Maggotdrowning.com

Southern Championship.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 The weights were as follows.......

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

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

I had arranged to meet Dave the Fish at Hartleylands today, with a view to having a practice for the forthcoming Intersite match. To say that it was a dull, grey, wet, windy, and thoroughly miserable day would be an understatement!

Some of the Total-Fishing lads had come down for a practice and after a brief chat they set off to fish Peartree while Dave and I set up on Nicks.

Vince appeared to give us a pep talk, but things at the start were a shade slow, so Vince was dispatched to the Bakery at the farm shop for the pies. With these consumed Vince bid us farewell as he had to collect some people from Gatwick .

Dave and I redoubled our efforts ringing the changes to get an idea of what would and wouldn't work. At times the drizzle seemed to be falling horizontally instead of vertically, but we ploughed on for the good of the team, putting together bags including Tench, Skimmers, Carp and Barbel until about 3·30pm when Daves joints decided they had had enough of the cold and wet.

As a taster these are a few pics of some of the stock in Nicks.........

GHOSTIES.....

KOI.....

BARBEL.....

All in all a worthwhile day,with some methods sorted and filed away for use on the day, and the promise of more to come before the big day.

Well MrsM told me that she would be working today,so i decided that I'd grab the chance to pop down to Elphicks and have a session on Sandwich Lake and see if i could get a few species for the Maggotdrowning.com Fishing Race .

I arrived at the lake at about 9am and although it was dull and overcast it felt quite mild. I have to say that i was happy to see pegs 10 & 11 were empty and plumped for peg 11 as it allows you to fish 11mtrs to the overflow stack which is the only real feature on the whole lake apart from 1 small island.

PEG11....

I know this swim pretty well, so the set up was pretty simple, Just the 1 top kit with white hydro with the rig consisting of a Drennan Lake carrying 3 no6's and a no10 and a size 20 PR24 all mounted on 0·12 Silk Shock Ultegra to fish at dead depth (about 4½ft).
Bait was to be 6mm expanda's with micro Halibut pellets for feed. I also had some sweetcorn for a change bait.

3 good pouches of pellet and about a dozen expanda's set the table, and 1st put in the float buried and a Bream of about 2½lb was safely banked.

1st Bream....

By the time that Vince arrived at about 10·30am I'd managed about a dozen Bream,a small Common Carp and 4 Tench one of which was the reason for me choosing Elphicks for the days fishing.

A Golden Tench....

A lovely looking fish, not huge at just over a couple of pounds, but very welcome all the same.

Vince set up on peg 12 to my left eager to christen his new pole, as i found a few nice Roach that took a fancy to the expanda's.
It was easy fishing for me, just a question of loose feeding a pouchfull of micros after every fish. The Roach eventually vanished but not before i'd managed to get about a dozen of them, with the largest weighing 1¼lbs.

Largest Roach....

The dissapearance of the Roach however, only meant that the Tench and Bream had returned.......... Well they had for me, Vince was having one of those nightmare sessions where no matter what he tried all he could do was watch me land fish after fish and pray that his own float would finally vanish.

A typical peg 11 Tench....

Vince finally got a Bream, but i'm afraid this only proved to be a stray that had somehow mistaken peg 12 for peg 11.
Meanwhile Mr Pheasant had come down to have a feed on my redundant sweetcorn...................................

The only real fly in the ointment was the fact that as the day progressed it was getting colder and colder.
Still the regular pouches of micros kept the fish coming for me, among them 1 small Mirror and and a Crucian Carp

By 3·30 however even my fish were reluctant to feed as it had got colder still, and poor Vince despite trying some of my corn and expanda's and different rigs couldn't buy a decent bite, so we decided to call it a day.
I finished up with 25 Bream to 4lbs, 11 Tench to 3lbs including 1 Goldie, a dozen Roach to 1¼lbs and a Common, a Mirror and a Crucian Carp.
As we were pulling out of the car park Vince told me "Your boys (CHELSEA) are losing 2-1 to Wolves" with a large grin on his face.
Well by the time I got home the final score was CHELSEA 5-2 WOLVES
Kind of sums up mine and Vince's day.

Well this weekend saw me spending a good part of my time at Hartleylands Fishery................

Marsh AC club match.

Saturday was at the invitation of Dave (Dave the Fish), His club Marsh AC had booked the Reservoir for one of their club matches and as all the pegs weren't taken, Steve (beebs) Jason (NofinPhish) and Myself recieved an invitation to join them.
Assembling in the Carpark for an 8.30am draw, it was nice to meet John (tutu) and Colin who had accompanied Dave to the Welsh Fish-in. Also present, though in a working capacity was Vince (vg1037) the Bailiff at Hartleylands.

I drew in the high 30's and arrived at my swim to find the wind blowing in my face and the only shady peg on the whole fishery, so while others sat around in tee shirts & shorts, I was in a bib & brace and a fleece (M/D's of course )
I started on the poleline at about 10mtrs fishing pellet and managed to winkle out 6 skimmers and a small carp before the wind made presentation too awkward. Had I not been a guest I would have gone straight onto the method feeder as this is a banker for a few Carp, but sitting in my carryall was a ball of paste.
Now paste fishing is not one of my strengths, but having read a few of Malc's exploits, it's a bait I'm determined to get to grips with, so it was out with the margin pole, tie up a couple of rigs and lets have a go.

Paste in the margin.......

Well lets just say that it was fun , trying to condition myself not to strike every dip and tremor of the float, and towards the end of the afternoon having tried endless variations of rigs I felt as if i was coming to terms with it and a few decent fish had ended up in the net .

4pm and time for the weigh in and with Vince in charge we worked our way around.
Dave had set the pace with a 40lb bag, with everyone having caught a few.

Nice one for Dave........

Colin put just over 51lbs on the scales, all caught on the Method, which was to prove the winning weight. Steve had contented himself with using the day to practice his silver fish approach in readiness for the intersite match in a couple of weeks, and definatley caught more fish than anyone for a bag in the teens.

The Weigh-in......

Jason proved to be the dark horse, in what he professed to be his first ever fishing match, and duly put 49lbs on the scales for 2nd place. Well done Jason (I may have to rethink the team ).
Last but one to weigh was me and I was pleasantly surprised to see the needle creep round to 47lbs, nearly all paste caught .

So thanks to Dave and the lads of Marsh AC for a very pleasant day as their guest, I hope you enjoyed yourselves, I certainly did.

Hawthorne AC club match.

So Sunday morning and i'm in the Carpark again, this time for a Hawthorne AC match on Nicks Lake. Nicks is one of 3 new lakes that have just been opened at Hartleylands and was only stocked with fingerling Carp last November, but already these fish weigh around 6ozs.

A low turnout of only 15 anglers meant that we only put the even pegs in the draw to give everyone a bit of room, and peg 10 was mine, It was flat calm as we set up but as soon as the whistle blew so did the wind.

Peg 10..........

Now Vince had warned me that the fish tend to follow the wind, so you can imagine my joy to find the wind blowing from behind me and blowing my fish away.
I wish I could say that I fished a blinder, but I wasted far too much time on a pellet line scratching for bites. I finally started to get a few at 12mtrs to maggot, but it was to little to late. I managed to put 15lbs 6ozs on the scales for 6th, but only 17lbs was needed for 2nd. At least I got another 3 points for the fishing race, having caught a few small Ghosties.

Mint little Ghostie....

Mike Vincent ran away with it, with 28lbs 4ozs for 1st. Everyone caught though and in a couple of seasons time this is going to be an awesome match venue.

So that was my weekend, 1 fishery but two very different lakes,and mixed fortunes .