The JINX Series 2009

Match 4.

Today saw us back at Rolf's for the penultimate round of this years Jinx Series. Leading up to the match, the question that had been nagging away at the back of my mind was would the unsettled weather of the previous week have an adverse effect on the fishing today .
Looking out of the window a dull grey day greeted me and it looked like we would be in for more rain at some point, and loading up the car there was a muggy feeling to the air. So having made sure that the waterproofs were in the car today I set off via Battersea for my usual stop at The Jimmy Griddle where one of their 'Full English Breakfasts' at least made for a good start to the day . The drive down was smooth enough, though I did drive through a few rain squalls and after a final stop for a coffee at the services, I pulled into Rolf's car park just after 10·30am.

I was the first to arrive. Now normally the first thing to do on arrival is to dip your nets prior to the match ahead, However John now supplies the fisheries own keepnets and landing nets for visiting anglers to use, so that's one ritual less on a Rolf's match day . Anyway John and Pauline were just starting to refill the dip tanks on the weigh stations so I set off with them round the lake and gave them a hand with that and by the time we'd worked our way back round to the car park the others were starting to arrive .

Soon the banter was in full flow. How would it fish? Clive spent a lot of the time with his fingers in his ears and changing the subject as people tried to get him to name a peg . Tony ribbing me as to whether I would draw 13 again? Would The Minx return to form and add a few more to her list? Marcus (Budgie) was back guesting again having been hooked by The Rolf's Experience as were Webbo and Steve(Steak) and with the weather today was The Jinx starting to flex it's power once more? .

Well the draw was late today (much to Jon's relief as he had stated that he would swim the lake after the final match if all 5 of the series draws had gone ahead on time ) I hung back hoping that someone would get Peg 13 before me, and joy of joys Tony's ribbing bit him on the arse as Peg 13 stuck to his hand . Now Clive and I are partners for the "Pairs" event, and had been heavily tipped as favourites prior to the start of the series, however a couple of disasters in the first 2 matches had seen us languishing down in 10th place , the last match had seen us drag ourselves back to 3rd and we were hoping for a decent pair of draws today to help us improve our position further. Poor Clive however got Peg 23 again , and Jon had obviously drawn well as by the time I reached the draw bag he already had his kit on peg 7 !!!!! Into the bag and I was more than happy to see peg 8 sticking to my palm, a very decent peg that I've never been fortunate enough drawn before .

So with my kit round at my peg it was time to get set up. I tend to be pretty single minded with my approach at Rolf's, I find that if you set up to many options you just end up confusing yourself. Now you can fish long on peg 8 across to the far bank, but in all honesty my back isn't really up to fishing long for 5 hours and with the wind gusting and the promise of rain to come I discounted it. Instead I went for just 4 sections straight out in front on the deck, a comfortable distance that I could throw pellet to regardless of what the weather did , and a similar line to the bush on my left. Rigs would be just one for pellet and another for paste. The pellet rig was a was a 4X12 Malman Adam to 0·20 Power Match with a size 12 Guru QM hook while the paste rig was a Malman SC paste to 0·22 Power Match with a size 12 Drennan Carp Feeder hook. Bait for the day was 8mm hard pellet, paste and some corn, while feed was simply 6mm fishery pellet.
So a pretty simple set up which left me a bit of time before the all in, though Jon looked like he was determined to cover all the bases as he made the most of every minute prior to the off .

So 1·30pm and Malc called the All-In and I fed 2 good handfuls of pellet straight out and another to the left then flicked a banded 8mm pellet out in front, and after lifting and dropping the rig the float buried and a good few feet of yellow Vespe streamed out of the top kit.
Slow steady pressure soon saw one of Rolf's Commons resting in the landing net, a weigher that went 11¾lbs, a nice start .
More pellets and back out with the rig, a couple of lifts and it's déjà vu as once more the elastic streamed from the top kit and a couple of minutes later it's another Common in the landing net, another weigher, this time going 11½lbs . Back out again, more pellets over the top and within a minute I'm in again resulting in yet another Common, going 10¾lbs this time .

Now with a start like that you can't help feeling that it's almost to good to be true, and sure enough next put in sees me attached to a real creature that just steamed off to the far bank, however I managed to turn it then heard a crack, looking up I couldn't work out what had happened at first, but it was soon apparent that the elastic had gone at the stonfo. Obviously a little bit of wear that I hadn't noticed, but I couldn't help feeling annoyed with myself . Feeding more pellet I decided to re rig the top kit as I had all the necessary with me, but it cost me 15 minutes, though I kept feeding while I did it .

Jon was having a bit of grief having lost a couple of fish (probably foul hookers) and was having a bit of a struggle getting to grips with just how the fish wanted it. Meantime I was back in action, my next fish being a Mirror around the 8lb mark. The fishing for most however was proving to be challenging. The Minx had given her customary scream signifying that she was up and running on peg 19 and you just knew that it had caused a few buttocks to tighten wondering if they were going to fall victim to her today . Indeed as I looked up the car park bank from my vantage point sport seemed to be slow. Indeed Webbo took great delight in phoning me to let me know that not only had Steak smashed a couple of top 2's, but had nearly lost his 3rd & 4th sections in the lake as well .

A bit of a lull in proceedings for me, with a lot of finicky knocks resulted in me finally connecting with a fish which proved to be a Skimmer of around 1½lbs and a switch to corn only resulted in a small Roach . Jon however was attached to something that was obviously a lot more substantial. After a few anxious minutes he had it safely in the net, a lovely looking Mirror that rolled the scales round to 17lbs and a new PB for him .

With me being plagued by finicky bites I decided to try the paste rig as I'd read on Eddie Taylor-Green's Blog that Vespe sponsored angler Chris Telling had won the previous Wednesday open from peg 8 fishing paste, but I just couldn't make it work for me on the day as I suffered a frustrating spate of liners and foul hookers . Malc appeared having had a stroll round the lake and he seemed to think that it was between Simon E on peg 22 and me, with more than a few struggling at that point, indeed Malc hadn't had so much as a bite down on peg 40 . Nick on peg 36 had been fishing long to the aerator nearly all match with little to show for it, but had finally started to get a bit of action as reward for his efforts.

Dave the Fish was having a quieter time than he would have liked on peg 2, while rumour had it that Fred was  having a steady match on peg 4. Big Dave Moore had been strangely quiet on peg 6, and I did wonder if he'd fallen asleep after doing a nights work on the London Underground prior to the match until he appeared to ask me to witness a couple of weighers for him .

Back on the pellet rig and I started to connect with a few, a mix of Commons and Mirrors that all seemed to average around the 8lb mark. However I was getting quite a few foul hookers, so although it looked to some that I was absolutely bagging, the reality was that not all of them were ending up in the net. However sometimes you get something happen that gives you a hint that today might just be your day, and when I went to put a Mirror of around 8lb in the net and the top ring collapsed leading to me missing the net and the fish landed on the outside of the keepnet allowing me to scoop it back into the landing net, I couldn't help wondering if the fishing gods were smiling on me today .

With the rain finally arriving in proper fashion with around 2 hours to go, sport appeared to pick up for me (well at least I wasn't suffering from so many foul hookers ) though the frustrating bit was that I couldn't pick up a single fish from the left hand bush, forcing me to concentrate on the one line. Ryan over on peg 34 was fishing tight up to the buoy in his right hand margin but it didn't appear to be producing for him today and he'd been snagged up on at least one occasion that I'd seen .

With around an hour to go I heard Malc shout out, which meant he'd finally managed to catch  while just 45 minutes from the end a huge sigh of relief could be heard from Simon on peg 9 as he got his first fish of the day, thus avoiding the dreaded DNW though he was still looking odds on for a Minxing . I was still nicking the odd fish, while Jon had gone across at 14½mtrs and finally started to get a few, though he was having problems with sticking sections which made shipping back a bit of a nightmare for him and cost him a few fish .

With just a couple of minutes to go I was into a decent fish, but unfortunately made a schoolboy error . Knowing that there wasn't long to go I got greedy and tried to hurry it to the net so that I could get another put in before the all out, subsequently I shipped back to quickly and the feisty fish made a bee line for the platform and cracked me off round the legs of it, a silly mistake and I should have known better, and just to rub it in while I was cursing my stupidity Malc called the All-Out .

Packing away wet kit is never fun and Jon had to get straight off but had a real problem with a top kit firmly stuck to a No4, but luckily with Fred's help he was spared driving home with it stuck out of the window. I soon had my kit back to the car and after chatting to a few of the lads it was obvious that the lake had fished hard for the most part . Just how hard would be revealed by the Weigh-In.

So starting with peg 34 as usual Ryan weighed a hard earned 51½lbs to start things off, and that weight wasn't troubled till Fred on peg 4 stuck just over 65lbs on the scales edging Jon on peg 7 by 6ozs. With 4 weighers on the board and another 11 Carp in my nets I was sure I'd done the 'Ton' and so it proved when my weight was called at 131lbs 6ozs . Paul on peg 16 managed 80¼lbs which would prove to be good enough for 3rd on the day. Gemma on peg 19 recorded a hard earnt 33lbs, drawing more than a few groans as several people realised they'd suffered a Minxing  or were about to. Simon E had managed a fine 110lbs from unfancied peg 22 for 2nd on the day , while my partner Clive's 52½lbs gave him 2nd in his section . So a pleasing win for me on what had proved to be a hard day, with a Golden Nugget from the The Minx and one from Webbo by way of a bonus. Gemma had the biggest grin though with 13 victims added to The Minxed List, including Simon  and her Dad  . As for the Pairs, a couple of decent results today for myself and Clive has seen us move up to second place, but an even better pair of results from Fred and Simon E has seen them pull 2  points further in front, meaning that Clive and I will need to beat them by 13 points in the final match to win the Pairs competition, almost impossible but we'll give it a real good try .

Next weekend it's back to Rolf's again with 3 matches in 3 days, It's a hard life, but someone has to do it .

Marsh AC club match.

Today it's another Marsh AC club match and we're on Nick's Lake at Hartleylands Farm. There's a few guests joining us today as is usual and with the whole lake booked hopefully it will throw up a few decent weights . Loading up the car the weather looked set fair and it was a smooth run down to the Knox Bridge Café for breakfast where I'd arranged to meet up with Keith and his pal Mick who were travelling down from Milton Keynes. Stomachs filled it was a short run down to the fishery and we pulled into the car park around 8·20am .
Along with Keith and Mick there were 2 other guests fishing with us today. Clive, who's rapidly becoming a fixture and Dave Talbot (Faye's Dad) who'd been able to accept the invite to join us .

With 17 anglers and 37 pegs on the lake there would be plenty of space for everyone today, and Dave soon had the monies collected and the draw under way. Soon it was my turn and when peg 23 came to hand I was happy enough and pretty sure it would provide a decent days fishing . You can see where we all ended up on the pegging plan below .............

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

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

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

My problem was that I had to drop the float within 18 inches of the island to get a bite, any further away and I couldn't buy a bite, and feeding a bit further away had no effect. Then a couple of disasters befell me . firstly the float adaptor split, so I had to re-rig, however this time I went with a Drake 3AAA peacock waggler that I felt I could control better, then first cast out a Moorhen dashed out to the splash of the float landing and tangled with the rig. Thankfully I managed to retrieve the rig complete with Moorhen which I netted and the bird was released none the worse for it's experience, before I could once more get down to the task in hand.

Dave had come round for a stroll and confessed that he was experiencing his own "Mugger Moments©" as were a few of those pegged down to my left where it was much more sheltered, though I could see Simon down on peg 31 putting fish in the net on a regular basis, and Dave was soon followed by Colin, who reckoned that he'd only got 7 small carp to show for his first 2 hours of effort. Judy up on peg 16 appeared to be concentrating on a margin swim to put a few fish together ........

I managed to get back into some sort of rhythm and started to put a run of fish together, but a couple of times the wind got up making presentation awkward and on those occasions I took the opportunity to take a look down the margins and while this produced a couple of small Carp I soon got back out on the waggler when the wind eased . Just past halfway Tony strolled down as he took a break to have a bite to eat and was admitting to 60+ fish.

Round the other parts of the lake people were having their own private battles. Keith on peg 6 was trying to get to grips with a venue that was new to him, and with the wind blowing straight into him had come shorter allowing himself to feed comfortably and was starting to put a few fish together ...........

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

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

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

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

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

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

So with the kit packed up and back in the car it was time for the weigh-in. Terry kicked off from peg 1 with 44¼lbs and was immediately overtaken by Dave with 48lbs. Keith had finally sorted things out to record 76¼lbs , but his mate Mick was to take the bragging rights on the trip home to Milton Keynes with a fine 101lbs . Clive had 78lbs to show for his efforts while Colin had a final 2 hours "To die for" as he put it weighing 112¼lbs . Dave T declared he'd really enjoyed his day and the 60¼lbs he put on the scales . Tony's nets rather gave the game away as they were lifted out, and when his catch was totalled up 176¼lbs was always going to be enough for the win . My own fish came to 106lbs which would prove to be good enough for 4th on the day . While Simon was last to weigh and put a fine 129lbs on the scales for 2nd on the day .

So 5 Ton weights in a total of 1155½lbs weighed in resulting in an average of 68lbs per angler made for another good day out for the members of Marsh AC and their guests, and I think shows just what a good venue Hartleylands Farm is . Thanks to all that made it another enjoyable day out . The next Marsh club match is at Colemans Cottage next month, while my next outing is to Rolf's Lake for the 4th match in The Jinx Series next Saturday.

The JINX Series 2009

Match 3.

Well today is the day of the third match of the JINX Series at Rolf's Lake . It promises to be a little different today, as a good number of the lads were there last night to fish a JINX 2009 SPECIAL EVENING MATCH between the hours of 6·30pm till 11·30pm and were obviously stopping overnight. With a few of the series regulars not fishing that, but some guests taking their places it should be pretty full today.
So after being woken just after 7am by our new kitten who wanted feeding, I logged onto the Maggotdrowning forum and sure enough Slim had already put a post up about the evening match .....

"Just got off the phone from steve(sacker) wilson,seems rolf fished quite well last night. 3 x 200lb weights,and a fair few 100 lb + weights.Over 2000 lb of fish were caught and on average worked out about 120 lb per angler."

So things looked promising for today despite the forecast predicting clouds and rain, and with the car loaded up I was soon on my way via 'The Jimmy Griddle' café in Battersea, for my customary stop for a 'Full English' to set me up for the day . Suitably refreshed and with just 1 further stop for a coffee at the services, I pulled into an already packed car park just after 10·30am.

First things first, so I dipped my nets before catching up with the events of the past night. It seemed that Vince (my pound coin dispenser ) who has been trying to catch a Rolf's Ton for some time had achieved his aim in spades with a 200lb+ bag, Well Done mate .
However people were already ribbing him that I hadn't been there for him to take a £1 back from me, and they were already speculating that normal service would be resumed with me present today .
There was a pretty full house, as a couple of anglers that fished the evening match were guesting today, Vince and Budgie, while Dave had again travelled down from Leeds, this time with Bagger J in tow.

So draw time once more, and Clive had refused to mention a single peg number in case his hand played up again, but was rewarded with peg 6 this time . I just wanted to avoid Peg 13 and hung back, but it refused to come out and was still in the bag when I drew . Slowly I opened my hand to reveal peg 34.
Happy days , In fact Slim ended up with Peg 13 so it would be interesting to see how he fared on it.

With just a short walk from the car park to peg 34 there was no rush to set up, and I helped Dave Collier with his box to his peg (30) as he'd left it on 34 overnight, having fished it during the evening match.
With nobody on peg 35, Vince of course just had to draw peg 36 (you couldn't make it up ) so we were bound to have some fun during the match one way or another .
Neo was down on 38 with Webbo on 40 and Budgie on 2 while Jon had peg 4 as his home for the match. Opposite me was Clive on peg 6 with Tony(spamwham) on peg 7 with Steve on peg 8 for company, and I had a feeling that we would spend plenty of the match watching that trio bagging up off those flyers .

With the match not starting till 1·30pm we had plenty of time to set up and I decided to tie some new rigs up. The 1st was a 4X12 Malman Adam to 0·20 with a size 12 Guru QM hook to fish 8mm banded pellet on the deck at 9-10mtrs straight out, no further as the wind was gusting from right to left across the peg, while the 2nd and 3rd were 0·3g Malman MTD1's again on 0·20 with size 12 Guru QM hooks to fish the margins on both sides and double up as up in the water rigs. Bait was 8 & 6mm pellets + some sweetcorn and some paste if needed, while feed was just 6mm fishery pellets .

Well 1·30pm finally rolled around and Malc called the All-In. I shipped out 2 large pots of pellet onto the 9mtr line and fed more by hand down both margins as well as a spot about 3mtrs out to my left where John Bennett had told me he'd had a lot of fish from in the past . Vince appeared to be starting on paste at around 5mtrs (which is what he caught on during the evening match ) and it looked like Clive was shipping out a paste rig over on peg 6 as well........

I could see a few bubbles starting to appear on the 9mtr line but missed the first couple of lightning fast bites, before I briefly connected with a fish that was obviously foul hooked before the rig came flying back . Tony and Steve were both off the mark already though, in fact Tony seemed to have a bite every time he lowered his rig in !!!!!

I finally connected with one of Rolf's super fit Commons and after a couple of minutes had it safely in the net.....

Now at this point I must apologise to Malc , as I decided to weigh the fish to get a feel for just how they were weighing, the fish turned out to be just 8½lbs so rather than record it I decided to put it straight into my keepnet, however Vince remarked to me that there was no weight sheet at the weigh station, so I phoned him to let him know, however when Malc arrived the weigh sheet was under the crate (in case of rain) meaning a wasted trip round the lake for Malc , schoolboy error on my part Sorry Malc .

Back to the fishing, and I noticed that Webbo had started to sneak the odd one out down on peg 40 and appeared to be in with a good chance of taking yet another Golden Nugget off me ............

Budgie over on peg 2 had the look of a man who was a bit shocked , this being his 1st visit to Rolf's and who was beginning to realise that he was a little under-gunned in the tackle department, and that people hadn't exaggerated just what was needed to tackle the fish at Rolf's ...........

Meanwhile Clive was having a bit of a struggle on peg 6 and was just having to be patient while he waited for the fish to hopefully turn up, He wasn't helped though by hearing the constant splashing that was coming from pegs 7 & 8 as Tony and Steve continued to catch regularly ..............

My next fish was a lovely Common of around 12½lbs that was to prove to be my biggest of the day..........

 and Vince kindly did the honours with the camera (Webbo even phoned to say I was being cruel to Vince, not only getting him to check the weight, but having him take a picture as well )............

I had a look at JB's spot and while it did produce one Carp for me that was all, and with nothing from either margin it was back to 9mtrs for me  as it seemed to at least produce regular bites if not lots of them...............

Jon was tucked away over on peg 4, and while not taking it apart he was quietly slipping the odd fish into the net with a minimum of fuss .

Webbo appeared to be having a bit of an eventful match however, earlier he'd smashed a top kit trying to net an angry foul hooker , but it went from bad to worse when he placed a top kit on his box and sat on it to hold it in place whilst playing a fish so that he could feed his swim and the fish pulled it in . True to form, Malc appeared to try and rescue it, but it had vanished from sight before he had a chance to leap in .........

Vince remarked that it was surprising that more gear wasn't lost at Rolf's, given the way that some of the fish fight, indeed he had a struggle on his hands of his own as a particularly fit Common led him a merry dance, before he got the upper hand, and I returned the favour with the camera ..........

Meanwhile Clive had started to experience an upturn in sport after 3 hours of struggling and seemed to be having regular tug of war matches with a number of lumps, the vast majority of which appeared to be weighers..........

I was just ticking along at around 3 fish an hour , and it didn't seem to matter what I tried I couldn't up the rate, however it was enough to keep me ahead of Vince, despite him having a bit more on the board in terms of weighers than me.

Tony and Steve continued to catch, though it was noticeable that Tony was making very few trips up to the scales..........

Clive however was flying by now, and it seemed that every time I looked over in his direction he was attached to another beast that was trying it's best to drag him off his platform , in fact he was doing battle as Malc called the All-Out at 6·30pm........

Then as if on cue it started to rain, just so we could get a soaking as we packed up and started the weigh-in. I was 1st to weigh and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I'd managed a 'Ton' with a weight of 101¼lbs . Vince couldn't match that with a weight of 61lbs so handed over yet another Golden Nugget to yours truly . Dave despite his problems however managed to put 106¾lbs on the scales meaning that he at least recouped a Golden Nugget from me to offset the loss of top kits. The next serious contender was Clive and he put a highly impressive 192¼lbs on the scales and place himself firmly in the lead . Tony put 133lbs on the scales, he probably caught the most fish on the day, but suffered from them being mostly around the 5lb mark . In fact Steve almost edged out Tony with 127lbs (less fish but more weighers. Young Mitch did the business with 116lbs 2ozs from peg 9 and Simon E put a fine 163¼lbs on the scales from peg 11, while Slim had suffered a bit of a 'Mugger Moment©' on my nemesis peg (13) with just 29½lbs . Malc had 152½lbs and Al just missed out on a ton from peg 18 with 94lbs . Paul weighed a creditable 110¼lbs from peg 19 while poor Gem only manage a meagre 1¼lb of silvers from peg 21 meaning everyone had avoided a Minxing today . Simon extracted a measure of revenge on Gem with 94½lbs from peg 23 . The winner on the day however was young Ryan with an excellent bag from peg 26 that weighed 196¾lbs, Well Done Ryan . Fred was the last to break the Ton today with with 142½lbs from peg 28.

So there you have it, there were an awful lot of very tired anglers at the end of it, especially those that had fished the evening match as well, but they all agreed that it had been worth it.

Next up for me should be a Marsh AC match on Nick's Lake at Hartleylands Farm in a couple of weeks time.

Marsh AC club match.

Todays venue for the Marsh AC club match is Rockells Farm. It's the venue where I set a new club match record last year of 293½lbs and the club recorded their all time best aggregate weight of 1991lbs weighed in between 18 anglers .
As usual I got round to Dave's at 6·45am to follow him and Colin down to the venue, It's not the easiest of venues to find without a Sat Nav, being somewhat off the beaten track, but we made good time despite quite a bit of fog on the trip up and pulled into the car park just after 8am.
There were 19 booked in for todays match, 15 club members and 4 guests, Clive and Al who are in danger of becoming permanent fixtures and Keith Ashby and Vic Nugent (both GOT Baits sponsored anglers) who enjoy the occasional trip out with the club due to the relaxed atmosphere and the banter and laughs that are had during the day .

With no permanent numbers allocated to the pegs at Rockells, Keith and I set off into the lifting fog to peg out while Dave sorted the monies out. Every peg appeared to have fish moving in front of it and in the margins promising a good days sport ahead. Pegs 1-3 went into the very end, and could all be regarded as flyers, while pegs 4-11 went in down the right hand side and 12-19 up the left (The high numbers being where you wanted to be ). With draw time approaching, 3 members hadn't arrived (Martin, Zack & Graham) but the draw went ahead anyway.

Keith & Vic drew pegs 1 & 2, and with them both being very positive anglers would take all the stopping on those pegs . My home for the day would be peg 17 , with Al for company on peg 18. At the end of the draw there were 3 pegs left which I drew for the missing anglers peg 3 for Martin and peg 19 for Graham (Both flyers ) and peg 14 for Zack.

Settling into peg 17 I have to say that I was happy with my draw . I'm pretty single minded in how I approach Rockells, always fishing paste as close in as I can and peg 17 looked tailor made for it, with nettles and reeds overhanging the left hand margin and boards in the right hand margin .........

The rigs were simplicity itself, 3 top 2's holding rigs that were made up of 4X12 Middy Paste Floats that are a really strong line through design made up on ·20 Ultima Power Match finished off with a Drennan size 12 Carp Method hook to fish paste in both margins where I had around 2 feet of water on both sides. I had 6 pints of it made up, which was GOT Baits Atomic with some GOT Baits Pineapple Atomic Cloud added. Feed would be a mix of soaked 4 and 6 mm pellet. I had 2 extra sections of pole set up, but hopefully wouldn't be using them unless I hooked a real beast as I really wanted to be able to fish just the top 2's for speed and comfort.

Just along on peg 18 Al's swim looked well capable of pushing me all the way, especially as Al has been putting some good results together recently ...............

Martin, Zack and Graham had arrived meanwhile, and I fancied that Martin might be in with a chance on peg 3, as although he would only class himself as a pleasure angler, he'd had a good result here last year weighing in a total of 232¾lbs, so the venue obviously suits his approach .
Looking across I could see Keith, apparently lost in his thoughts, sitting on his flyer, so no pressure there then ..........

The fog had burnt off by now, but there was still a fair bit of cloud, so although it was warming up hopefully it wouldn't turn into the total scorcher that had been predicted . With the venues potential to produce big weights todays match was being split into two 3 hour sessions with a 1 hour break mid way through for a mid-match weigh-in taken at the fishery owners insistence, so with everyone set the All-In was called at 10am for the morning session .

A handfull of pellet into both margins, and with fish already showing on my left side that's where the 1st bit of paste was lowered into. A couple of knocks and the float slid away and the first Carp of the day, a small Mirror of around 12ozs was soon safely in the net, number 1 on the clicker . To be honest it was pretty much steady away for me from then on. Al however seemed to be having a few problems , it looked as if he was fishing pellet that was being intercepted by Roach and the smaller Carp, on top of which he seemed to be bumping a few better fish. I was getting a few to many small Carp for my liking, but I found last year that you just had to wade through them and keep the bait going in to draw the better fish, and I started to put a few better 2-3lb fish together . They were all coming from the left hand margin though as every time I looked down the right I was waiting to long for a bite before landing yet another 8oz Carp.

2 hours in with 44 fish on the clicker another look down the right hand margin resulted in an instant bite and a much better fish powered off and after an anxious couple of minutes a nice Leather Carp of around 12lbs was safe in the net . With a few tail patterns now showing by the boards I concentrated on that line for the last hour. With 5 minutes to go I fed 4 pints of pellet into the right hand margin and another couple down the left in an attempt to hold the fish during the hours break for the weigh-in, while a final put in produced a 5lb Common Carp as the All-Out was called at 1pm.

The weigh-in started from my side and my weight of 120lbs made up of 62 fish was comfortably leading till it came to the 1st 3 pegs. Keith on peg 1 put 148lbs on the scales (and he reckoned he was getting roached out, lying ****** ) while Vic on peg 2 ran him close with 133¼lbs, however it was Martin who put us all in our place when he put a staggering 180¾lbs on the scales for the half way lead . So with over 1100lbs of fish weighed it looked like all the club records set last year would be going, as it normally fishes better in the afternoon. In fact it had taken the whole hour to weigh-in meant that we delayed the start of the afternoon session to allow everyone to get back to their pegs.
As I strolled back I noticed that Clive was looking a bit numb as he'd struggled on peg 10 for a mere 22lbs and already needed snookers .............

............. it looks like his drawing hand has decided to get its own back on him big time, for all the punishment he's given it for mis-behaving recently .

Returning to my peg I could see that despite the disturbance of the weigh-in the fish had settled on the pellets by the boards as evidenced by the tail patterns I could see . So 2·15pm and the All-In was called for the afternoon session. 1st put in and away goes the float attached to a 3lb Common and that's the way it continued . Al seeing how successful paste had been for me gave it a go, and while it was an improvement he was having yet another nightmare as he suffered from hook pulls and foul hookers .

Elsewhere round the lake sport wasn't quite so fast and furious I'm afraid, in fact rumour had it that Clive had put a pair of ear plugs in, so that he didn't have to keep hearing the splashing of fish coming to others nets ........

 I suffered with a few foul hookers as well during the afternoon session, despite cutting down on the feed, there were just so many fish down by the boards, even hooked fish charging through them didn't spook them. I basically fished the right hand margin for the whole 3 hours as the bites kept coming and they were from a better stamp of fish than those from the left hand margin.

In fact, by the time the All-Out was called at 5·15pm I was quite relieved as my right shoulder was starting to ache, and a quick glance showed me that I had another 61 fish on the clicker .

I was soon packed away and dropped my kit back to the car, before making my way round to the weigh-in which was starting with Keith as the scales had been left there at the end of the morning session.
Well, What can I say , Keith put an amazing 234lbs on the scales for a total of 382lbs , Vic added 173¼lbs for a combined weight of 306½lbs , while Martin weighed 202½lbs to edge out Keith by 1¼lbs with a total weight of 383¼lbs . So that was over 1000lbs of fish weighed in from the first 3 pegs !!!
Dave had had a decent afternoon on peg 6 putting 167½lbs on the scales for a total of 254¼lbs . Tony on peg 8 recorded a total of 142½lbs and most had improved on their morning totals by the time we got round to Colin on peg 15 who added a net of 127½lbs for a total of 211lbs while Terry on peg 16 recorded a total of 140¾lbs .
When it came to my peg the scales recorded a weight of 210lbs giving me a total of 330lbs and 3rd place on the day . Alan put a hard earned 101½lbs on the scales for a total of 171¾lbs while Graham rounded off things with a total weight of 114lbs for the 2 sessions .

So there you have it, Martin is now the proud holder of the club match record at 383lbs 4ozs . The top 10 anglers recorded 4 'Triple Tons', 2 'Double Tons' and 4 'Tons' between them . A club record total of 2911lbs 14ozs was weighed in between 19 anglers, an average of over 153lbs per angler . I broke my 3 hour PB match weight as well as my PB overall match weight as did quite a few others. Hopefully we'll get a chance to try and better that next year, or is that being greedy?

 

Well today is the day of the Maggotdrowning.com Individual Championship, and this year's venue is the Match Lake at Larford Lakes. It meant an early start for me as it's about 150 miles for me to drive. So with the car loaded up by 5am I was off, and a nice smooth trip with just a stop for coffee on the way found me pulling into the fishery car park just after 8am . It's a small world, as I parked next to Andy(andy222)Feltham an MD's member who hadn't posted for a while, and was there to fish a club match on the Specimen Lake.

Soon after people started to arrive in force, Vince who had organised today's match was soon joined by Clive and after dipping our nets we decided to get in quick for breakfast. A Full English for £5 was soon dispatched and fishery pellets purchased. I have to say that I find it strange that you can only feed a maximum of 4 bags of fishery pellets(2 pints of skrettings in a bag costing £2·50p), but you can feed unlimited amounts of meat or corn, which can't be good for water quality Waiting for the draw it was good to catch up with faces, both old and new , The customary side bet of a Golden Nugget was struck with Vince and Gemma(The Minx), while John's good lady Lynn parted us from our cash in exchange for raffle tickets, the proceeds of which will be going to The British Heart Foundation, and by the time that Vince called the draw at 9am, 38 of us were ready to go, meaning that we could leave out the even pegs giving everyone a bit of space . Into the hat and I'm rewarded with peg 37, while Vince asks me to draw for him and receives peg 51 as a present from me .

At least peg 37 being on the clubhouse bank means I can drive up and almost park behind it. It doesn't look to bad to be honest with a chuck to the island on the feeder and a nice bed of lilies in front of the bush to my left and should be good for a few.

Looking around I've got my fellow Marsh AC member,Tony(spamwham)Roberts to my left, so there should be a good bit of banter during the day ..........

To my right I've got Andrew(Marginman)Willet and next up fellow blogger and Jinx Series partner Clive, who appears to be knocking up some groundbait, though he might have had the prayer mat out and be offering up a plea to the fishing gods ...........

Looking across I can see Vince over on peg 51, so at least I'll be able to keep tabs on the likely destination of the Golden Nugget .

The set up today is 2 4X12 Malman Adam's to 0·16 with a size 18 Drennan Carp Match hooks to fish 6mm banded pellet and meat on the deck at 7mtrs straight out and on the edge of the lilies to my left where there's about 3feet of water and a Malman MTD2 dibber, again on 0·16 with a 18 Drennan Carp Match hook for up in the water. I also set up a Malman SC paste to 0·22 Power Match with a size 12 Drennan Carp Feeder hook for paste, just in case any lumps put in an appearance and the feeder rod.
Bait for the day was a mix of pellets, meat and paste, with feed taken care of by dampened 4mm fishery pellets.

So 11am and Vince calls the All-In. A handfull of pellet straight out to 7mtrs and another to the edge of the lilies and before I can ship out a banded pellet to 7mtrs a shout rings out signifying The Minx has her 1st fish in the net, sending a shudder down the spines of more than a few blokes .
Out to 7mtrs and after lifting and dropping the rig a couple of times the black hydro rips out of the top kit and soon a plump F1 of around 1½lbs is safely in the net ...........

This was swiftly followed by a small stockie of around 8ozs and than a bit of frustration started to set in , I had a spate of very finicky bites, but I managed to hit them, only to have them shed the hook as they came to the net for no apparent reason, the hook certainly hadn't blunted. Indeed I wasn't the only one to suffer like this, as I found out talking to others after the match. I was still managing to put a few in the net, though there were a few to many small stockies rather than the better stamp of F1's..........

To clear my head I took a quick stroll along with the camera to see how others were fairing. Dai was getting a few, but it was proving to be a bit of a struggle ...............

Dirk seemed to be happy enough with his lot, and while not pulling up any trees appeared to be catching with a degree of regularity .............

While tucked away on the other side of the lake I could see Malc(The Jinx) on peg 55, and judging by the way he was concentrating, he was obviously catching ............

Tony was looking as if he was in for a good day with a nice lily pad at a comfy 8mtrs he was catching a decent stamp of fish fishing shallow , though he had been seen off a couple of times by lumps that had found the sanctuary of the pads ...........

Clive meanwhile was having a bit of a mare, he was another suffering from lost fish , though he did manage to successfully land one as I looked on ............

Back at my peg I continued to put a few in the net, but yet again they were mostly small skimmers and stockies though as Clive strolled past I was into something a little better .........

Which proved to be one of the better F1's that gave a pretty good account of itself, I did ask Clive to stay for a while as he seemed to bring me a bit of luck, but for some reason he didn't think much of my offer .........

As the match wore on Vince had managed to bag a couple of what seemed to be reasonable fish on the feeder, but still needed to find something to up his catch rate and avoid the loss of yet another Golden Nugget ............

Weather wise we seemed to have just about everything during the course of the match and with half an hour to go it started to rain , and while my bites had become few and far between, Tony was still catching steadily and continued to put fish regularly in the net right up to the All-out being called at 4pm.

As we packed away at least the rain eased off and chatting to Tony I felt he must be in with a chance of at least a section as I thought he had something approaching the 'Ton'. The scales soon arrived and Tony's fish weighed in at an ounce shy of 97lbs to place him into the lead , while my net went 50lbs 5ozs. Clive had indeed suffered with a mere 19lbs 3ozs to show for his 5 hours . Poor Vince having slipped on the wet bank and pulled his thigh as he was packing his kit away suffered the loss of yet another Golden Nugget with just 17lbs 11ozs . I followed the scales round as far as Malc's peg where he put an excellent 89¾lbs on the scales before I returned to make my way back to the club house.

Back at the club house I was pleased to find I'd avoided a Minxing as Gem had struggled today so I managed to retrieve the Golden Nugget she'd taken from me on the previous Saturday at Rolf's . A buffet was laid on for us, with plenty to go round for all, despite Steve(Steak) doing his best to decimate it single handedly . Vince soon had the results sorted and the presentation underway.......

The section winners on the day being.........

Alan(Genus9)West
Lee(Hicko1)Hicking
Malc(The Jinx)Doyle
Wayne(Baggingman)Panting

The main honours going to ..........
3rd place..........Tony(spamwham)Roberts.

2nd place..........Mark(Bungee)Collinson.

and the winner on the day and MD's Individual Champion 2009...............
Steve (Fordy1) Ford.

The day was rounded off with the Raffle

Which thanks to Lynn's efforts selling tickets
raised £200 for The British Heart Foundation .

A few Thank You's are in order at this point, Firstly to Vince for organising the match, and doing his usual Excellent Job . To Lynn for a great job flogging the raffle tickets . To Phil Briscoe and all his staff at Maver Larford for their efforts during the day . Finally to all those members of Maggotdrowning.com that supported and took part in the match, making it the success that it was, it couldn't be done without you. Looks like we'll have to do it all over again next year .

The JINX Series 2009

Match 2.

The second match of the series today, I'd heard that it had fished hard last weekend in adverse weather conditions and the midweek match was held on the Big Lake as the Carp were finishing their spawning in the Little Lake so it will be interesting to see how things go today . With Maria working today I was up early to take her to work, before setting off to the fishery. A leisurely stop for a 'Full English' and another for coffee at the services still saw me arriving ahead of the rest about 10·30am. John was cutting the grass and almost ended up in peg 34 when he got a little adventurous on his ride-on mower .
Soon the car park was filling up with a full compliment of 28 anglers, with Simon E having replaced Pete Thatcher in the series as he can't spare the time off work, and Dave and Steve having travelled down from Yorkshire again to take 2 guest spots as they'd enjoyed the 1st match so much .

With the draw on time again, the general consensus was that The Little Lake was still the place to draw. Webbo couldn't believe his luck, pulling out Peg 6 this time (Golden Hand or what? ) and immediately struck a £1 side bet with me knowing that he's again drawn a form peg, while Clive (my Pairs partner ) remarked that the one peg he didn't want to draw was Peg 23 on the car park bank.................... so of course he drew Peg 23 (it looks as if his drawing hand is going to be spending some serious time on the naughty step ). I drew Peg 13, and drawing it on the 13th wasn't the best of omens as I'd struggled on the same peg on the last match . On peg 14 I had Gemma The Minx for company and again the omens didn't look good as Eddie Turner-Green was coming down today to take some photo's for John, and Gem always does well when he's around.

Setting up took a matter of minutes as it was just a question of opening my box and picking out the 3 rigs I'd used the previous match , a MW 0·4g XT for the 8mtr line on the deck on 0·20 Power Match with a size 14 Drennan Carp Match and a MW Trev with similar line and hook for up in the water that could double up down the side, while a third rig consisting of a Malman SC paste to 0·22 Power Match with a size 12 Drennan Carp Feeder hook for paste down the Side. Bait for the day was once more a mix of various pellets, paste, corn and meat, with feed taken care of by 4 and 6mm fishery pellets.

1·30pm and Malc called the All-In, and I shipped out 2 big pots of mixed pellets onto the 7mtr line, and fed the right hand margin by hand. The experience of déjà vu was ominous , having baited the rig with a 6mm expander and shipped out, my first two put ins resulted in foul hookers just like the previous match. Malc however was soon into the lake for an early bath, playing the good samaritan this time and retrieving Tony's spectacles that had dropped into his peg ......

Indeed 1½hrs passed before I hooked into a proper fish which proved to be a weigher, a nice 11½lb Common . After another 45 minutes of inactivity and a phonecall from Webbo telling me that he'd only had 7 fish (  Oh how my heart bled for him......NOT ) I decided to feed heavily and take a stroll to see how the rest were doing .

As I walked past Gem was into a fish, and was taking her time playing it as it was obviously a decent one..................

.........indeed her patience was amply rewarded in the shape of a new PB Mirror Carp that swung the scales round to rest on a weight of 15lbs 2ozs ...................

Jon on peg 17 obviously had the Gods shining down on him, as I strolled past he lifted into a small roach, but as he started to ship back yards of elastic streamed out of his top kit, the roach obviously having been bumped off, a hungry carp had snaffled the hook and whatever was left on it on the drop !!!!!!!!!!!!...................

Nick and Malc were both struggling at this point and looking down the car park bank nobody appeared to be taking the place apart...................

Indeed Clive found that Peg 23 was living up to his worst expectations , with just a single fish that he'd had on his first put in, just to cruelly raise his expectations ..............

.................. only to dash them, as he tried in vain to add a second to his tally ................

Simon E on peg 29 appeared to be putting a few together alternating between fishing shallow and fishing big balls of paste on the deck, while Dave on peg 28 was admitting to 4 fish.......................

Ant on peg 34 was having a few, but Simon on peg 35 seemed to be having the mother of all 'Mugger Moments©' as he hadn't been able to tempt a single fish and was looking at the very real possibility of a Minxing (as were a good few of us at this point ).....................

Slim on peg 37 had landed a carp before the off on a bare hook and was fishing long up in the water to try and tempt a few.......

While Al on peg 38 was having to chop and change to keep his bites coming.............

Steve(steak) on peg 40 was putting the odd fish in the net, but was to suffer a minor disaster as one his keepnets top rings collapsed releasing 2 Carp before he could rectify the situation ........

Terry (Wily Coyote) had taken 4 fish down the margin on peg 4, but by the look of things they were all out in front of him ........

Webbo was quite content on peg 6, though he was mourning the loss of one of his new Malman 'Elvis' floats, though looking at his peg I found it hard to feel to much sympathy for him ...............

Keith was ticking along nicely on peg 7, but Nick was having a real struggle getting to terms with peg 8.............

Andy on peg 9 was getting a bit desperate and had filled in the margin with pellet in a kill or cure attempt to make something happen.............

While Dave on peg 10 and Dai on peg 12 were both struggling, Dave having a skimmer and a perch to show for his efforts, while Dai couldn't buy a bite ................

Back on my peg with a few fizzes of bubbles coming up and a few fish cruising I resumed, but despite going through the card, all I could muster were another couple of scales on the sidetray from foul hookers that had taken off at a rate of knots . I did hook one decent fish but that did me under my keepnets and despite managing to thread my top kit under them to maintain contact, it shed the hook soon after .

With about an hour to go I had another foul hooker, but with the hook firmly in it's pectoral fin I managed to get it into the net, Dave on peg 10 had finally managed a couple of Carp and Dai had snared a Roach to avoid the dreaded DNW and would add a small carp as well before the end.

With half an hour to go Ieuan strolled past having surrendered and resigned himself to a DNW. I managed a final fish, yet another foul hooker, this time in the tail, that did a great job of trashing the swim before I managed to net it.
6·30pm and Malc called the All-Out ending what had been a very frustrating time for me and a few others .

As always the scales told the tale of the day. A DNW and a Minxing for Simon, Al briefly leading with 74¾lbs till Webbo put 94½lbs on the scales that would eventually net him A Section and 3rd place . My own meagre 24½lbs was nowhere near enough to save me from a next peg Minxing once Gemma put 33lbs 2ozs on the scales and took a Golden Nugget off me. Steve had a quietly steady match on peg 15 to register 101lbs for 2nd , while Jon took the honours on the day off of peg 17 with 104¾lbs for B Section and the win . Simon E taking C Section and 4th overall with a level 93lbs to round things off .
So 2 Golden Nuggets lost on the day, one to Webbo and the other to Gemma, along with my 1st Minxing of 2009, mind you I was just one of 13( There's that number again) that she added to her list today .

So that's it for today , next up for me is the Maggotdrowning.com Individual Championship at Maver Larford's Match Lake next Saturday. How will it go? I've not got a clue as I've never fished there before, but it should be a good day out. I'll let you know next weekend.

The JINX Series 2009

Match 1.

Well today saw 26 nutters lunatics fools anglers assembled at Rolf's for the start of this years JINX Series . This has become a "Must Fish" series of matches for me since I started fishing it back in 2005, and with 5 rounds to the Series this year, and there's bound to be more than a few tales to tell over the course of the matches .
I'd been looking forward to today with a fair deal of anticipation as the matches are more like great days out with a bunch of mates rather than a match , so I was up bright and early and soon had the car loaded and was off to Battersea for my customary breakfast stop. Suitably fortified by a Full English and with the sun beaming down from a gloriously blue sky it was back into the car for a smooth drive down, with a further stop at the Services for Coffee before pulling into Rolf's car park around 10am, to be greeted by John and a few of the Welsh contingent who were already there, having stayed down for the whole week.

1st things 1st, so the nets were dipped and laid out to dry, before John filled me in with how the place had been fishing and what he'd been up to since my last visit. The most notable addition being the aerators that he's purchased and is in the process of installing. Soon the car park started to fill up, including Simon Enticott along with Dave(Webbo) and Steve(Steak) who'd travelled down from Yorkshire to fish as guests .

 Even Malc (With Liam and Crystal in tow) was early , which was hard to get used to, especially as in a moment of madness he'd volunteered to loose his ponytail to raise money for MD's. I'd brought my clippers with me, so at 11·30am Mugger's Barber Shop was open for business .
Fair play to him, he didn't cry much as his beloved ponytail escaped to freedom ................

swiftly followed by the rest of his locks ....................

With suitable moral support from the assembled crowd ..................

Click this link to see Simon's video of Malc losing his hair.

So with the hairdressing done for the day it was time for the draw. Into the bag and I found Peg 13 was my home for the match. I'd never fished it before, but John confirmed that it could be good, a comfy 8 mtrs out in front and down the edge to the right once the fish move in being the plan . Settling in there was plenty of time to prepare as the All-In wasn't till 2pm. With this years JINX Series being 'Pole Only' setting up was reasonably easy.

A MW 0·4g XT for the 8mtr line on the deck (it's a line through the body design that's nice and strong )on 0·20 Power Match with a size 14 Drennan Carp Match and a MW Trev with similar line and hook for up in the water that could double up down the side, while a third rig consisting of a Malman SC paste to 0·22 Power Match with a size 12 Drennan Carp Feeder hook for paste down the Side. Bait for the day was a mix of various pellets, paste, corn and meat, with feed taken care of by 4 and 6mm fishery pellets.

It was turning into scorcher but a bit of a breeze kept things comfortable. I must admit that I would have preferred to have drawn on the Little Lake today as I'd seen plenty of fish there earlier, but with any peg capable of throwing up a decent weight I wasn't to despondent .
So 2pm and Malc called the All-In and in a matter of seconds a scream arose from the Little Lake as Gemma netted her 1st fish of the day (and had a load of us worrying about being on the wrong end of a Minxing ) Shipping out to 8mtrs with a 6mm expander on the hook followed by a handfull of pellet the float settled and after about 30 seconds buried!!!!!! Fish on and a good un by the feel of it, then the rig flew back with a scale on the hook. Another handfull of pellet out to 8mtrs and another down the edge before I shipped the rig out to 8mtrs once more. Again after about a minute the float buried with exactly the same outcome . Now I've experienced this before at Rolf's and it can be very hard to overcome. I altered the rig to lay a couple of inches of line on the deck and baited with double corn. Keep topping up the pellet in both swims and ship out. Nothing !!! keep lifting and dropping the rig and after around 5 minutes the float slid gently away. Lifting into it there was solid resistance but it didn't power off like a lunatic and gentle pressure saw me soon net the fish, a scale perfect Common and a definite weigher, it went 12lbs 4ozs on the scales, a lovely way to get off the mark .

Unfortunately another 5 minutes went by without a bite. I'd seen that Tony over on peg 31 had a couple of weighers as had Paul on peg 32........

Sprucey over on peg 23 was really struggling and from what I could see hadn't had a bite yet alone a fish ........

and Ant on peg 10 to my right appeared to be in a similar boat and doing a blinding impression of a Garden Gnome .........

My reverie was broken however by the float sliding away to the depths once more, and after a spirited fight another weigher slid into the landing net, this time a Mirror of 9½lbs . Young Ryan Hughes on peg 28 (fishing his 1st Jinx match) was starting to put a few together............

In fact most of the anglers that I could see on the car park bank seemed to be getting the odd one or two with the exception of Pete Thatcher on peg 29. Indeed, not long after he packed up and left !!!!!!!!!
I was still struggling with just another couple of foul hookers and a few bumped roach to show for my efforts as Malc did his customary lap of the fishery offering words of encouragement (Yeah, Right ) with Liam and Crystal in tow.

I had a few fish cruising around in pairs in front of me, but despite switching to the shallow rig couldn't interest them.
Meanwhile Terry over on peg 27 (Who was fishing his 1st Jinx Match) was getting the odd one that stretched his elastic right out ..........

Malc returned with news that the Little Lake looked like the place to be today with pegs 4,6,7 and 8 all producing fish.
I had a look down the edge with the paste rig, more in hope than expectation as I hadn't seen a single sign of a fish there, and after 30 minutes gave it up as a bad job. However there were a few shouts of encouragement from the car park bank directed towards Malc's swim, so I decided to investigate only to find him up to his armpits in the water . A fish had snagged him in a sunken branch, and as he could feel that it was still tethered he'd gone in to free it. Well that was his excuse, I reckon he fancied a bath to go with his new haircut ..............

Up on peg 19 I could see Clive (my Pairs Partner for the Series ) plugging away, not the best peg on the day, but if anyone could find a few from it, Clive should be capable as he's fished that peg more than a few times...........

With nothing down the edge or up in the water I decided to concentrate at 8mtrs on the deck for the remainder of the match.
Back out with a single grain of corn on the hook, and after about 10 minutes fish no3 arrived in the form of a 6lb Common , quickly followed by another couple of foul hookers that vanished at a rate of knots towards the Little Lake .

By now Simon E was really getting into the swing of things over on peg 6 and steadily pulling away.............

and Dave was making the most of having drawn noted peg 7 and was well on the way to recording his best ever match weight  ...................

With around an hour to go I managed 2 fish in 2 put in's , a couple of Commons, both around the 7lb mark. However it didn't herald the start of a great last hour as I only managed 1 more fish and that was foul hooked in the tail and fought like something twice it's size.

Malc called the All-Out at 7pm to end what had been a frustrating match for me . As I walked my gear back to the car park it was obvious that the Big Lake hadn't really produced the goods today, and this was born out as we made our way round with the weigh-in.
Keith Fellows on peg 34 kicked things off with the discovery that one of his nets had a large hole in it, so missing out on a certain 'Ton' weighing just 85lbs. Simon leapt into the lead on peg 4 with 161lbs 6ozs, though it would only prove to be good enough for 3rd as next up Simon E on peg 6 put a match winning 222¼lbs on the scales . Next up Dave(Webbo) put a new PB match weight of 138lbs on the scales from peg 7 that would only give him 4th place as it was beaten of the next peg by Al's 162¼lbs, giving him 2nd on the day .
Nick on peg 9 managed 79¾lbs, a new PB match weight (That first 'Jinx Ton' can't be far away now ) while my fish came in at 46¾lbs, which if nothing else saved me a Minxing and got me a £1 off Gemma . Steve won his section with 91¼lbs from peg 16 and young Ryan won his with 96¾lbs from peg 28 .

So that was it for the 1st match of the Series. Not quite the result that some of us were looking for, but I'm sure the fish are ready to spawn any day now, so hopefully when we're back there in 2 weeks time they'll have spawned and be ready for a proper munch. Well that's the theory anyway, we'll see for sure on the 13th .

 May Madness at Mansfield's.

Well it was back to Mansfield's Lake again today, for another MD's Knock Up organised by Mick(The Chippy)Pearson with the help of "The Committee", and with the promise of loads of banter, a few fish and a ready supply of bread pudding and cakes in the offing, it looked like it would be fun .
Now it's a bit of a trot for me (65 miles) but a nice sunny morning and a surprisingly clear A2/M2 saw me arrive just after 8am to find to find a number of reprobates fine upstanding members of the community already in situ and devouring humongous "Breakfast Rolls" courtesy of Paul and his Burger Van . As always these Knock ups are more of a social event than a serious match and the banter was soon flowing and the side bets made, with Vince and I having our usual £1 coin on the outcome . Anyway with full bellies, and the chat being about how well it might fish as some decent weights had come out recently we assembled for the draw. Hand into the bag and I found peg 17 on the North bank would be my home for the match.

I have to say that I was a little disappointed as I fancied one of the pegs on the South bank as they all had beds of lilies or rushes offering features to fish to. However I had nobody in the pegs to my left and Ryan to my right for company. Opposite I had Mike, with Richard(DHLman) to his right and Vince to his left, so at least I would be able to keep a check on the destination of the £1.
With a overhanging tree I was a bit limited, but set up 3 top kits. The 1st was for around 7mtrs where the old stream bed was and I had around 6½ft of water and that consisted of a 4X16 Preston Bazzerla PB19 on 0·16 to 0·14 bottom with size 16 Drennan Match Carp hook, the 2nd for the left hand margin that shelved off into around 3ft of water towards the empty peg 16 was a smaller 4X12 Preston Bazzerla PB19 on 0·16 to 0·14 bottom with size 16 Drennan Match Carp hook while the third consisted of a Malman MTD2 dibber on 0·14 direct to a size 18 Drennan Maggot hook for tight into the right hand margin where there were a load of small roach apparently spawning in the weeds.
Bait for the day was a mix of pellets, punched meat, corn and hemp.

So at 10am Colin gave a blast on his whistle to signal the All-in and we were off . I potted a mix of pellet, hemp and a few grains of corn onto the 7mtr line and the left hand margin and just flicked some hemp into the right hand margin. Out with a pellet to 7mtrs, the rig settled and stayed there. An hour later and the float tip was still dry as a bone . Vince however had nicked an early Carp that looked around 3lbs on the waggler while he let his pole lines settle.......

and Mike had had a couple of small tench on paste tight to the lilies. Sport in general was very slow though with just the odd fish showing, and most of those appeared to be coming from the opposite end of the lake where the deeper water was. Ryan was getting the occasional tiny roach while Pete next to him was biteless like me.

Two hours in and Mike had added a small Carp, Richard had had a couple of small Roach and I still hadn't had a bite, it was starting to look grim . After another half an hour I decided to take a stroll and see what was happening elsewhere (and get some maggots off Mick ). Standing on the empty end peg (peg14) and looking down the lake it looked lovely....

and I could see a couple of tail patterns in the water, perhaps the fish had backed off into the quieter parts of the lake? Mike however wasn't happy with the lack of action , he's one of those anglers that likes to keep busy......

Vince was looking quietly confident as there were obviously fish in his swim (could this be the day he finally prized a Golden Nugget from my grasp?) Kev obviously had a shed load of fish in the reeds in his left hand margin, but could he solve the problem of interesting them in his bait? Mick had taken what he hoped was a first Crucian of many and kindly let me have some maggots and casters . Dean aka Marvin Waggler had accounted for a couple of Carp and Tony was determinedly trying to feed off the small roach. Meanwhile Mutley had extracted 3 Carp from the lilies next to his platform . Keith (Ryan's Dad) had snared a solitary Carp while Mick(Old Carper) was having a bit of a struggle (and dreaming of Manor House cake and Country Slices ).......

and at the same time having to watch Al opposite get amongst a few Carp, Indeed by the time that I got round to Al he was playing his 6th Carp of the day and already looking good to take the win ..........

Bill had had just 2 bites all morning, but at least had 2 Bream in the net..................

..........and Mick's brother Geoff was consentrating hard in an effort to get one over on his brother for once.............

.............. while Colin had a couple of Carp and missed an absolute sail away on the paste as I watched and Dave had just a solitary carp to show for his efforts.......

As I walked back I noticed Vince playing what looked to be another Carp, and as he netted it and popped it into the keepnet I'm sure I saw a little smile of satisfaction on his face .........

Settling back in at my peg, another look at 7mtrs produced nothing with a similar result in the left hand margin . Remembering the tail patterns I'd seen earlier I kept feeding the left hand margin heavily, in the hope that some fish might wander down late on and dropped a maggot on the dibber rig into the right hand margin in an effort to avoid the dreaded DNW. It did the job and in the next half hour I stuck around 25 tiny roach into the net that might have weighed a total of 8 ozs if I was lucky. Mike opposite had decided on a similar approach to keep himself busy but had been unfortunate enough to have hooked a couple of Carp that broke him in the lilies and when it happened to him for a third time around 2pm it was the final straw and he decided to pack up and head for home as he wasn't enjoying himself .

This however opened up an option for me, so I quickly got my feeder rod out of it's ready sleeve and changed the cage feeder that it was rigged with for a ½oz bomb with a hair rigged piece of punched meat. The overhanging branches were a bit of a problem but with a sideways flick I could drop it onto the edge of the pads opposite, now I just needed an inquisitive Carp to co-operate to be in with a chance of salvaging my £1 coin from Vince , and more importantly avoid the inevitable stick that would come my way on the forum should Vince take it off me in the assembled company . An hour later and I hadn't had a touch , Richard had managed to extract a couple from his patch of lilies and a few more fish had been caught further down the lake, most notably by Dean (Marvin Waggler), Geoff who was looking to put one over on his brothers Mick and Richard, while Colin had tempted a couple more from down his margin .

With 45 minutes to go it was looking as though Vince was going to mug "Mugger" when I noticed a tail pattern in the left hand margin that I'd kept feeding heavily. Having had no joy with punched meat on the feeder I tied up another hair rig to take 4 bits of corn hoping that a highly visible bait might do the trick and dropped it in and waited.
10 minutes later and the tip wrapped round and after a couple of anxious minutes a Common Carp of just over 3lbs was safely in the net . Could I get another? Dave walked up and as we chatted another fish topped, but the tip stayed still. I could hear Mick saying that the All-out was imminent when I remarked to Ryan that I could see a Ghostie hovering over where my bait was, but refusing to go down on the bait when the rod was almost wrenched out of my grasp , almost instantly the whistle blew for the All-out and I shouted "Fish On". From various parts of the lake I could hear shouts of disbelief or was it encouragement and I have to say that I was one very relieved angler when I slid the net under a Common Carp that looked to be just over 4lbs .

Looking across to the opposite bank Vince's face said it all, had he had his moment of triumph snatched away from him in the final seconds by "Mugger" ???????? As we packed away there was a lot of banter flowing back and forth. Ryan reckoned that I'd hooked the fish 8 seconds from the end of the match, now it would be all down to the scales.

As the scales made their way round Dean in his 1st ever match had taken the early lead with 26lbs 10ozs edging out Mutley by 4lbs, but I was taking my gear back to the car when Vince's fish were weighed and nobody would tell me what he had weighed as it came to my turn. As I tipped my fish into the net there were various mutterings and when the weight of 8lbs 10ozs was called Vince's face gave the game away , The Mugger had struck again and yet another Golden Nugget was coming my way .
Al was last to weigh and took the honours on the day putting a very creditable 44½lbs on the scales on what had proved to be a very hard day .

A quick mention should also be made of the fact that Mick (the chippy one ) is for the most part a confirmed rod & line man when it comes to his fishing, but Bill has taken Mick under his wing so to speak, in an effort to impart some of the dark arts of match fishing and the use of the pole. Well today the pupil beat his teacher and he fished the pole all match . Does this mean that Mick has graduated or will the teacher be putting him in his place next time out? We'll see .

Back to the car park and Mick (Old carper aka Mr Kipling ) had set the table for tea and cakes.......................

 while the Pearson brothers Mum had supplied Bread Pudding for all, as had Vince's Mum in Law . All in all a very civilised way of ending the match.
Vince somehow managed to raise a smile when he manfully posed for a photo as he handed over another Nugget ...............

While Mick had to part with a Golden Nugget to Geoff in the battle of the brothers ............

Al took home a nice tankard complete with a few beer tokens for 1st on the day .................

While Dean(Marvin Waggler) fishing what was his first ever match took more coin for his second place than he reckoned he'd spent on his rod .

A little bonus for me was that the assembled company reckoned that my last minute Carp, was best fish on the day, due to the amount of entertainment that it had provided for everyone at the end of the match, so £10 came my way .

Finally Vince presented The Chippy One with a little something to show our thanks for his efforts .............

evidently it's part of Mick's autobiography ......

Thanks to Mick and "The Committee" for organising the day, and to all that attended, making for a good day despite the fishing being a little harder than we would have liked .

Obviously you'll be able to read a report on the day here . 

Back in mid-February Paul(paulvis69)Slater put the following post up on the Maggotdrowning forum "I'm trying to arrange a match on Saturday 28th March at Luck's Lane Paddock Wood."

Which is how despite some misgivings due to the weather forecast and previous experience of the venue in the winter months, I found myself loading up the car and heading down there today to give it a go . Keith (Disco) Driscoll had remarked that he would be stopping at the Oakdene Café, and I met him and Greg Andrews there at around 7·15am for breakfast before we made our way down to the fishery. As soon as I got out of the car in the fishery car park it was obvious just how cold and windy it was , and this was reinforced when I had a walk round for a look at the pegs. I hadn't fished there since 2004 and thankfully the platforms have been improved since then. I fancied either peg 11 or 12 as they are either side of the only tree that overhangs the water.

Chatting to a few of the lads prior to the draw, hopes were high as some good weights had come out recently. Paul called the draw and after handing over my money I dipped my hand in and was rewarded with peg 12 with Mick for company next door on peg 13.

Settling in it was obvious that the tree wasn't going to be providing any shelter so decided to keep things relatively simple setting up just a couple of top kits. Both of these were rigged with KC 4x14 Carpa 2's on 0·16 to 0·14 bottoms with size 16 Drennan Match Carp hooks. The 1st to fish on the deck at around 8mtrs where I had around 3½ft and a distance I felt would be comfortable to fish at given the wind, while the second was set at around 2½ ft to fish to the edge of overhanging tree branches. Bait wise it was pellet all the way with hard 6mm's for feed and GOT 6mm expanders for hookers along with some hard 8mm's to fish banded as a change bait.

It was soon obvious that everyone had set up pretty quickly as nearly everyone was walking around and having a chat with half an hour to go, either that or they were just trying to keep warm .

Anyway Paul called the All-in early giving us an extra 15 minutes. I potted out a large pot of 6mm pellet at 8 mtrs (the wind was to strong to throw them) and fed a big handfull by the tree branches. 1st put in at 8 mtrs and after a couple of lift and drops of the rig, the float dipped and I connected with a small Carp of around 8ozs that was swiftly netted to get me off the mark . Really it was a case of steady away from there. The bites were pretty shy though meaning I had to dot the tip as far down as the conditions allowed and hit every dip. It didn't help matters that the rain soon arrived to heap more misery on us and the wind seemed to keep changing direction . After around 1½hrs I had 30 fish in the net but the bites started to dry up on the 8mtr line so I had a 1st look down by the tree, and there were fish there . Colin arrived to see how I was getting on, he'd had half a dozen Carp on paste pretty quickly at the start................

........... but his bites had dried up and he was starting to feel the cold and was going back to the car park to get some warmer kit and I joined him as I'd left my fleece in the car.

Just up from Colin, was Keith who was catching steadily.............

......... but was going to endure yet more bad luck with his pole, the wind blowing it off the roller and breaking his no 6 section .

Mike (not a lover of having to scratch around for a few bites) was obviously not enjoying himself with very little in the way of fish coming his way.........

......... and had also suffered the bad luck to have his no6 section break on the strike which meant that with no spare section he was having to fish short ,  and would soon decide to call it quits and depart to the comfort of a warm fire and a glass of wine at home.

The fish that I was getting by the tree were a bit bigger than those from the open water swim, still silly little bites and I had to keep the feed going in to keep those coming and when I received a phone call from Dave the Fish at around 12·30pm I'd just netted my 52nd fish. The amount I'd had to feed to keep the bites coming had caught me out though and I quickly had to pop back to the car once more to get some more pellets. While I knew Keith, Gary and a couple of others were catching steadily I was feeling pretty good about framing as I was sure that I was ahead of those anglers that I could see.

Around 1·30 pm the rain stopped and sun finally appeared , and around 2pm Matt put in an appearance and you couldn't miss him, red Milo jacket and boots topped off with a red baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses !!!!!!!!
A very rare site as you seldom see Matt until the average temperature reaches 60°F . Living close by though, he'd ventured down to see how we were getting on and take a few photos.......

.......... but with dark grey sky's threatening again he bade us farewell and departed.

Well the rain and wind returned, this time with added hail as a bonus . My bites had slowed but I was still getting the odd better fish from down by the overhanging branches........

......... with a couple of 5lb'ers being the last of my 92 fish . Thankfully the sun came out oncemore and the wind dropped for the final 15 minutes of the match and allowed us to at least pack up and weigh in in the dry.

Greg set the early pace with a hard earned 57lbs but was soon overtaken by Keith putting 83lbs on the scales, including a 10lber and at that point I though that bonus fish might make the difference. However my 2 nets weighed a total of 88lbs to give me the win on the day and a nice few beer tokens . Thanks to Paul for organising the match and the rest of the lads for their company, it turned out to be quite enjoyable for me on the day .

As an aside, today was the 1st outing for my new PROTAK gear and I have to say that it coped superbly with everything that the elements threw at it keeping me warm and dry all day. Doubtless it will get another good test next Saturday when I'm at Monk Lakes for the 1st Marsh AC club match of the year. I'll keep you posted .

"The Private Lake on Sunday, are ya coming? eight thirty if you are .  No keepnets just a days fishing."

With an invite like that from Bill G it would be rude to refuse, especially with the weather forcast predicting a nice mild 9°C. As with all good things though Sunday Morning revealed that Saturdays glorious weather had come to an end , but a smooth drive down stopping off in Bromley for a spot of breakfast on the way, saw me arrive at the fishery at 8·30am to find Vince waiting beside a locked gate, Bill soon arrived though with the padlock combination so we were soon parked up and decided on a walk round while we waited for the rest of the cast to arrive .

Usually when I've visited the Lake in the winter it's been brim full and today was no exception, with a fair bit of water running down the outflow pipe on the dam wall. As we strolled round Al was the next to arrive and was soon dropping his gear into the 1st peg by the gate, a peg he's been eager to have a go at for a while .
By the time we got back to the car park Dave, Colin and Tony had arrived.

Soon we had our gear together and set off for the session. Colin was traveling light only intending to have a crack on the river today and Tony also started with the bare minimum of gear hoping to sneak a Chub or two out of the river early on before settling down on the lake .

The surprise of the day was that Bill wasn't going to fish !!!! deciding instead to spend the day wandering and chatting with the rest of us collecting titbit's for his Blog, so he'd just brought a comfy chair with him and settled down with Al. Meanwhile Dave set up just just along from Al before the outlet on the dam wall.

Returning back to my swim a bit of a breeze had got up making presentation difficult and it was to cost me a couple of rigs in the island bushes before I decided to back off a bit and re feed a couple of feet short of the island. All along I'd been feeding to a tree in my left hand margin, but despite regular looks there hadn't had a bite from it. Tony had finally managed a carp around the 7lb mark and had come round to show me as he was surprised just how heavy it was when he weighed it, proving once more just how solid the fish are .

Vince finally managed to christen his pole with a couple of 5lb'ers while I added another to my tally from my new line.

Vince started to pack away around 2·30pm but managed one final Carp on his feeder rod before he said his farewells and departed . I had one final Carp just before 3pm, but with the breeze ever present I felt the temperature was dropping and I decided to call it a day as well. As I packed away my kit Colin reappeared having spent the day roving the river and reported having a thoroughly enjoyable day despite only having three chub .

As I wandered back Dave reported having had a few more Carp, while Al had firmly taken the honours on the day with a succession of Carp from his peg.
All in all a pleasant session with a few fish to keep things interesting, next Saturday it's a knock up at The Oast at Buxted, so until then............ That's All Folks .

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 .

Marsh AC club match.

Saturday was the last match of the year for Marsh AC, and the chosen venue was The Match Lake at Hawkhurst in Kent, to hopefully finish off the match calendar in fine style . With the car loaded I set off around 7am with the forecaster on the radio promising a fine sunny day ahead . By the time I reached Badgers Mount there was thick fog and I'd also had a phonecall from Keith (Gandhi) who was traveling down from Milton Keynes to guest on todays match. The fog hung around all the way down to Hawkhurst and I pulled into the car park just after 8am.
There was a reasonable turn out assembled as we had a total of 5 guests joining us today and as the on site café wouldn't open till 9am we decided to draw and set up beforehand and then have breakfast before starting the match around 10am .

Into the draw and I came away with peg 15, just about half way up the left hand bank as you look from the car park.......

...and there was quite an erie silence as everyone settled into their pegs shrouded in fog...........

I was going to keep the set up simple. 1 line at around 7mtrs and another in the margin against the boards. Rig wise i set up 3 rigs consisting of Malman 4x12 Adam's on 0·18 to size 16 Drennan Carp Match hooks . 1 to fish at depth at 7mtrs (around 4 ft) another shallow and the 3rd for the margin where I had around 2ft on the shelf. I also set up the pellet waggler, but wasn't expecting to use it unless I struggled on the pole. Bait wise I went with 8mm fishery pellet with 6mm expanders and corn for change baits while feed was taken care of by 4 and 6mm fishery pellets .

With the fog still hanging around I could just see Clive trying for some atmospheric shots with his camera.........