dave called the All-Out at 4pm I'd taken 17 Carp to go with that Tench and the skimmer which I felt would be somewhere close to 60lbs .

So Kit packed away and on to the Weigh-In with Kevin once more taking up his familiar role of scalesman. Rod kicked things off with 1lb for his solitary skimmer, while my fish came to 62½lbs . Kevin recorded 15¼lbs while it was Colin who took the honours on the day with a fine 67¾lbs . Tony found that his 25¼lbs was only good enough for 4th on the day as Dave produced 27¾ for 3rd. Martin recorded a level 14lbs and Zack 12½lbs. Ken produced 8¼lbs while Terry had struggled for 8½lbs. Bob could only muster 3¾lbs and Eddie had only 3½lbs to show for his efforts. Graham being the last to weigh produced a hard earnt 10¼lbs as his reward for plugging away at the silvers.

So back to the Lodge for a welcome cuppa and a slice of bread pudding paid for by Dave .
It turned out that our team had won on the day, meaning that Zack received his first ever pick-up from a match .
While the weights had been a little disappointing in general I felt that the conditions hadn't shown the lake in it's best light, Match wise although it holds 19 pegs it probably can't hold more than 16 in comfort which restricts it a little, but I for one would be more than happy to fish it again.
So that's it, definitely the final Marsh AC match of the year, well unless we sneak out somewhere for an impromptu Christmas match .

Where am I off to next? Who knows? but the report will be here when I find out .

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 8	Colin Sharrard	67lbs 12ozs
2nd	Peg 2	Peter Morton	62lbs 08ozs
3rd	Peg 20	Dave Collier	27lbs 12ozs
4th	Peg 9	Tony Roberts	25lbs 04ozs
5th	Peg 4	Kevin Loveland	15lbs 04ozs
6th	Peg 11	Martin Hucker	14lbs 00ozs
7th	Peg 12	Zack Johnson	12lbs 08ozs
8th	Peg 19	Graham Manning	10lbs 04ozs
9th	Peg 16	Terry Goff	8lbs 08ozs
10th	Peg 13	Ken Walker	8lbs 04ozs
11th	Peg 17	Bob Hucker	3lbs 12ozs
12th	Peg 18	Eddie Dobson	3lbs 08ozs
13th	Peg 1	Rod Turner	1lbs 00ozs

Now the club doesn't operate a championship as such but for a bit of fun I worked out a table of the seasons results using a 20 point system, allowing for an anglers worst result to be dropped and 1 point awarded for a DNW. Guests results were not included in the table and the matches at the Private Lake and Cottage Lake at Colemans weren't included as neither of them were official club matches. As you can see it was very close in the end with Colin and Tony tied at the top. However Colin had 3 match wins to Tony's 2 and also caught a greater weight of fish. My blow out on the 1st match at Monks and missing the 1st match at Colemans knocked me back. Perhaps I should have worked it out on aggregate weight .

Position	Angler	Monks	PeaLane	Colemans	Rockells	Nicks	Colemans	Rayne	Points	Total Weight
1st	Colin Sharrard	20 pts	14 pts	20 pts	17 pts	18 pts	20 pts	11 pts	109 pts	580lbs 04ozs
2nd	Tony Roberts	17 pts	15 pts	18 pts	16 pts	20 pts	18 pts	20 pts	109 pts	568lbs 12ozs
3rd	Dave Collier	19 pts	20 pts	19 pts	18 pts	15 pts	16 pts	d.n.f.	107 pts	535lbs 04ozs
4th	Peter Morton	9 pts	17 pts	d.n.f.	19 pts	17 pts	19 pts	18 pts	99 pts	625lbs 04ozs
5th	Terry Goff	13 pts	1 pt	13 pts	15 pts	13 pts	13 pts	17 pts	86 pts	325lbs 12ozs
6th	Martin Hucker	6 pts	8 pts	11 pts	20 pts	10 pts	12 pts	16 pts	77 pts	499lbs 04ozs
7th	John Holdsworth	8 pts	12 pts	7 pts	d.n.f.	12 pts	13 pts	19 pts	71 pts	155lbs 00ozs
8th	Ken Walker	18 pts	11 pts	9 pts	9 pts	d.n.f.	10 pts	8 pts	65 pts	122lbs 00ozs
9th	Jim Boase	d.n.f.	19 pts	12 pts	8 pts	11 pts	d.n.f.	14 pts	64 pts	134lbs 08ozs
10th	Judy Hermite	10 pts	16 pts	d.n.f.	12 pts	14 pts	d.n.f.	11 pts	63 pts	171lbs 04ozs
11th	Chris Withall	11 pts	18 pts	17 pts	d.n.f.	16 pts	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	62 pts	105lbs 08ozs
12th	Rod Turner	7 pts	1 pt	16 pts	7 pts	8 pts	14 pts	9 pts	61 pts	75lbs 08ozs
13th	Zack Johnson	14 pts	9 pts	8 pts	6 pts	9 pts	11 pts	7 pts	58 pts	96lbs 14ozs
14th	Roger Noakes	12 pts	13 pts	4 pts	11 pts	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	15 pts	55 pts	109lbs 08ozs
15th	Simon Watkins	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	15 pts	d.n.f.	19 pts	17 pts	d.n.f.	51 pts	212lbs 08ozs
16th	Graham Manning	16 pts	7 pts	d.n.f.	14 pts	d.n.f.	9 pts	d.n.f.	46 pts	154lbs 12ozs
17th	Eddie Dobson	d.n.f.	10 pts	10 pts	10 pts	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	12 pts	42 pts	82lbs 04ozs
18th	Kevin Loveland	15 pts	d.n.f.	14 pts	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	29 pts	48lbs 08ozs
19th	Ron Mannister	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	6 pts	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	14 pts	20 pts	32lbs 00ozs
20th	Bob Hucker	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	5 pts	13 pts	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	18 pts	94lbs 08ozs

(d.n.f. = Did not Fish. 20 pts = Match Winner.)

Hartleylands Farm Fishery. Peartree Lake.

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Well today is a rare midweek day out with a few of the lads from Marsh AC and Maggotdrowners . Not a club match as such, just a days fishing as Kevin has returned to these shores for six weeks before he and Jean finally make their move to The Bahamas. So that Kevin can get a final bit of fishing in ahead of their departure we'd arranged this trip down to Hartleylands today along with a final official club match at Colemans Cottage on Saturday .

I've still got a few days of Holiday to fit in before the end of the year, so booked the day off to venture out for an all to rare weekday session . Loading up the car just before 6am it was noticeably chilly and the car thermometer only read 4°C . I'd arranged to meet a few of the lads at The Knoxbridge Café for a spot of breakfast beforehand and when I got there Kevin, Jean and Al were already tucking in and we were soon joined by Tony and Jim. Soon we made our way down to the fishery to find the car park packed as there was a Police match on Nick's and Bramley.

Dave soon had the draw organised and with just 13 of us fishing we just used the odd pegs on Peartree and I found Peg 19 in my hand. I soon had my gear round to the peg, though a soft trolley tyre made it harder work than usual .

Settling in I had plenty of island to go at and I decided on a nice simple day fishing the method feeder, so setting up really took no time at all seeing as the rod was already set up in its ready sleeve. Indeed I had plenty of time to go back to the car and sort out my trolley tire.
For company today I had Tony to my right on Peg 17 and DaveT (Faye's Dad) on Peg 15, while to my left on Peg 21 was Terry. Apart from the groundbait I just had a selection of pellets for the hook and a few maggots.

Dave blew the All-In at 10·15. I banded a white 6mm pellet and with the feeder clipped up dropped it around a foot from the island. Within 30 seconds the tip wrapped round and a nice little Common Carp of around 1lb was soon safely netted to get me off the mark . Back out and the tip wrapped again and Common number 2 was safely netted. The third cast produced exactly the same result, Happy Days .

Or not as it proved , subsequent casts produced not even a tremble on the tip, going through various hookbaits had no effect at all and after an hour I decided to get the pole out. A quick look in my box found a suitable rig, a 4X12 KC Tricky on 0·14 power match with a size 18 Drennan Carp Match hook. Plumbing up at around 9mtrs I found a nice even patch at around 3½ft deep. It was noticeable that nobody had really been catching much, apart from Bill up on Peg11, so I decided to go for it and balled 6 balls of groundbait in to see if I could draw a few fish, Then went back out on the method to let things settle. Another 20 minutes on the method produced nothing however , so time for the pole. 20 minute on the pole was biteless as well so I fed 2 pots of pellets and took a stroll.

Tony had a few on the method and had mugged a 4lb'er from the margin, but was struggling to put any sort of run of fish together......

Dave T was happy with his lot as he'd managed to snare a carp that he was sure was his best ever on his new pole ......

Jim was having a bit of a struggle tucked down in a corner on peg 13 and was having to watch Bill regularly putting a fish or two into his nets, even though he was suffering blank spells of his own......

Martin and Rod were suffering in a similar vein to Jim , though John was managing the odd fish on the feeder from the end of the island.
I got round to Dave just as he was into another fish on the feeder, just a small stockie carp but welcome all the same ......

Al strolled round with his wife who'd come down to see him for a couple of hours and she and Jean were taking orders for pies from the farm shop, so with my order placed I strolled round to Kev who was actually into his second fish of the day ......

Stopping for a chat with Terry he was struggling big time without a single fish to show for his efforts , despite there being fish moving in the reeds in his left hand margin.

Settling back into my peg I banded a 6mm pellet and shipped out and settled for feeding just 10-15 pellets every put in. 10 minutes of lifting and dropping finally produced a bite, and a chunky little Mirror of around 1½lbs was a welcome result . Jean and Al's wife arrived with the pies, and that Meat & Potato pie looked like it was going to be the best bite I was going to get on the day . I wish I could say it got better as the day progressed, but it didn't, apart from Jean turning up with a freshly brewed mug of tea courtesy of Dave . Far to long between bites was the story, but I plugged away and ended with 19 fish which I thought might scrape 20lbs, by the time Dave called the All-Out.

The Weigh-In didn't take long. Kev kicked off with just a couple of fish for 2½lbs. Dave had fared better with 28¼lbs to show for his efforts, while John managed 14¼lbs. Bill took the bragging rights on the day with a hard earned 49lbs while DaveT managed 30½lbs for second (Including his 8½lb PB Common ) Tony managed 22¼lbs to edge out my 19¾lbs. Terry managed to find a few in the end to weigh 16¼lbs while Al managed 30¼lbs for third on the day.

So no great shakes fishing wise, but good company and far better than a day at work . It's off to Essex and Colemans Cottage on Saturday and hopefully a few more fish.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 11	Bill Gibbins	49lbs 00ozs
2nd	Peg 15	Dave Talbot	30lbs 08ozs
3rd	Peg 23	Al Loader	30lbs 04ozs
4th	Peg 3	Dave Collier	28lbs 04ozs
5th	Peg 17	Tony Roberts	22lbs 04ozs
6th	Peg 19	Peter Morton	19lbs 12ozs
7th	Peg 21	Terry Goff	16lbs 04ozs
8th	Peg 5	John Holdsworth	14lbs 04ozs
9th	Peg 9	Martin Hucker	4lbs 08ozs
10th	Peg 13	Jim Boase	3lbs 08ozs
11th	Peg 1	Kevin Loveland	2lbs 08ozs
12th	Peg 25	Roger Noakes	1lbs 12ozs
13th	Peg 7	Rod Turner	DNW

PROTAK TR Design Clothing Review.

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:41:03 GMT

I'd been looking to purchase a new set of waterproofs for a while, and could postpone it no longer after the Southern Fur & Feather at Wylands when my old suit gave up the ghost leaving me soaked through .

Having done some homework, 2 companies products stood out as having consistently good reviews from their users. Halkon Hunt Gortex® and Protak TR clothing. To be honest the cost of the Halkon Hunt made it hard to justify for me so I decided to go with PROTAK.

I looked at all the combinations available in the TR Design Range to see what would suit my requirements. Doing a fair amount of pole fishing I wanted a Pole Jacket rather than a ¾length one along with a Bib & Brace. However both of these garments come with a 2oz quilted lining as standard and I was after a year round suit, that I could add a couple of layers to if needed come winter.

I phoned their order line (01625 590140) and spoke to a very helpful lady called Gail and explained just what I was after IE: both garments minus the quilted lining and an extra inch on the Bib & Brace legs along with my name and Maggotdrowning.com embroidered onto the jacket. Not a problem even though they would have to be specialy made with a cost to me of £122 with a delivery time of 3 weeks. Their attention to detail being exemplified by a phonecall I received after 2 weeks just to check the spelling before they embroidered the jacket.

1 week later the suit arrived and I have to say that I was very happy with the finished clothing.It's all made with Tactel® textured nylon with a breathable, delamination-proof Exeat® coating. The Jacket features storm cuffs, nylon zip with storm flap, 2 storm pockets and 2 hand warmer pockets, 2 inside pockets (one of them zipped) a Fleece collar and a detachable hood while the Bib and Brace has 2 chest and 2 leg pockets, 2 way zip with storm flap and zipped gussets on the legs to allow ease of putting on over boots. All the garment seams are fully taped and sealed. It's all machine washable as well .

1st time out the weather threw the lot at me, wind, torrential rain and hail. I sat it out for the full 5 hours of the match without an umbrella and was warm and dry at the end, with not a single leak to be found . This clothing has now had 6 months of reasonably continuous use so far and has confirmed my initial impression that it's a quality bit of kit and Made in England by an English Company and well worth consideration if anyone is thinking of getting some new gear. I will however return to this review at a later date to update my thoughts on it so that everyone is kept up to date on how it continues to perform .

Rayne Lodge Fishery. The Top Lake.

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Marsh AC club match.

So it was off to the Top Lake at Rayne Lodge just outside Braintree in Essex today for what should be the last Marsh AC club match of the year (Though we might manage to sneak another one in somewhere ). It promised to feel a little strange as Dave Collier would be missing his first club match in nearly twenty years but I felt sure that we'd manage to muddle through without him .

The initial look through the bedroom curtains held the promise of a decent day ahead, and it was pleasantly mild as I loaded the kit into the car and set off for deepest Essex . An easy trouble free run down saw me pulling into the Top Lake car park just after 8am, where I found a few of the lads already sorting their kit and ferrying it down the hill to the lake. There were 16 of us today including two of our regular guests, Keith and Mick who had trekked down from Milton Keynes .

Now the Top Lake at Rayne Lodge is one of those picture book little lakes with trees trailing into the lake offering plenty of cover and features to fish to. Well it was !!!!!!!!!

Unfortunately someone appears to have acquired a chainsaw and has yet to discover the OFF switch .
To say that the pruning in some swims has been extensive would be an understatement. Brutal bordering on vandalism would be more accurate in my opinion . By way of example the following photo shows the view from peg 16 last May......

While the following photo shows the view from the same peg now ......

Anyway rant over and back to the business of the day. With Dave absent, Colin and Tony had taken care of the pegging and collection of the cash and it was soon time for the draw. Into the draw-bag and I find myself holding Peg 14a . Last year I would have run to it, but I wasn't so enthusiastic today as it's right at the heart of the recent 'Pruning'. It's one of Dave's favourite swims, but in a way I'm glad he's not here today as he would probably have cried to see it as it is now .

Well it was my swim for the next 6 hours so it was a question of making the most of it. For company today I had Keith over to my left on Peg 16, a quality angler and if he's on a few fish, more than capable of doing the necessary . To my right there was Judy on peg 13 and Colin next to her on Peg 12. Tony has drawn peg 1 and there were a stack of fish in the corner to his right as we were drawing, and with Peg 22 drawn for Al (who hadn't made it as it turned out) he's got that corner to himself .

Time to set up and today I was going with a pellet and paste attack. The lake's level was about a foot down from its normal level and I was going to fish one line straight out at around 7mts where there was around 3ft of depth, and down both margins where there was around a foot. Rigs were my favourite Malman 4X12 Adam on 0·18 Power Match with size 16 Drennan Carp hook to fish pellet as well as a small Malman SC Paste float on 0·18 Power Match with a size 12 Ashima Barbless hook for paste on the 7mtr line with a couple of Malman MTD1 dibbers rigged up on 0·18 Power Match, one with a 16 Drennan for pellet and the other with a size 12 Ashima for paste. I had my feeder rod rigged up in it's ready sleeve but didn't really want to go down that route unless I was struggling. Bait for the day was simply a selection of various pellets and paste, while feed was taken care of with 6mm Skrettings pellets while a bag of groundbait was in the carryall if I needed it later .

So down to business as Colin signalled the All-In at 10am. Out with a pot of pellet at 7mtrs and some more by hand down the margins. A banded 8mm to start was shipped out to 7mtrs. A few little dinks, probably silvers pecking at the pellet. A few lift and drops, float dipped, missed it. Now something I noticed on a previous visit is how bad the condition a lot of the fishes mouths are and I'm sure that's the reason for a lot of missed bites here, as it must be hard to get a hook-hold with the state of some of their mouths. Keith had landed his 1st fish "That's the blank saved" he remarked . I was in almost straight after and soon had a Common of around 2lbs safely in the net. I noticed that the fish was very slimy and hard to get hold of and made a mental note not to try lifting any into the keepnet. Another couple of fish followed for both Keith and myself, but sport was slow to say the least .

After a couple of hours I'd got 7 Carp and a couple of silvers, so out came the feeder rod and I knocked up a bit of groundbait, I'd banded an 8mm pellet and out went the method feeder to the corner of the island. An almost instant response in the form of a Mirror around the 2½lb mark didn't lead to better things however . Colin strolled up with his sandwiches. He'd been having a torrid time of it with just 3 Carp to show for his efforts . Keith meanwhile has suffered from 'slippery fish' syndrome and deposited a Carp safely back into the lake rather than his keepnet . With just 2 Carp to show for 45 minutes on the feeder I decided to cup in some loose groundbait and pellets on my 7mtr line and take a quick stroll with my camera to allow it to settle .

I took a stroll down to see Mick (Keith's travelling partner) on 11a. Tony had this swim on our visit last year and took a good bag from the left hand tree. It's not there any more, just a stump but Mick was nicking a few from the left hand margin ......

I could see Eddie over on Peg 5 with what appeared to be a nice patch of lilies on his right to fish to, so hopefully he would be picking up a few ......

Making my way back, I stopped off at Colin, but things weren't showing any signs of improving for him I'm afraid and he was at a loss as to what he could do to improve things ......

while Judy was in pretty much the same boat as Colin, but was plugging away and at least keeping up with him ......

Back to my peg and I noticed a couple of bubbles coming up on the 7mtr line. Keith was a bit exasperated by the number of fish he'd had shed the hook and had managed to release yet another 'slippery fish' but he now appeared to be concentrating on his margin line ......

Bites for me were still finicky so I decided to fish the 6mm Skrettings I was feeding banded on the hook as they were really quite small compared with some other 6mm pellets.
That seemed to make all the difference for me, and while Keith started to put together a run of fish I felt that I was managing to match him and maybe even ease ahead a little bit . In fact it was all going pretty well apart from a couple of foul hookers, one of which trashed my pellet rig with 15 minutes to go . However swapping to my paste rig still kept the bites coming and I managed another 4 Carp before Colin called the All-Out at 4pm.

Packing away I couldn't help feeling a little frustrated at the way my match had gone , mostly due to the fact that the swim had been altered so drastically from the one I'd been expecting when I drew it, but on the plus side I felt confident that I'd beaten Keith and those around me . The Weigh-In was in full swing by the time that Keith and I caught up with it. Tony leading with a fine 79½lbs that would ultimately take his section and the honours on the day . Ron and Jim had managed a tie from adjacent pegs (3 & 4) with 28lbs each while Eddie had winkled out 21½lbs from peg 5 . Martin had managed a very creditable 63½lbs from Peg 7 only to be pipped by 1lb from the next peg when Terry placed 64½lbs on the scales.

Poor Zack had struggled and could only manage a meagre 11½lbs from peg 10 while John put a level 73lbs on the scales that would give him the section and 2nd overall on the day, but most importantly the bragging rights over Martin & Zack in the car on the way home .
Ken recorded 13½lbs from Peg 11, but it was Mick on Peg 11a with 42½lbs who took the section spoils after Colin and Judy tied from their adjacent pegs with a level 18lbs each .

Round to my peg and my 25 Carp along with a few silvers took the scales round to 67¼lbs for a section win and 3rd overall . Keith's 53½lbs at least saw him with the bragging rights over Mick on the way home . Roger round on Peg 20 weighed in 32½lbs but once again suffered the agony of losing a PB carp at the venue as he'd done last year, While Rod was the last to weigh with a level 14lbs.

All that just left us with just the slog back up the hill to the car park. Thank Heavens that Dave wasn't there to waltz up the hill with his powered trolley and take the mickey out of us all . So with the sections paid out the farewells were done, That's it officially for the Marsh AC club matches this year, though we hope to fit one final outing in next month as Kevin is coming back to visit from the Bahamas, so we'll try to sort out a day with him .
In the meantime it's been a most enjoyable series of matches oncemore, and I'd like to say a BIG THANK YOU to Dave for organising the matches as always and another BIG THANK YOU to all that have fished the matches, both members and guests who've made them great fun to fish as always . Here's to more of the same next year .

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 1	Tony Roberts	79lbs 08ozs
2nd	Peg 10	John Holdsworth	73lbs 00ozs
3rd	Peg 14a	Peter Morton	67lbs 04ozs
4th	Peg 8	Terry Goff	64lbs 08ozs
5th	Peg 7	Martin Hucker	63lbs 08ozs
6th	Peg 16	Keith Ashby (guest)	53lbs 08ozs
7th	Peg 11a	Mick Wright (guest)	42lbs 08ozs
8th	Peg 20	Roger Noakes	32lbs 08ozs
9th=	Peg 3	Ron Mannister	28lbs 00ozs
9th=	Peg 4	Jim Boase	28lbs 00ozs
11th	Peg 5	Eddie Dobson	21lbs 08ozs
12th=	Peg 12	Colin Sharrard	18lbs 00ozs
12th=	Peg 13	Judy Hermite	18lbs 00ozs
14th	Peg 21	Rod Turner	14lbs 00ozs
15th	Peg 11	Ken Walker	13lbs 08ozs
16th	Peg 9	Zack Johnson	11lbs 08ozs

Hartleylands Farm Fishery. Nick's Lake.

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Maggotdrowning.com

Southern Championship 2009.

Down to Hartleylands Farm today just outside the village of Cranbrook to fish the Maggotdrowning.com Southern Individual Championship on Nick's Lake. Nick Gilbert had kindly taken care of organising this match and there promised to be a good turn out for it .

The view out of the window first thing was a little dull and grey, but the forcast predicted a bright warm sunny day so hopefully things would pick up. With the car loaded it was off to The Knoxbridge Cafe for breakfast, quite a few of the lads had the same idea so there was a good bit of banter and a couple of new faces introduced themselves before we made our way down to the fishery for the draw . Arriving at the fishery it was obvious that we had a pretty decent turn out for todays match, 24 of us to be exact. Nick finally got the draw under way with Matt's help. Peg 34 for me, a nice short walk from the car, but not where I really fancied and with Vince drawing peg 23 I feared the loss of a Golden Nugget was very much on the cards .

With my kit at my peg it was time to set up, but for some reason today I really couldn't get into it and remarked on it to Terry who was on peg 33 to my right......

Anyway with 1½hrs to get ready I finally managed to get things done. 1st thing set up was the feeder rod with a small method feeder to drop to the edge of the island. For the pole I set up 3 rigs......

These were essentially similar to those I'd used the previous weekend ie: a couple of Malman 4X12 Adam's on 0·18 Power Match with size 16 Drennan Carp hooks to fish pellet as well as a small Malman SC Paste float on 0·20 Power Match with a size 12 Ashima Barbless hook for paste down the edge. Bait was a selection of various pellets and paste with 6mm pellet for feed, while the groundbait was Sonubaits Method Mix......

11am saw Nick call the All-In and I potted in 2 large pots of pellet and groundbait at 6mtrs and a handfull of pellet down the margins, then went out on the method feeder to allow the pole line to settle. Well that was the plan but as I picked up the rod I noticed that somehow I'd managed to miss out threading the line through the bottom rod rig !! (told you I wasn't really focused when setting up ) So I had to strip things down and start again. Anyway having re-rigged I dropped it to the edge of the island. A couple of taps and the tip wrapped round, the 1st fish was on, only for it to slip the hook halfway to the net . Better luck next cast however and a small Common of around 1lb had me off and running. I managed another couple of similar examples in the next 20 minutes but got the impression that there weren't any number of fish there so decided to try the pole line while catapulting some pellets over to the island in an attempt to draw some fish .

Unfortunately the pole line was no more productive, 45 minutes producing just another couple of small Carp and a skimmer. Time for another look on the method. Dropping the feeder close to the island, I'd just set the tip when it wrapped round, lifting into the fish I noticed a boil in the water by the island and a Duck paddling off at a rate of knots. Unfortunately I was attached to the Duck . Well the subsequent fight caused a deal of hilarity , but Terry managed to do the honours with the net. 'Jemima' was freed and appeared none the worse for her ordeal and Clive kindly did the 'David Bailey' bit for posterity .......

With that episode out of the way I went back to the pole. It produced another couple of small Carp and a couple of small Roach, but it was still a struggle so I re fed all the lines and took the camera for a quick stroll. In fact I could hear splashing from Terry's swim as I stood up, and was just in time to catch him sliding a Carp into the landing net ......

Looking across from Terry's swim I could see Vince and Jessebobs staring straight out in front of them, either they were concentrating hard or was it trying to ignore the ~~bloody awful row~~ singing coming from Al on the next peg ......

Meanwhile Clive was attached to something that was giving his purple Hydro a decent work out and giving him a bit of a run around ......

Simon and Mick were engaged in exchanging witty repartee, though some may have mistaken it for ripping the pee out of each other and wonder of wonders Mick was actually fishing the pole ......

Over on the other side thing were obviously not going to plan however as Matt (MD's very own slapper ) was fishing short down the margin !!!!!!!!!......

On the way back to my peg I noticed that Clive was now concentrating his line of attack down the margin ......

...... and felt that it was probably my best chance of getting anything decent, so out came the paste rig for the final part of the match.
Jeff D had started fishing his margin as well and was having a good run of fish, but it really never happened for me. Just 4 Carp in the last hour, though they were of a better stamp than I'd been getting previously. When Nick called All-Out at 4pm I have to say that I was glad it was all over and I soon had the gear packed up and back in the car .

The Weigh-in was soon under way and Jeff's 59lbs+ was the first weight of any note. My meagre total of 30¼lbs being last in section .
Roy's (Anglingman) 61lbs+ was beaten by Nick's level 69lbs, while Al took the section and 3rd overall with 78¾lbs . Vince, despite suffering almost as bad a match as me (Including snapping his waggler rod) had managed 31½lbs and had a rather large grin as I handed him a Golden Nugget . Nick (BAG UP) had walked the section with 114½lbs that also won him the match . Ian Carley (CasterBlaster) put 70lbs on the scales to take the next section while Neil Beard's 107lbs took the final section and 2nd overall .

Back to the car park for a quick presentation, then the inquests and pee taking started in earnest. Congratulations to Nick(BAG UP)Costar who now holds the title of MD's Southern Champion, but more importantly 'The Bragging Rights' for a year . Thanks to Nick Gilbert for organising the whole thing and Thank You to all the anglers that turned up, without whom there wouldn't have been a match . Let's do it all again next year.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 17	Nick Costar (BAG UP)	114lbs 08ozs
2nd	Peg 8	Neil Beard (neilbeard)	107lbs 08ozs
3rd	Peg 25	Alan Loader (al)	78lbs 08ozs
4th	Peg 3	Kevin Pack (Backintheday)	72lbs 08ozs
5th	Peg 14	Ian Carley (CasterBlaster)	70lbs 00ozs
6th	Peg 28	Nick Gilbert	69lbs 00ozs
7th	Peg 32	Roy Gudgeon (Anglingman)	61lbs 14ozs
8th	Peg 35	Jeff Driscoll (Jeff D)	59lbs 06ozs
9th	Peg 16	Greg Andrews (Splitshot1)	53lbs 04ozs
10th	Peg 24	Steve Burgess (Jessebobs)	46lbs 08ozs
11th	Peg 21	Matt Love	45lbs 08ozs
12th	Peg 13	Sven Castle (Svenc)	40lbs 12ozs
13th	Peg 33	Terry Goff (Wily Coyote)	33lbs 12ozs
14th	Peg 36	Clive Pritchard (clive)	33lbs 06ozs
15th	Peg 12	Dai Thomas (Dai Fish)	32lbs 00ozs
16th	Peg 23	Vince Gould (Vince G)	31lbs 08ozs
17th	Peg 34	Peter Morton (Mugger)	30lbs 04ozs
18th	Peg 27	Richard Pearson (dhl man)	27lbs 12ozs
19th	Peg 2	Andy Hodd (Maver1)	26lbs 08ozs
20th	Peg 6	Mick Pearson (mickthechippy)	20lbs 00ozs
21st	Peg 20	Keith Powell (Keith74)	16lbs 08ozs
22nd	Peg 5	Simon Elsey	7lbs 08ozs
23rd=	Peg 9	Phillip Starkey (Crabpellet)	DNW
23rd=	Peg 30	Keith Driscoll (Disco)	DNW

Private Lake, East Sussex.

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Marsh AC club match.

Down to a Private Lake in East Sussex today for a Marsh AC club match. This isn't really an official club match, but Dave managed to get a booking and felt that some of the members might enjoy the chance to have a days fishing there . We're expecting 16 of us to be fishing, including 5 guests. The Lake is a prolific fishery with a large head of Carp that's well capable of throwing up some very good weights . However the weather leading up to the match has been very changeable so just how it'll fish today is anyones guess .

Looking out through the bedroom window it looked like we were in for a decent day weather wise and I soon had the car loaded. A quick stop for a bit of breakfast on the way and I was pulling into the fishery car park just after 8am. A good number had arrived before me including the guests. Keith & Mick had come down from Milton Keynes, Bill and Clive had joined us as well for the day and Al arrived in the nick of time as usual .

Dave, in his usual efficient manner, soon had the monies collected and the draw under way. Keith drew Peg 1 and Bill couldn't disguise his delight at drawing Peg 4 in the other corner . I found myself holding Peg 12, up on the right hand bank with Terry on Peg 11 and Tony on Peg 13 for company today .

Reaching the peg I realised that I'd fished it once before, and caught bugger all off it , but that had been in the depths of winter, so hopefully today would prove to be better .

So down to business and get set up for the day. I set up a couple of Malman 4X12 Adam's on 0·18 Power Match with size 16 Drennan Carp hooks to fish pellet and corn as well as a small Malman SC Paste float on 0·20 Power Match with a size 12 Ashima Barbless hook. I also set up a Malman Slapper on 0·18 Power Match with a size 16 Drennan carp match hook for up in the water and to double up down the margins. Todays bait was various pellets, paste and corn with 6mm pellets for feed .

With a few minutes before the All-In I strolled down to see Tony who appeared to be covering all the options with half a dozen top kits set up ......

Keith and Mick appeared deep in thought , Keith no doubt wondering if he was going to get the better of Mick today, as Mick has developed the happy knack (for him ) of beating Keith when they fish together ......

So at 10am Dave blew the whistle for the All-In I shipped out a pot of mixed pellets and corn to the 8mtr line and some fed by hand into the margins, but before I could ship my rig out I could see both Bill and Colin into fish straight away !!!! Anyway out with the rig with an 8mm banded pellet A bit of lifting and dropping of the rig soon saw the float slide away and I soon had my first fish of the day, a nice plump Common of around 4lbs safely in the net .

Looking across Jim had an early fish on the feeder to get him off the mark and so had young Zack .......

Word had filtered round that Chris had got himself a decent Tench , and that Clive had found a couple of fish as well to get him off the mark . I'd taken another couple of Carp before I lost a fourth when the rig line parted for no apparent reason , it hadn't parted at a knot or where any of the stotz had been applied. Anyway back out with another rig and I was soon into a fish once more , this one being a better sized Mirror that must have been around 7lbs. So with about an hour gone I reckoned I had about 20lbs and felt things looked good for the rest of the match .

Tony had taken 3 fish by now ("1 about a foot deep, 1 at around 3 ft and another on the drop" ) while Terry to my right had 5 in the net ......

In the next half hour I managed just one more fish, a Common around 5lbs, but it was noticeable that sport had slowed all round the lake apart from Peg 15 that is, as Al seemed to be the only one catching regularly. I decided to re feed quite heavily to see if I could draw some fish, and took a stroll with the camera .

Indeed Martin on peg 10 hadn't even had a bite and was at a loss to explain why , while Terry seemed to have a re-occurrence of a problem he'd suffered with here before, in that he was losing 50% of the fish he hooked for no apparent reason
Chris was concentrating on the end of the bush in the right hand margin of his swim but was only admitting to 4 fish in his nets ......

Clive had resorted to casting a straight lead to the island, and as I arrived he was playing a Common that was giving a good account of itself, but was soon safely in the net ......

Colin was fishing his favourite paste down the right hand margin, but despite a decent start was now biteless ......

Bill tucked away in the corner had started off like a house on fire, his first to put in's having resulted in a couple of doubles, which had swiftly been followed by a couple of smaller fish, but he was struggling to and had resorted to fishing hard up to the reeds to try and tempt a bite from fish that could be seen moving in them ......

Indeed the tactic seemed to have worked for him, because as I reached Jim's peg I looked back just in time to see him playing a fish ......

Keith on Peg 1 was another having a bit of a frustrating time having been told he'd drawn one of the favoured swims. He'd managed a double early on followed by another couple of smaller fish, but was now struggling for a bite ......

Al however was now putting a steady run of fish together, though he reckoned they were mainly small ones , but at least he was catching regularly ......

I wish I could say that things improved from that point on, but I would be lying if I did . It was as if someone or something had switched the lake off with only the very occasional fish coming out in the next 4 hours. I had one more bite at around 3 pm which produced another Carp, but that was it for me . In fact there was a communal sigh of relief at 4pm when Dave sounded the All-Out to put us out of our collective misery.

As we packed away, the inquest on the days events started, with everyone scratching their heads and at a loss to explain just why the lake had appeared to have switched off, not that anyone could come up with a convincing answer though.

So to the Weigh-In, Keith kicked things off with a hard earned 30¾lbs, and just a single fish for both Zack and Jim. Bill registered 40¾lbs and was immediately overtaken by Colin with 42½lbs . Dave had just 2 fish while Simon managed 20½lbs. Clive managed 45¼lbs for the lead at that point, meaning that Bill had to part with a Golden Nugget and Chris recorded a level 31lbs. Round to the opposite bank where Martin had dry netted . Terry's seven fish came to 36¼lbs leaving him regretting those lost fish . My six fish totalled 29½lbs while Tony's six came to 26½lbs. Mick's fish weighed in at 20¼lbs meaning that Keith had done him for once today . Al was home and dry with his first keepnet and eventually recorded an even 122lbs for a very comfortable win on the day , and was also the last to weigh as unfortunately Graham had dry netted as well .

So back to the car park. Congratulations to Al and a lot of head scratching all round, as none of us had experienced a day like that on the lake before and were at a loss to explain it. Still it had been another good day in great company and pleasant surroundings, even if the fishing hadn't been up to expectations. We'll have to do it all again soon, just a few more fish would be nice though .

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 15	Alan Loader (guest)	122lbs 00ozs
2nd	Peg 8	Clive Pritchard (guest)	45lbs 04ozs
3rd	Peg 5	Colin Sharrard	42lbs 08ozs
4th	Peg 4	Bill Gibbins (guest)	40lbs 12ozs
5th	Peg 11	Terry Goff	36lbs 04ozs
6th	Peg 9	Chris Withall	31lbs 00ozs
7th	Peg 1	Keith Ashby (guest)	30lbs 12ozs
8th	Peg 12	Peter Morton	29lbs 08ozs
9th	Peg 13	Tony Roberts	26lbs 08ozs
10th	Peg 7	Simon Watkins	20lbs 08ozs
11th	Peg 14	Mick Wright (guest)	20lbs 04ozs
12th	Peg 6	Dave Collier	10lbs 04ozs
13th	Peg 3	Jim Boase	6lbs 12ozs
14th	Peg 2	Zack Johnson	5lbs 04ozs
15th=	Peg 10	Martin Hucker	DNW
15th=	Peg 16	Graham Manning	DNW

Rolf's Lake. Holton. Oxfordshire.

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 05:00:00 GMT

The JINX Series 2009

Match 5.

Well this is it, the final match of 2009's Jinx Series . It's been a close fought series this year and there's probably half a dozen anglers in with a chance of winning the series going into this last match, and Clive and I still have an outside chance to win The Pairs . There's bound to be a few tales to tell at the end of it all, besides all the anglers trying to escape yet another Minxing at Gemma's hands .

Anyway with the car all loaded and breakfast in the form of a "Full English" taken care of by my usual stop in Battersea, a smooth drive down to Rolf's ensued, though the junction 8 services were rammed with Rugby League fans making their way down to Wembley for The Challenge Cup Final . Pulling into the fishery car park, some people were already there as they were making a proper weekend of it and had fished the Friday Night match and were staying on for the Sunday Fish4Wales match. Clive was already ensconced in 'Hotel Peugeot' so I stopped for a chat and to find out how the evening match had fished. Soon the Welsh contingent surfaced along with Simon & Gem and as we chatted the car park started to fill with the usual suspects. Nick (monkey) had brought along wife Lisa and son Josh for the day, While Paul had wife Jayne and the family pooch in tow . Dai arrived with Malc and his boy Liam, while Geoff P had interrupted his holiday to meet up with the Jinx mob once again .

There was a bit of a breeze today and a fair bit of cloud, and with the weather having been a bit unsettled I fancied that the Lake might fish every bit as hard as it had on recent visits , there was also a bit of scum that had collected in a couple of pegs, most notably pegs 10 & 11 and pegs 2 & 3. However there were plenty of fish moving as usual, and it's notoriously hard to tell just how Rolf's will fish on any given day, just as long as I didn't draw PEG 13 I would be happy. Even with Malc arriving in plenty of time, the draw was somehow delayed. Clive however was a picture of joy and elation when he discovered his personal nemisis, in the shape of PEG 23 had been left out of the draw bag, and positively beaming when he pulled Peg 8 from the draw bag . I hung back hoping some other ~~poor mug~~ ~~sucker~~ lucky soul would draw PEG 13 . Dai duly obliged (unlucky fella ) and I plunged my hand in and came back with Peg 2 . Not a peg I'd fished before, but facing a bit of scum was infinitely preferable to spending 5 hours in my personal version of purgatory .

Strolling round to my peg there was Dave on Peg 34, Jon on Peg 36 and Slim on Peg 38. Al was on Peg 40, while on peg 4 was Steve, with Malc on peg 6 completing our section.

Down to the business at hand and set up the kit for the day. 2 paste rigs consisting of small Malman SC Paste floats and rigged it up on 0·20 Power Match with size 12 Ashima Barbless hooks, 1 for the margins where I had around 2ft of depth and the other for 5-8 mtrs where there was around 4ft with just a couple of inches variance over the distance. Then a deck rig for either pellet or corn at 5-8mtrs made up of a Malman 4X12 Adam on 0·20 Power Match with size 14 QM1 hook and finally a Malman Slapper, again on 0·20 Power Match with a size 14 Drennan carp match hook for up in the water and to double up down the margin if needed. Bait was Paste, 8mm hard pellet and corn, with feed taken care of by 6mm fishery pellet .

Well it was 1·30pm when Malc's dulcet tones announced the All-In. I shipped out a large pot of pellet with a few grains of corn to 5mtrs and fed some pellet by hand to the bush down the left hand margin, then shipped out a banded 8mm pellet to 5mtrs, but no amount of lifting and dropping could induce a bite ......

In fact the start of the match was slow for most of us that I could see on the Little Lake. Steve had got off the mark though, slipping a carp into his net quite early on ......

The Jinx himself, Malc had also uttered his customary shout to signify that he'd landed his 1st fish of the day over on peg 6 ......

I'd been alternating between pellet, paste and corn for over an hour, when I had a sharp bite on corn. I missed it but the strike connected with something substantial in mid water, a foul hooker that I was briefly connected to before the hook returned with just a solitary scale attached .
Dave however was into what appeared to be a decent carp that was putting up a good account of itself ......

With nothing happening for me I decided to re-feed and take a stroll with the camera, and by the time I got round to Clive, Dave was just guiding it into the net ......

Terry was having a bit of a struggle getting to grips with Peg 7, but I'm sure I saw a smile spread across his face as he watched Jon's pained expression as Dave strolled over for him to verify the weight of the fish he'd just landed ......

Chatting to Clive for a while, he'd had a steady start and was hoping for better things as the match progressed, so wishing him well I left him to it ......

Nick was having a bit of a struggle on peg 9, having lost a couple of foul hookers despite having the encouragement of Lisa and Josh watching on behind him ......

Next up was Fred on peg 11 who also had his good lady watching on to provide moral support, and it looked as if he was going to need every bit of it .......

Then it was round to the dreaded PEG 13 . There was Dai, with a swim that was bubbling away like a jacuzzi, and a look of pain on his face that I knew only to well . I really felt for him, having been there far to often for my liking this year, so left him alone with his misery ......

Next up was Geoff, who having had a weigher and a couple in the net had a smile on his face and a twinkle in the eye , he was just enjoying his day and as he'd caught that was all that mattered to him ......

Looking across I could see Paul, yet again having brought Jayne with him he'd drawn on the car park bank, which by now was in the shade meaning that Jayne had left him in search of some sunshine ......

Now it's obvious that Jayne knows the form when she visits Rolf's with Paul, as she was to be found sitting in a nice comfy chair in the sun behind the empty peg 19 and looking a lot happier than hubby ......

Gemma was looking distinctly unhappy as it obviously wasn't going to plan . Nobody had heard her scream as yet meaning that she hadn't caught, making a lot of people feel a whole lot better as the odds on a Minxing receded ......

Big Dave, fresh from a win on the Friday night match, was now experiencing the down side of Rolf's as it appeared that the fish had wised up to his tactics leaving him struggling ......

While to rub it in a bit more, Simon on the next peg seemed to be getting to grips with things and was putting one or two fish in the net ......

So back to my peg. There was a bit of activity showing on the 5mtr line, so back out with an 8mm banded pellet on the deck having re-plumbed to make sure the bait was just touching bottom. I decided to cut right back on the feed, by flicking just a dozen pellets out at time rather than the 50-60 that's the norm . I also shortened the line between the pole tip and float to a mere 4" in an attempt to hit any indication that occurred. 10 minutes of lifting and dropping and the float slid away and a short lift saw a pleasing amount of elastic coming out of the top kit . A couple of minutes later a pristine Rolf's Common was safely in the landing net, and a weigher to get me off and running .
Jon on Peg 36 was briefly connected to a Carp that he felt sure was a foul hooker, and sure enough just moments after I took the photo he lost it ......

Slim was struggling as well and appeared to be pinning his faith in picking off a few of the fish that he could see cruising in the upper layers of the water in front of him ......

Malc appeared to be having a steady match from what I could see, though Steve seemed to be getting a steady run of fish as well, unfortunately for Steve though, quite a few of those were foul hookers that were coming adrift before he had a chance of landing them . I'd had another couple of net fish and Al had finally got of the mark with a couple of weighers . Jon by now had got just a little bit desperate thinking that he may be on the recieving end of a Minxing, and had got the maggots out and spent an hour fishing for silvers, Desperate or what ? Meanwhile it was a case of a blank half hour for me, but I noticed a few bubbles popping to the surface at around 8mtrs . After adding another couple of sections I re-plumbed, fired about 20 pellets out and followed with a banded 8mm. The float kept on going and after a brief tussle a stocky Mirror was safely in the net, another weigher .
For the final hour and a half I stuck with the 8mtr line and while it couldn't be described as fast and furious action I managed to add a further 5 Carp to my net during that time, the last sliding into the landing net as Malc called the All-Out .

So with the gear all packed away and back in the car, it was time for the Weigh-In which as usual started from Peg 34 and Dave started things off with a hard earnt 30¾lbs. The first improvement on that was Slim's 63¾lbs from Peg 38. My 9 fish came to a level 67lbs which would be good enough for 2nd in section , as Malc took the honours in our section with an even 100lbs .

Clive on Peg 8 had made the most of his draw putting 128lbs on the board and taking the win on the day . Tony on Peg 10 managed a level 76lbs that would give him 2nd in his section . PEG 13 however had handed out a proper beating to Dai, with just 4lbs of silvers saving him from a DNW .

Gem on Peg 24 on the car park bank had an even more frustrating day with just 3lbs of silvers meaning everyone had avoided a Minxing . Simon on Peg 26 put 124¼lbs on the scales giving him 2nd overall and a section win , Andy's 78¼lbs gave him 5th overall, while finally on Peg 31 Simon E's 123lbs gave him 3rd overall and 2nd in section on the day .

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 8	Clive Pritchard	128lbs 00ozs
2nd	Peg 26	Simon Mound	124lbs 04ozs
3rd	Peg 31	Simon Enticott	123lbs 00ozs
4th	Peg 6	Malc Doyle	100lbs 00ozs
5th	Peg 28	Andy Spruce	78lbs 04ozs
6th	Peg 10	Tony Roberts	76lbs 00ozs
7th	Peg 2	Peter Morton	67lbs 00ozs
8th	Peg 38	Ade Williams	63lbs 12ozs
9th	Peg 4	Steve Wilson	61lbs 08ozs
10th	Peg 7	Terry Goff	60lbs 04ozs
11th	Peg 40	Alan Loader	52lbs 04ozs
12th	Peg 11	Fred Parker	45lbs 12ozs
13th	Peg 16	Geoff Palmer (guest)	44lbs 04ozs
14th	Peg 25	Dave Moore	43lbs 12ozs
15th	Peg 22	Paul Roberts	37lbs 08ozs
16th	Peg 9	Nick Watkins-Price	31lbs 12ozs
17th	Peg 34	Dave Collier	30lbs 12ozs
18th	Peg 14	Nick Williams	21lbs 12ozs
19th	Peg 36	Jon Hatch	20lbs 00ozs
20th	Peg 32	Keith Fellows	19lbs 04ozs
21st	Peg 18	Matt Edwards (guest)	17lbs 00ozs
22nd	Peg 13	Dai Thomas	4lbs 00ozs
23rd	Peg 24	Gemma Doyle	3lbs 00ozs

So that was it, Series over, as we all congregated round the fishery hut and Malc worked out the final positions. Of course boys will be boys and with a few cameras present some opportunities are just to good to miss ......

Overall Simon Enticott won the Series with a score of 5 points, with Clive in 2nd place for the 2nd year running with a score of 7 points and Steve in 3rd place on 8 points. Congratulations and Well Done to all of them .

Overall Individual Series Result.

Position	Points	Angler						Total weight
1st	5 points	Simon Enticott	10	1	1	1	2	489lbs 04ozs
2nd	7 points	Clive Pritchard	3	6	1	2	1	469lbs 00ozs
3rd	8 points	Steve Wilson	1	2	3	2	4	438lbs 00ozs
4th	10points	Alan Loader	1	2	4	3	6	426lbs 08ozs
5th	11 points	Malc Doyle	4	4	2	9	1	357lbs 08ozs
6th	11 points	Tony Roberts	3	8	2	4	2	331lbs 12ozs
7th	11 points	Paul Roberts	2	7	3	1	5	314lbs 04ozs
8th	12 points	Ryan Hughes	1	6	1	4	10	385lbs 12ozs
9th	12points	Peter Morton	5	6	4	1	2	370lbs 14ozs
10th	12 points	Fred Parker	10	5	2	2	3	277lbs 14ozs
11th	14 points	Simon Mound	2	8	4	7	1	398lbs 06ozs
12th	16 points	Keith Fellows	3	1	6	6	6	253lbs 12ozs
13th	16 points	Terry Goff	4	3	5	4	5	237lbs 04ozs
14th	17 points	Jon Hatch	8	1	5	3	8	279lbs 08ozs
15th	18 points	Mitch Auger	5	2	3	8	10	225lbs 02ozs
16th	18 points	Ade Williams	5	4	6	10	3	204lbs 10ozs
17th	19 points	Andy Spruce	7	3	7	6	3	174lbs 12ozs
18th	20 points	Nick Williams.	4	7	6	5	5	183lbs 04ozs
19th	20 points	Nick Watkins-Price	2	7	7	9	4	159lbs 00ozs
20th	22 points	Dave Moore	6	5	10	7	4	116lbs 00ozs
21st	22 points	Gemma Doyle	6	4	8	5	7	90lbs 14ozs
22nd	23 points	Dave Collier	10	3	5	8	7	170lbs 08ozs
23rd	27 points	Ant Haywood	9	5	10	3	10	76lbs 00ozs
24th	30 points	Dai Thomas	6	8	10	10	6	56lbs 12ozs
25th	30 points	Tim Westmoreland	10	9	10	5	10	2lbs 00ozs
26th	36 points	Ieuan Davies	7	9	10	10	10	32lbs 08ozs

NB: Anglers were allowed to drop their worst section result during the series so that the Overall Series results were decided by best 4 out of 5 section points. Overall weight counting in the result of anglers tieing on points.

In the Pairs the Winners were Simon Enticott & Fred Parker with 49 points while Clive and I were Runners Up just 5 points behind on 54 Points .

Overall Pairs Result.

Position	Points	Anglers						weight
1st	49 points	Fred Parker & Simon Enticott	27	20	8	6	15	989lbs 06ozs
2nd	54 points	Peter Morton & Clive Pritchard	25	36	13	8	8	839lbs 14ozs
3rd	72 points	Keith Fellows & Ryan Hughes	12	15	21	24	41	656lbs 08ozs
4th	85 points	Jon Hatch & Tony Roberts	32	22	21	17	25	611lbs 04ozs
5th	89 points	Nick Watkins-Price & Steve Wilson	14	24	29	31	22	597lbs 00ozs
6th	101 points	Paul Roberts & Terry Goff	23	27	26	27	25	463lbs 04ozs
7th	102 points	Nick Williams & Simon Mound	18	40	35	29	20	581lbs 10ozs
8th	105 points	Dai Thomas & Malc Doyle	29	39	18	32	26	519lbs 12ozs
9th	107 points	Ade Williams & Andy Spruce	43	20	43	31	13	408lbs 14ozs
10th	119 points	Ieuan Davies & Alan Loader	22	31	34	32	41	518lbs 05ozs
11th	121 points	Tim Westmoreland & Dave Collier	18	32	26	45	47	445lbs 00ozs
12th	124 points	Mitch Auger & Gemma Doyle	40	19	33	36	36	361lbs 04ozs
13th	150 points	Dave Moore & Ant Haywood	47	25	48	34	44	203lbs 00ozs

NB: Pairs were allowed to drop their worst points total during the series so that the results were decided by best 4 out of 5 points scores.
Overall weights counting in the result of pairs tieing on points.

So yet another Jinx Series comes to an end, I'd just like to say a BIG THANK YOU to Malc for organising what continues to be the friendliest and best series of matches its been my pleasure to fish .

Yet another BIG THANK YOU to John & Pauline Bennett for all their efforts and for allowing us the use of Rolf's for the entire series .

Finally a final BIG THANK YOU to all that have fished The Jinx Series, it's all of you that make it so enjoyable to fish, and long may it continue. See you all to do it again next year no doubt .