Hawthorne AC club match.

Well after the giddy heights of yesterday, it was back down to earth today with a 20 peg club match at Old Bury Hill.
We had pegs 1-20 on the front bank of the old Estate Lake.

Now some of you may remember me mentioning that Hawthorne AC seem to have a peculiar talent for attracting the worst of the weather. Well today was no exception!!!!!!!!! Stepping out of the car in the carpark, the first drops of rain began to fall, this was soon followed by Fork Lightning, Thunder & Driving rain.
A hurried draw was arranged, and having drawn no7, off I set to my peg.

Looking across the lake from peg7.....

Now I really hate fishing the pole in the pouring rain, and holding 14mtrs of carbon with fork lightning about has never struck me as too sensible, so I set up a waggler & feeder rod and left the pole in the rodbag.
At the off it was out with the wag at 3 rod lengths, fished 3" overdepth. 6mm expander on the hook and a pouch of 3mm expanders fed over the top. Nobody was doing much, just a few small Roach falling to those fishing maggot when 1½ hrs in, news came down that peg 1 had caught a 13lb Common.

Finally after 2½ hrs of continual feeding the float slid away,and a minute later a 2½lb Bream was safely in the net. In the next hour I added another 5 and things were looking up, which prompted the knob head angler on the next peg to fill it in with groundbait, which promptly killed it stone dead.

So out on the feeder for the last part of the match with luncheon meat on the hook and 4 more Bream before the whistle.
At the weigh-in I had 21lbs 2ozs for 3rd on the day, a result that puts me through to the semi-final of the club KO Cup, which will be fished in 2 weeks time back at Old Bury Hill, but this time on Miltons Lake.

Hawthorne AC club match.

Well today was the 2nd Hawthorne AC match of the season on Willow Lake at Tylers Common in Essex. Well after the last 3 days glorious weather, true to form the day dawned dull grey & overcast,with the threat of showers and thunderstorms.
This was the venue of our 1st round Supercup match in January, and everyone was hoping for a better catch than last time when 24 anglers only caught 2 Carp between them.

Looking down on Willow Lake from the carpark..........

Now I have to say that this is my least favorite type of venue, as it's basically just a hole dug in a field and filled with fish. There are no features to fish to except for a few straggly tufts of grass in the edge and no established trees or bushes to offer anything in the way of shelter .
Anyway enough of my moaning, into the drawbag and it's peg 5 for me. On arriving at my peg it was immediately obvious that things would be hard for the majority of us,as the Carp were bow waving about all over, obviously intent on playing Mummies & Daddies and with very little interest in having a munch .
A good plumb up revealed not a single feature, it just kept gently shelving away. So I just set up a paste rig to fish at 9mtrs in 5ft of water and an up in the water rig for pellet. I also set up a waggler on the off chance that they would really have it up in the water, but out of pole range.

Peg 5.........

Well what can I say?................ It was Hard Work, the only thing I could get a bite on was the paste, despite going through punched meat, maggot, corn and a couple of types of pellet.
My Total catch?.............. 4 Carp and 2 Tench for 11lbs 8ozs which was only good enough for 8th place .
Still at least I'm through to the ¼ finals of the club KO Cup and I was part of the winning team in the clubs Teams of 4/5 that was fished today.

Oh and just to finish things off..........The heavens opened, complete with thunder & lightning just as we were packing up so we all got soaked.

Hawthorne AC club match.

Today was the first match of the new club season,and the venue was Falkenville Mushroom Farm just outside Hailsham in Sussex.
Now we've fished Falkenville before, normally on the main lake or the matchlake, but today we were trying a newer lake on the complex.
It's a canal type lake about 12mtrs wide supposedly stocked with a bit of everything.
Unfortunately to say that it's exposed would be an understatement and with a grey sky and strong winds everyone opted for the cooked breakfast in the barn before the draw, as it promised to be the best part of the day 
Well into the drawbag and peg 17 stuck to my hand, slap bang in the middle of the stretch, totally exposed and with just a few stick-ups to fish to, I just knew I wasn't going to enjoy it.

The View from Peg 17 looking towards the low numbers...

As is usual on one of our club matches the wind dropped as we were setting up, lulling us into a false sense of hope, but as soon as the all in sounded the wind sprang up again,never to drop away again.
Now most of the fish in the lakes at Falkenville are reared at the owners own fish farm and the killer bait is normally pellet or paste, and with no cover and a very shallow margin on my side the line of attack had to be across at 12 mtrs where I had a small shelf and about 3 ft of water.
Micro pellet with a few maggots and bits of sweetcorn were potted in with a Kinder cup and an expander pellet on the hook.
Bites were mere knocks, and trying to fish a dotted down float at 12 mtrs in a howling wind isn't my idea of fun, but by chopping and changing I was able to nick a few little blade skimmers and Chublets.

Nearly everyone except the 2 end pegs were struggling when with an hour to go I had a run of 4 bites and 4 Carp Alas they departed almost as soon as they had arrived, but I did have one more fish before the final whistle, a bit of a surprise ......... a small Barbel.....

Those 4 bonus fish boosted my weight at the end to 6lbs which was good enough for 4th on the day and  7 points towards the club championship.

Hawthorne AC

AT Supercup match.

Today was our 2nd round Supercup match. Dartford APS, Holland Anglers and us..... Hawthorne AC. It was at a Private Fishery in East Sussex. Dartford's choice of venue.
To give you some idea of what we were up against DAPS has 2500 members to draw a team from, Hawthorne has 35 members.

I drew peg 2 on the silver fish lake which has a stream running in and out of it and was forcast to be hard........... They weren't wrong........ It's a very small lake, more of a pond really, only 11 swims on it, 9 of which were used for three sections of three, the other five sections being on the newer match(carp)lake.
The match started at 9-30am and by about noon I'd managed to put about 5lbs of small Roach and micro Perch in the net fishing a top 2 to a set of pads at 3mtrs.
Then it happened, a dirty brown slick entered the lake, probably washed in off the surrounding fields & roads and killed sport stone dead for me . The last couple of hours were spent punching a waggler out past the discolouration to lure a few more Roach and at the weigh-in 7lbs 10 ozs gave me 2 points for 2nd in section.

Overall we had a disaster with only 1 section win and 2 section seconds.
Dartford went through to the Semi's and deserved to on a day when by their own admission, the complex fished below expectations.
So good luck to Dartford in the semi, can they qualify for the final and go one better than last year? when they were 2nd in the final.
Hawthorne AC??? we'll give it another go next season.

Hawthorne AC club match.

5.55am "RING RING" "It's Malc, I'm downstairs ,where are you?"

"OH GOODNESS IS THAT THE TIME !%*$$$*!!!! YOU GET OFF AND I'LL MEET YOU THERE "
Not the best start to the final club match of the season, so a mad charge round gathering up all the kit and chucking it in the car for the 40 mile trip to Willow Park at Ash Vale, just outside Guildford.
A quick phonecall to the chairman to let him know I'm on my way and to get him to draw for me .

Pulling into the car park just in time to find everyone making their way to their pegs I'm told that i have drawn peg 71 on the bungalow bank of the Main Lake. Now the Main Lake isn't used much for matches anymore as the carp have grown rather large, much more the territory of the "Boilie & Bivvy Brigade"
As usually befits a Hawthorne match the weather that had been nice and springlike in the SE for the last fortnight, had transformed into a dull grey overcast day with a biting cold North wind that had dropped the temperature more than a couple of degrees.

Well running late and trying to play catchup, I quickly set up my feeder rod with a groundbait feeder so that I would have something to fish with at the start.
What I really wanted to do though was go at it with the pole, as there wasn't a lot of colour in the water, and I had a feeling that it would be hard, so it was soon out with the pole and a quick plumb up revealed a nice flat area 8ft deep at about 11mtrs.

Now bearing in mind that it was the last match of the season and with everything decided clubwise I decided to attack it , so 6 big balls of Sensas Crazybait Black with a good helping of casters & hemp went in on this line to fish caster or red maggot over the top of it.

Well after about 40mins the first 6oz skimmer was netted and a steady stream of these,along with a couple of better examples continued throughout the whole match.
Four of the lads had close encounters with rather large carp during the course of the day, but the score ended Carp 4-0 Anglers.   Come the end of the match I put 26lbs 10ozs on the scales, which was only beaten by Paul (the club champ) on the end-peg putting 43lbs 2ozs on the scales for 1st place.

So that's it for another season of club matches, just the 2nd round of the Supercup to be fished on the 27th.
It's been a good season for the club though with a total of 5122lbs 13ozs being weighed-in during the 17 matches, an average of just over 300lbs per match, with an average of 17 anglers attending each match.

Hawthorne AC club match.

Well I have to say that the best part about todays club match at Hartleylands Reservoir was the Breakfast at The Little Chef beforehand.
The Reservoir at Harleylands is situated at one of the highest points of the farm, and when the wind blows you can really suffer .

Long pole is the name of the game here 12mtrs+, but with the wind being so variable from flat calm to a howling gale all day, presentation proved a nightmare with just a few small Roach as my reward for sticking it out for the first 2 hours.

It got so bad that I sat it out on the feeder for the final 3 hours! Twice the tip went round resulting in a couple of plump 2lb+ Carp. Then right on the final whistle the tip went again and I carefully played a similar Carp to the net, but at the very last second it rolled on the hooklength and was off.
At the scales i weighed 5lbs 14ozs for 5th,but that lost Carp had cost me 3rd place.
It just about sums up the way my season has gone in the club matches.
Just one more club match to go at Willow Park next month and then we can do it all over again!!!!!!!!!

Hawthorne AC club match.

7am in the "Little Thief" for brekky, and looking out of the windows at the driving wind & rain It's at times like this that you start to question your own sanity .
Arriving in the car park at Lavender Farm, there were 14 other lunatics assembled to fish this club match on the Match Lake, a rather exposed "snake" venue.

Into the drawbag and 15 stuck to my already wet hand, and after walking round I was thanking my lucky stars that at least the wind was coming from behind me. The peg is regarded as a bit of a flyer in Summer, owing to the island at 12mtrs but has no winter form at all.

Out at 12mtrs nothing was having it despite a softly softly approach, and with the wind veering around constantly presentation was difficult to say the least. Plumbing around earlier I had noticed that the deepest part of the swim was at only 3mtrs and had set up a dead depth rig for this, and with nothing at 12mtrs after 2 hours this was the line I switched to.
The recent cold weather had taken a lot of colour out off the water, but with a squatt cup i trickled in 5 maggots and a pinch of fishmeal every 5mins, and after 30 mins the float buried and a small Carp of about 1lb was netted.

For the next couple of hours I managed to get another 14 upto about 3lbs and then that line dried up. For the last hour, try as I might I couldn't buy another bite. At the end I managed to put 31lbs on the scales, and was comfortably in first place, right up until the final 2 pegs were weighed in and a 38lbs & 50lbs were put on the scales.
Still, no complaints, as I felt I'd got the maximum available from the peg on the day and nobody near me had got within 20lbs of my weight, and at least I managed to pick up some coin to cover expenses.

Hawthorne AC 

AT Supercup match.

Well today was the day of our 1st round match in this years Angling Times/Van Den Eynde Supercup.
For reasons best known to the Angling Times, this year instead of being drawn against another team from Kent we had been drawn away against Palmers Green Angling Society From North London.

Their 1st choice of venue, The Grand Union Canal at Berkhampstead was unavailable so they switched the tie to the Horseshoe Match Lake at Tylers Common in Essex, A venue that none of us from Hawthorne had seen yet alone fished.

To make matters worse on arrival the Match Lake was frozen solid, and the match was transferred to two adjoining lakes on the venue.
Fine you may think except we had been given some very good advise with regard to rigs and bait needed for the match lake where a 12oz fish was considered a big bonus, and were now confronted with two lakes supposedly heavily stocked with large Carp, Bream and Tench.

Well the draw was made and we all made our way to our pegs, and tried to assemble enough kit between us to tackle the pegs we were faced with.
Now can someone please tell me why a commercial fishery that charges £7 a peg can't provide decent paths and solid pegs????????
Almost without exception everyone found themselves sitting in a sea of mud and standing water.

The match itself was absolutely DIRE with a howling wind making the temp of +3C feel more like -5C, and making pole fishing all but impossible in most pegs!!!!!!!!

3 hours into the match and NOBODY had had so much as a bite, and then one of the Palmers Green lads caught a Carp of around a couple of pounds.
Efforts were redoubled, Surely 1 fish would not be enough to win the match? If we could just get 1 fish then we would be in with a chance.
Sure enough with just 10mins to go, Paul Ollerenshaw (our club champ) could be seen very gingerly playing a fish,and while our whole team collectively held it's breath (and the other team probably willed him to lose it) up came the landing net with the fish in it .

Now for the moment of truth, The weigh-in......... With 10 blank sections, and one fish in each of the remaining 2 it was all down to weight.
First to weigh-in was the Palmers Green angler and his Carp weighed in at 1lb 15ozs, now across to the other side of the fishery, and Paul's Carp was obviously larger and took the scales round to 4lbs 3ozs 8drms.

It has to be said that Palmers Green anglers are a superb bunch of lads, who despite their obvious disappointment, shook hands in congratulation and wished us well in further rounds. The whole atmosphere of the match was so friendly that plans are already afoot to invite them down to our neck of the woods sometime in the summer for a days "baggin" .

So that's it, Hawthorne AC are through to the next round.

Hawthorne AC club match.

Well today was the first Hawthorne AC club match of the New Year and the first chance that I'd had to get out since before Christmas. Looking out of the window as I woke up, my first reaction was that it had snowed again, but no it was just a very severe frost.

On the way down to the lakes at Frant the outside temperature was registering -7° centigrade,and it was with some apprehension that we pulled into the car park, Only to be greeted by the site of all six lakes frozen solid .

Thankfully the food wagon was up and running, so after a fortifying egg & bacon sandwich and a steaming mug of tea we made our way down to Lake 4 which had allegedly been ice free the day before, armed with a selection of weights, chains and ropes to try and free up some swims.
To say this was not a success would be an understatement in fact we were on the point of calling it a day and cancelling the match when help appeared in the shape of the owners son with the fishery ARGOCAT.

Eventually enough swims were cleared, and a vote was taken to cut the match short to 4 hours to prevent to much suffering and frostbite.
Into the drawbag and peg 13 (unlucky for some) stuck to my hand.
Over to the far side of the lake where the low sun was straight in my eyes. A bit of deft work with the landing net cleared enough floating ice out of the way to allow me to start fishing at about 7mtrs.

I decided to keep things simple and fish a fluro pinkie on the hook and just drip a few in with a kinder pot. Well I got some bites that I managed to convert to a few fish (all small) but enough to keep my mind off the temperature which managed to struggle up to a positively tropical +1° centigrade during the course of the match .
A slow but steady procession of small Roach, Rudd, Perch, Gudgeon and Skimmers produced a netfull that was enough to swing the scales round to 5lbs 2ozs at the end of the match which gave me 3rd place .

Not the biggest bag of fish by any means, but very satisfying given the conditions, and certainly better than a day spent decorating .

Hawthorne AC club match.

Ho Ho Ho!!!!! Time for the Christmas Fur & Feather Match  This is really just a fun match and everyone is guaranteed a prize at the end of the day, and funnily enough this meant the best turn out of the season so far!!

Now Lucks Lane Lake couldn't be described as the prettiest venue going, especially in the winter. It's an old irrigation reservoir that is raised up from the surrounding orchards, thus catching any weather that's going, and today there was plenty!!!!!! Oh and did I mention that the Eurostar trains thunder past about 50 yards away every 20 mins?

In it's defence it's one of those venues that normally produces a few fish regardless of conditions. Being that today was basically a social event, I was just looking for a bit of comfort, so it was up with the brolly and out with a feeder to try and snare one of the lumpier Carp that inhabit the venue. I hate fishing the pole in the cold & rain so that got left in the rodbag.
Between wandering around and chatting to most of the members I did actually manage to catch one  A nice Mirror Carp of 7lbs 10ozs which was good enough for 8th place on the day which won me a bottle of Scotch by way of a bit of Christmas cheer.

Hawthorne AC club match.

I have to admit that I wasn't looking forward to this as the weather of the preceeding week had promised to turn the river into a chocolate conveyer belt, so I was well pleased on arrival to see the river in good shape with just a hint of colour. The sun was shining and there wasn't a breathe of wind. Arriving at my peg I was delighted to see a nice crease at a comfortable trotting distance, so out came the MAP18ft and a stick float .
Now the bad news!!  the peg held a huge bed of Canadian Pondweed (what's it doing in the Thames?) and despite burying the hook inside the caster it proved almost impossible to get a smooth trot down the swim .
After about 2 hours of flogging a dead horse word came down that a few slabs were starting to show and with just 1 small Perch and a couple of even smaller Roach to show for my efforts out came the feeder to see if I could find myself a Bream.
All the time the wind has been increasing and the sky was getting darker,and then the heavens opened. Half an hour later and 2 gorgeous rainbows appeared.(1 fainter than the other).........................

However there was to be no crock of gold or even Bream for me, and at the end of the match just a couple of Gudgeon and Ruffe had been added to the net to give me a rather meagre 10ozs for 10th place.
Never mind though it's still better than sitting around at home.

Hawthorne AC club match.

Not a good start this morning,OVERSLEPT!!!! Woken by a nudge in the ribs from Maria
Fling tackle into car and off to Willinghurst about 40 miles away, just outside Guildford.
(and NO Dave, I didn't get a picture of my car )
I arrived to find everyone already fishing, so I went to find the Match Sec and draw my peg. Now 9 & 10 were left in the bag, 10 has loads of features and is a corner peg, 9 has nothing, just an open expanse of water. No prizes for guessing!!!!!!!!! Yes I drew 9 .

I had been warned that if the weather turned nasty it would be a real struggle and boy had it turned nasty!!!!! There had been a frost. The East wind made it feel like midwinter and just as i arrived at my peg it started to rain .

Up with the brolly,sit on my box and access my options..... Pole? NO, Waggler? NO, Feeder? That'll do .
Knock up a bag of Fishgutz method mix groundbait, add a little corn and a little riddled meat and fish either hair rigged corn or meat. (4 bits of corn or ½ inch chunks of meat).
Largish baits and sit it out for a carp, clip up and keep dropping it down the same hole.

All around me people were struggling except for 2 lads who had islands to fish to. Well to cut to the chase, the fish weren't going to rip it off the rests today, a 2 inch pull was all you got and if you didn't hit them you didn't get another chance. I had a mere 7 bites all day and managed to connect with all but one catching 6 Carp, the best of which weighing 6lbs 14ozs and weighed in 27lbs 8ozs which was good enough for 3rd on the day. (less than 4lbs away from the winner, 1 more fish??????? )

Hawthorne AC club match.

It's off to Hartleylands Farm for the 8th match of Hawthorne AC's season today, and as I jumped into the car to make my way down to the fishery the heavens opened, and didn't let up for the whole trip down until i pulled into the car park.
The fishery at Hartleylands Farm comprises a number of ponds and an irrigation reservoir,which is where we were to fish today.

After the usual welcomes and insults from those fishing today it was time for the draw, thrusting my hand into the draw bag I was rewarded with peg 17, which as it turns out is the very peg I struggled from in this years AT SuperCup match, so not a good start , but in for a penny........

Now there are a lot of Skimmers & Roach present in the reservoir but you really need to target the Carp to frame on the reservoir at this time of year, and if they aren't in your peg you'll struggle, which is exactly what I did !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 It didn't seem to matter what I tried I couldn't get a sniff of a Carp all day. The only thing that would take my bait were either Skimmers or Roach and at the end my rather meager weight of 22lbs 3ozs was only good enough for 12th place .
Still some good weights were recorded, The match was won with a weight of 83lbs 14ozs of Carp caught by Paul Ollerenshaw,(The reigning Club Champion) for his 5th win in 8 matches ............

Some nice fish came out, including this one for Don Freeman, a nice plump Mirror Carp of 9lbs 15ozs ..............

Not my day today, but it beats the hell out of being at home and decorating. Anyway roll on Friday when I'm taking the brother-in-law Chris out for a days punt fishing at Old Bury Hill in an attempt to get him his first ever Tench.

Hawthorne AC club match.

Well we all assembled in the car park at Framfield Fishery, which is a complex of 3 lakes set in the countryside just outside the town of Uckfield in Sussex.
Today we were to fish Spring lake, which is the main match lake, and is mostly stocked with Carp (what a surprise )

Spring Lake.

Anyway it transpired that there had been a cock-up on the alarm clock front by the Secretary. So there we were waiting for the Drawbag and scales to arrive .
Anyway after a short delay and a lot of ribbing on his arrival out came the draw bag. In goes the hand and out comes peg 43.
As I arrived at my peg one thing became glaringly obvious, I couldn't reach the island, which was about 20mtrs away, also in previous seasons this swim had a large bed of lilies to fish to on the right hand side. NOT ANY MORE!!!!!

Plumbing up I found 12 inches in the margins and only about 2½feet at 13mtrs. For the margin swims I set up a dibber on my margin pole. These swims would not be touched until I could see the mud being disturbed by feeding fish.
On the 13 mtr line it was to be 2 simple rigs,both to fish banded pellet. 1 just 18inches of line and a hook (size 14 PR22) and the other a Drennan Carp2 float set at dead depth to target any fish that followed the constant stream of pellets down to the bottom .
I also set up a feeder rod,but this would only be a get out of jail option if things went horribly wrong. (more often than not at the moment )

Peg 43.

Anyway at the off and two good handfulls of hemp go into the margins on each side along with some corn to await developments. Out to 13mtrs and into a rhythm of 5-6 pellets every 30 secs.
Straight away the 2 pegs to my right were into fish as they could reach the island.
If that wasn't bad enough I had the beginnings of a headache that was to get worse as the match went on (No it wasn't due to drink )

After about an hour on the up in the water rig along came carp No1,

a pretty little ghost/common and things were starting to look up,a steady stream of small carp followed it to the net, and while not setting any records a worthwhile bag was building .
With an hour to go the headache  had got so bad that i was forced to stop fishing and lay down (either that or fall off my box)

Come the weigh-in and it soon became apparent just how well the day had gone. Top weight, caught by John Tyler was 136lbs, 2nd was Michael Vincent with 124lbs 4ozs and 3rd was Mike Davis with 103lbs 2ozs.
My level 46lbs was only good enough for 11th .
In total 19 of us weighed in a total of 1041lbs 14ozs for an average weight of 54½+lbs per man, Fantastic fishing by any standards .

Hawthorne AC club match.

Having survived yet another Little Chef "Early Starter" we arrived at the car-park for a 9am draw, to be greeted by Betty the Bailiff .

Now anyone that listens to Keith Arthur's program "Fishermans Blues" on TALK SPORT (1053/1089AM) on Saturday & Sunday mornings will have heard Betty, and her weekly chats to Keith, and perhaps the story of her Cormorant Hound .

Betty assured us that a draw on the bottom half of the lake was what was needed, as the fish tend to follow the wind and it had been blowing in that direction for the past 4 days, and that the fish were being caught up in the water.