"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 .

Well with Maria back at work today after the Christmas break, I'd accepted an Invitation from Bill G on the Maggotdrowning forum to join him and a few of the lads for an impromptu Knock-up at Buxted Oast, especially as it was a venue that I'd not fished previously . Having dropped Maria of at work around 6am I popped back home to load the car up, but with the outside temp readout showing -2°C I must admit to questioning my sanity as I pulled away from the flats .

An easy trip down saw me have enough time to stop for some breakfast in East Grinstead and still arrive by 8·30am, though by the time I pulled up the temp was down to -3°C. My 1st site of the Lake revealed over half of it was iced over , It was fed by a stream at one end with a 'monk' type outlet at the other, and it had space for around 17 pegs maximum, but with only eight of us fishing today we wouldn't be to cramped. While Bill pegged out the chat revolved around who would have to break the ice .

Draw time and Kev was 1st in for peg 2 and I followed with Peg 3, these are the pegs where the stream comes in and share a reed bed that Bill reckoned had Carp moving in them when he pegged out, but by the time I got my gear down there, they were nowhere to be seen (Must have seen Bill's face and buggered off ) However it was relatively ice free, with just a bit of cat ice and with the sun shining that would soon go .

A couple of pegs to my left was Mick with John, one of Bill's club mates next up. On the road bank were Ryan, Vince on the outlet and Mick's brother Geoff in the corner peg, which Bill reckoned was the 'Flyer', leaving Bill in the shade and ice bound on the final peg .

Bill, Geoff and Vince had some serious ice breaking to do 1st, while the rest of us had the luxury of setting up straight away . I was going with the pole and just set up a couple of identical top kits. Both of these were rigged with Malman 4x12 Snake 1's on 0·12 to an 0·10 bottom with a size 20 Drennan Match Carp hook, Feed was just micro and 4mm hard pellet, which would be fed through a kinder pot, while bait was simply 4mm expanders and corn.

10am and the All-in, and with an initial feed of a pinch of micro's and a couple of grains of corn potted in against the rushes I dropped the rig baited with a piece of corn full of anticipation .Kevin had a bit more trouble with the ice in his peg so started off targeting the other end of the reeds,

Mick was soon into small Roach fishing maggot with his trusty Tri-Cast and Mitchell 300 , but no amount of lifting, dropping and dragging the rig could induce a bite for me . with an hour gone Ryan had a small Carp, but most of us were struggling and Bill was already starting to freeze on his shaded peg, though he appeared to be getting the odd Carp.

A change to pellet on the hook made no difference apart from a few knocks that I was convinced were small roach shredding the pellet . However the bird life was a pleasant distraction, with a Kingfisher flitting back and forth across the pool between perching in the trees........

While a tiny Wren flitted around my peg on the lookout for a tasty morsel to come his way ..........

2 hours in and I went for a stroll. Mick was happily bashing the bits. John had had a few small Carp and silvers, while Ryan was now targeting the Roach in the absence of another Carp. Vince and Geoff were both struggling with just a few small Roach between them.

Bill however was getting a few Carp and landed a small one of around 6ozs while we chatted, however with no sun on it his peg was so cold that I soon left him to it.

Returning to my peg Kev was admitting to a solitary small Roach but my peg was still dead apart from a few more knocks on pellet. This was getting desperate and I was starting to think that I was going to end 2008 not just with a blank, but worse still losing a £1 to Vince .

Desperate measures were called for so I popped along to Mick and scrounged some maggots off him. Double maggot on the hook and straight away a small roach obliged saving me from the dreaded blank . Now it was just a case of getting my head down and catching as many as possible in the last couple of hours. If Vince managed to nick a Carp he would be firmly in the Pound seats, if not I was in with a chance .

A visit from Bill, who was trying to restore some circulation revealed Vince was targeting the Roach as well, but I was at least catching regularly, and that's the way it stayed until the all out was called at 3pm. Kevin's solitary roach had saved him the dreaded DNW, while 4lbs was the result of my bit bashing . Mick had around 7lbs for his efforts. John's 18½lbs was a very creditable effort on the day,, while Ryan's bonus Carp added to his Roach saw him weigh 4¼lbs, Vince had had a mare however with to many missed bites meaning that just 1lb 10ozs registered on the scales, so the final £1 of 2008 was mine . Geoff added 2lbs 10ozs of waggler caught Roach, but the star on the day was Bill with a very fine 37½lbs to take the honours on the day .

So that's it for 2008, I was hoping to get out one final time before New Year, but with the way the frosts are coming down at night, I think I'll wait till the New Year before venturing out again . What will 2009 bring? Well hopefully more £1 coins from Vince . I'm already booked in for another Jinx Series and more Marsh AC club matches, but above all I'm looking forward to more fun and enjoyment with all those I fish with in 2009.
Till then may I wish all that read this a Happy, Prosperous and Fish Filled New Year .

Maggotdrowning.com

Southern Fur & Feather.

Well it was off down to Wylands, just outside Battle today for the Southern Fur & Feather match  on the fishery's House Lake, that's been organised for the lads on the Maggotdrowning forum by Trevor(MT Net)Little. Loading up the car it was cold, windy and pouring down with rain (the sort of morning that makes you question your sanity ) and it didn't get any better during the trip down . Pulling into the fishery and as I got out of the car I realised it was even windier than I thought. A quick bacon sarnie and a coffee while I caught up with the other 14 lunatics assembled proceeded the draw and it has to be said that nobody looked too enthusiastic to get started . In fact the conversation revolved around which were the closest pegs to the snack bar .

Anyway peg 14 by the footbridge stuck to my palm. A stroll down with the tackle revealed a pretty steep bank that would test the seat box legs out, all in all a little precarious. Mick to my right on 13 was in pretty much the same predicament while across the footbridge I had Jeff D and Al on 15 & 16 . Once I'd managed to level the box up I stuck the brolly up. With the wind swirling and the angle I was fishing at, it meant that I couldn't get right out of the rain but at least it offered a bit of shelter .

I just set up 2 pole rigs, both consisted of Malman 4x14 Snake 1's on 0·12 to an 0·10 bottom with a size 20 red Drennan carp maggot hook, one for under the bridge, but with only just a couple of feet of depth I wasn't expecting much from there. The other was for out into open water at 7mtrs where I had around 3½ft. Fishing any longer was out of the question really with the wind and driving rain , Bait was just red maggots with some corn for a change bait and some micro's for feed.

10am and Trevor called the All-in. A pinch of micro's and maggots followed by a maggot baited hook soon produced a small roach from the open water swim and set the pattern for the day. Looking round after about an hour though , very few were looking comfortable, though everyone appeared to be catching the odd fish. Now I've had my Preston Dri-Fish suit since they 1st came out and it's served me well, but despite regular NikWaxing after 4 seasons of abuse it's due for changing, and today the conditions found it out . I could feel the water starting to leak through, so decided to retreat to the snack bar for a warming coffee. I wasn't the only one either. Mick produced a bottle of Brandy and a shot was added to the coffee (strictly for medicinal purposes of course ) Sitting there certainly seemed a better idea than battling it out with the elements and offered a good view of the lake.

Nick Gilbert right in front of us seemed to be doing OK, alternating between waggler to the island and the pole line, as did Mark(MoleMan)Hathaway a couple of pegs along to the left of Nick. Tony(spamwham) pegged between them was having a bit of trouble however with his umbrella with the wind doing its best to wrap Tony up in it  .............

I returned to my peg for another go, but I have to say that my heart wasn't in it , despite the Roach still being there. I stuck it out till about 1pm, but I was cold damp and miserable, so gave it best, tipping back about 6lbs of Roach and hastily getting my gear back to the car. A session with the hand drier in the loo got some feeling back in my hands and I returned to the snack bar to watch the rest of the match, and by the time that Trevor called the All-out at 3pm there were half a dozen of us there .

The weigh-in didn't take long, Mark(Moleman) taking the honours on the day with 32lbs 15ozs from Nick's 30lbs 03ozs, though the real shock was Omega Mike sticking it out for the whole 5 hours for 19lbs 10ozs and 3rd place !

So a quick presentation saw Mark with a nice shiny trophy, while the rest of us all took home a little something from the prize table for Christmas. Thanks to Trevor for organising the day, we all agreed that it was a cracking venue and that we'd like another go at it in better weather. On a final note all the lads chipped in the pools money and Keith at Wylands chipped in £2 from each of our peg fees, meaning £75 was donated to the  Maggotdrowning Christmas Appeal  Nice one lads .

The DNW's aren't a reflection on the fishery as the 6 anglers all caught,
 but packed up early and tipped their fish back.

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 .

Mick the Chippy's Knock Up.

Out with the lads from Maggotdrowning.com today for a Knock up arranged by Mick the Chippy with the aid of his brother Geoff. Loading up the car it was obvious that it was going to be a cold one, so the thermals were getting their 1st outing of the year. A smooth drive down saw me arriving at the lake around 8·30am, however a displayed temperature of just 3°C had left a small seed of doubt in my mind as to whether the fishing would be up to much.

The good news though was that Mick had persuaded a local snack wagon to put in an appearance so that we could get some hot food and a cuppa prior to the start. While the others arrived I strolled down for a 1st look at the lake................

So with 13 lunatics of us assembled and everyone fed and watered we dived into the draw then made our way to our pegs . Having drawn 11 I opted for the far side that offered a bit of shelter from the wind and found myself settling into peg 20 with Dave and Vince on my left on 19 & 18 respectively, with one of the Allen brothers to my right and Colin next to him.

The set up was going to be pretty simple, and a quick plumb up revealed around 3ft on a top 2 line but with lots of twigs etc making for a bit of a snagpit, while adding a section gave me a decent 4½ft straight out in front that was relatively free of clutter. The feeder rod was also set up with a tiny cage feeder,while bait was simply red maggots with a bit of corn by way of a change bait .

10·30am saw Mick call the All-in, and it was soon pretty apparent that we might be looking at a bit of a grueller. I heard a muttering from my left and heard Mike questioning Vince, it turned out that Vince had had a wrap round almost straight away on the feeder but hadn't connected. For most of us however it was just a case of nicking some small roach (though Mick was positive they were Rudd )

Mike on the opposite side was fishing long into the teeth of the wind and after about an hour was rewarded with yards of elastic streaming from his pole. He'd obviously connected with a Carp, but with only No4 elastic in his top kit was having a few problems. Mick stepped in to provide a ghillie service however meaning that Mike romped into the lead when Mick netted a small Carp of around 2½lbs for him .

45 minutes later and Mick was rewarded with a small Carp of his own, which he gingerly played on a pound bottom, and I'm sure his heart was gladdened by all the calls of support that accompanied it's capture .

No such luck for the rest of us, though Colin was rumoured to have had a half decent Skimmer to boost his Roach, Bill had strolled down and reported that he was getting small Roach regularly from his peg up he top end where he had 9-10 ft of water close in.

With not much happening for me I took a quick stroll to see what was happening elsewhere . Bill was indeed catching pretty regularly by keeping the feed going in..............

.......... but everyone else seemed to be plodding along just nicking the odd small Roach here and there..........

Indeed unlike bill I was finding that feeding was the kiss of death, and it was only by stopping feeding that I could attract any bites. Dave was finding the same despite alternating between a maggot and likkie line.........

I'd had a couple of looks on the feeder, but it hadn't produced as much as a tremble on the tip. Meanwhile Colin had netted a cracking Roach of 1½lbs and Mike had landed another small Carp to put himself firmly into the pound seats . With around an hour to go the Allen brothers decided they'd had enough and packed up (Youngsters these days, No staying power  or perhaps more common sense than the rest of us )

As we moved into the last half hour Mick's brother Richard got himself a small Carp, while Vince was having one last look on the feeder in an attempt to get a £1 coin from me for a change .............

Thankfully Mick called the All-out at 3pm. A quick weigh-in ensued, and sure enough Mike had taken the honours on the day with 6lbs 14ozs  while Bill and Colin shared second place with 3lbs 8oz each . Vince put 2lbs 4ozs on the scales, and initially my fish were called at the same weight, however the scalesman finally called it at 2lbs 5ozs to give me another shiny £1 coin .

Back at the car park and Mick presented Mike with a trophy for the winner...........

and we were all very pleasantly surprised to find that Mick had got us all engraved medals as a momento of the day, a really nice gesture on Mick's behalf .

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.........

Well today promised to be a little different as Dawn, the owner of Dawns Vale had invited some of the lads from the Maggotdrowning.com forum down to her fishery for a small match. This had turned into a weekend event for some though, as anglers from as far afield as Scotland, Yorkshire and Wales had accepted Dawn's invitation . Having met up with Dave and Colin at Dave's house we made our way out to deepest Essex arriving at the fishery just after 9·30am.
Parking the cars up it was obvious that a couple of the lads had already arrived. Dai, who was staying for the whole weekend had already pitched his bivvy and Mick and Vince were already tucking into egg and bacon rolls and a cuppa that Dawn had cooked up in the little 2 berth caravan at the side of the pool . As Dave, Colin, Tony and I unloaded our tackle, Webbo (and his lunatic boxer dog Max) and Geoff pulled in, Geoff having traveled down from Scotland the previous day to meet up with Webbo in Leeds .

Dawn soon had us all fed and I took the opportunity to take a first look around. Dawns Vale as the fishery's called is a small natural pool (about an acre I'd estimate) that's fed by 7 springs set in woodland that's situated on the side of a hill. Thankfully the trees shelter it to a degree from the wind, which was starting to get a bit of a blow on.
They'd had their 1st frost of Autumn overnight and a heavy grey sky held the promise of rain at some point. Today we were going to have a friendly little 6 hour Knock-up between the nine of us, and Dawn had even gone out and got a Trophy to present to the Winner .........

Now the pool isn't a venue that is match fished, it's normally fished by carpers and pleasure anglers, and with only about 12 pegs we decided to draw and have a walk off picking our own swims . Most opted for the shortest walk possible, leaving Mick and I to stroll to the far side and I ended up opposite the caravan, allowing me to keep an eye on everyone except Mick .

Settling into the swim I was happy to realise that I was pretty sheltered and would have the wind off my back. Dave has fished the pool once before in the summer and had told me that the margins were deep at around 4-5 feet with depths up to 25 feet in parts of the pool. There were some decent Carp present, along with Crucians, Tench and thousands of small Rudd that would rob any bait they could. I'd already made my mind up based on what I'd heard to target the Carp, but the frost and conditions were making me wonder if I'd made the right choice. Plumbing up down the right hand margin there was 5 feet of water with a similar depth at 5mtrs straight out so I settled for those 2 lines with a simple rig incorporating a MW Diamond to 0·18 to size 16 Drennan Carp Match hook, and also set up the feeder as a back up. Bait wise it was going to be 6mm pellet for feed and 8 and 11mm hard banded pellet to deter the Rudd.

At 11·30am I called the All-in and dumped 2 big pots of pellet into both pole lines, then chucked the feeder with soaked 6mm pellets and a hair rigged banded 11mm on the hook. After 30 minutes without a flicker on the tip it was onto the pole but neither of the 2 lines produced a bite just tiny little knocks from Rudd attacking the pellet and from my vantage point I could see that nobody was doing any good apart from Geoff and Dai who were both happily taking a succession of small Rudd.

With 2 hours gone I re-fed the margin swim heavily and went for a stroll to see how everyone was doing. Webbo was on the pole trying to tempt a Carp with Max keeping a carefull eye on proceedings and probably glad that he wasn't relying on him to catch his dinner ..........

Tony was ruing parting company with a decent fish earlier on the method feeder and was sticking at it hoping for another bite at the cherry ..........

Geoff and Dai were still getting amongst the Rudd making the most of their foresight in bringing some maggots with them , It was good to see Geoff on the bankside and catching a few as he hadn't been out since May and was quite content just catching and not bothered about the size of fish .

Vince was fishless, but concentrating on the job in hand (not losing a £1 to me in our usual side bet )..........

Birthday boy Colin(66) was biteless but determined to stick at it and if possible sneak a Carp out on the paste, though with the wind howling into his chosen swim which was one of the shallower ones, it wasn't looking to hopefull .

Dave was happily settled into the swim he'd fished before, and was taking it easy as his arthritis was playing him up in the cold and was only owning up to a couple of liners but nothing in the way of fish ..........

Finally I came to Mick, yet another Birthday Boy (50) who was getting a few Rudd on the waggler to christen his new rod .........

................Yes there is a fish there, as a close up proves .........

Back to my peg and I opened a tin of corn that Geoff and kindly let me have, and slipping a grain onto the hook I shipped it out to the margin line. After about 10 minutes of lifting and dropping the rig the float finally slid under and a firm lift met with a pleasing resistance as the elastic stretched from the top-kit. The fish stayed down but didn't tear off (probably due to the depth of the venue?) but steady pressure soon saw me get the upper hand and a couple of minutes later a nice plump Mirror of around 6lbs was safely in the net .

15 minutes later my 2nd bite of the day produced a similar result, though this time the fish was a little smaller at around 4lbs .

With another half hour gone and no further action I re-fed the margin and looked up to see Webbo with yards of pink Drennan bungee pouring out of his pole , so I grabbed the camera and strolled down to watch the action ..................

........Webbo was getting nowhere fast with the fish and soon had quite a crowd watching and giving him helpfull advise and encouragement . I even phoned Malc and put him on the loudspeaker to see if The Jinx effect would work long distance . Finally after what seemed like 10 minutes the fish was on the top and safely heading for the net.............

and you could tell from the grin on Webbo's face that all the micky taking had been worth it in the shape of a cracking Mirror what tipped the scales at 12lbs 4ozs .

Back to my swim, and the sky was getting darker and the wind was increasing. Back out to the margin and a change to double corn produced a 3rd bite after half an hour and resulted in a 3rd Carp, smaller again this time, a mint little Common of no more than 2lbs . Shortly after that Webbo popped round as he took Max for a stroll and he was soon followed by Dave and Colin, with Dave taking a few grains of corn away with him in an effort to get himself off the mark. No more fish followed for me, but Dawn appeared with a freshly cooked double cheeseburger and a hot cup of coffee to lift my spirits . Obviously the corn had the desired effect for Dave, for not long after I looked over and just caught him netting a decent fish .......

With around 1½ hours to go I decided to go back onto the feeder as I had seen a couple of fish crash out to my right. After about 20 minutes I had a couple of tentative knocks followed by a 6 inch pull and the strike met with a firm resistance and I could feel the fish kite out into the centre and judging by the angle of the line to the water it had obviously sought the deeper part of the pool. A couple of minutes of steady pressure saw me gain the upper hand though and I soon had my best fish of the day, another Mirror around the 9lbs mark . I only had one further bit of action before the end of the match, and that was when Bill G phoned, we were chatting away as the rod tip wrapped violently round!!!!!!!!!  I wasn't connected for long however and the hook returned embedded in a scale .

So 5·30pm and I called the All-out just as the 1st drops of rain threatened to fall. A quick weigh-in confirmed just how hard it had been on the day. Dai was 1st to weigh and put plenty of the pools small Rudd on the scales which weighed in at 20lbs.........

....... and with Geoff weighing another 15lbs of them for 2nd and 3rd places respectively, they had kept themselves busy and warm, however bags of Rudd like that may be the last for sometime as Dawn told me that they're being netted out at the end of this month. They'll never get them all though, so it's just a matter of time till they return .

My 4 Carp weighed 21lbs 8ozs to take the honours on the day and another £1 from Vince , and receiving the Trophy from Dawn was a nice end to the day .

Soon the kit was loaded up and farewells said. I have to say that I didn't envy the lads that were staying on overnight (Webbo, Geoff, Dai and Mick) but it will be interesting to see how they did overnight and Sunday before heading home .

I'd just like to say a big THANK YOU to Dawn for putting up with the Maggotdrowning Mob and making us feel welcome, I'm sure we'll be finding our way back sooner or later .

The JINX Series 2008

  Match 5.

So down to Rolf's Lake once more for the fifth and final match of this years Jinx Series. Maria had decided to join me for the day as the weather promised to be decent and she'd heard that Paul's wife Jayne and Nick's wife Lisa were going to be there as well. So with the car loaded up with a few extra bits and pieces we set off around 8am and with my usual stop for breakfast and a smooth trip down we arrived in the car park at Rolf's just after 10am. I soon had my nets dipped and after introducing Maria to the assembled throng paid my cash in and topped up on pellets for the match ahead.

The Draw was of course LATE, and surprise surprise Malc had forgotten the days paperwork ensuring that the Series placings would remain unknown at the end of the day, so no change there then . I'd asked Maria to draw for me today and when she pulled out Peg 31 and I was quite happy with that , a nice short walk and a peg with a bit of form. Gem had pulled peg 8 leaving a few to worry about another Minxing and I had Clive for company to my left on peg 32 and Nick to my right on Peg 29.

I was looking to keep things simple today, just fishing a line at around 10mtrs where I had around 5 feet of water and a back up line by the bush to my right.
Both of the rigs were Malman 4x12 Adam's on 0·18 to size 16 Drennan Carp Match hooks and I also set up the pellet waggler as I could see a few Carp cruising around on top. I had the feeder with me in its ready sleeve but left it in there as I didn't think it would come into play today. Bait was 6,8 and 11 mm pellet that would be fished banded along with meat and 6mm expanders and I also had ½ pint of maggots with me in case things proved tough. Feed was simply the fishery 6mm pellets.

So 12·30 and Malc called the All-in. 2 pots of pellet out to the 10mtr line and a couple of hand fulls by the bush took care of the initial feed. A banded 8mm pellet was shipped out to the 10mtr line and I was in business, A yell was heard from peg 7 as Dai netted his 1st fish of the day and within five minutes my float slid away, but all to soon the elastic snapped back as I parted company with my 1st foul hooker of the day and for the next 2 hours I was to suffer this another 4 times without putting anything in the net . Nick Williams was over on peg 13 and was starting to put a few together fishing down the margin to his left...........

Indeed looking around most appeared to be struggling with most having just one or 2 fish to show for their efforts apart from Keith on peg 9 and Nick. With 3 hours gone I lifted into another bite and realised that I was connected to a decent fish and after a tense few minutes was delighted to slide the net under one of the better inhabitants of Rolf's ...........

Maria was delighted as she was beginning to believe that she had Jinxed me and soon had the camera out to record the event, even capturing the weight recorded on the scales....

.......... 14lbs 04ozs. at last I was off the mark .

Well I wish I could say that it improved from then on, but really it didn't , not for me anyway, and not for most others either. indeed looking down the car park bank it was starting to resemble a still life.............

Clive however was starting to nick the odd fish though he was still suffering from the odd foul hooker. With just over an hour to go I was attached to another fish, this one hooked in the tail, however despite it's best efforts I managed to get it's propeller out of the water and slide it into the landing net. Young Mitch had appeared having weighed a super looking Mirror that was a new PB for him at 15lbs 08ozs and Maria did the honours by getting a photo for him .........

Looking across to peg 14 I could see Alan who was guesting on the day, doing what is commonly know as a 'Garden Gnome' impression, and a particularly good job he was doing of it too ........

With around 20 minutes to go I was attached to another torpedo.........

...... yes another one hooked in the tail, but after another tug of war this one ended up in the net as well and weighed 13lbs 12ozs. Nothing more for me though Clive did manage one final fish before Malc called the All-out at 5·30 pm ..........

Chatting as we packed up it was obvious just how hard it had fished for most, indeed poor young Nick (monkey)to my right hadn't had a single bite during the whole 5 hours .

Come the weigh-in my 37lbs wasn't going to cause any stirs and Clive's section winning 60¾lbs held the lead all the way round to peg 7 where Dai's 88¼lbs wrapped up his section and Gem's 13½lbs saved a lot of people a final day Minxing (and gained me a £1 ). Round to peg 10 and Keith put a match winning 146½lbs on the scales, a very good performance on the day . Hard on his heels came Nick on peg 13 with 119¾lbs to wrap up second place . Slim edged out Steve in their £5 side bet leaving Malc to tie up first place in his own Series with a section winning 56¼lbs from peg 22 .

So that's The Jinx Series over for yet another year. Congratulations to Malc for his series win, and a big THANK YOU for organising what continues to be the friendliest and light hearted set of matches its been my pleasure to fish . Congratulations as well to Clive and Tony for their 2nd and 3rd places, and also to Malc and Dai for taking the pairs title.

This has to be the most successfull series ever with 8468lbs 02ozs of fish being brought to the scales over the course of the Series.(8645lbs 02ozs if you include the fish caught by guests .)

A new Series record winning weight set by Ade Williams at 266lbs 12ozs in match 1 .
Overall there were four 200lbs+ weights recorded. Two for Ade Williams and one each for Simon Mound and Ant Haywood with another thirty four 100lbs+ weights over the course of the series of 5 matches .

Another big THANK YOU to John and Pauline Bennett for allowing us the use of Rolf's for the entire series and all their efforts.

Finally another big THANK YOU to all that have fished the series, it's all of you that make it so enjoyable to fish, and long may it continue. See you all to do it again next year you bunch of nutters .

Overall Individual Series Result.

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

Overall Pairs Result.

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

Marsh AC club match.

Saturday saw me traveling down to Witham in Essex for a Marsh AC club match on Pathfield Lake at Colemans Cottage Fishery. I'd been looking forward to this match as I'd never visited the fishery before, but had heard good things about it . As usual I'd arranged to meet up with Dave and follow him down and by 7am we were on the road. Blue skies and sunshine held the promise of a decent day, though this was replaced by dull grey skies as we exited the Dartford Tunnel , but a trouble free trip saw us pulling into the fishery car park around 8am. Into the fishery lodge and we were soon tucking into a hearty breakfast as Dave took the monies and organised the draw.

There were 19 of us present including 4 guests so with the draw done it was back to the car park to sort the kit for the day ahead, and collect our keepnets and landing nets which are supplied by the fishery before we made our way to our pegs....

It had been interesting to watch peoples reactions to the pegs they'd drawn, Dave had been more than happy with drawing peg 6, a peg he'd fished on previous visits , and judging by his reaction peg 11 which I'd drawn wasn't bad either . Thank heavens for my barrow as peg 11 appeared to be just about as far away from the car park as it was possible to get.

Setting up it didn't look to bad, though there was a bit of green scum on the surface, but with a bit of an indent on the opposite bank and a few fish moving things were looking promising though the water level looked like it was about a foot down on its usual height.

Tackle-wise I set up a couple of Mk3 Malman self cocking paste floats on 0·16 to a size 12 Drennan Carp Method. one to fish the 18 inches of water in the margins and the other for the 4 feet that seemed to be consistent from 3mtrs out to 11mtrs, and I set up a Malman 4X12 Adam on 0·16 to a size 16 Drennan Carp Match to fish pellet and corn at 6 and 10 mtrs as well as a Malman 0·3g MTD1 dibber on 0·16 to a size 16 Drennan Carp Match that would double up as a shallow rig and margin rig for pellet and corn. I also set up a pellet feeder and pellet waggler for right across. Bait was sweetcorn, pellet and GOT Atomic paste with 6mm hard pellet for feed.

10am and Dave called the All-in and I shipped out 2 large pots of pellet and sweetcorn onto a line at 10mtrs and 5mtrs and fed some pellet down both margins. To give those lines a chance to settle I started off on the pellet feeder across, but despite signs of fish moving about didn't get a touch in the 1st half hour . Out with the pole onto the 10mtr line but despite switching baits and working the rigs couldn't buy a bite there either. A look on the pellet waggler was no more productive either and I was starting to worry. Jim Etherington to my right on peg 9 had managed 3 or 4 Carp by now but from what I could see others were struggling. Judy on peg 8 seemed to be in the same boat as me............

....... and Terry on peg 7 appeared to have had just a single fish............

About 2 hours in my float finally dipped , but rather than the elastic coming out with a Carp on the other end a small hand sized Skimmer flapped to the top, but was gratefully netted all the same. However with nearly 3 hours gone nothing had joined it. In desperation I filled it in at around 5mtrs pumped some expanders to try as a change bait, grabbed the camera and set off for a stroll looking for a bit of inspiration . Chris on peg 15 was admitting to a few silvers and 3 or 4 Carp and was soon sliding another into the net.............

Tony on peg 17 appeared to be struggling to get to grips with his peg, while Eddie down on peg 23 was handicapped by the painful effects of a slipped disc but was putting a few fish together ......

......... as was Jim Boase almost opposite on peg 26...........

Looking across to Wood Lake where there was an open being fished, I could see Browning's Dave Vincent but he didn't appear to be having much more luck than us, despite knowing the fishery really well ...........

Al on peg 28 was admitting to around 20lbs and with fish bubbling away down the track in front of him seemed to be firmly in the pound seats ..................

Meanwhile Paul on peg 34 was in danger of losing what little hair he had left trying to connect with bites that he was getting fishing the lead tight across to the island, mind you he had come to the match straight from a night shift so probably wasn't at his best, though it's always hard to tell with Paul  .........

Further along Clive had decided to target his margin and with 5 Carp in the net was hoping to crack on in the later stages .......

Dave up on peg 6 was struggling at this stage too with just 3 Chub and a Crucian, but as I passed Terry on peg 7 he was firmly attached to a rather angry Carp that he'd hooked into the tail, well not so firmly as it turned out as it departed rather abruptly without gracing the landing net after charging round most of Terry's swim ....................

Back at my peg and I noticed a few bubbles coming up on the 5mtr line, so an expander was slipped onto the hook and the rig shipped out. Within 10 seconds the float slid away and a firm lift met with a pleasing resistance and a Common of around 3lbs was soon in the net . Back out and almost straight away I was rewarded with another Carp, this time a Mirror of around 4½lbs . Unfortunately I also suffered from a number of foul hooked fish which with the shallow water tended to charge around like lunatics disturbing the swim preventing me from building up any sort of rhythm though I did manage to keep catching reasonably regularly through to the end when Dave called the All-out at 4pm.

The weigh-in at Colemans is a delight to watch as a bailiff comes round with a quad towing a trailer. The scales are attached to the trailer so that the fish are transfered to the weigh sling weighed and returned with the minimum of fuss and the fisheries nets collected all in one go. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my fish weighed 55lbs , the second best weight at that point behind Jim Etherington's 66½lbs which contained a right lump of 15lbs. Chris put 64lbs on the scales but it was Al who took the honours on the day with a fine net of fish weighing 88lbs , while Clive took 2nd place with a level 70lbs .

Chatting with Dave Vincent afterwards in the car park it was plain that the Open on Wood Lake hadn't fish much better with some very good anglers struggling on the day . Back at the fishery lodge for a post match drink and the inquest was conducted. 3 guests had filled the top 3 spots, but all the club members seemed to have enjoyed the day even if the fishing had proved to be harder than expected. It's a cracking fishery and one I'd happily recommend that you pay a visit to if you're in the area. I know that I'll definitely be going back to it in the future .

Next up for me is the final match of this year's Jinx Series at Rolf's Lake next Saturday.

Rive T's TalkAngling.co.uk Forum Match.

 The JINX Series 2008 

Match 4.

Well after a gap of eight weeks The Jinx Series returned to Rolf's today for the penultimate round of the Series. Blue sky and sunshine greeted me as I set off which was nice as the weather in the past week hadn't been the best . A trouble free run down after my customary breakfast stop saw me arrive with plenty of time to spare, with just Dave, Tim and Nick along with John there to greet me. First things first, so nets dipped and laid out to dry then a look at the Lake. John's got some plant on site digging out some flood defenses so pegs 19 and 20 are out of the match today as the work is going on right behind them, and I couldn't help wondering if it might just have an effect on the fishing today for those pegged on the Big Lake .

Soon the car park was filling up and the usual banter and micky taking was starting to flow as is customary on these matches . Even Malc was on time as he'd traveled up with Dai (Yes the Rover is still dead ) and today he had his 2 youngsters in tow (Crystal & Liam) could Rolf's survive the presence of 4 members of The Jinx Family ? Indeed many were wondering whether the change in weather would affect things too as a lot of venues have been fishing poorly recently.

Anyway with 23 anglers assembled it was time for the draw (yes it was late ) and I was hoping for the car park bank and a nice short walk, and peg 29 was my reward, a stroll of around 5 yards as my car was parked right behind it .

For company today I had Keith to my left on peg 31 and Mitch on 32 with Kevin to my right on peg 28 and Dave on peg 26.

I was planning on keeping it reasonably simple today and just set up 3 rigs. I to fish paste just on the slope of the shelf at the ends of the bushes to my left and right and this was simply a Mk3 Malman self cocking paste float on 0·21 to a size 12 Drennan Carp Method. The second was to fish pellet straight out at around 6mtrs where I had around 5ft and was a Malman 4x12 Adam on 0·18 to a size 16 Drennan Carp Match and I also set up a Malman 0·3g MTD1 dibber on 0·18 to a size 16 Drennan Carp Match in case they wanted it up in the water. I also set up the feeder as I had it there in its ready sleeve, but wasn't expecting to use it. Bait wise it was just 6 and 8mm fishery pellets and some paste.

With plenty of time till the all in people could be seen discussing the prospects for the day ahead............

...... or maybe not in some cases .....................

So 1pm and Malc called the All-in, a handful of pellet by each bush and 2 big pots of pellet went out onto the 6mtr line which I followed out with an 8mm banded pellet onto the 6mtr line just as I heard Malc's shout signifying his 1st fish from peg 7. After raising and dropping the rig a couple of times the float buried and a Common of around 7lbs was safely in the net to get me off the mark . This was swiftly followed by another Common around the 9lb mark, a great start, but short lived .

Looking to my left I could see that Keith was into his 1st fish of the day which appeared to be a Skimmer while across on peg 10 Clive was also into his first of the day............

I then went through a frustrating spell, suffering from a number of foul hooked fish resulting in a collection of scales on my sidetray but nothing added to the net . Kevin with nothing to show from his pole line except a solitary Roach decided to go for it on the feeder, and it seemed to be the right choice as it produced the occasional fish for him throughout the rest of the match .

Keith meanwhile seemed to be bringing a steady stream of fish to the net, but this was deceptive as a number of them were lost as it turned out . Dave Moore meanwhile having been through numerous variations in an attempt to find a fish had been back to his van to retrieve his pellet waggler rod to implement 'PLAN Z' as he put it .

By around 3·30pm it was obvious that most were struggling. I hadn't seen Tony on peg 14 land a single fish and he was having a stroll around. Slim was having a bit of a mare losing a few fish while Clive next to him on 10 continued to slip the odd fish into the net .........

Having tried my 2 inside lines with no success and with just a lone skimmer taken on the feeder, I decided to concentrate on the 6mtr line which I'd been feeding regularly for the remainder of the match. I soon had a couple of Carp one of which was a weigher, to add to the net and as Tony arrived for a chat I latched into a slightly better one. Into the waiting landing net and it proved to be a weigher and at 14lbs was just the inspiration that Tony needed to get back to his peg and try and avoid the dreaded DNW .

The pellet wag finally produced a very welcome Carp for Dave as I was attached to a rather fed up foul hooker, a decent Common which I briefly saw before it did me underneath the right hand bush. This seemed to kill things for me as i couldn't buy a bite in the following 30 minutes .

With an hour to go I was in again and had a run of fish including another weigher of 16lbs . With around 10 minutes to go I had another 5lb'er and Kevin asked me what I thought I had. I reckoned that one more fish could see me reach the 'Ton'.
Sure enough the float buried once more and an obviously decent fish tore off bottoming the elastic!!! Fortunately the rig held and as a rather disoriented Common with the hook firmly in it's pectoral fin surfaced on it's side I scooped it into the net, a weigher that went 16½lbs and before I had the chance to get the rig in again Malc called the All-out.

Chatting to others while packing up it was obvious that a lot had struggled, though Malc was owning up to a 'Ton' and I was sure that Clive had won the match, but Slim was really worried that he could be on the receiving end of a Minxing. However while we waited for the weigh-in, Slim's good lady showed fine form demonstrating to Slim how it should be done when she had a go .......

What a star she proved to be, even coming round with the iced lollies during the afternoon . While I'm at it, I mustn't forget a big Thank You to Kevin's partner Jean who kept me supplied with cups of coffee during the day and a sticky bun at the end .

Soon the weigh-in revealed just how hard it had been. My fish weighed 113lbs for the early lead that I felt sure I would to lose to Clive. Ant had managed 76½lbs. Gemma managed 31¼lbs from peg 2 leaving Slim looking nervous, much to everyone's amusement . Malc's fish went 109½lbs, a very relieved Slim just avoided a Minxing with a level 35lbs and sure enough Clive took the win on the day when he put 154lbs on the scales. Nice one Clive .

August Bank Holiday Monday and with Maria having to work I'd accepted an invitation from Bill to join him and a few of the lads on the Maggotdrowning forum down at Falkenville Mushroom Farm for a session on the new lake there. It was over 5 years ago that I last fished at Falkenville on the same lake as today when it 1st opened when it looked as it appears in the photo above. However in the intervening time it has been changed with 1 arm cut off and the rest widened, and now looks something like the image I've created below .

Pulling into the car park i was greeted by Pete, Ryan and Mick and after a brief chat Bill pulled into the car park to join us, that just left Al who was obviously running late . Rather than wait Bill got the gate key and we drove over to the lake. No draw today, just a fun day out so we just unloaded the gear and plonked ourselves in the nearest pegs.

Now on Saturday there had been some discussion about Bill being a JINX , and maybe there's something in it. When I had left home the sun was shining but as I got closer to the fishery the sun vanished to be replaced by grey clouds and by the time we had set up the wind had risen and there was the threat of rain .

Plumbing up I couldn't find much more than 3ft of water in front of me, so set up a paste rig comprising of a Mk3 Malman self cocking paste float on 0·18 to a size 12 Drennan Carp Match and a Malman 4x12 Snake IV on 0·18 to a size 18 Drennan Carp Match to fish pellet on the deck. Starting off at around 6mtrs I soon had a bite that rewarded me with a nice plump Common of around 3lbs while most of the other lads were still setting up . A ringing on Bill's phone revealed a slightly lost Al needing to be talked in by Bill, and most of us were off the mark by the time that Al finally arrived to join us .

Well the wind increased and some rain arrived and soon it resembled early winter rather than late summer . By about 1pm I'd managed half a dozen Carp, Ryan had just the one but was determined to get a few more.............

Pete was getting a few by chucking the feeder across ...................

Bill was doing best of all and had been catching regularly fishing paste at around 5mtrs, but even his action had slowed...............

while Mick was struggling despite trying the pole and feeder..............

and Al had a few fishing out in front of him but just couldn't interest the fish that were obviously feeding in his margins  .............

By 1·30 I'd had enough of the struggle , I tipped back my fish and moved over to a swim at the end of the arm that had been cut off. Reed lined on both sides it offered a little bit of shelter from the conditions and just looked as if it was good for a few fish .

A few pellets down both sides and a lump of paste on the hook and I was into fish straight away  and from then on a regular succession of Carp provided great entertainment right up to the point when the lads came round with the scales at the end of the session, indeed I hooked a final fish as they arrived, but with a crack the rig vanished. It turned out the Black Hydro had snapped!!!  I can't really complain though, as it was 4 years old, so I've had my monies-worth out of it . 43½lbs of pristine Carp showed what an enjoyable afternoon I'd had, so with those I'd tipped back earlier I'd had a good 50lbs+ on a challenging day. Bill had 67½lbs for the bragging rights on the day and Pete managed 40lbs+ as well, indeed we'd all had a few .

All in all not a bad day given the conditions, Thanks to Bill for organising the day and to the lads for their company, it won't be 5 years before I visit again .

Maggotdrowning.com

Southern Pairs Match 2008.

Twenty of us assembled at Hawkhurst today on the Match Lake for the 1st ever Maggotdrowning Southern Pairs organised by Vince .
Pulling into the car park most of the usual suspects were already assembled along with a few "virgins" in the form of Keith 'Disco' Driscoll, Gary 'alltackledup' Page and Steve Allen and his 2 lads, Pete & Nick and the banter was soon flowing .
Breakfast was soon consumed in the Café and the draw made so that we could get to our pegs and with the sun beaming down it looked like we could be in for a decent day with a lot of fish on the cards .

Now Hawkhurst has a reputation for producing big weights and as I settled into peg 3 it was obvious that Matt, my Pairs partner for the day was expecting a real bagging session as he already had 4 keepnets in place !!!!!!!!

I just set up 3 rigs,all on top 3's as I was planning to fish at no more than 3mtrs. 1 with a Mk3 Malman self cocking paste float on 0·18 to a size 12 Drennan Carp Match for paste and 2 for pellet, a Malman 0·3g MTD1 dibber on 0·18 to a size 18 Drennan Carp Match for shallow and a Malman 4x12 Snake IV on 0·18 to a size 18 Drennan Carp Match for on the deck. Bait wise I was going to keep things simple, with just 6mm hard pellet for both feed and hookbait and 8mm hard pellet and a few 6mm expanders along with some GOT Atomic paste as alternative hookbaits. 10 minutes prior to the off the aerators were switched off and plenty of fish could be seen moving around as anglers sat and considered the 5 hours ahead.

10·30am and Vince blew the whistle for the All-in and I fed a handful of pellet into the margin and another straight out at 3mtrs and followed it with a banded 6mm pellet on my deck rig. Bill over on peg 17 was into a Carp straight away as was Paul to my right on peg 4, but overall it wasn't the hectic start that most of us had expected. Vince even had time to try out his new camera, I'm sure he must have been asking me how many fish I'd caught when he took this one ..........

Indeed within half an hour of the start things appeared to slow down all round the lake . Matt however did have his fan club turn up and caused a bit of excitement as they watched him take the nice fishy for a swim, though when Bill started singing a Gary Glitter song I thought Paul and I were going to split our sides  ...........

I was really struggling to find as much as a bite, though Terry didn't seem to be having to much trouble, it was just getting them to stay on the hook that was proving troublesome .............

Paul had put as good a run of fish together as anyone, but then went through a stage of getting a load of foul hookers, none of which found their way to the net before he to suffered a lull in sport..........

Fed up with struggling I went for a stroll to see if anyone had found the secret to putting a decent bag together on the day.
I found Dave Collier up on peg 6 admitting to 7 fish and preparing to have a go under the bush in his left hand margin ..........

Clive was concentrating on his right hand margin over on peg 11, not that it appeared to be reaping any huge rewards ........

Kevin seemed to be searching for some inspiration anywhere he could find it and was having an absolute mare with hardly anything to show for his efforts ..............

Trevor was also fishing the margin to his right , but was handicapped by having to face Bill who was next door on peg 17 ........

Back to my peg and it was just a question of sticking at it, cutting back on the feed and fishing for bites and this finally started to produce a couple of fish for me though I did suffer with a few foul hookers.

With sport being so slow the banter was flying however. Keith"Disco" Driscoll on my left having been rechristened "Nightclub" by Bill and Nick on peg 1 and Vince on peg 20 being accused of having a separate competition to see who could make the best (Worst?) job of blowing a noted Flyer. Indeed at one point Nick obviously worried that Vince might win that one spent a good 10 minutes trying to lose a Carp, even wrapping it round his platform legs in an attempt to avoid netting it  ..........

Thankfully Vince blew the whistle for the All-out at 3·30pm to put us all out of our misery . With so little caught however at least the weigh-in didn't take to long and it was going to make for a close result to the pairs competition.

Back at the Café for the results it was revealed that Dave Collier and Clive Pritchard were the Maggotdrowning Southern Pairs winners for 2008, tying on points with Paul East and Terry Goff but taking the result on weight with myself and Matt Love in Third just 1 point behind .

I'd just like to say a big THANK YOU to Vince who did his usual excellent job of organising the day's proceedings, even managing to lay on the best weather for quite some while, Oh and he had to give me yet another £1 coin . Just a shame that the fishing wasn't up to expectations, though everyone appeared to enjoy themselves. Here's to the next one .

Pairs Result

NB: Where points were tied, position was decided on weight.

Marsh AC club match.

Today was the Marsh AC match at Rockells Farm in Essex and I'd arranged to meet Dave Collier at his house at 6.45am and follow him and Colin down to the venue as it's rather tucked away off the beaten track and a pig to find, Chris Withall had the same idea, and as we set off in convoy it was raining and the weather forcasts in the week previously hadn't been good, so it looked like we may be in for a wet old day . Round the M25 and onto the M11 and we were brought to a halt by a crash, though thankfully we were soon moving. Intent on following Dave I got a phonecall from Paul East, who had missed his turning and taken the scenic route via Colchester, and by the time we'd sorted that one out it was obvious we would have to draw for him.

Arriving in the fishery car park around 8·15am Kevin Loveland and I were dispatched to arrange the pegging for the 18 of us fishing while Dave organised the draw. We were under instructions to leave as many of the pegs close to the car park out as we could, so pegged 9 down the left and the other 9 round the top and down the right of the lake. Happily the rain had stopped and the sky was lightening as we started the draw so perhaps a decent day was on the cards .

I'd been looking forward to this match for a while as Rockells has a reputation of producing some decent weights, I'd only fished there once previously in the depths of winter and blanked, but last years club match which I missed as I was on holiday had produced a 200lbs+ winning weight and a few tons to back it up . I'd spoken to Trevor Price of GOT Baits prior to the match and he'd told me how he would fish it if he was there, so at least I had a good idea of how I was going to approach the day given a half decent draw .

Into the draw bag and I pulled out Peg 3, one of the three pegs at the top of the fishery, and I was more than happy with that . Tony Roberts had drawn Peg1, which I was informed by Dave was the out and out flyer, while Judy Hermite joined us on Peg2. Opposite I could see Martin Hucker who had won the previous match at Churchgate Lakes and Paul finally arrived to take Peg5.

Peg 3

 

Settling into the peg I just set up 3 top 2's, 2 fitted with Teepee's paste pots and Mk3 Malman self cocking paste floats, one to fish straight out into about 2ft of water and the other for the margin where there was around 18 inches depth. The third rig was just a Malman MTD1 Dibber for up in the water if the fish rose up to intercept the pellets I was planning to feed. Bait was simple, all I was planning to use was paste, which was the new Atomic Paste from GOT Baits. I'd been forewarned that you can use a fair bit at Rockells, so had premixed a good 6 pints of it the night before. For feed it would just be 4mm pellet and some hemp. The reason for the hemp was that 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, and I wanted something that I could feed just prior to the break that would stand a chance of holding the fish during this break when we couldn't feed .

Tony was happy with his peg.

So 10am and Dave blew the whistle for the all-in. A pinch of pellet and hemp out in front of me and the same down the left hand side. Going out with the deeper rig in front I potted in the paste and the float settled and 5 seconds later buried and I was off and running with a little Mirror Carp of around the pound safely in the net . After that it was just a case of trying to get into some sort of rhythm with just a pinch of feed going into both swims regularly and trying to sort the liners from the real bites.
After an hour i had 30 fish in the nets but they were all pretty small, ranging from 6ozs to 1½lbs, but I could see that Martin opposite was getting a better stamp of fish. He was fishing floaters down his right hand margin and I could hear the fish slurping them off the top. Looking down the margin I could see a few tail patterns so decided to have a look down there to see if the fish were of a better stamp and straight away was rewarded with a Common around the 2½lb mark . One of the frustrating things was the number of missed bites, a lot of which you would think were liners, but with very few foul hookers I felt that it was due to the poor condition of a lot of the fish's mouths making it hard to get a decent hook hold . Sport remained pretty constant but I trashed 3 rigs when fish took me through brambles that were trailing into the water, and I took 15 minutes out to tie some new rigs, knowing that we would be stopping for an hour at 1pm for a mid match weigh-in. I knew that Tony was catching reasonably well along with Martin, but felt that it would fish even better during the afternoon session.
The problem would be keeping the fish in the margins during the hour's break for the weigh in and the ensuing commotion of the nets coming out and fish being returned, so with a couple of minutes to go I fed 3 pints of hemp into the margin swim along with a pint of pellet before Dave signaled the all-out .

A chat while we waited for the scales revealed that Judy wanted both Tony and I to give her an hours start in the afternoon , Tony was owning up to having around 70lbs on his clicker (but can you believe one of Pinocchio's relatives?) while I felt I should have a good 80lbs. By the time the scales arrived Colin had weighed 83½lbs from Peg17 and Martin 110¼lbs.
Tony's fish weighed in at a level 82lbs while my 2 nets registered 107½lbs. So 2 Ton weights caught in 3 hours and all to play for come the afternoon session .

 

Martin partakes of some mid match refreshment

Thirsty work this baggin.

Waiting for Dave to signal the afternoon all-in I mixed up another 3 pints of paste just to be on the safe side as I could see the tail patterns still in my margin swim so felt confident . Just after 2pm Dave blew the whistle for the all-in, straight down the margin and the float buried and I was off again as a bright silver Common around 2lbs nestled in the landing net . To be honest the sport remained pretty constant for the next 3 hours and while the average size wasn't big I did manage to find a few larger examples around the 6-8lbs mark in the last hour. Martin had another good session, but I was pretty confident that I'd caught more than him this time, especially as he'd run out of bait with 5 minutes to go and I'd had another 4 fish in that time .

With the scales starting from our side this time round, a quick chat with Tony revealed that he thought he was in with a chance of his 1st Double ton on aggregate, while I felt that just maybe I was in with a chance of a Treble Ton as I'd caught much better in the afternoon session . Soon the Weigh-in got underway with Tony posting a level 130lbs for an aggregate of 212lbs, Mission accomplished . Judy added 45½lbs for a total of 70¼lbs which is her best ever match weight. My turn next and lifting the 1st net I needed John to give me a hand. As it turned out I was a little bit short of what i needed for a Triple Ton as the 2 nets came to a level 186lbs giving me an aggregate of 293½lbs, by far my best ever match weight by over 100lbs .

Round to Peg4 and Martin had another great session weighing 123½lbs for a total of 232¾lbs and his best ever match weight . As the scales moved round everyone had improved on the morning weights with Dave, Al, John and Paul posting ton plus aggregate weights. Last but one to weigh was Colin, and by all accounts he'd had a cracking afternoon catching a decent stamp of fish and he was admitting to 41 fish in his 3 nets, they weighed 167½lbs giving him an aggregate of 251lbs and second place on the day.

So there you have it, the top 4 anglers all beat their previous best match weights and the top 3 also beat the previous Club match record held by Dave at 231lb. To top it all the final total of 1991lbs of fish weighed in was 300lb higher than the club had ever weighed in and represented an average of 110lb per angler. One hell of a days fishing by anyones standards .

Sorry for the lack of photos, but as you might have guessed from the report, I was a little too busy to take many today .

Position	Peg	Angler	Morning	Afternoon	Total Weight
1st	Peg 3	Peter Morton	107lbs 08ozs	186lbs 00ozs	293lbs 08ozs
2nd	Peg 17	Colin Sharrard	83lbs 08ozs	167lbs 08ozs	251lbs 00ozs
3rd	Peg 4	Martin Hucker	110lbs 04ozs	123lbs 08ozs	232lbs 12ozs
4th	Peg 1	Tony Roberts	82lbs 00ozs	130lbs 00ozs	212lbs 00ozs
5th	Peg 9	Dave Collier	41lbs 08ozs	83lbs 00ozs	124lbs 08ozs
6th	Peg 8	Alan Loader	26lbs 00ozs	94lbs 00ozs	120lbs 00ozs
7th	Peg 13	John Holdsworth	32lbs 12ozs	82lbs 08ozs	115lbs 04ozs
8th	Peg 5	Paul East	22lbs 00ozs	91lbs 08ozs	113lbs 08ozs
9th	Peg 14	Terry Goff	25lbs 04ozs	59lbs 08ozs	84lbs 12ozs
10th	Peg 12	Chris Withall	35lbs 00ozs	49lbs 00ozs	84lbs 00ozs
11th	Peg 2	Judy Hermite	24lbs 12ozs	45lbs 08ozs	70lbs 04ozs
12th	Peg 18	Roger Noakes	15lbs 08ozs	54lbs 08ozs	70lbs 00ozs
13th	Peg 7	Kevin Loveland	22lbs 00ozs	31lbs 08ozs	53lbs 08ozs
14th	Peg 6	Bob Hucker	14lbs 08ozs	35lbs 00ozs	49lbs 08ozs
15th	Peg 16	Graham Manning	14lbs 08ozs	30lbs 08ozs	45lbs 00ozs
16th	Peg 15	Ken Walker	7lbs 00ozs	31lbs 08ozs	38lbs 08ozs
17th	Peg 11	Eddie Dobson	8lbs 08ozs	15lbs 08ozs	24lbs 00ozs
18th	Peg 10	Rod Turner	3lbs 08ozs	5lbs 08ozs	9lbs 00ozs