1st trip of 2009.

It was off down to Monk Lakes today for a session with a friend of mine from the Maggotdrowning.com website, Andy (The Hat) Spreadbury . Andy had treated himself to a new float rod for Christmas and was eager to try it out, and I'd resurrected an old Bob Church Boron spliced tip match rod that hadn't seen the light of day for at least 10 years . We had planned to go between Christmas and the New Year, but postponed it due to the cold snap, but with a bit of milder weather during the week decided to go for it today .
Loading up the car it was raining, but the forecast was for it to brighten up later in the day. A crash in Catford held me up briefly so that it was around 8·45am when I finally pulled into the fishery car park to meet Andy. Greeting done with, it was into the shop for some bait (maggots), a quick chat with Ron at the counter (he was kind enough to let us use our keepnets ) and pay for the day ticket followed by a coffee from the snack wagon before driving up to the match lakes.

Climbing out of the car the first thing to hit you was the wind (no surprise at Monks I'm afraid ) and it had a real chilling bite to it today. Lake 2 looked the best bet and with 4 anglers already on the prime corner (pegs 45-49) the spit looked favourite as we would have the wind of our backs . We soon had our gear sorted and over to our pegs, settling for pegs 58 & 59.

 I soon had the old Bob Church rod set up, matching it with an old Stradic reel freshly loaded with 3lb Maxima. I rigged up a 4AAA peacock insert waggler finished of with a size 18 Drennan Match Carp hook at the business end. Andy had soon rigged up his new rod, a Shakespeare Mach 3, 13' Float Lite, a lovely pencil slim blank and had it set up with a similar rig to mine.

So around 10am we got down to the fishing just as the sky seemed to get a shade darker and the wind stronger .
The old rod was a tad heavier than some of the latest stuff but was quite at home punching the waggler out and I was soon into a rhythm catapulting a regular pinch of maggots out and twitching the float to try and induce a bite . Working my way through the depths I finally got a bite with the bait hard on the deck. soon the spliced tip was hooped over and the rod handled the fish effortlessly as a nice little Mirror of around 2½lbs slid over the net to get me off the mark .............

Andy was off the mark soon after with a nice F1 to christen his new rod.......

.........and seemed more than happy with the performance of it. Shortly after we were treated to a short rain squall just to remind us that it was winter (though I must confess to looking round to see whether Bill G had put in an appearance ) That soon blew over however to leave us with blue sky and sunshine .

A couple of F1's were added to my net but Andy appeared to be struggling , so I strolled over to see if I could help.

After a little adjustment to Andy's shotting I stood back to watch him fish. A couple of alterations to little things like rod-rest positioning etc then we turned our attention to Andy's feeding . Now Andy is probably fine with a catapult firing out boilies when he's carping, but maggots on a windy day leads to what you might call a scattergun approach . He also has no concept of quantity!!! Trying to get him to just fire out 6-8 maggots regularly round his float somehow turns into 30-40 as and when in a general direction (well they all land somewhere in the lake ). It did bring instant rewards though in the shape of a couple of tiny skimmers .

I returned to my peg but was distracted by a couple of the resident swans that seemed to be preoccupied with practising their take-off and landing techniques, but after 5-10 minutes of that the Cob decided to practise a bit of posing........

I had to get back to some kind of feeding rhythm and I soon had another Mirror and a couple of F1's as I started to get regular bites once more. Andy came up to ask me what the fish was that he had in his landing net as he wasn't sure, It was a decent Ide, which pleased Andy as it was the 1st he'd ever caught .........

I managed an unseasonal Tench and a decent skimmer that pretended to be a Trout, leaping clear 3 or 4 times before Andy was back again with more fish ID questions. A Golden Orfe this time and another 1st for Andy and an opportunity for another photo call ..........

A nice Perch of around a pound put in an appearance for me just to add a bit of variety , but the noticeable thing was that although I kept altering depths during the course of the session the only time I could get a bite was when the bait was nailed to the deck, and that a number of the fish had what appeared to be small creamy coloured leeches on them, which I took to indicate that they may had been laying up semi dormant during the icy spell the previous week and were only just starting to feed, though I might be wrong on that one, who knows for sure

We fished on until just after 3pm, when with the light starting to fade and the wind feeling a touch colder we decided to call it a day. As Andy had his Avon's with him we had a quick weigh-in to see how it had gone on the day. Andy was first to weigh and his fish came to 29½lbs ........

While my fish tipped the scales at 34½lbs .........

Gear back in the cars, there was just time for a cup of coffee and a cheeseburger from the snack wagon as we mulled over our thoughts on the day. All in all a decent day in good company and a couple of nice nets of fish given the conditions. Andy seemed more than happy to have christened his new rod and had hopefully picked up a few tips along the way and we'd had a few laughs and a bit of banter, which is what it's all about really, we'll have to do it again soon .

For those of you that are interested, to give you a different viewpoint, the following is Andy's thoughts on our day.........

Winter for me, used to be a grim time in the fishing year. Sitting behind a pair of carp rods, week after week, freezing cold, bored, frustrated at the lack of action, and thoroughly fed up with the whole thing wondering what the hell I was doing there. Then I discovered Maggotdrowning.com. With the discovery of this band of lunatics came new friends and a window on a world of Angling I had hitherto had scant knowledge.

First the pole, then the waggler on the many commercial fisheries in the South-East became my winter interest and I am happy to say that through Maggotdrowning I have had some not only really enjoyable sessions in terrific company, but I have learnt an enormous amount – mostly from the Master of the Poles himself – our very own Sir Peter of Morton. It was with Sir Peter I was fishing one of my favourite places today – Match Lake 2 on the Monk Lakes complex near Staplehurst, known to all Kent anglers. It's always a Grand Day Out with Peter and today was to be no different........

The Session

I left home in a downpour and things looked decidedly grim – Monks is very exposed and the combination of high wind and rain can make a session on there arduous to say the least! We decided to go for pegs with the wind at our backs and this proved a wise decision as the wind really got up on occasions during the day.

Straight out of the rod-bag it's my brand new Shakespeare 13 foot Match Lite (£85 from Devon Angling and price matched by the excellent Invicta Angling of Ashford). This was its first outing and I was really keen to see how it would perform; this was teamed with an old Shakespeare 'Powerplay' rear drag jobby filled with 3 lbs. Line, the rig terminating in 0.1 Preston Powerline and a size 18 Tubertini.

First up and it's a little Chublet for me, closely followed by Peter with a hard-fighting carp of three pounds or so. This was going to be a very good day, marred only by a family of mental retards fishing the far bank, shouting to one another in what can only be described as 'ape language'. The dad seemed to be permanently turned to maximum volume and appeared to have the intelligence of a Geranium. Peter asked me if I had a gun as he wished to put the poor man out of his (and our) misery!

As usual, Peter's catch-rate began to exceed my own and I sat there scratching my head wondering what it was he was doing that I wasn't. I thought I'd got a grasp of the basic principles (acquired during previous sessions with Peter) of Feeding being the key to success, the Little and Often principle applying to pole and waggler fishing in general. I was obviously not doing it right and it was not long before Peter had spotted this too and stopped fishing to come to my aid....
“Lets have a look at your rig Spreaders”.

I willingly offered up my end-tackle, thinking “he won't find much wrong with that" a bulk around the base of the float and a single number eight, nine inches from the hook acting as a tell-tale. Peter grasped the line, screwed up his face in disgust and pointed to a single shot I'd got a foot below the float,
“What's that doing there?!”
“Erm; it's a shot to take the float down a bit – I had too much sticking out of the water”

Peter had an 'Oh my God' look about him as he made lots of adjustments to my shotting.

“You need to stabilise the rig in this wind as there's a bit of tow on today; there's four shots tapering down to the number eight, up from the hook and the locking shot are closely tucked up at the base of the float”.

This was an altogether better rig which on casting felt a lot better, it didn't drift so much on the tow, away from my feed. Ah feed. Now that was another disaster.

“Cast out and fire out six maggots around the float”

I grabbed what I thought was a small pinch and fired them off in the general direction of the float, the strong wind unfortunately taking them several yards away from the float, (well that was my excuse anyway!)

“Andy, the general idea is to actually feed where the hookbait is – not five yards from it. All that will happen is the fish in the area will go and eat the feed there rather than where your hookbait is! And I did say half a dozen not half a bloody handful!”

On paper, Little and Often sounds as easy as anything, but how many is Little, and how long (in time) is Often? Here was the answer – six maggots every minute and a half and they have to be spot on around the float otherwise you'll just end up drawing the fish away from your rig rather than to it.

After this I spent the rest of the session trying to get these few basic principles right – and how difficult it proved to be. Granted, the wind didn't help although on the day it was a useful training aid in practicing skills with the catapult, but for a relative numpty, I found it remarkably difficult to get right, my maggots flying hither and yon, scattered to the four winds on occasions. Peter had the answer to this too – fish a lot shorter. Better to bait accurately at short range, than inaccurately at longer range.

From then on, with just a few maggots landing around the float every few minutes or so my catch-rate began to pick up and I managed to put together quite a respectable net of fish – F1s, some Ide

(a first for me as I'd never caught one before – a fish like a huge Roach and very hard fighting), a Golden Orfe (again another first), skimmers, and a lone Tench. At the end of the session we had a weigh-in (we had special dispensation from Ron at Reception), and I was very pleased to record twenty-nine and half pounds – the most I think I've ever weighed-in at Monks. Peter was of course ahead of me with thirty-four and a half pounds which would have been much, much more had he not stopped fishing to sort me out and give me instruction.

Once again it was a Grand Day Out in smashing company. My thanks to Peter for persevering with me throughout the session – what a frustrating pupil I was! Here's to the next time we go fishing .

Ryan's Winter Knock Up.

It was definitely a day for the thermals today as I loaded the car ready for the trip down To Harleylands Farm for a friendly little Knock Up on Nick's Lake that Ryan (Zephyr) has organised through the MD's forum . By the time I arrived at the car park it was around 8am and it appeared that I was the last of 17 lunatics to arrive. Fortunately Mick had managed to arrange for the catering wagon that had been at Broad Oak to turn up, so breakfast was taken care of courtesy of a cuppa from Andy and half of one of the monster breakfast rolls from Trevor Thanks lads .
Nick unfortunately had a black out and cracked his head , but after we had got him into the back of a van and Kevin had administered a spot of first aid he thankfully recovered enough to fish, especially once he realised that peg 9 was left in the hat for him .

My draw had yielded peg 36, not a great area in winter, but with a nice short walk from the car and a bit of shelter looked like being a bonus today , and as only sections were being payed out today instead of the top 3 I still had something to fish for. For company today I had Andy(The Hat) to my right on peg 36, and to my left 3 of my fellow Marsh club members, in Kevin, Terry and Dave on pegs 2,4 and 6.

The peg was comfy enough with just a short chuck to the corner of the island, and with it being so cold I only set the feeder up. Bait was simply a couple of pints of reds and some groundbait. The one doubt in the back of my mind was the colour or rather lack of it in the water. The recent frosts appeared to have knocked the colour right out of it which is unusual on Nick's regardless of how cold it gets.

So 10am and the All-In is called, feeder to the point, tighten up and wait for the action to start ................and wait .............and wait ..................and wait . Thankfully Kevin's partner Jean broke the monotony by providing me with a hot cup of coffee , but apart from Dave getting a small Carp and receiving all our hearty congratulations......NOT  there didn't seem to be much happening, In fact the only person that appeared to be doing anything was Steve Allen on peg 8. Now Steve normally fishes with his two sons Pete and Nick, but it was obviously a little to cold for the poor things so he'd brought his mate, Terry with him for company. A quick chat with Andy revealed that at least he'd had 3 small fish, better than me at that point with his more "speccie" orientated approach........

Well with 1½ hours gone without as much as a nibbled maggot to show for it, I decided I should get the pole out, at least shipping in and out would keep me warm. The rig was a Malman 4x10 Snake1 to ·12 finished with an 18 Drennan maggot hook. I set this up to fish at around 6mtrs where I had around 3½ ft of water with soft set white hydro in the top kit. A pinch of maggot followed by the rig soon rewarded me with a small roach, at least I hadn't blanked .

Terry was alternating between the feeder and a pole approach but was struggling like the majority of us, nothing really seemed to bring him a run of fish...............

Dave meanwhile had managed to nick another small carp on the feeder, but was also sorting out a pole rig in an attempt to find a bit of action...........

Indeed regardless of where I looked it was hard to find anyone who was getting amongst the fish apart from Steve whose could be seen with a bend in his rod on a regular basis.

I managed to keep the small roach coming, not quickly enough to build any real weight, but fast enough to pass the time and keep me focused .

With about 10 minutes to go Kevin finally had a bite on the feeder and was rewarded with a small carp , however in his enthusiasm to get back out there his next cast ended on the island and the resulting break ended his day with 5 minutes to go . I chucked the feeder out just in case there was another in the area, but the tip remained stationary till the All-Out was called at 3pm.

At least it didn't take to long to pack up and get the gear back to the car, and a stroll round with the scales showed just how hard it had fished today . Steve had walked the match today putting 42lbs 12ozs on the scales for a comfortable win, in fact everyone else only managed single figures apart from Trevor whose 10lbs 4ozs of silvers won him his section. Steve's mate Terry Goulding realised he had tipped back a weight that would have won his section but Hey Ho........ Thats fishing, and of course we were all very sympathetic..........NOT .

Thanks to Ryan for organising the day (his 1st attempt at organising a match) . Next up is the Maggotdrowning Southern Fur & Feather match at Wylands next Saturday. How will that turn out? You can read about it here next weekend .

First outing of 2008.

My 1st outing of the New Year saw me driving down to Monk Lakes to meet up with Andy (The Hat) Spreadbury from the Maggotdrowning Forum in the car park at 8am. The weather didn't look to promising . A leaden grey sky holding the promise of rain, with heavy clouds scudding across at a rate of knots didn't bode well as Monks is one of the most exposed fisheries going, and with the object of the day being to help Andy refine his waggler fishing I felt we could be in for a struggle .

The original plan was to set up on one of the heavily stocked match lakes, but with matches on all 4 of the match lakes, we elected to try one of the pleasure lakes. A leasurely drive round saw us settle on Bridges, the larger of the 2 pleasure lakes where we could fish 2 adjacent swims with the wind off our backs. Although the temperature was 10°C the wind made it feel like half of that .

Now the thing is that although I fish Monks fairly regularly, it's mostly one of the four match lakes. Andy and I hadn't fished Bridges since November 2004 when the lake hadn't been open long, so neither of us really knew what to expect.

I was soon set up, having brought my Shakespeare 11ft Micro all set up in its ready rod sleeve, selecting a Drennan 3AA peacock insert waggler fishing 3lb straight through to an18 Drennan barbless carp match hook, with red maggot for bait. Andy was using his 11/13 John Wilson rod at 13ft in more relaxed mode fishing from his chair .

The maximum depth I could find was around 3ft about 25mtrs out towards the island, so a pouch of red maggots was followed by my float as I settled back to see if anything showed an interest. The wind was making things difficult, with Andy having to blacken his float tip to see it in the chop.

Soon my float slid away resulting in a nice plump Skimmer of around 2lb in the net and 5 minutes later its twin followed it ................

 Andy finally got of the mark with a little Ide, not quite what he was hoping for but at least it was a start.............

I couldn't help notice that we were getting the odd curious glance from other anglers on the lake as we were the only ones using float tackle, all the others tucked behind brollies or bivvies with the seemingly obligatory pair of Carp rods for the larger Carp that most anglers target on this lake.

Next up for Andy came a Skimmer.................

.......... but we were both struggling to put a run of fish together, I seemed to get a couple then nothing for a half hour, indeed despite trying numerous changes the only way I could get a bite was to lay 6" of line on the deck. Finally I managed to connect with something that felt a little different, and it proved to be the 1st of several Chub of around 1lb, good to see as the last time i'd fished the lake they had been freshly stocked at around 4ozs in an effort to provide year round sport. I'm sure they'll drive the carpers nuts as they're large enough now to swallow a boilie .

Andy spent a while watching me and soon spotted the difference in my approach to his, with my match background I was always doing something, feeding, twitching the bait through my feed and casting more often, whereas Andy with his background in carping was more content to leave his rod in the rest for longer after casting and feeding less frequently.

Around about 1pm I hooked what was obviously a bonus, probably a Carp but i'll never know as it just plodded off and shed the hook .

By 2pm i was getting ready to pack up when Andy was in again............

................. It was soon apparent that this was something better as a Carp surfaced about 20 feet out, Andy's landing net was looking a bit inadequate so I acted as ghillie with mine. On the mat it was obvious that the fish was a bit of an old warrior as unfortunately its fins weren't in the best of condition and it had a nasty scar on one gill cover. A quick weigh before it was returned showed 15lbs, a nice bonus fish, meaning that we had both managed around 20lbs of fish during our session .

With my gear packed Andy decided to fish on for a while, so I bid him farewell after discussing the possibility of a session after Crucians at Marsh Farm later in the year once its warmed up a bit, that should be fun .

For those of you that are interested the following is Andy's take on the day............. 

Posted by Andy Spreadbury.
The object of the exercise was to carry forward what I’d learnt on my first session with the waggler. There were a number of issues to address – what sort of waggler for which conditions, shotting patterns, that sort of thing, and I started off by showing Peter my float-box. He suggested I try an insert peacock carrying 4 AAA and in addition to the bulk, to shot it with a couple of number 8s – one about half-way down, the other nine inches or so from the hook. This was a fairly heavy rig (as wagglers go), unlike the little six-inch jobbies I’d got which only take a few shot to cock them; it was so windy, even the heavy waggler was a job to cast.

Peter was out of the blocks almost immediately and was into a little run of skimmers, unfortunately, the shoal must have moved off as their presence was short-lived. I managed to bag one but as usual was falling way behind Peter’s catch-rate. A problem I identified almost immediately was visibility.

I tried to match the distance Peter was casting – quite a long way for float-fishing, about twenty-five meters or so, maybe thirty – I’m not too sure, it seemed an awful long way though and I have to confess I really couldn’t see the float properly and often not at all. Although the fine tip of the insert is great for lack of resistance to a biting fish, its slimness was a real disadvantage to the optically-challenged such as myself. I struggled with the thing for a good couple of hours before finally admitting defeat and fished shorter – even picking up a couple of fish. As Peter continued to reel ‘em in from his long-range presentation I changed the float for something else.

I’d got several other patterns with me, mostly of the straight variety made of reed, clear plastic, and peacock quill, but after several changes I eventually settled on a Premier Windbeater with a balsa body and straight stem carrying a shed-load of lead. At least this was manageable in the extremely strong wind which got stronger as the day wore on. I finally got the visibility issue sorted and could see the bright orange of the tip pretty well and with some fiddling about managed to get the shotting about right too. Peter however had out-caught me by a ratio of about five to one and I began to get ever so slightly frustrated by my lack of action – whereas Peter was picking up fish (albeit the odd fish, but fish nonetheless) a matter of only a few metres away.

Peter of course had the reason – and not for the first time during our sessions together it was FEEDING.

If there is one thing that is more important than anything else it is giving the fish feed in a consistent and regular manner sufficient to keep them interested in looking around for and finding hookbaits. Almost every time we go fishing, Feeding is the number one issue and today was no different. Peter reckoned it was my carp-fisherman mindset that made me adopt the sit-and-wait style I was using – whereas he was always busy, either feeding, twitching the bait back, re-casting, re-baiting, casting spells, talking to the fish – and whatever other devices he employs to coax, cajole, and coerce fish into taking his bait.

True, twitching the bait by giving the reel handle a turn every minute or so I am sure persuades an otherwise disinterested fish to snatch the bait back, but it is the constant and continual investment of effort that really does the trick, an investment that resulted in Peter far out-fishing me.

It was not only the amount and frequency of feed going in that made a difference – but where it was going also. Peter was pin-pointedly accurate – even in what was at times, a howling wind; my catapulted maggots were often going all over the place, blown by a gusty wind veering in sometimes unpredictable directions. There is a definite knack to it – you must aim low and snappy, not high and gentle – allowing the wind to blow the feed near the float, for it will inevitably blow it exactly where you don’t want it. The feed must be little, often, and in exactly the right place. Easy to talk – more difficult to do.

The carp was a total fluke and I claim no great skill in either luring it or landing it. The skimmers fought ten times harder! I am convinced the fish must have been laying-up – and for some considerable time too as it had a number of leech-like organisms on it.

Carp lay-up in the very harsh weather and I have often noticed that sick or mangy fish are particularly prone to doing this. The one I caught was a very sad individual who had obviously had a hard summer – the evidence of disease was obvious – lesions, partially rotten fins, and poor condition resulting in a fish that was in the recovery stage of previous ill-health.

Peter had to go early as his leg was playing him up (poor old thing) and I spent the last hour doing much better than the previous few hours catching some of the Chub and this Tench.

All in all, not only an enjoyable day in good company, but once again, I learnt a lot from my ‘mentor’.

Thanks Peter.

Maggotdrowning.com

Southern Fur & Feather.

Well where to start?
Back in early October, I remarked to Vince that it might be an idea to run a Fur & Feather before Christmas if anyone fancied it. The main criteria for a venue was that everyone should get a few bites and fish at a time of year when a lot of venues struggle if the weather takes a turn for the worst. A chat with Ron at Monks secured some pegs on Match Lake1 and a post put up on the Maggotdrowning Forum to see if there was any interest.

Soon the banter was flowing, generating a healthy response to the match, even in the days leading up to the match when the weather forecast predicted that the conditions might lead to an outbreak of Brass Monkeys searching for their Balls.

Come the day and it was heartening to see a turn out of 25 anglers with only 3 wimps no shows that couldn't be bothered to let us know either by PM or E-mail assembled for what in reality was no more than a knock-up. Just a £5 optional pool and a commitment to bring a prize ensuring that nobody would go away rich but nobody would depart empty handed.

Draw over we made our way up to the lake where the aerators had been left on overnight to try and stop ice forming, though in reality the lake is so exposed to the wind it was highly unlikely to happen.

I had drawn peg 6, with Paul (nomorelongwalks) and Sven for company on 2 & 4 and Matt (yalding bloke) on 8 and the prospect of watching Bill G opposite me on peg 18 for a full 5 hours.

Now in the past some have referred to me as a Tackle Tart, however it would seem that Matt has elevated the concept to another level. Sitting there in his bright red Santa Claus Milo fleece out came the £100 stainless steel/red foam Milo pole roller, followed by the red foam Milo rig roosts, kept in plastic cases to keep them clean (his excuse was that they were new, yeah right ) I think we may have to start calling him RED MAN. However disaster was about to strike as his pole dropped off the roller resulting in a snapped no5 section. I'm not sure I would have been able to raise a smile if I'd just done £200+ worth of section..................

Feeling lazy I had just set up the pole to fish about 10mtrs, bait was red maggot with a few pellets to feed. I really should have set up a feeder and waggler as alternatives and with hindsight it was a mistake, as when I did set up a feeder later on it was to little to late.
10 am and the All-in and I could see Vince over on peg 20 was straight into a fish............

.......... rapidly followed by Nick on 19...........

.......... and Matt was soon off the mark with an F1 on the waggler, while Bill and I were still gazing at an inactive pole line, though Bill did get the chance to christen his new pole sock when he used it as a landing net on a small fish to get off the mark . It was obvious that the lads opposite were in for a more comfy match with the wind off their backs (Nick's favorite ) while we had to endure the wind into us for the whole match.

Soon i was off the mark with an F1 followed by a Skimmer and a small Tench, but  I would struggle to put a run of bites together throughout the whole match. Dave the Fish put in an appearance around 11am deciding against fishing, as the sub zero conditions were playing havoc with his arthritis but kindly provided me with a very welcome hot cup of tea. Bill switched over to the waggler in an attempt to keep up with Nick and Vince..............

......... while word filtered round that Mike and Trevor on pegs 36 & 35 were doing OK on the waggler.

Try as I might Matt was catching 2 fish to every one of mine, and with Sven starting to catch well on the feeder as well as Kevin opposite on peg 17.............

......... I swapped over to the feeder for the final part of the match. Just 4 more Carp proved that it wasn't a good move and that I should have stuck with the pole, but I was quite happy to hear the whistle for the All-out at 3pm.
Dave helped me to weigh half the lake while Vince and a helper weighed the other half, and it was pleasing to see that everyone had something to weigh. In total there was a total of 520lbs of fish weighed in, an average of just over 20lbs per angler, excellent given that the temperature never felt as if it had risen above freezing all day and just goes to show what a decent venue Monk Lakes is.

Back to the tearoom for the results, with Mike coming out on top with 54lbs 12ozs to Trevor's (MT Net) 44lbs 04 ozs with Matt taking 3rd with 37lbs 00ozs. Then the presentation of the prizes and a good table-full ensured that everyone went home with something from the day, a few more faces had been put to names from the forum, and everyone seemed to have enjoyed it in a perverse sort of way. I'd just like to add a word of thanks to Vince for his help and a special mention to Dave the Fish, who despite not feeling up to fishing still turned up and stayed to help out with the weigh-in, Many Thanks Mate.  The long distance award as always went to Dai Thomas for making the trip up from the Welsh Valleys for a days fishing with his fellow Maggotdrowners, you're a star.

We'll have to do it again, though preferably when it's a little warmer.

A few weeks back I was lucky enough to recieve an Invite from Simon Hughes to visit his new fishery at Monk Lakes with a few friends, so that was the reason that 5 of us arrived at Simon's house at Riverfield Fish Farm in the pitch black at 7am this morning . Dawn was just breaking as we set off following Simon's Landcruiser along the private road that passes through the fishfarm to the fishery.

This was an eyeopener in itself . I've seen an ariel photo of the fishfarm before, but it's not until you drive through it that you appreciate the sheer scale of the operation, which would be worthy of an article of it's own, if Simon ever finds the time to write it.

Assembled in the car park Simon gave us a brief rundown, arranged for our breakfast needs to be seen to, then left us to it giving us carte blanche to fish where we wanted . The five of us decided on a walk around the complex at first to get a feel for things.
Up to the 2 elevated Match Lakes and these are very regular looking, with platforms in every peg but with no visible features. On the same level is the Catfish Lake, which looks very natural with a profusion of features and islands.
On the other side of the car park are the 2 main pleasure fishing lakes, Puma and Bridges, both with totally natural banks and plenty of islands and features, Indeed Bridges takes its name from the bridges that allow you to reach the islands to fish from them .

Running behind these lakes and threading its way through the fishery runs the River Beult offering what promises to be some fine small river fishing, and leads past the Specimen Lake, home to some 40lb Carp.

After walking round that lot, break fast was definitely the order of the day, so retiring to the canteen behind the lodge 5 Full English Breakfasts were disposed of, all washed down with Tea while we decided on our plan of attack.
The main worry was the weather , It's turned pretty cold down here in the SE in the last couple of weeks and the fishery is quite exposed, but today there wasn't a breathe of wind although it was still cold.

Jess & Szabi had their sights set on the Specimen Lake, despite Simon's earlier warning that it hadn't been fishing well, so off they went, hoping for a 1st 'Twenty'. Terry, Andy(The Hat) and Myself plumped for Puma, and within 100 yds of the car park had settled on 3 swims, Terry with an island to fish to..............................

A range of 10mtrs gave me a comfortable 5ft of water, and with flat calm conditions a slim Preston B series 4X12 float with just 4 strung droppers and a size 20 PR23 was the rig of choice to fish single and double red maggot over the fisheries micro pellets .

1st up came a run of Chublets that were more than welcome as they happily feed on even the coldest of days, and as far as I'm concerned are an inspired bit of stocking on Simon's part ..........................

Once these have grown on a bit they are going to be well Worth going for.

Next came a run of smallish Tench for me, and as I unhooked one I remarked to Andy that rather than the little red eye the are known for these has golden eyes, to which he replied that perhaps they were Golden Tench, but that he'd never seen or caught one.
Well after a statement like that, you can guess what happened next  ...... My float dipped, and the next fish I landed was a Golden Tench .
Well it was the least I could do , though doubts were voiced by Andy that this capture was down to my sheer blinding skill and tenacity, this did inspire him to concentrate on capturing one for himself, but alas all he could manage were some examples of the wrong coloured (green) ones and a solitary Gudgeon , while i rubbed it in even further during the course of the day by catching another 7 goldies amongst the 30 or so Tench that I caught .

While all this was going on Vince appeared for a short visit, and in the way that is so typical, offered all his sympathy to Andy in his hour of need .

Terry meanwhile in his typical way was quietly doing his best to empty his swim of small Chub with a waggler, and by the end of the day must of had close to 100 of them .

During the course of the session a number of the smaller Carp that have been stocked also decided to put in an appearance. I don't know what strain these fish are, but they are picture perfect deep bodied fish that already give a good account of themselves despite going no more than 1½ lbs on average.

The fish kept coming right till the end, with a couple of Rudd thrown in for good measure, and although Andy hung on to the bitter end in the gathering gloom, he didn't manage to get his Goldie , though he did get the only Gudgeon of the day .

Jess & Szabi? Well athough they had been warned stubbornly sat it out, and didn't manage to contact any monsters, though they had one screaming run at around midday, but the strike didn't connect .

Overall I had a most enjoyable day. The stock are a testament to Simon's skills as a fish farmer, and are of the highest quality.
Puma is one of the two pleasure lakes on the complex, and it certainly lived up to its description and it was a Pleasure for me to fish there today .
I'll certainly be going back in the not to distant future, though next time I fancy travelling light and adopting a roving approach to see what I can tempt from the River.

In closing I would like to say a big THANK YOU to Simon Hughes for his invite, and his staff at MONK LAKES for a most enjoyable day. If you're ever in the area give it a try, there's something for almost everyone there .

A couple of weeks ago I had made arrangements with a friend of mine, Andy "The Hat" Speadbury to visit Monk Lakes. This is a new fishery in Kent. This is the one that featured in Angling Times a while back as a new "Super Fishery."

We had arranged to meet in the lodge at 7·30am. My initial impression on arrival was "WHERE DO YOU START??????"
To say it's a big site doesn't begin to do it justice. The level of investment in the venue is obviously major. Not only is there A good variety of fishing, but the facilities are all there as well - more than ample car parking (closely situated to the lakes), security, quiet, burger bar, bait and tackle from the lodge, Ladies and Gentlemen’s toilets on site as well as toilets for the Disabled located in the car park. In the summer some temporary toilets will be dotted around the site for convenience.
Oh! nearly forgot , something I had never seen at a fishery before - mains electric and water placed at around twenty points around the site!

The site itself covers over 120 acres, and the plans are that eventually it will be able to cater for 2000 anglers!  The fishery opened on 29th October and at the moment only the 1st part is open as work continues on the rest of the venue.

To give you all some idea of the present layout, I've taken the liberty of scanning the fishery pamphlet, which you can see below.....................

It has to be said that for a 1st visit to a new water the weather did us no favours at all, The 1st frost of the year down here and only 3°C on the car thermometer coupled with a biting northerly wind meant that the day was never going to be easy .

ME? I couldn't buy a bite . It was noticable during the day that the frost had had an effect with the colour noticably dropping out of the water.
Pellet or maggot, It didn't matter, after 1½hrs of watching Andy's grin I nicked a few of his reds as I only had whites and bingo, straight away a bite and a plump fin perfect Chub of around 8ozs to break my duck .

This was the cue for a stroll back to the car park for a ½pint of reds from the lodge, and a ½ lb cheeseburger from the catering wagon on site. Well one has to look after the inner man .

The red maggots made all the difference, and after a bit of playing around with the shotting of the rig so that it would pick up the tow a steady procession of small Chub followed for the rest of the session. By the end of our session I probably had 20lbs+ of them and as Andy said, I'm sure that these will prove to be an inspired bit of stocking as they should provide decent sport in even the coldest conditions, though whether the Carp anglers will share this view as they grow and develop a taste for boilies is another matter .

 

 

I'm going back for another visit next Saturday and it will be interesting to see how it fishes if the weather has settled down a bit . 

 

 

Maggotdrowning.com

Southern Championship.

A rather threadbare turn out of only 8 anglers assembled in the car park at Hartleylands, on a bright sunny morning for the Southern round of the M/D's Individual Knockout Championships that was fished on the Reservoir at Hartleylands Farm just outside Cranbrook in Kent .

Little did we know that we were to experience the full range of weather in the course of the day ranging from warm sunshine to torrential rain, wind, Thunder & lightning and hailstones.

Ay the draw I was fortunate enough to pull out peg1, that has a small willow overhanging the water and is normally capable of providing a framing weight in matches .

Having fished the reservoir the previous Saturday, I'd already decided that contrary to normal practice, I was going to try a close in attack at around 3mtrs (the length of a power top2) in an effort to put a net of silvers together, but with a strong enough rig to stand a fighting chance with any Carp that put in an appearance .

The top2 was elasticated with yellow Drennan Bungee (rated 10-12) with a straight through rig made up on 0·17 carptek line, a 4X14 Preston PB13 ending in one of the new Fox series2 carp match hooks in a size 18. Bait was my favorite 6mm expanders coated in VDE pellet oil, sweetcorn and ¼inch cubes of luncheon meat that had been soaked in VDE Predator+ overnight. Feed was taken care of with a mix of Swimstim natural and green 3mm pellets.

At the all in, it was a generous handfull of pellets under the willow and another straight out at 3mm. 1st put in to the front and the float buried resulting in me getting off the mark with a 3oz Roach,and a top up with a pinch of pellet every put in as I alternated between out front and under the willow kept the bites coming all match.

 Periodically I would connect with a Carp and when this happened it was a matter of adding the rest of the pole and letting it play itself out away from the catching area before netting it, thus avoiding wrecking the swim I'd been catching in .

Malc finally managed to sort things out and put a few fish together towards the end of the match ......

but poor Vince's insider knowledge of the venue rather let him down today as he struggled being between Malc and me, though he did manage to put a few in the net, it was a case of to little to late.......

It did get a little lairy in the afternoon when we were treated to a combination of torrential rain accompanied with thunder & lightning (very very fightening ) but even during this i managed to keep a few going in the net.

Thankfully it stopped before 4pm when Paul,one of the fishery bailiffs came to do the weigh in for us.......

 The weights were as follows.......

Vince very kindly donated a trophy for the winning angler,and here he is presenting it

Finally a word of thanks to Malc & Vince for organising a thoroughly entertaining day and a word of thanks too for Paul Ward (the owner) and his staff at Hartleylands. Once again despite the weather throwing the lot at us, the fishery produced the goods, proving what a consistent fishery Hartleylands is .

First a word of warning Dear Reader,

If you fancy a quiet days fishing in pursuit of Perch DON'T post the idea on Maggotdrowning.com.
Hijacked?.........Well at least Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask.

Last week realising that i'd be off today (friday) I posted on the going fishing section,

"I fancy a day at Hartleylands on Friday the 2nd to kick off the New Year.
Anyone else up for it?"
Thinking that someone may be mad enough to fancy a trip out after the excess of Christmas & New Year.
Dave the Fish mentioned that he fancied a crack at the large Perch that inhabit Samson pond, and before you could say "STRIKE" they were all lining up to join in.

Welshmen (Dai & son Dan) were planning round trips from the valleys, while a grumpy ex-pat old Englishman, moved a doctors appointment to stow away to his homeland.
Colin joined in because he had to supply a kettle for Dave the Fish, While Mick (Weyback) tagged along on the flimsy pretence of aquiring a ring for an old rod.
Terry aka Wily Coyote decided that as he'd found his "Winter Woolies" he'd better use them, and on the day from out of the blue "The Hat" aka Andy appeared.

Vince, the bailiff on hearing of this mini invasion, suddenly found a visit to his
Mother-in-law to be preferable,in case he had to get the excavator out to extend the pond, though he did appear briefly to part us from some ££££'s for BDAA raffle tickets.

Malc? Who knows with his inherent sense of direction, he may still be wandering the surrounding lanes seeking a sign.

So to the fishing.
Well it was soon apparent that 9 into a tiny pond that may at a squeeze take 7 wasn't going to happen so some split to other parts of the fishery.
The Hat & Wily to the reservoir, with The Hat armed with his new margin pole to try for his target of a "Twenty" on the pole, while Wily just wanted to be alone to recover from the shock that grumpy ex-pat old Englishman (Geoff),was in fact the very same Master G Palmer that he had been at school with some 40 years before.
Mick to the relative seclusion of Finches, while Colin elected to try Hennicker, though he later shifted to Nick's Lake.
The rest of us?
Being Lazy Buggers piled onto Samson, despite it being at least a 2 yard walk from the car park.

Oh yes , the fishing.............. Well not exactly stunning.
The Hat got his Carp, just a shame that it had been on a diet and lost 15lbs, but did get a specimen Perch

Colin managed to save his day with some small Carp from Nicks lake.

Dave wondered if his float tip would ever get wet, but did manage a couple of silvers at the death on some month old pinkies. Mind you he did have the handicap of seeing a beardless Geoff in the swim next door all day.

Geoff managed a couple of Gudgeon and a few silvers, but was left cursing after losing a Common Carp of about 5lbs, that smashed him having swum through some brambles, and promptly retreated under his hood and baseball cap to hide his shame.

Dai, despite the provocation of Geoffs phone playing "Sweet Chariot" at various times got a few silvers and a start in "The Fishing race 2004", but poor Dan despite trying with Dads pole in his swim only succeeded in bumping the 3 Roach he hooked.

Me?
3 small Carp and another Common lost when the hook came out, and about 20 assorted small Skimmers, Roach and Hybrids.

And 12 points for The Fishing Race 2004 ...........

The best bite of the day? Without doubt the hot pasties and pies that Dave the Fish kindly supplied half way through the day from the farm bakery. Nice one Dave.

So that was it a nice quiet day out that became a mini fish-in.
Friendships made and renewed, and faces put to names. A laugh and a joke with the fishing becoming incidental.
All in All......A Grand Day Out.