Hawthorne

Arren's Lake.Essex.

Hawthorne AC club match.
A lovely warm summers day promised a decent days sport on this rural Essex venue noted for it's winter time bags of Rudd & Roach, however at this time of year the Carp enter the equation, and if they aren't in your swim you ain't going to win .
I drew peg 19 and they weren't there !!!!!!!

However fishing a power top 2 with a no12 elastic (just in case Mr Carp decided to put in an appearance) a busy time was had with the small Rudd that refused to be fed off .
Averaging about 1oz apiece they kept coming at intervals all day, and come the final whistle, they rolled the scales around to record a weight of 32lbs 12ozs. Only good enough for 10th on the day but a pleasant days fishing all the same .
Falkenville Mushroom Farm. Match lake.

Hawthorne AC club match.
The venue today was the Mushroom Farm at Falkenville, just outside Hailsham in Sussex for the 4th Hawthorne club match of the season.
The Racetrack.
(looking from the bottom towards the top end)

The match was to take place on the fishery match lake called The Racetrack, and the target species on this lake is Carp, but there is also a prolific head of Roach and skimmers if the Carp don't show, an interesting addition however are a number of Wels Catfish up to about 15lbs .

After a superb cooked breakfast in the barn it was time for the draw. The favoured swims with the wind as it was, were at the top end of the lake. So as you can guess out comes 23, at the opposite end .

On previous matches at this venue I've dabbled with various pastes, with varying degrees of success. Today I had decided that come what may I would stick with a pellet and paste attack .
With the wind gusting and making presentation awkward at 13mtrs, I just set up the one rig to fish pellet over paste at 7mtrs. This consisted of a Drennan Carp2 float on a length of Trilene XT and a Drennan Carbon Carp (size 10). No weight on the rig, just the weight of the paste to cock the float.

Sport was never fast and furious, but the bites when they came were either a definite lift or sailaways. I finished the match by putting 41lbs 14ozs (all Carp) on the scales, which was top weight on my bank, but only good enough for 3rd overall.

This is the best result I've had fishing paste,and I shall be trying it a lot more in the coming season and putting some of Malc's recipes to the test .
Rayne Lodge Fishery. Bottom Lake.

Hawthorne AC club match.
Having fished this venue twice before in attrocious conditions, I was hoping for third time lucky. The weather was certainly better in fact it was scorching.
There are 28 pegs on the lake, and I drew peg 16 and on reaching it was delighted to see that I could reach the island at 13mtrs and I also had plenty of cover provided by bushes and weed beds in both margins.
The going method in recent weeks had been expander pellet over pellet and this was to be the main line of attack, with corn and maggot as a back up.
Trouble was that the hot weather had woken up the Carp to spawn, and that appeared to be the only thing on their minds at my end of the lake . The whole day was spent watching fish after fish thrashing the water to foam as they charged through the weed beds in the margins.
All I could manage to whittle out were a few small Tench and Crucians for a rather dissapointing 11lbs 4ozs, only good enough for 10th on the day.
Gold Valley. Syndicate lake.

Hawthorne AC club match.
It was off to Gold Valley to fish Syndicate Lake for todays club match. The complex consists of 5 lakes (old gravel workings) 3 of which are used for matches on a regular basis.
In summer weights of over 100lbs are a common occurance, but this early in the year they are something of a rarity.
Arriving early, breakfast in the clubhouse (£4 for a full english ) was the order of the day, before dipping into the drawbag to find Peg 109 sticking to my hand.

Syndicate Lake.....

Now Syndicate Lake holds a good head of Tench, Bream, Crucians, Perch & Roach, but it is the Carp that are the main target once the weather starts to warm up. The Carp in here can be real creatures so 8lb reel lines and 6lb hook lengths are called for on the advice of Will Raison (The Co-Owner & England International).
Two rods were set up, 1 groundbait feeder and 1 waggler. The groundbait was 2 bags of Sensas Gold and 1 of crushed hemp mixed on the dry side so as to explode out of the mesh feeder that was finished off with a Drennan Carbon Carp hook in a size 14 fished with 3/4 red maggots.
The waggler was a 3aaa crystal fished about 3inches over depth in about 5 feet of water at 2 rodlengths. In this swim I laid down a large bed of hemp (about 3 pints) to try and stop anything in it's tracks that happened upon it.

Starting off on the feeder, it was quite slow with only a skimmer of 1½lbs to show for the first hour, but a number of liners encouraged me to stay with it. The next proper bite nearly ripped the rod from my hand, and after 10 mins a lovely Common,well into double figures was heading for the net, BUT a last minute dive saw it dive towards my keepnet and neatly transfer the hook to said net
Back out with the feeder and soon 3 of its smaller brothers were safely IN the net. No more bites followed so with a couple of hours to go it was waggler time.
First cast and after 10secs the float buried, and the culprit a 5lb Mirror was joining it's pals in the net, and in the next two hours I added another 7 to the total before the whistle went.
At the scales i weighed in 11 Carp and 1 skimmer for a total weight of 53lbs 4ozs, good enough for third on the day, and 8 more points toward the club championship and I also qualified for the next round of the club Knockout trophy, so quite a satisfying day all round.
Old Bury Hill Fishery.Milton Lake.

Hawthorne AC club match.

The venue was Milton's Lake today for the first Hawthorne AC club match of the new season and also the first Round of the club's Knockout Cup.
I'd drawn peg 17 today and it was about as far away from the "Flyers" as it's possible to get, but in the last couple of weeks the fish had started to respond to corn or meat fished over pellet, so that was to be the plan of attack for the day.

The wind was already pretty strong and blowing from my right to left, with the promise of it getting stronger later.
Knowing that I had no more than 4 ft of water in front I set up a Drennan .8gm Lake on 0·12 matchtec with a 0·10 matchtec hooklength and a size 16 Preston PR22 hook. (This hook has quite an unusual shape,with a pronounced swept shank that i find ideal for meat and corn, and has great holding power) The other was just a dibber on 0·12 straight through and the same pattern hook.

I had started off at 6 mtrs as I didn't want to feed to a spot that I wouldn't be able to reach later. A couple of pots of "Swim Stim" 3mm pellets, corn & meat in front & one against the marginal reeds to my left was the initial feed.
For the first couple of hours sport was very slow and produced just a couple of skimmers as the wind got steadily worse and showers came and went. People all around were having to alter their lines as the wind increased while I was able to keep fishing on my chosen line.

Unfortunately meat produced not one bite while maggot only resulted in micro-rudd.
So I decided to stick with corn ( a bait I always have confidence in) and with an hour and a half to go, the float buried and a lovely Crucian of about 1lb was safely in the net. Two more plunp Crucians followed and then 3 Tench, the best of which probably went about 3lbs. Another couple of Crucians and a Bream of about 3lb were added before the final whistle. All the fish came from the 6mtr line with not a single bite from the margin swim.

At the Weigh-In it persisted down with rain, and the wind was so strong that it was difficult to read the scales . The pegs either side of me weighed in 8lbs 10ozs and 2lbs 8ozs, while I weighed in a level 16 lbs to finish 5th. That was enough to get me through to the next round of the Knockout and gave me 6 points towards the club championship.
Well 1 down 16 to go.