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Jinx Series

Jinx match 4 Stockton Reservoir

This round is at Stockton and any other time I would be really looking forward to fishing here as I've never fished it before and everyone raves about the place and the hard fighting monster Carp that lurk around the platforms waiting to destroy your state of the art equipment

But the way things are fishing this year I don't hold out much hope for a net full from Stockton today

I had a nice steady drive down and arrived in plenty of time to pop into the Blue Lias Inn for a shandy before the draw unfortunately the pub wasn't open so instead I had a walk around the reservoir and had a look at the pegs for todays match

Once back in the car park the other Jinxers started to arrive and after another look at the pegs we set off for the pub and eventually the doors opened and we got our pre draw drinks

After a bit of chatting and catching up over a pint with the other Jinx members sat in the sunshine by the canal it was time for the draw

I drew peg 54 it didn't really mean much to me but I knew it wasn't peg 47 or 48 which were the ones I had my heart set on

Still I set off to my peg

As you can see peg 54 is in open water and the nearest island is a bus ride away!

My plan for today was quite simple 2 margin swims

One to the left

And the other to the right

Both fished tight in to the reeds

And another swim at 6m straight out in front

And if all those fail I plan to chuck a feeder out just past the duck (just hope he don't move )

At the all in I put a pot of pellets in each swim and 2 balls of ground bait out at 6m and then started on the 6m line with a 6mm soft hooker pellet and for the first hour I tried pellet, corn and meat and all met with the same response zilch!

Simon to my left was trying the feeder with no luck as was Dai to my right so I stuck with the pole line and tried paste at 6m and after about 10 Min's the float slid under and I struck into a heavy fish which woke up and tore off with my red hydro in quick pursuit just as I started to ship it back in the hydro snapped back into the pole and all I was left with was a rather large scale hanging on the hook

But still it was a fish so I went straight back out with another lump of paste but for the next hour I had no more indications let alone bites

I decided to chuck the feeder out and see if I could mug a fish as rumour had it that Gem had a couple of fish in the net and a "Minxing" was on the cards

So out went an open ended feeder full of ground bait and corn with 3 grains of corn hair rigged on the hook After about 4 top ups with the feeder I was just reaching for the flask to have a coffee when the rod bent double in the rest and at long last I was attached to a Carp not wanting to loose it I gingerly played it out and eventually slid the net under a nice mirror of about 8lb I stayed on the feeder in the hope of more bites but they were not forthcoming with the exception of 1 drop back that I missed

Dai on the peg to my right managed to hook a decent Carp on the feeder and after a decent fight lost it right at the net and that unfortunately was his only bite of the day Simple on the peg to my left never had a touch all day (well he had a visit from Gemma so who knows ) but certainly no bites

So in the last hour I tried the margin swims but all match there had been no signs of fish in the margins and they both lived up to my expectations with no bites coming from either swim

With 10 Min's to go I managed to foul hook and loose another fish on paste at 6m again then on the next put in another then on the next put in the float just sat still and waited for the whistle and that was the end of my first visit to Stockton

When the scales arrived my fish weighed 7lb 8oz a bit less than I thought but enough to avoid a minxing

In fact the fishing was very poor with almost 1/2 the field under 10lb but with usual Jinx high spirits everyone was upbeat and made the most of it even poor Peter who ended up with a foul hooked Perch for 4oz and once again became an entrant in the "minxed" list

The match was won by Matt with a fine 48lb

Result

1st..Matt Nutt.........48lbs 00ozs
2nd..Roy Ravenhill...41lbs 08ozs
3rd..Paul Roberts.....28lbs 00ozs
4th..Gary Thorpe......26lbs 00ozs
5th..Nick Jones........24lbs 08ozs
6th..Brian Bevan......23lbs 12ozs
7th..Dirk Williams....23lbs 00ozs
8th..Fred Parker.......21lbs 12ozs
9th..Ant Haywood....17lbs 08ozs
10th..Nick Williams..16lbs 12ozs
11th..Eric Robathan..15lbs 04ozs
12th=Steve Wilson...15lbs 00ozs
12th=Dave Collier....15lbs 00ozs
12th=Jimmy L..........15lbs 00ozs
15th=Mark Causer....10lbs 00ozs
15th=Keith Ashby....10lbs 00ozs
17th..Kevin Lake.......9lbs 12ozs
18th..Malc Doyle.......8lbs 04ozs
19th..Tim W.............8lbs 00ozs
20th=Dave Moore......7lbs 08ozs
20th=Clive Pritchard..7lbs 08ozs
22nd..Dave Ashby.....7lbs 00ozs
23rd..Gemma Doyle...6lbs 04ozs
24th..Geoff Eggison...1lbs 08ozs
25th..Nick Watkins-Price...12ozs
26th= Peter Morton..........04ozs
26th=Colin Sharrard.........04ozs
28th=Mark Lake..............DNW
28th=Dai Thomas...........DNW
28th=Simon Mound.........DNW

All in all not a bad day out it was nice and sunny with good company the fishing was a bit patchy but I'd certainly give Stockton another try as it looks like a fantastic place just didn't produce the goods today

Last match in the series is back at Rolfs in a few weeks :)

Willow Park

Today is the 2007 Southern Intersite match being fished at Willow Park Ash Vale Aldershot

The intersite series is being contested by 4 sites this year

Maggotdrowners

Talk Angling

Total Fishing (good weather permitting)

Angling Forums

Maggotdrowners have 3 standing team rules for Intersite matches

1. A contestant must never knowingly fish competitively

2. winning is not an option

3. you must have fun and enjoy the day

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I had a nice steady drive down to Willow Park and arrived in time for breakfast and met up with the rest of the Maggotdrowning team

Dai had A bit of car trouble so was unable to make it down to Willow but luckily Vince found a stand-in to take his place

The team captains made the draw and I got peg 15 on Middle lake not too bad a peg and I was quite pleased as I have pleasure fished peg 15 a few times in the past and so headed off to set up looking forward to the match

Peg 15 is a corner peg with a large platform and a tree in the water to the left of the platform

And a culvert and a bay to the right of the platform

Looks real good eh ?

I was looking forward to it as although its probably a year since I last fished it I always had a good day on peg 15 with skimmers and F1's a chuck until the Carp turned up and pushed them out then it was a Carp a chuck with some real lumps and a few decent Tench coming from under the tree later on

So with that in mind I set up 3 main lines

1 straight out in front at 8m where I hope to catch skimmers and F1's

1 tight into the tree to my left where I hoped to catch Carp and Tench

And a margin swim tight into the reeds in the bay to my right

I also plumbed up a swim by the culvert just in case it was hard going

Well that was it I was all set up and ready for the off the sun was shining I had a decent looking peg that I had fished before and caught well from it was only a short walk from the car park and I was set up with time to walk along to the cafe for a cold drink what could possibly go wrong ?
As soon as the all in was sounded I found out what could go wrong there are no fish in Middle lake any more!
I shipped out a pot of pellets to the 8m line and a bit of corn and hemp into the margin swim and a few pellets and hemp under the tree
Usually when you put a pot of pellets in middle lake within a few min's the swim is fizzing and its not long before you are attached to a flying skimmer that thinks its a Trout but I had no fizzing in fact no signs of any fish and even worse no movement on the float
I tried pellet ,paste ,corn and meat and had no joy on any of them after almost an hour I caught a small Roach well I say caught it I think the pellet hit it on the head as it dropped down and in a semi conscious state it threw it's self on the hook then on the next put in the other fish that lives in that corner of the lake feeling lonely snuffled my pellet in a bid to stay with it's mate and had 2 fish in the net 1 little Roach and a small mirror Carp
And that was it I spent the next 4 hours trying everything everywhere to get a bite but all in vain
At last the hooter sounded and it was over
The day wasn't totally wasted as I did manage to catch a bit of sun but unfortunately I couldn't weigh that in
When the scales arrived the 2 fish weighed 14oz and for a while I was leading the section as the guy on peg 14 had only weighed 6oz then the guy on peg 16 stormed into the lead with 2lb odd and peg 17 took the section with 16lb most of which was 1 fish in fact the top weight on middle lake was only 18lb and when you consider Big lake was won with 90lb and small lake with 80lb makes you think something bad has happened to Middle lake
Once the gear was away and I got back to the cafe reports started coming in and it looked like Team Maggotdrowning had retained last position so at least Dave would be proud of us
Peter almost made a slip up by landing a 17lb Carp on big lake and was looking like taking the section with 24lb odd but luckily for him the next peg saved his embarrassment by weighing in 29lb and taking the section
But at least even though the fishing wasn't too good we did have a good laugh
but hopefully next year the match will be moved some where with a few more fish


Official Team Result

Angling Forums 30 Pts
Total Fishing 28 Pts
Talk Angling 23 Pts
Maggot Drowners 19 Pts

Maggotdrowners Pairs

This weekend is the Maggotdrowners Pairs match at Rolfs in Oxfordshire

The match is fished over 2 days with a 5 hour match each day and a points total for both anglers from both matches deciding the eventual winners

There were fears that with the terrible weather we have had over the last week or so that the match would be cancelled and when we heard that Total Fishing had cancelled their match on the Friday before ours quick calls were made to John Bennett to find out the situation and he assured us that the lake would be fishable and come on down

Once again Maggotdrowners lead the way where others fear to tread

Upon arriving at Rolfs I was pleased to see that the lake looked fantastic although the water was over the platforms by about a foot John Bennett and John Walker had done a fantastic job keeping the levels down and had even found time to install 3 temporary pegs on 16,17 and 18 to ensure we had plenty of pegs as we had 30 fishing Saturday and 2 special guests arriving to fish on Sunday so a big thank you to the 2 Johns

By the time I arrived most of the Md's were busy putting bivvies up and sorting out gear as we are staying on the site over nite

I drove my bivvie to the site so all I need to do is clear some space in the back of the van and I'm sorted

The first draw of the day was for pairs partners and I was drawn with Ady aka bigladwigan

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I don't know what he was thinking about with the hat but he's a nice enough chap

The next draw was for pegs and I had a great result as I pulled out peg 4 not a flyer but a peg that I like fishing

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As you can see the water is well up I'm just glad I took my platform with me so I could get out in the water to the end of the platform

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Only problem I can see is going to be getting on and off with all the fish I will be weighing but thats a small price to pay

My plan of attack today is going to be the same as the last time i fished peg 4

I'm going to fish pellet at 7m straight in front

And meat/corn tight under the bush to my right on a top 2

Last time I fished peg 4 I had some real lumps from under the bush late on in the match so I was hoping for a repeat this time I also set up a paste rig to fish under the bush too just in case they were having it

On the all in I put 2 pots of pellets at 7m and 2 pots under the bush to my right

then went out on the 7m line with a 6mm GOT catmeat flavour soft hooker pellet on a size 16 B911 hook

The fishing was a bit slow in the first hour I only managed a few skimmers and I managed to bump a decent fish off as I missed the bite while I was watching Dave Moore playing a fish on the opposite bank in fact all the people opposite me had had a few Tony on 38 had lost a lot of fish but had some on the board Geoff had a few in the net as did Dave Moore on 36 and Pete "Mugger" Morton on the flyer peg 34

But at least the skimmers had disappeared and there were Carp about in my swim so it was only a matter of time

And sure enough on the next put in my float buried and I was into 1 of Rolfs babies after a quick fight I slid the net under a nice 7lb common I had another 2 fish in quick succession both net fish then all of a sudden the skimmers were back so I put a couple of pots of pellet in and had a try under the bush to my right with a cube of meat

After a bit of jiggling and ducking and diving the float slid under and I struck into a fish which tore off with my hydro in quick pursuit but from the moment I hit it I knew it was foul hooked and sure enough as soon as I put some pressure on it the hook pulled in fact during the match I must have hooked and lost about 15 fish from under the bush all foul hookers except 1 which took a large lump of paste and as I struck it tore off round the bush towards peg 3 and bottomed out the hydro and snapped my 0.20mm line as though it was Cotton

So I concentrated on the 7m line which in the last hour came to life and I was soon making regular trips to the scales to weigh fish and I also managed a few more for the net

Looking on the board I had about 60lb and reckoned I had about 30lb ish in the net and Gemma had 98lb on the board from peg 8 but that was it really

Chin on peg 7 had 2 weighers and was admitting to a few in the net but not enough to beat Gem so it looked like being close

When the scales arrived at my peg I weighed 91lb 4oz Chin weighed 108lb 8oz and Gemma had 98lb

The rest of the lake fished very hard by Rolfs standards so we took the top 3 places for day 1

Ady my partner had 36lb 12oz from peg 9 which I think left us in 3rd place over night

Individual Results - Saturday

1. Chin..............108-8
2. Jammy1...........98-0
3. Clive...............91-4
4. Dirk................84-12
5. TommyTurtle.....84-8
6. Gazmalman......80-12
7. Looney.............77-12
8. AlexM ..............77-12
9. Peter ...............73-4
10. Simple Simon.....57-8
11. Dave Moore........57-0
12. Antwood.............45-8
13. SpamWham.........45-0
14. Dave the Fish......44-8
15. Nomorelongwalks.42-8
16. Geoff P...............40-12
17. Teepee...............37-8
18. BigLadWigan.......36 12
19. Daifish...............30-4
20. WilyCoyote.........29-12
21. Cybermanc..........29-12
22. Steve Wilson.......27-8
23. TommoDeisel......23-0
24. Vg1037..............17-0
25. Colin the Pike.....15-8
26. Malc..................15-0
27. Me....................11-4
28. SteveB................8-4
29. Dave..................6-8
30. Rockyroads.........1-0

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Once all the gear was put away it was time to crank the barbie up and crack a few beers open

All the new members of the "Minxed Club" were welcomed into the club and today Gemma made a new record by adding/re-adding 28 names to the list of shame only Chin managed to escape a minxing

Chin may be ok at knocking a few fish out but he hasn't mastered a medium steak yet!

As luck would have it Gaz Malman was down to fish the match and had brought a selection of floats with him to sell so I was able to add to my ever growing collection of hand made "Thicko's"

Talking of Gaz Malman he made 3 big mistakes on day 1 of the 2007 Pairs match

First

He slipped off his platform while setting up before the match started and fell in the lake

Second

He didn't make sure Pete Morton was nowhere in sight before he got changed

Class photo Peter

Third

During the match he was getting up with a 10lb+ fish to go to the scales when he slipped back into the lake again and lost the fish

Just not your day Gaz

During the match Rolf turned up and had a walk round with John Bennett and John Walker and had a chat with people and he also stayed for the barbecue and had a bite to eat and enjoyed a nice bit of steak Dave cooked for him

After the food was finished it was time for a few beers and some good light hearted banter mostly at the expense of Simon (Me) but it was a good evening and I haven't laughed so much for ages

Day 2 started with a spot of breakfast

Then as we had a bit of time to wait until the draw we gave the 2 Johns a hand with a bit of peg maintenance (when I say we I really mean Malc the rest of us just watched really)

After all his help John let him have a little play in the boat

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After collecting a few of the floats that were bobbing about in the lake John put him back to work cutting back the branches on peg 22

At last draw time arrived along with the 2 guests for the day who were Keith Arthur fresh from his morning radio show and Pete Archer from Vespe

The worst pair from Saturdays match were split up and paired up with 1 of the guests in the hope of improving their place in the final rankings

At the draw bag I managed to draw peg 16 out not really what I was hoping for as yesterday from 15 right through to 20 fished very hard with few fish showing but you never know with all the feed going in yesterday it might spur the fish on a bit

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Dai was next to me on peg 15 and he had fished peg 16 yesterday and said he had struggled for 30lb so he wasn't looking forward to it too much today

My plan is to fish at 7m straight in front

And I have also plumbed up a swim under the bush in my left margin

And to complete my master plan I have set up a shallow rig and also a feeder rod but I suspect if I get any fish they will come from the 7m line so thats where I shall be concentrating my efforts

On the all in I shipped 2 pots of pellets out to 7m and 2 under the bush to my left then I went out on the 7m line with a GOT 6mm Red Liver flavour soft hooker pellet on a size 16 B911

Everyone else up this end of the lake appeared to going with the feeder which was a bit worrying especially when they all started to catch a few fish but I stuck with my plan and continued to feed pellets on my 7m line in the hope of drawing a few fish in

After about 45 Min's my float buried and I was into a Carp and soon had a nice common of around 5lb in the net although there was a long wait between fish I was starting to get a few fish now and after an hour and a half I had 1 on the board and 5 in the net

I gave the feeder a quick try but had no joy and also the margin swim showed no signs of life to I stuck with the 7m line and after missing a bite on the next put in my float shot away and I was into a decent fish that felt heavy and after a battle that seemed to go on for ever I slipped the net under a lovely 16lb common Carp

By now Malc was making regular visits to the scales from peg 13 and it looked like he was bagging up but my peg just switched off no bites and no signs of any fish

DaiFish on 15 was struggling to find any fish and Tommodiesel on peg 17 and AlexM on 18 were both struggling

Opposite me on peg 24 I could see Gemma

But after her fantastic day yesterday beating almost everyone today she was struggling and had only had a couple of fish in the first hour then nothing since

I continued to struggle to find any fish trying meat ,corn and pellet and even another go on the feeder but to no avail

Eventually with 15 Min's to go I managed to get 1 more fish on red liver pellet at 7m but that was it the 5 hours were up and I reckoned I had about 60lb which was better than most around me with the exception of Malc who had 120lb on the board and 4 or 5 fish in the net

After putting my gear away I went off round to help with the weigh in and it seemed to have fished a bit better than yesterday with 6 weights over the ton led by Malc with a fine match win from peg 13 with 143lb but on the whole the lake did not fish well yet again

I managed to weigh in 59lb 8oz but lost out on the section to Keith Arthur on peg 20 with 88lb 12oz

My pairs partner Ady (Bigladwigan) had a respectable 44lb 12oz from peg 32 but all the leading pairs from yesterday had caught well today so I doubt we will be troubling the frame this year

Individual Results - Sunday

1. Malc.....................143-0
2. SpamWham...........136-0
3. SteveB..................121-4
4. Dirk.......................114-8
5. Nomorelongwalks.....111-14
6. Chin.......................105-12
7. Peter........................91-0
8. Keith Arthur...............88-12
9. Cybermanc.................87-8
10. Vg1037......................75.12
11. TommyTurtle...............65-12
12. Me.............................60-4
13. Clive..........................59-8
14. Simple Simon...............58-4
15. Steve Wilson...............54-0
16. Antwood.....................50-12
17. Teepee.......................49-4
18. Geoff P.......................48-8
19. BigLadWigan...............44-12
20. Dave..........................44-0
21. Looney.......................32-12
22. TommoDeisel..............26-8
23. AlexM.........................25-4
24. Pete Archer..................25-0
25. Gazmalman.................24-4
26. Jammy1......................24-4
27. Dave Moore.................23-0
28. Daifish........................22-8
29. Dave the Fish .............17-12
30. WilyCoyote..................10-8
31. Rockyroads..................13-8
32. Colin the Pike..............DNW

At last the results were announced and the Maggotdrowning 2007 Pairs Champions were Peter and Spamwham (Tony)

Who received their trophy's from Keith Arthur

Ady and I came 4th over all and had a prize each donated by Pete Archer of some Vespe gear

And I had a pick up for coming 3rd in the match on Saturday so all in all a good weekend

Results Pairs Total Points

1) Peter / SpamWham.. 52

2) Chin / Vg1037.. 46

3) Simple Simon / TommyTurtle.. 44

4) Clive / BigLadWigan.. 41

5) Malc / Looney.. 39

5) Dirk / Daifish.. 39

6) Antwood / Nomorelongwalks.. 38

7) Gazmalman / Jammy1.. 35

8) AlexM / Geoff P.. 33

9) Teepee / SteveB.. 29

10) Cybermanc / TommoDeisel.. 28

11) Keith Arthur / Me.. 26

12) Dave / Dave the Fish.. 20

13) Steve Wilson / Pete Archer.. 18

14) Dave Moore / Rockyroads.. 13

15) Colin the Pike / WilyCoyote.. 11

Dave the fish had a bit of a result today as he was blanking from peg 38 for most of the match when his float shot under and he played and managed to land the biggest fish of the day a common of 17lb 12oz and to his amazement it had a complete rig with elastic attached to it and it turned out to be the fish that had snapped Keith Arthur up 15 Min's before at the other end of the lake

Well thats it for the Pairs Championships for this year a fantastic weekend as usual with great people and great banter can't wait for next year

Jinx Series

Jinx Series Match 3 Gils lake Holly Farm



Well I had been looking forward to this match for ages
I had a nice simple drive up (stopped for breakfast on the way just in case) weather was looking good the draw was on time and I pulled out peg 14 which looked to be an ok peg


So what could go wrong ?







I decided on 3 lines of attack today


The first swim at 6m in front








Next at 11.5m tight to the reeds





And the last tight into the margin to my left

On the whistle I fed all 3 swims with pellets and started off on the 6m line with pellet on the deck and that was it for the next 5 hours not a single bite no indication naf all
I tried pellet on the deck, up in the water, at 6m at 11.5m in the margin every where but no joy
Corn and meat had the same result as did paste the only time my float moved was when I brought it in to try something else
TBH I would have had a better day fishing in the net dip at Rolfs than I did here today
In contrast Ant on the peg to my left caught fish all day on caster as did Brian to my right who was by the look of it using cat meat
Thankfully Malc blew the whistle and put me out of my misery and that was it my first DNW in the Jinx Series
All I can think is I must have gotten too close to Malc at the draw and got zapped by the Jinx
Or maybe I should have taken some casters as they seemed to be the bait today and most people that caught fish either fished them on the hook or fed them
Still never mind there's always next time

Full Result

1st…… Nick Williams……………………... 52lb 5oz……..…. Peg 29

2nd….…Simon Mound (guest)………… 43lb 15oz…..….. Peg 21

3rd…… Antony Haywood………………… 41lb 5oz…..…… Peg 15

4th…… Roy Ravenhill……………………… 37lb 5oz..……… Peg 3

5th... Dave Moore........................ 28lb 12oz...... Peg 26

6th…… Matt Nutt…………………………… 24lb 3oz……..… Peg 19

7th…… Eric Robathan……………………… 23lb 14oz……… Peg 1

8th…… Brian Bevan………………………… 15lb 13oz……… Peg 12

9th…… Paul Roberts……………………….. 12lb 15oz………. Peg 17

10th…… Mark Causer……………………….. 11lb 9oz……….. Peg 2

11th….. Nick Jones………………………….. 10lb 7oz……….. Peg 23

12th….. Keith Ashby………………………… 8lb 9oz………… Peg 22

13th….. Malc Doyle…………………………. 6lb 12oz………. Peg 20

14th….. Peter Morton……………………… 6lb 6oz……….. Peg 7

15th….. Kev Lake…………………………… 5lb 10oz……….. Peg 24

16th….. Mark Lake…………………………. 4lb 2oz…..…….Peg 10

16th….. Geoff Eggison……………………. 4lb 2oz……….. Peg 6

18th….. Steve Wilson……………………… 3lb 15oz…….. Peg 18

19th….. Dave Ashby………………………… 1lb 12oz………. Peg 5

20th….. Gemma Doyle……………………….. 4oz…………… Peg 30

21st….. Simon Rowley……………………….. 1oz…………… Peg 16

Nick- Watkins-Price………………………… DNW…………Peg 8

Clive Pritchard……………………………… DNW…………. Peg 14

Still if nothing else it was nice to meet up with the Jinxers again even thought the fishing was pants

Jinx Series

Second round of the Jinx series today sees us at Tunnel Barn Farm fishing Top Pool

Another new venue for me and another I am looking forward to

The only downside is going to be the weather as it's forecast to pour with rain all day and as I left home it looked like being right for once as it was hammering down and showing no signs of stopping

I have to say it's not the easiest of places to find but after a few wrong turns I pulled into Tunnel Barn parked up and made my way into the cafe to sample a hearty fry up

Unfortunately they stop serving at 9.30 and I had arrived at 11.00 ready for a 12 noon draw ( who regrets driving past the little chef at Oxford now! )

unable to get any thing to eat I headed into the shop and brought a bag of pellets I actually tried to buy 2 bags but they insisted on only selling me 1 as they insisted that any more would kill the swim so after a quick run down on how to fish Top Pool and a bit of confusion over a £20 note (which I'm still sure I gave him ) I set off for Top Pool with a bag of fishery pellets and a de-canned bag of corn

On the way out I met Ant who was on his way in to get some bait after a quick chat I was in the van and off to Top Pool car park for the draw only problem was there aren't many signs and with huge banks of earth everywhere it's impossible to see where you are

So I ended up following a track round a lake that all of a sudden stopped in what looked like a field I stopped to ask the guy setting up on the corner peg if he knew where Top Pool was but like me he had no idea where he was let alone Top Pool

Then Ant pulled up behind me lost too he made a quick phone call to Simon and we were soon out of the track and on our way to the right car park

The other Jinxers soon started to roll up and even Malc was on time and soon had the lake pegged pools money collected and the draw under way

I drew peg 20 not sure what the permanent peg number is but in the picture above its 2 pegs down from the car park with the white car in opposite the left hand end of the island

Most of the pegs along this bank seem to be 4 or 5 meters out into the lake but poor old Geoff on the next peg drew 1 of the few that weren't and had to take a back seat

When I arrived at the peg I saw fish moving at the end of the platform and decided to just fish a top 2 out in front

And as a back up I plumbed up a margin swim to the left of the platform also on a top 2

For bait today I have decided to go with GOT 6mm cat meat flavor soft hookers as my main attack with corn and meat for backup and a bag of fishery pellets for feed I also have a jar of frenzied hemp as that seems to work well with the cat meat pellet

Rigs today are same as usual a Malman 4x14 Thicko on Silstar 0.14mm straight through to a B911 16 hook for pellet with an identical rig with a size 14 hook for corn and meat with a shallower version for the margin

I went with black hydro elastic but slackened it right off as my insider info from the shop suggested F1's would be the main target with the chance of a decent Carp thrown in

On the all in I put a pot of pellets out in front and another in the margin then went out in front at 3m with a pellet fished on the deck. Geoff on the next peg started on the method feeder tight over to the island and had a couple of small Carp straight away and I could see Steve Wilson catching silvers from the off but I was beginning to think I had killed my peg with the pot of pellets as I hadn't had any movement on the float at all when all of a sudden the hydro shot out and I was into a fish not a monster much to Malc's amusement as it was only an 8oz mirror but it ripped so much slack hydro out Malc assumed it was a decent fish and quietly expressed his surprise when he saw the size of it

I started to feed hemp instead of pellets and was soon getting regular fish between 8oz and 1lb I struck into 1 fish which nearly ripped my arm off as it tore off down the lake and as the hook pulled all I was left with was a scale that any fish at Rolfs would have been proud to own

When the bites got slower I swapped to corn and managed to temp a few better size fish knocking the 2lb mark but on the corn it seemed to be a lot longer waits between fish and meat although produced a few F1's wasn't as productive as the pellet

The rain continued to hammer down all day with just a few brighter spells later on and looking round the bit of the lake I could see most people were huddled under brollies and all seemed to be catching the odd fish

I gave the margin a try a couple of times but with the exception of 1 bite I missed not much was happening there so I went back out in front and fished the pellet on the deck

Malc wandered round the lake having a chat and trying to spread as much bad luck as he could he said that Keith ,Paul and simple were catching well in the other bit of the lake and I could see that Ant was catching a fair few as was Mark C in the corner

After a few heavy downpours the bites dried up a bit and I had to chop and change to try and find a few fish and mainly managed to get a few small skimmers and 1 decent one pushing 2lb

Then into the last 30 Min's the fish came back and I had a good run of small Carp right up to the whistle

Although the best fish I had all day was probably only about 2lb I had caught fish all day it hadn't been manic or a fish a chuck but I guesstimated that I had getting on for 50lb ish

I put all my gear away in the van and wandered round to watch the weigh in as I approached the group by Malc's peg a huge cheer went up as the scales confirmed Malc's entry into the "Minxed Club" as Gemma beat him by 2lb

When we arrived at my peg I was a bit out with the guesstimate as I only managed to weigh 43lb but it was enough for second in section and a pick up for once

Ant won the section with 64lb 8oz

And Keith won the match with a fine 85lb 4oz

Full Results

1st…… Keith Ashby……………….… 85lb 4oz

2nd…… Antony Haywood…….…….. 64lb 8oz

3rd…… Simon Mound (Guest)…….… 62lb 4oz

4th…… Mark Causer………………… 55lb 4oz

5th…… Eric Robathan………………. 54lb

6th…… Paul Roberts………………… 48lb 8oz

7th…… Dave Moore………………… 46lb 2oz

8th…… Clive Pritchard………………. 43lb

9th…… Colin Sharrard………………. 37lb 8oz

10th….. Dave Collier………………… 35lb 3oz

11th….. Steve Wilson………………... 32lb 8oz

12th….. Dai Thomas…………………. 29lb 2oz

13th….. Nick Jones………………..… 27lb 4oz

14th….. Roy Ravenhill……………….. 27lb

15th….. Geoff Eggison……………….. 24lb

16th….. Nick-Watkins-Price………….. 21lb

17th….. Simon Rowley……………….. 19lb 2oz

18th….. Kev Lake…………………….. 18lb 10oz

19th….. Gemma Doyle……………….. 14lb 8oz

20th….. Malc Doyle………………….. 12lb

20th….. Tim Westmoreland (Guest)…. 12lb

20th….. Mitch Auger (Guest)..….…… 12lb

23rd….. Mark Lake……………………. 11lb 3oz

Total weight on the day……. 791lb 14oz

SECTION A

1st…….. Keith Ashby……………….… 85lb 4oz

2nd……. Paul Roberts………………… 48lb 8oz

3rd……. Dave Moore………………… 46lb 2oz

4th……. Nick Jones………………..… 27lb 4oz

5th……. Gemma Doyle……………….. 14lb 8oz

Section Total Weight………………….. 221lb 10oz

SECTION B

1st…….. Eric Robathan………………. 54lb

2nd……. Roy Ravenhill……………….. 27lb

3rd….…. Malc Doyle…………………… 12lb

3rd….… Tim Westmoreland (Guest)…... 12lb

5th……. Mark Lake……………………. 11lb 3oz

Section Weight Total…………………… 116lb 3oz

SECTION C

1st……… Mark Causer…………………. 55lb 4oz

2nd…….. Nick-Watkins-Price………….. 21lb

3rd……… Simon Rowley……………….. 19lb 2oz

4th……… Mitch Auger (Guest)..….…… 12lb

Section Weight Total…………………… 107lb 6oz

SECTION D

1st…….. Antony Haywood…….…….. 64lb 8oz

2nd……. Clive Pritchard………………. 43lb

3rd…….. Dave Collier………………… 35lb 3oz

4th…….. Geoff Eggison……………….. 24lb

5th……. Kev Lake…………………….. 18lb 10oz

Section Weight Total.………………… 185lb 5oz

SECTION E

1st……… Simon Mound (Guest)…….… 62lb 4oz

2nd……… Colin Sharrard………………. 37lb 8oz

3rd……… Steve Wilson………………... 32lb 8oz

4th……… Dai Thomas…………………. 29lb 2oz

Section Weight Total…………………… 161lb 6oz

Due to the damp miserable conditions most people didn't hang around for long and headed off homeward bound

But all in all it was another nice days fishing in good company looking forward to the next round at Holly Farm

Larford Lakes

Maggotdrowning Individual Championships 2007

I have been looking forward to the championships this year after the nightmare I had at Lemmington last year

Ever since I brought a Maver pole and got the free DVD of Larford I have wanted to come and fish the lakes and at last I had the chance

The match is being fished on the specimen lake and we have the whole lake booked and with only 50 fishing we should have plenty of room

I set off from home at 6.30 and had a nice steady drive up to Stourport and I pulled into the car park at Larford at just gone 8.30

Even though I was early as the draw was not until 9.30 the car park was already full and with matches on the other 2 lakes as well the place was heaving

I parked up and headed off towards the cafe to get some breakie

I spotted Dave and Colin and popped over to say hello then I noticed my personal float maker Gaz Malman with his brother Alex busy knocking up 4 large Sensas buckets of ground bait (looks like the Malman boys are taking this match serious) after a quick chat with Gaz I was off inside to get something to eat

People were arriving thick and fast now and it was like a who's who of Maggotdrowners with plenty I have met before and a few new ones after a bit of chat and banter the draw took place

I managed to draw peg 23 on the Burr bank and not too far to walk

The peg was between 2 bushes so I couldn't see anyone else on my bank and with my poor eye sight the people on the far bank were a blur

But I couldn't mistake 2 of the people opposite me as Malc arrived and introduced himself to everyone within 5 miles of him and Gaz Malman struck up a conversation with a family member living in the next county

On the peg to my right I had Muskie for company and to the left Mangojack

The draw must have taken a long time or the walk to my peg must have took longer than I thought because I was only half set up when the whistle blew to start the match

I had decided to fish on the deck at 8m straight in front and a margin swim by the bush to my right and I also set up a feeder

I was going to set up a pellet waggler but never had time so just went with what I had set up

It took me a further 10 Min's to finish setting up and mixing my ground bait but eventually I was ready and I put 8 balls of ground bait out a 8m and a pot of pellets and 2 pots of pellets in the margin to my right then I went out over the ground bait with a grain of corn and a size 14 B911 hook straight through on 0.14mm Silstar line

Weather for today was forecast to be storms and heavy rain all day so I set the brolly up ready but as yet it was still dry

The lake was towing quite hard from left to right and really I needed a heavier float but I didn't have any made up on 0.14mm so I decided to make do and if it became a problem I had some heavy 0.18mm rigs I could use

After about 5 Min's my float slid under and I struck into a decent fish and soon had a 2 1/2lb Bream in the net then for the next hour I had a succession of small Skimmers but couldn't connect with another decent fish

All of a sudden the lake started to tow from right to left and my bites dried up instantly I tried corn,pellet,paste,caster and meat but couldn't get a bite any where

I had a try on the feeder for 30 Min's but couldn't get a bite on that either

A look in the margin proved just as fruitless so I went back to the 8m line and stuck with it

With 30 Min's to go I managed to get another small skimmer then on the next put in I pulled out of what felt like a decent Bream and I managed 4 more small skimmers before the whistle went

And that was it another Individual Championships over but at least I had something to weigh this year

Muskie to my right had persevered with the method feeder all day and had managed 3 or 4 small Carp and Mangojack had sat on the feeder all day and had a few decent Carp

But word round the lake was that it had fished very hard all round with no decent weights any where

When the scales arrived at my peg I managed to weigh 7lb 15oz Muskie to my right had 8lb 7oz and Mangojack to my left had 24lb 13oz

The match was won by Fordy with 55lb 15oz closely followed by Gary Thorpe with 55lb 10oz

Full Result

1 Fordy1 55-15

2 Gary Thorpe 55-10

3 Bungee 53-03

4 Matt Nutt 51-14

5 Gazmalman 47-03

6 Badpegpicker 45-02

7 Omega Mike 36-03

8 Milo 34-12

9 Mr V 31-11

10 Mancity 31-08

11 Simple Simon 30-12

12 Woolfrunian 30-06

13 Dirk 30-01

14 BME 28-03

15 Mangrojack 24-13

16 Antwood 24-03

17 Ubat 22-15

18 Alex Malman 17-12

19 Royst 17-04-08

20 Swinbourne 16-08

21 Dry Net 16-00

22 VG1037 15-03

23 Silverman 15-02

24 Lake lady 14-08

25 LG 14-03

26 Spamwham 13-14

27 ED10 13-06

28 Malc 13-04

29 Chunkylover 12-02

30 DaiFish 11-14

31 Arkwright 9-02

32 Colin 8-12

33 Muskrat 8-07

34 Clive 7-15

35 Steak 6-06

36 Fish4alarf 4-09

37 Mark C 3-09

38 Me 00-08

Tommy DNW

Dave the Fish DNW

Nomorelongwalks DNW

Hamish DNW

Steve Wilson DNW

DazzaS DNW

Tel DNW

I put all my gear away in the van and headed into the cafe where Vince had arranged for a buffet to be laid on for us and sure enough there was enough food to feed an army

After having something to eat I was conned into folding raffle tickets by Vince which seemed to take forever but eventually we had them all done

And Vince could get on with paying out the winners and presenting the trophies

Once all the formalities were over the raffle was drawn and the first ticket out was mine

Gaz Malman had donated a selection of his hand made floats for the raffle so I added to my ever growing collection of Malman floats

And that was it for another year goodbyes were said and we all made our way home

All in all it was a good day out the predicted bad weather didn't really turn up it was nice to meet up with the Maggotdrowners again

But Larford was a disappointment after watching the DVD to death I was expecting great things but tbh the site and especially the specimen lake were a big let down I hope if we go back next year we book the Match lake as that looks much better

Jinx Series

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Match 1

Rolfs lake

Oxfordshire

First match of the series is down at Rolfs and with a fine day forecast it was looking good for a good start to the series

But upon arrival it looked like Rolfs had gone back a couple of months as the water was over the platforms and right up the bank almost to where it was during the winter league

And to make it even worse the Carp had decided today was the day for luv and were all heading to the margins for a bit of slap and tickle

So with the lake in flood and the fish in full spawning mode it wasn't looking too hopeful after all

At the draw I pulled peg 6 out another peg I haven't fished before so if nothing else I can tick another peg of my list

Not that I managed to get anywhere near the platform which is next to the reeds and about 2 foot down

My plan today was to fish at 7m straight in front

And a margin swim next to the bush to my right

Straight across in front of me I saw the Jinx himself setting up on peg 34
and fair play to him he wasn't going to let a spot of extra water keep him off the platform

On the all in I put 2 pots of pellets out in front at 7m and 2 pots next to the bush in the margin

Then I went out on the 7m line with a 6mm natural GOT soft hooker looking across the lake Peter on peg 38 was into a Carp already having chucked a feeder down to the corner and the next time I looked up he was into another looks like he's making up for the nightmare he had on peg 37 last visit

After about 15 min's my float shot under and I was into a Carp I shipped it back and it followed me in nice and easy although there was a few inches of hydro out I was beginning to think it was a decent Bream as it wasn't fighting at all Just as I got it onto the top 2 it suddenly woke up and tore off ripping the hydro out at a great rate I played it back and fourth for a bit trying to keep it away from the sunken platform then all of a sudden it went solid I was sure it wasn't under the platform so kept the pressure on it slowly it started to come up then all of a sudden a large branch broke surface with a Carp mixed up in the middle of it

I was just deciding what to do when the hook pulled and the Carp and the branch slid back off to the depths

Malc took great delight in reminding me that that's what you have to expect on a Jinx match

But where theres 1 theres usually another or at least that's my theory so back out I went with another pellet but it looks like my theory was wrong as all I could catch in the next hour was 3 or 4 skimmers

Peter was still catching the odd fish on 38 but was now fishing the pole in the margin

And Malc on 34 was getting amongst a few Carp too fishing the margin as well

So I decided to give up on the 7m line and concentrate on the margin swim

I put a cube of meat on the hook and lowered it in as tight to the bush as I could get it but was still unable to get a bite after about 15 min's I moved the rig out about 2 foot from the bush and after a bit of bobbing and swirling the float disappeared and I was into a hard fighting Carp I managed to get it away from the bush and out in front also away from the platform after a short battle I had a Carp of about 8lb in the net

Back in with another cube of meat but the swim had died totally I couldn't find a bite any where on any bait corn,pellet,meat and paste all had the same response zilch!

So I gave the pellet waggler a shot as the guys on peg 40 and peg 1 were catching shallow I had a few bites on the waggler shallow and eventually managed to hit 1 which turned out to be a small Roach followed on the next put in by another Roach I stuck at it for a bit but was unable to temp any thing decent so with about an hour to go it was looking like i was destined to end up with just the 1 Carp and a few skimmers

So I decided to sit it out on the margin swim and hope for another Carp before the whistle

First put in with cube of meat 2 foot off the bush and the float buried instantly and I soon had another Carp of about 8lb in the net and in the last hour I managed to land another 3 Carp all around 8lb ish I also had quite a few foul hookers and as is usual just as my swim comes to life some bugger blows a whistle

But that's match fishing for ya!

I put my gear away and headed of round to help with the weigh in

As expected a lot of people struggled and the car park bank in particular was very hard but as usual the flyers and corner pegs produced and some good weights were had

I managed 44lb 12oz not a great result but tbh better than I was expecting 4 hours into the match

Dave Moore had a fine result and a new PB of 150lb 10oz from peg 8 for a fine win in the first match of the series

Next match in the series is at Tunnel Barn Farm lets hope for better conditions

Full Individual Results

Dave Moore .................. 150lb 10oz

Anthony Haywood...........145lb 4oz

Roy Ravenhill.................139lb

Malc Doyle ................... 135lb 12oz

Brian Bevan .................. 109lb 12oz

Mark Causer.................... 93lb 4oz

Paul Roberts.................... 81lb

Nick Williams....................76lb 12oz

Matt Nutt ....................... 75lb

Eric Robathan.................. 72lb 14oz

Colin Sharrard ..................66lb 8oz

Peter Morton ................... 64lb 8oz

Fred Parker .................... .62lb 12oz

Steve Wilson................... 59lb

Clive Pritchard ................ 44lb 12oz

Keith Ashby.................... 36lb 4oz

Keith F (guest)................ 32lb

Nick Jones ..................... 30lb 8oz

Tim W (guest)................ .23lb

Simon Rowley ................ .20lb 4oz

Dai Thomas .................... 17lb

Dave Collier .................... 15lb

David Ashby .................... 8lb

Paul D (guest) ................. 5lb

Geoff Eggison ..................... 4oz

Jeff Hollidge ................. DNW

Nick W-P ..................... DNW

Malc Hawkins ............... DNW

Dirk Williams ............... DNW

Total Weight On The Scales Was 1564lb

Rolfs Spring league - Match 6

Down to Rolfs in Oxfordshire today for the last match in the spring league series

I must admit I'm not really up for this match after fishing here on Thursday in glorious sunshine today in contrast its bitterly cold pouring with rain and blowing a gale

This week I am fishing in C section and The Assassins have a full team with Steve fishing A section and Paul fishing B section

At the draw Steve had a great draw pulling peg 34 out of the bag Paul pulled peg 10 out ( looks like some of my luck is rubbing off on him) and I managed to draw peg 26 not a great draw but I had it in Malc's match last week and had a few fish from it

On arriving at my peg I decided to set the brolly up and just fish short on the 7m line and a margin swim I did consider setting a feeder up but with the bushes either side blowing right across me in the gusts of wind I decided it would be too much hassle

So settled for fishing pellet/corn at 7m

And Meat at the end of the bush to my right

On the all in I put 2 pots of pellets out on the 7m line and a couple of handfuls under the bush then went out on the 7m line fishing a 6mm cat meat flavour pellet on a size 16 B911 fished at dead depth

first put in I had a skimmer and the second and the third in fact in the first 2 hours that's all I managed to catch was skimmers although I did have 1 foul hooked Carp that left me with a large scale on the hook I tried pellet and corn on the hook and I tried fishing over depth and up in the water but no matter where I went all I could get were skimmers

So in desperation I put a cube of meat on and dropped it in the swim at the end of the bush after what felt like hours but was in reality was probably only 20 min's the float shot under and after a hectic battle under both bushes I eventually slid the net under an 11lb 8oz common

I went back in with another cube of meat but after 30 bite less min's I gave up and went back out to the 7m line with a grain of corn on the hook and eventually the float shot under and I was into another of Rolfs beasties this 1 stretched my hydro all over the place and being between the 2 bushes with not a lot of room there were a lot of heart stopping moments but thankfully I managed to get it in the net and a quick trip up to the scales and I had a 13lb 8oz common on the board

Back out on the 7m line with corn again and I had 2 fish in quick succession both about 4lb then the skimmers were back in a bid to avoid them I fished an 11mm pellet and eventually managed to hook and land another common of 11lb and foul hook and loose 2 more fish and that was it Rolf blew the whistle

For a while I thought I was going to have a nightmare of a match especially as I had sat watching Phil on peg 15 bagging up all day while all I could catch were small skimmers but eventually I managed to get a few fish and reckoned I had about 50lb

After packing my gear away I set of round the lake for the weigh in and with the pouring rain not letting up 1 bit it was a very damp occasion and the lake was very patchy with weights coming from only the most reliable pegs

Unfortunately the result was marred by "Scribble gate" but in every ones opinion the match was won by Phil Powell with a fine 205lb from peg 15

I had 36lb on the board and my net of skimmers weighed 9lb and my 2 net Carp went for 8lb giving me a total of 53lb for 5th in section and 2 points Paul had a better day on peg 10 with 96lb 12oz for 2nd in section and 5 points and Steve had a great result from peg 34 with 193lb for 1st in section and 6 points

Giving The Assassins a total of 13 points today joint 2nd on the day but we had the better weight so we took 2nd place and picked up some more winnings

So that's it another league over

Certainly better fishing and results than the winter league and we managed to come 4th in the league and only 3 points behind second place considering we were 1 man short last match it could have been a lot closer

But as usual the league was well run by Rolf and John Bennett and good fun to fish with a great bunch of guys

Unfortunately I won't be fishing the summer leagues as they are being fished on Saturdays and I already have a few Saturday matches and other commitments so that's my league fishing finished until the autumn

Rolfs

Back down to Rolfs today for a mid week match with the guys from Talk Angling

A lot of the guys I have met before on Maggotdrowning matches but there are a few new ones so should be a good day out and the weather is forecast to be an excellent day with no wind and plenty of sunshine

I arrived at just gone 9 expecting to find the place empty but to my surprise I was 1 of the last to arrive looks like everyone is keen and eager for this match

It was nice to see Rolf back from hospital and as usual he was busy washing nets and John Bennett was also on site to give Rolf a hand to keep things running as smoothly as ever

After having my nets laundered and buying some more pellets it was time for the draw and to my surprise I drew a peg close to where I actually wanted for once as I am fishing C section in the Spring league this week I was hoping for a peg in C section for a bit of a practise and as I've never fished 19,20 or 21 I was hoping for 1 of them and as luck would have it I drew peg 19

Upon arriving at the peg I decided that I was going to fish 6mm pellets at 6m on the deck

While I was setting up Steve came round and told me that in the last league match the guy on peg 19 had thrown a feeder down along the bush to the right of the peg towards peg 18 and caught fish all day

So I set a feeder rod up

Then John Bennett came round and told me that in the match the day before the guy in peg 19 had caught from the end of the boat

Tight into the bush

So I soon had a rig set up and plumbed to fish tight to the bush at the end of the boat

And my last swim was to be at the bush to the left of the platform

On the all in I put 2 pots of pellets out at 6m and 2 pots at the end of the boat

My plan was to fish pellet/corn at 6m and meat at the end of the boat and on the feeder and also in the margin swim

I decided to start on the 6m line and shipped out a 6mm cat meat flavour pellet on the hook lowered it in and waited

The guy on peg 20 was fishing shallow at 13m I must admit I did consider setting up a pellet waggler and fishing shallow but decided against the idea although within Minuit's I was regretting the decision as he was soon playing a Carp while I sat watching a motionless float

Soon he had 2 fish on the board and it was looking like I had made a mistake when my float shot under and I was into a Carp a quick battle and I had a 6lb Carp in the net

Peg 20 was still catching shallow at 13 and although he was loosing a few foul hookers most of the fish were weighers and it was looking like I was going to get battered I had 1 more Carp from the 6m line another 6lb common then I had a couple of skimmers so I decided to try the swim at the end of the boat So I stuck a cube of meat on and shipped it out tight into the bush after about 5 Min's the float buried and hydro shot out but as I shipped it back the hook pulled and I was left with a large scale on the hook I managed to foul hook and loose 4 fish on the trot and eventually managed to land my first weigher of 10lb 8 oz but after each fish I lost the swim just died and I was waiting too long for the next bite

So I decided to try the feeder, I cast a feeder full of damp pellets with a cube of meat on the hook down along the bush towards peg 18 but in 20 Min's all I managed was 2 missed bites

So I gave up and went back out on the 6m line almost instantly the float disappeared and i was into a Carp and by upping the feed I was soon landing Carp 1 a chuck although they were only net fish and not weighers they all counted

By now peg 20 had given up on his 13m line as it had died and had also come in to the 6m line and was also taking the odd fish but as he wasn't feeding much his catch rate was way below mine and with an hour to go I reckoned that we were about level and I had a little spell of better fish all of which were weighers Then with 45 Min's to go my swim just died and I had only 1 more fish before the whistle

After the whistle went I packed my gear away and headed off round to help with the weigh in

Talk on the way round was that everyone had caught and had a good day and there were a few good weights I reckoned that I had over 100lbs but judging by what people were admitting to I was unlikely to come anywhere on the upside Gemma was only admitting to 60lb ish so i was unlikely to be making another entry into the Minxed club today

When the scales got to my peg I managed to weigh in 135lb 10oz not enough to make the frame but a pleasing days fishing

Result

1. Peg 15 - rive t......................203.11

2. Peg 3 - halfounce.................192.09

3. Peg 9 - fred.........................187.12

4. Peg 8 - griffo.......................185.09

5. Peg 23 - steve001................149.04

6. Peg 13 - dnw.......................147.08

7. Peg 26 - martin b.................144.13

8. Peg 19 - clive.......................135.10

9. Peg 34 - mark c.....................132.00

10.Peg 31- keith........................130.10

11.Peg 38 - matt6900 ................126.04

12.Peg 20 - cantdraw..................107.12

13.Peg 1 - Malc..........................106.09

14.Peg 40 - andy222.....................92.06

15.Peg 29 - dave a........................89.04

16.Peg 30 - buckskinss...................86.02

17.Peg 11 - mpo380.......................84.11

18.Peg 28 - vince...........................69.10

19.Peg 4 - ubat..............................69.08

20.Peg 27 - gem.............................68.06

21.Peg 36 - polebreaker...................64.12

22.Peg 21 - cornerstone...................64.06

23.Peg 14 - kingfisher ....................58.08

24.Peg 2 - Larry Teapot...................53.12

25.Peg 6 - ridgeacre........................51.13

26.Peg 10 - royst............................51.08

27.Peg 7 - polepot..........................49.06

28.Peg 32 - briang...........................36.06

29.Peg 37 - pete m..........................34.00

30.Peg 22 - leetwin...........................9.00

Total weight caught.......2,984lb 5oz

As you can see from the results everyone caught and some fine weights were had Gemma managed 68lb meaning that another 10 poor souls entered into the Minxed club

The biggest catch she had was poor Peter Morton who had a nightmare match on peg 37 (better luck in the "Jinx" Peter)

All in all a good day plenty of fish caught good weather and good company looking forward to the next 1

Holly Farm Fishery

Today I am up at Holly Farm Fishery in Leicestershire for the Maggotdrowners teams of 4 match Being fished on Gil's lake



Not too bad a drive up this morning it only took me 1 hour 30 min's and is a nice easy place to find

Upon arriving I went in for breakfast and met up with Dave,Colin,Simon and Paul and had a spot of breakfast soon the rest of the guys started arriving most I had met before but a few new ones too

Once everyone had arrived and paid pools etc the draw was made team captains had to draw envelopes and allocate pegs inside to rest of team as a team captain I drew an envelope and as the pegs meant nothing to me as I had never fished here before my team just drew a peg each out of the envelope and set off to find it I was left with peg 5 which by all accounts was a short walk or at least thanks to Matt Nutt it was as I was heading off round the wrong way until he put me right



All the pegs look well maintained as is the whole fishery only down side so far is the wind which is howling down the lake from left to right



Most of the pre match talk was about most matches being won fishing tight over to the far bank so I set my pole up and the far bank was 14.5m in peg 5 I put a margin rig on and shipped it over to plumb up but after 3 attempts I gave up as the pole and rig ended up in the reeds each time blown in by the wind



It sure looks nice but I can't fish it in this wind

Plan B was to fish at 11.5m I managed to plumb that swim but I had very little faith that I would be able to fish it in the wind

Plan C involved a 6m line and a nearside margin swim and looked the best prospect


I set up a pellet rig to fish a dead depth and also a paste rig for the 6m line and at 6m I had about 4ft of water


I also set up a margin rig for the margin on my right where I had about 18 inches of water on my top 2
Bait today consists of a selection of GOT 6mm and 11mm soft hookers a tin of corn a packet of GOT tonup paste and a tin of meat cut into 6mm cubes and 2 bags of the fishery 4mm feed pellets
For company on the next peg I had Mark C and next to him Gary Thorpe




And hiding in the trees at the far end i can just make out Simon

11 am arrives and the whistle sounds the all in I managed to ship a pot of pellets out to 11.5m and also a pot out to 6m and a few handfuls of pellets in the margin swim

Then I went out on the 6m line with a lump of paste it was a bit difficult to get any sort of presentation in the gale that was now blowing down the lake but I had a few line bites on paste but nothing I could hit so I gave up and went out on the same line with a 6mm pellet on the hook I had a few missed bites and eventually managed to hit 1 and I soon had a 1lb Carp in the net after the first hour that's all I had 1 Carp

I swapped over to corn on the same 6m line and after about 20 min's I had another 1lb Carp in the net Mark C was fishing cat meat on the same 6m line as me and he had also had a couple of Carp but his looked to be a better size

I tried the margin swim with corn/pellet and meat but couldn't get a bite on any of them so I went back out on the 6m line and this time put a cube of meat on the hook and this resulted in a Carp straight away

Back out with another cube of meat and after a bit of jiggling I had another Carp in the net and that seemed to be the only way I could get a bite was to feed a handful of pellets and jiggle the meat over the top

In the end I had 21 fish mostly Carp but 1 gold fish and a couple of Ghosties I caught them all on the 6m line with the exception of 1 I managed to catch in the margin

At about 3.30 my swim went mad and I was almost in bagging mode getting a fish a chuck for about 15 min's then just a fast it died again and I only caught 1 more before the whistle

Mark C on the next peg had also had a steady days fishing and although he had caught fewer fish than me his were of a better size so it was going to be close between us
When the scales arrived I had 22lb and Mark C had 21lb so I only just beat him and Gary Thorpe put 32lb on the scales
I packed my gear away and headed back off to the cafe for the results and prize giving
Our team only managed to come 5th as Wayne had a gruller and ended up with a DNW but all in all it was a good day and I had a few fish and met up with the guys from Maggotdrowners again only downside was the wind which spoilt what could have been a really good days fishing but theres always next year

Congrats to Matt Nutt who won the match and was also in the winning team





Team Results

1st

COME WEST

Genus9.......53lb 00
M Ribbons...17lb.08
Matt Nutt...60lb.08
R Hearne....00lb.10

Total 131lb.10

2nd

THE BREKKIE BOYZZZ

Steve Oswick...19lb.06
Mark C Adriot...21lb.00
Dave Collier.....08lb.08
Rob Canding....31lb.04

Total 80lb.02

3rd

PANTO’S

Wayne Panting..21lb.12
G Thorpe..........32lb.00
R Dell..............08lb.00
R Embury.........03lb.04

Total 65lb.00

4th

DIRK’S

D Williams...........07lb.08
Nomorelongwalks..03lb.08
Swinbourne..........19lb.12
Simplesimon........30lb.08

Total 60lb.04

5th

CLIVE'S BOYS

Clive Pritchard...22lb.00
Tip Top............16lb.00
Lucky Wayne....00lb.00
Dizzy...............13lb.12

Total 51lb.12

6th

TOM CATS

M Toole.......20lb.08
Bucko..........01lb.08
Spamwham..00lb.00
Fred Milo.....07lb.00

Total 29lb.00


7th

Colin Sharrad

C Sharrad.....06lb.00
R Ravenhill...09lb.04
Tangler........04lb.00
Keith Ashby..06lb.14

Total 26lb.02


8th

ED10

ED10.......07lb.10
Tommy....00lb.09
Jake 1969.13lb.14
Ian Venn..03lb.08

Total 25lb.09



Individual Results


1.Matt Nutt……………………60.08
2.Genus9………………………53.00
3.G Thorpe………………....32.00
4.Rob Canding………………31.04
5.Simplesimon………………30.08
6.Clive Pritchard……………22.00
7.Wayne Panting……………21.12
8.Mark C Adriot……………..21.00
9.M Toole……………………….20.08
10.Swinbourne………………19.12
11.Steve Oswick……………19.06
12.M Ribbons…………………17.08
13.Tip Top………………………16.00
14.Jake 1969………………….13.14
15.Dizzy………………………….13.12
16.R Ravenhill…………………09.04
17.Dave Collier……………….08.08
18.R Dell………………………….08.00
19.ED10……………………………07.10
20.D Williams…………………..07.08
21.Fred Milo……………………..07.00
22.Keith Ashby…………………06.14
23.C Sharrad………………….…06.00
24.Tangler………………………..04.00
25.Ian Venn……………………..03.08
25.Nomorelongwalks……….03.08
26.R Embury…………………….03.04
27.Bucko…………………………..01.08
28.R Hearne………………………00.10
29.Tommy…………………………00.09
DNW
Lucky Wayne
Spamwham

Total………………………………….469.03

Thanks to Bucko for running the match and I'm looking forward to next years match

Rolfs Spring league - Match 5

Second visit of the weekend down to Rolfs today for the next round of the spring league and it looks like being a wet and windy day to boot

Unfortunately Paul was a no show today so The Assassins will be fishing 1 short

I am fishing B section this week and Steve is in C section and Paul's empty peg will be in A section

At the draw bag I pulled peg 13 out another peg I haven't fished before so I was pleased Steve drew peg 23 and as we set off round the lake the rain started to get heavier and settle in for the day

(All photos today are taken after the match as the rain was too heavy before)

Peg 13 has the trees to shelter it from the wind so I set the brolly up straight away in the hope of trying to keep some of my gear dry

Plan of attack today is to fish pellet/corn at 7m straight in front

And meat in the margin to my right as tight to the bush as I can get it and only on the top 2On the all in I put 2 pots of pellets under the bush to my right and 2 pots out in front at 7m then went out at 7m with a 6mm Cat meat flavour soft hooker on the hook

And not a lot happened I could see fish topping and splashing around the lake and Frank opposite me to peg 28 was already on his Way up to the scales to weigh a fish and looking to my right Larry on peg 10 was playing a Carp but my float sat idle

Of the pegs I could see peg 28 was catching a few peg 10 seemed to be hooking but loosing a fair few and Lloyd and Phil on pegs 30 and 32 were sat like me with not a lot happening

After about an hour the rain lessened a bit and by now I was fishing corn out at 7m and almost as soon as the rain stopped my float shot under and after a pleasant battle I had a 6lb common in the net If nothing else I wouldn't be blanking today

Phil on 32 had given up on the pole and had set up a feeder rod and almost first cast hooked into a Carp

I continued on with corn out at 7m for the next hour but with the rain now hammering down I was unable to get a bite again but looking around with the exception of Phil on 32 who was taking the odd fish on the feeder no one was catching at the moment

Then out of the blue I heard a voice behind me and looking around Ginger from peg 14 was stood there with a 9lb Carp in the weigh sling for me to confirm for him

Having the weigh station right behind me I had expected to be more busy confirming weights that I had been

Frank was off up to the weigh station again Phil had given up on the feeder and was fishing the pole behind the bush in front of peg 33 Lloyd had just landed a small Carp and Larry on peg 10 was playing a Carp but with 7m+ of pole up in the air and elastic out he was living on the edge

He eventually landed a smallish Carp and looking in front of him peg 10 looked solid with fish I still had had no more joy so re fed both swims and decided to have a coffee then try the margin swim

While I was having my coffee peg 10 hooked another fish and again had a lot of pole up in the air and this time it was a decent fish and after an ear splitting crack the top sections of his pole were making their way out to the middle of the lake after a few attempts Phil managed to cast a feeder over the broken sections and get them into the bank by Lloyd who managed to loose the fish after all Phil's great efforts but at least the fish was released and Larry got his broken sections back

After all the excitement I put a cube of meat on the hook and lowered it into the margin on my top 2 and fed a handful of pellets after a few min's my hydro shot out of the top 2 startling me into action and after a hectic battle I slid the net under a 12lb common

Next put in I was ready and struck into another Carp this 1 was smaller but still went on the board for 9lb 8oz

With an hour to go things were hotting up Ginger on peg 14 was up and down weighing fish which I had to confirm for him and I was up and down myself getting him to confirm my fish in the end as the whistle went I had 8 fish on the board for 100lb 12oz the best one weighing 15lb 8oz and 6 fish in my net looking at the board Ginger had 122lb and peg 15 had no weigher's

Its not easy to keep the weigh sheet dry at the best of times but when its raining all day the sheets turn to mush and end up soaked through like ours today

Under the scales at Rolfs there is a dipping tank with the weigh sling in the way to use them is to carry your fish up to the scales in the landing net tip it into the weigh sling in the tank which gives it a dip in a salt water solution then hook the sling on the scales and read weight then carry over to nearest peg to confirm weight then place sling back in tank write weight on sheet transfer fish back to landing net and return it to the lake sorted

I packed all my gear away and headed off round to help with the weigh in

In the small lake John Bennett led they way with 208lb from peg 34 followed by peg 40 with 160lb and with 2 other 100lb+ weights it certainly fished well again

In B section peg 9 weighed 56lb peg 10 had 48lb I had 132lb on peg 13 Frank on peg 28 had 129lb Lloyd on peg 30 had a nightmare match and only had 20lb and Phil on peg 32 had 110lb so I had won the section

In C section Ginger on peg 14 led the way with 261lb for a fine section and match win and with 4 other 100+ weights from the section it looks like the fish are finally spreading out round the lake

As for The Assassins my 132lb 9oz from peg 13 gave me 1st in section and 6 points and Steve had 100lb 8oz from peg 23 for 5th in section and 2 points giving us a total of 8 points today and dropping us down a place in the league which considering we were a man short wasn't to bad

Despite the weather not a bad days fishing and 2 section wins and pick up's in 2 days things must be looking up

Rolfs

Back down to Rolfs in Oxfordshire today for the first of my 2 visits this weekend

Today's match is being run by Malc (The Jinx) Doyle and is just a small knock up match between people from internet angling forum sites and the main aim is have a fun day with a spot of angling thrown in

As usual Malc arrived late and after a bit of banter and general mickey taking it was time for the draw due to Malc's late arrival the 12pm start was put back to 1pm

At the draw I pulled peg 26 out not a peg I really wanted but it was a short walk and with poor weather forecast the high bank should give a bit of protection

I decided to set the brolly up from the start and fish under it as showers are forecast for all day and its a pain to keep putting it up and down I find it easier to set it up and get used to fishing with it then its not such a problem

Plan of attack today is to fish pellet/corn at 7m in front

And meat/corn on the end of the bush to my right

To my right pegs 25 and 24 were empty and Dave Moore was on peg 23 and to my left on peg 27 was Paul Roberts and on peg 28 Gemma

For some strange reason Paul was under the impression he was going to beat young Gem and she gladly took his £1 side bet on the out come

Across the lake on peg 14 was Simon and on peg 15 Mark C who owing to the bank collapse on pegs 16,17 and 18 had almost 1/2 the lake to fish to him self

With Matt drawing peg 9 and Keith peg 34 I fancied 1 of them to win the match but that's the good thing about Rolfs the big weights can come from anywhere

At the all in I shipped 2 pots of pellets out to 7m and a couple of handfuls under the bush then went out on the 7m line with a GOT 6mm cat meat flavour pellet after a bit of jiggling the float eventually slid under and I had a small skimmer in the net not what I was after but its a start back out with another pellet and the same result

Looking across the lake I could see Mark C was catching Carp on the feeder and as I had set a feeder up I was tempted to give it a go as by now the rain was hammering down but in the end I stuck another pellet on and went back out

This time I had no indications at all and after about 5 min's the float suddenly shot under and my red hydro came streaming out as 1 of Rolfs Carp made a get away with my pellet I had my hydro set a bit too loose for peg 26 as its a bit tight between the 2 bushes usually I would do a "Matty" and stand on my box but with the brolly up that wasn't an option so I had to play it until it gave in

A quick trip up to the scales and I had a 12lb Carp on the board I put another pellet on and went back out but to my horror the skimmers were back!

After my second skimmer I decided to swap to corn

First put in and the float buried and I soon had a 6lb common in the net after 2 hours I had 3 fish on the board and 2 in the net Mark C was still catching on the feeder and judging by the faint praise and huffing coming from Paul's peg Gem was catching a few Carp too from peg 28

I gave the swim under the bush a try with meat and corn but couldn't get a touch on either so I stuck on the 7m line fishing corn and although it wasn't fast and furious I managed to catch fish steadily throughout the rest of the match

Paul on the next peg eventually gave up on the waggler and was now fishing paste on the pole just past the bush and after a lot of splashing and crashing he eventually netted a decent Carp of 13lb and was off up to the scales to weigh it and to say he was gloating that it was bigger than any of Gems Carp was an understatement

Unfortunately his 15 Min's of fame were soon over as Gem landed a PB fish of 14lb and again silenced peg 27

I just sat under the brolly out of the rain and plugged away on the 7m line with corn and only ventured out to go and weigh fish in

Simon opposite had a couple of Carp Mark C for some reason had stopped using the feeder which he was catching on and was now sitting bite less on the pole ?

On my trips up to the scales I noticed that Nick on peg 22 had also started to catch and had 3 fish on the board

From the other side of the bush things weren't looking good for Paul's £1 coin as Gem was making regular trips to the scales unlike Paul

Eventually the all out was sounded and I packed my gear away and headed off round to help with the weigh in

The weights in the little lake were down on previous matches and the weather had not helped the fishing but Keith led the way with 88lb odd from peg 34 when we got round to peg 9 Matt weighed in a fantastic 163lb 12oz

Mark C on peg 15 weighed in 99lb 8oz just short of the magic ton

All talk now was of how much Gem had caught and had see managed to beat Malc and add his scalp to the "minxed club"

When we got to my peg I had 66lb on the board and 20lb 4oz in the net giving me a total of 86lb 4oz

Paul on 27 weighed in 20lb 8oz and Gemma snatched his £1 coin and added a few more names to the Minxed club with 73lb 8oz

Full Results

1st……..Peg 9..... Matt Nutt………………….…. 163lb 12oz

2nd……. Peg 15.... Mark Causer……………….…. 99lb 8oz

3rd……. Peg 19.... Nick Williams……………….…94lb 8oz

4th……. Peg 7..... Brian Bevan…………………... 92lb 12oz

5th……. Peg 34.... Keith Ashby…………………... 88lb 4oz

6th……. Peg 10.... Martin Bucknall…………….… 88lb 1oz

7th……. Peg 26.... Clive Pritchard………………... 86lb 4oz

8th……. Peg 1..... Malc Doyle………………….… 86lb 1oz

9th……. Peg 40.... John Hopkins………………..… 78lb 6oz

10th…… Peg 28.... Gemma Doyle…………….…. 73lb 8oz

11th…… Peg 20.... Roy Ravenhill………………… 62lb 4oz

12th…… Peg 36.... Andrew Bucknall…………….…60lb 14oz

13th…… Peg 6..... Keith Fellows…………………. 55lb 2oz

14th…… Peg 13.... Steve Wilson………………….. 48lb 4oz

15th…… Peg 22.... Nick-Watkins-Price………… 45lb 4oz

16th…… Peg 21.... Dai Thomas……………………. 36lb 4oz

17th…… Peg 14.... Simon Rowley…………………. 30lb 4oz

18th…… Peg 23.... Dave Moore……………………. 27lb 12oz

19th…… Peg 27.... Paul Roberts…………………… 20lb 8oz

20th…… Peg 30.... Chris Barber…………………… 17lb 2oz

21st…… Peg 4..... Paul Dolby…………………….. 11lb 13oz

22nd…...Peg 2.... Dan Thomas……………………. 3lb 8oz

Peg38..... Rob Hollidge…………………………….. DNW

Peg 32.... Dirk Williams……………………………. DNW

Peg 37.... Geoff Eggison…………………………… DNW

A Section

1st…… Matt Nutt

2nd…… Brian Bevan

rd…… Malc Doyle

4th…… Keith Fellows

5th…… Paul Dolby

Section Weight….. 413lb

B Section

1st…….. Mark Causer

2nd……. Nick Williams

3rd……. Martin Bucknall

4th……. Roy Ravenhill

5th…….. Steve Wilson

6th…….. Simon Rowley

Section Weight…… 423lb 13oz

C Section

1st…….. Clive Pritchard

2nd……. Gemma Doyle

3rd…….. Nick Watkins Price

4th…….. Dai Thomas

5th…….. Dave Moore

6th…….. Paul Roberts

Section Weight……. 306lb 10oz

D Section

1st……… Keith Ashby

2nd …….. John Hopkins

3rd……… Andrew Bucknall

DNW ….. Dirk Williams

DNW…… Geoff Eggison

DNW…… Rob Hollidge

Section Weight…….. 227lb 8oz

Total Weight of the Match was….. 1370lb 15oz

My 86lb 4oz was good enough for a section win so I had a bit of coin back and despite the bad weather it was a good days fishing and nice to meet up with the guys from Md's again and meet some new people from other forums too

Rolfs Spring league - Match 4

Back to Rolfs today for the next round in the Spring league
This match I am fishing A section which is in the little lake and judging by the recent results anywhere in the little lake is a good draw
Steve is back this week and is fishing B section and Paul is in C section so hopefully The Assassins will retain or in prove on the mid table position
At the draw bag I managed to pull peg 4 out and was very happy indeed

Steve drew peg 13 and Paul drew peg 23

The weather is forecast to start getting worse from today and already there is a strong wind blowing from left to right fortunately I will be sheltered by the bush to my left

My plan today is to fish pellet on the deck at 7m

And meat tight into the margin on my right hand side

I decided to go with the cat meat flavour 6mm GOT soft hookers as they had worked well on my last 2 outings and for feed I have prepared 2 bags of Rolfs Freedom pellets and I've got another 2 bags of the new pellets just in case

I decided to go with the red hydro today as I feeling confident of catching a few fish

For rigs I have setup a Malman 4x14 Thicko on 0.18mm Silstar line straight through to a B911 size 16 for the 7m pellet line and a Malman Thicko on 0.20mm Silstar line straight through to a B911 size 12 to fish meat in the margin

I also set up a Malman medium paste float on 0.18mm Silstar straight through to a B911 size 12 as a change for the pellet line and I also set up a pellet waggler

From peg 4 I can see most of the section

Phil on peg 34

Frank on peg 37

Paul on peg 40 and Lloyd on peg 2

The only 1 I can't see is peg 7 but hopefully I will be seeing a lot of him on my trips up to the weigh station

At the all in I ship 2 pots of pellets out to 7m and 2 pots under the bush to my right Then I go out to 7m with a 6mm cat meat pellet on the hook 30 sec later the float and pole tip both disappear at top speed and red hydro is streaming out as 1 of Rolfs Carp makes a bid for freedom I eventually got its head up and netted it and after a trip to the weigh station I had 8lb 4oz on the board looking across the lake Frank was also playing a Carp on peg 37 I put another pellet on and went back out to 7m fed a handful of pellets and waited a few Min's passed then the red hydro shot out of the power top again and I was attached to another Carp this 1 was slightly smaller than the first so I put it in the net

After the first hour I had 3 Carp in the net and 5 weighers on the board Frank was also catching well and Phil on 34 was making regular trips to the scales Lloyd was catching a fair few on peg 2 fishing corn at 13m back into the corner

My 7m line had slowed right down so I topped it up with 2 more large pots of pellets and put a bit of meat on my margin rig and pushed it under the bush to my right after about 5 min's the float buried and the hydro leap into action again this time it felt like a much heavier fish

And after an arm wrenching battle on the top 2 I eventually slid the net under my best fish of the day a 14lb 12oz common

I went straight back in with another piece of meat but after 15 bite less min's I gave up and went back out to 7m line and straight away was into another Carp and from then on right up to the whistle I managed to catch fish but had long waits in between and only managed to catch 3 fish from the margin and after each fish the swim totally died once Rolf blew the whistle I packed my gear away and headed off round to help with the weigh in

Everyone on the small lake had caught but all said the same that they just couldn't get the fish lined up and had to hunt about for bites but judging by what I had seen during the match Phil and Lloyd had beaten me and it was going to be close between me and Frank for 3rd

Phil weighed 137lb from peg 34, Frank had 97lb from peg 37, Paul 54lb on peg 40 Lloyd had 160lb from peg 2, I had 114lb on peg 4 and peg 7 weighed 60lb

In B and C sections there were another 3 weights over 100lb and 2 over 200lb with Mick Lane winning the match with 212lb from peg 30

As for The Assassins my 114lb put me 3rd in section for 4 points Steve had 50lb 12oz for 3rd in section for 4 points and Paul had 63lb 8oz for last in section and 1 point giving us a total of 9 points today which put us joint 3rd on the day with Fisherman's A but we took 3rd place on weight so we were in the frame and had a bit of coin for once

A better days fishing at last and my first 100lb+ weight of the year

Monk Lakes

Saturday 5th May 2007

Back down to Monk Lakes in Kent today for the FishOmania qualifier being a bank holiday weekend I was expecting more traffic but for some reason the roads were empty so I arrived with plenty of time to spare as it appears did most other people as the car park was already filling up fast

Getting out of the car the first thing I noticed was the temperature to say it was cold was a kin understatement!! I had to search through my gear to find jumpers and fleece and even then as I stood in the queue to draw I was tempted to go back to the car for my coat

At the draw a lazy ass from the EA was trolling the queue upping his quota of licence checks from easy targets who were more than likely to have licences rather than risking challenging pleasure anglers who may not have a licence but if nothing else he made a good wind break for a couple of Min's

At the draw I came away with peg 71 in the middle of the split on lake 2 not a bad draw but unfortunately I had the wind on my back instead of in my face and without doubt the end pegs will produce the best weights but I think you will need the wind in your face to do any good from the middle of the section




But I was still confident I would have a few fish and a good day out the only down side was the top car park was closed so I had to walk from the lower car park and the hill nearly killed me but that's the downside of having a trolley load that weighs twice what you do




Forecast today was for cloud to start slowly burning off to give a bright dry day




But as of yet the cloud has no intention of moving and it feels more like winter than spring




Plan of attack today is to fish pellet at 11.5m and paste at 6m




And a margin swim to my left





11am arrives and the hooter sounds to start the match

I shipped 2 pots of 4mm GOT sinkers out to 11.5m and 2 pots out to 6m and a handful of pellets and corn into the margin swim then I started out on the 11.5m line with a 6mm cat meat flavour soft hooker on the hook for the next 15 Min's I never had a bite the guy to my left caught a few small Carp and Tench on sweet corn at 11.5m and to my right the guy was catching skimmers on maggot at 13m

But I stuck to my plan and eventually my float buried and I soon slid the net under a 2lb mirror on with another pellet and back out with the wind from behind feeding was a lot easier this week but the response was still just as slow

As I started to build the swim up with feed the bites started to get quicker and after the first 2 hours I had caught up with the guys on either side

I re-fed the 11.5m line with 2 more pots of pellets and rested it to give the paste line a go but after 20 Min's I hadn't had a touch so I gave the margin swim a try with a grain of corn fished tight to the reeds after about 30 secs the float shot under and I had another 2lb Carp in the net

I went straight back in with another grain of corn but couldn't get a bite

Eventually I gave up and went back out on the 11.5m line and was again catching Carp to about 2lb but very long waits between fish by now I thought I was in front of the pegs either side of me as although they were both catching they were smaller fish. In the last hour the guy to my right started to feed a bit more and started to catch a few decent Carp too
I continued to catch Carp with the appearance of a stray Barbel and a lone Chub slowly right up to the whistle at 4pm

Most of my fish came from the 11.5m line although I did have 2 Carp and a Tench from the margin swim but after each fish it just died

I certainly wasn't going to win but I had had a decent day and caught in my estimation around 45-50lb and at 4pm the wind dropped and the sun came out

When the scales eventually arrived I weighed in 42lb 12oz the peg to my left had 39lb and to the right 44lb the whole section was pretty close with 50lb being top weight until the end peg weighed in 88lb or something like that can't be sure of the weights as usually the NFA and Sky sports haven't released the full results
But the match was won from peg 113 on lake 3 with 154lb with peg 112 coming second with 132lb

So that's my FishOmania over again for another year
I packed all my gear away and headed off home ready for the next round of the Spring League at Rolfs in the morning

Monk Lakes

Saturday 28th April 2007

I'm down at Monk lakes in Kent today for the Danglers charities championships

Its not only a good chance to help raise some money for the charity but also a chance to practise for the FishOMania match next week and also meet up with some of the guys from Maggotdrowners

I arrived at Monks in time to get some breakfast before the draw (and made a mental note to stop on the way down for breakfast for the Fisho match as 130 hungry anglers are going to cause quite a queue) after my breakfast I met up with Peter and Vince the match organisers and a couple of other guys from Maggotdrowners and after getting mugged by Dirk for raffle tickets it was time to draw,the match is being fished on lakes 1 and 3 and only the even numbers are being used giving each angler an empty peg either side

I came out of the bag with peg 108 which is on the split of lake 3

The wind was howling across the lake as usual and I had it right in my face which was going to make for an uncomfortable day but hopefully better fishing

I set up a few rigs to try out in readiness for the Fisho match

First rig was A Malman 4x14 Thicko on Silstar 0.14mm line direct to a B911 size 16 to fish pellet at 11.5M

Second rig was a Malman 4x14 Thicko on Silstar 0.14mm line direct to a B911 size 14 to fish corn/meat in the margin

Third rig was a Malman 4x14 Stable on Silstar 0.14mm line direct to a B911 size 14 to fish pellet/corn at 8M

Fourth rig was a Malman medium paste float on Silstar 0.14mm line direct to a B911 size 12 to fish paste at 6M

All the rigs are set up on power tops with black hydro

And lastly I set up a pellet waggler but tbh in this wind I probably wont get to give it much of a go

Most people seem to fish close in 6-8 meters or in the margins but as the Fisho match is going to be full with 130 people fishing I'm suspecting that like Witherington Farm the pressure is going to move the fish out so today I intend to start at 11.5M and see If I can keep the fish there

I shall also set up a paste line at 6M and a line at 8M to fish pellet/corn

Also a margin swim to the left of my peg

Bait today is a selection of GOT 6mm soft hookers a couple of packets of 4mm sinking pellets a packet of GOT paste and a tin of scopex flavoured meat cut into 6mm cubes and a tin of jolly green giant

11am arrives and the all in is sounded to start with I ship a pot of pellets out to 11.5m another out to 8m and 1 out to 6m and throw a handful of pellets and corn into the margin swim

Then I start out on the 11.5m line with a 6mm natural pellet on the hook first put in the float dips a few times then gently slides under and I have a small skimmer in the net straight back out with another pellet and the same result for the first hour I caught small skimmers and the odd Tench

Trying to feed was a pain due to the wind as every time I released the catty pouch the wind either died or gusted making my feed either drop short or disappear into the distance but eventually I found a happy medium and managed to get it in the rough area

Eventually instead of gently sliding away my float shot under followed by my hydro and after a short battle I slid the net under a 2lb mirror carp

The guy on the peg to my right had caught a couple of Carp out at 13m on sweet corn early on but had given up trying to battle the wind and was now fishing at about 4m and catching the odd F1 and small Carp and Tench on corn

To my left no one seemed to be catching any thing decent from what I could see only the guy on the end peg at the top of the split was catching and he appeared to be bagging up as was the guy on the end peg opposite him

I decided to give my margin swim a try but after 30 Min's of trying corn and meat all I had to show for my efforts was a small Tench so I gave the paste line a try but in the wind presentation was impossible so I decided to go back out on the 11.5m line

This time I changed the pellet for a GOT 6mm cat meat flavour pellet first put in and the float buried and my hydro shot out and headed for the far bank I eventually got the fish under control and slid the net under a nice 4lb common Carp back out with another pellet and fed some sinkers and after a short wait the float shot under again and I had another Carp of about 2lb in the net

From then on up until the final whistle I caught Carp from 1lb to 4lb regularly it wasn't 1 a chuck as I discovered that if I sat on the cat meat pellet and fed some 4mm sinkers over the top eventually after a wait of anything up to 10 Min's I would get a Carp and as no one in my section with the exception of the guy on the end peg was catching decent fish it seemed like a good move

4 pm and the final whistle went and despite having the wind howling in my face all day I had had quite an enjoyable days fishing when the scales arrived the peg to my left weighed in 37lb I weighed 55lb and the peg to my right weighed 50lb the end peg weighed 122lb and took first place in the match

After packing all my gear away it was back to the car park for the raffle draw and results

Luckily in the raffle the first ticket drawn was mine so at least I had a pick up

Even luckier than that I had come second in the section and as the winner had also come from my section I won the section by default

Full Result

1 . R Panding--------122-00

2 . G Cross------------97-01

3 . A Willet------------94-00

4 . J Young-------- ---83-08

5 . B Malyn----------- 83-08

6 . D Williams------ --72-00

7 . J Clark-------------68-12

8 . T Bailey-----------68-04

9 . P Morton------- ---66-00

10 . A Cumming---- --63-12

11 . T Clark----------- 60-00

12 . S Joy------------- 56-12

13 . C Pritchard--- ---55-00

14 . G Barbata----- --54-10

15 . D Wheeler---- --51-04

16 . A Milsom ---- ---50-12

17 . S Sharpe ---- ---50-08

18 . K Borer ------ ---48-12

19 . J Hague ---- ----47-12

20 . M Dowling ------47-04

21 . S Pearson ------46-12

22 . T Baker ---------45-09

23 . D Ward ---------44-12

24 . A Walker -------42-12

25 . A Szekeres -----41-04

26 . J Webber -------38-08

27 . W Panting ---- -37-12

28 . W Taylor -- -----36-08

29 . I Carley ---------36-00

30 . I Webber - -----35-08

31 . V Gould -- ---- -35-06

32 . M Collins --- ---34-08

33 . D Sage ----- ---33-04

34 . A Piper ----- ---32-02

35 . C Hunt ---- ----24-00

36 . I Covey --- - --21-00

37 . S Castle --- ---10-00

00 . M Leask -------DNW

00 . P East --- -----DNW

Total Weight ---1871-12

Section winners

Section A. peg18.....J Young.............83lbs 8ozs.
Section B. peg32.....B Maylyn............83lbs 8ozs.
Section C. peg108...C Pritchard.........55lbs.
Section D. peg132...B Ramsden.........68lbs 12ozs.

All in all a fine days fishing and we managed to raise £391 for the charity

Rolfs Spring league - Match 3

Back at Rolfs in Oxfordshire today for match 3 in the Spring league series the weather has been fine all week and its predicted fine for today as well so all I need is a good draw in C section now!
This week Steve is away so Team Assassins consists of myself Paul and Mark Chard. Mark is fishing A section Paul is in B section and I am in C section

At the draw bag Mark pulled peg 2 out Paul drew peg 13 and I came away from the bag with peg 15 not the best draw in the section but the sun is shining and hopefully I will have a few Carp for once

The winning method at the moment from pegs 23/24 is fishing shallow with a waggler and spraying pellets and although I am on the opposite bank and down a bit my plan today is to fish a pellet waggler and hope that the fish will move along the bar a bit more

I am also going to set up a pole line at 13m and another at 6m for silvers as the way my luck is running this year I'll probably need some silvers to get team points
And also a margin swim tight to the bush to my right



At the whistle I shipped a pot of pellets out to 13m and 2 balls of green swim stim out to 6m and a pot of hemp and corn along the bush to my right

Then I cast a grain of corn out on the pellet waggler to about 18m closely followed by a pouch full of pellets, for the next hour I swapped baits on the waggler tried different depths different amounts of feed but was unable to get a bite

Both pegs 23 and 24 were into Carp from the whistle in fact Phil on 23 was playing a Carp as I was shipping out my first pot of pellets at the start of the match peg 17 was also catching a few Carp by now
So I decided to try my 13m line and went out with a 6mm soft hooker pellet on a size 16 B911 direct to 0.18mm line set to fish on the deck after a couple of Min's the float gently slid under and I had a 2oz skimmer in the net next put in the float slid under a little less gently and headed of to the centre of the lake closely followed by my purple hydro at long last I was attached to 1 of Rolfs Carp and it wasn't foul hooked after a quick battle I slid the net under a 4lb common for the next 20 Min's I caught a few more skimmers but generally the 13m line seemed to have died so I shipped another pot of pellets out and then tried the margin swim after 30 Min's I gave up on the margin swim and went back out to 13m and straight away was into skimmers after about my 5th skimmer when the float shot under the purple hydro came streaming out of the power top and I was attached to another Carp this 1 felt bigger than the first and swam round and round in front of me until I eventually managed to get its head up and net it

This was another common of about 6lb I went back out to 13m with another pellet and before the float could settle it shot under again and I was playing another Carp this time another 4lb common so with 3 Carp in the net and a few pounds of silvers things were looking up for once

I was no where near to pegs 23 and 24 as both were bagging peg 17 was also way ahead of me but Lloyd on peg 19 and Frank on peg 14 were not catching so hopefully I'd get a few team points today

In the last hour I managed to get skimmers regularly but no more Carp although I managed to foul hook 3 or 4 Carp and was getting a nice collection of scales

Looking across to peg 19 I saw Lloyd had had a couple of Carp in the last 30 Min's so it was going to be close

Rolf blew the whistle and I packed my gear away and headed off round to help with the weigh in

When we got to C section Frank weighed 6lb 12oz on peg 14 my 3 Carp weighed 14lb and to add to that I had 7lb 4oz of skimmers giving me a total of 21lb 4oz peg 17 weighed 62lb Lloyd on peg 19 had had 3 decent Carp for 27lb Phil won the section with 145lb on peg 23 followed by Ian on 23 with 111lb

As for Team Assassins Mark weighed in 184lb from peg 2 for a fine section win for 6 points and also the match win Paul had 30lb 8oz from peg 13 for 5th in section and 2 points and my 21lb 4oz gave me also 5th in section and 2 points giving us a total of 10 points today and putting us in 4th place in the league

Not a fantastic days fishing but it was certainly nice to catch my first Carp at Rolfs this year
Things can only get better as it gets warmer

Witherington Farm

Today its the Witherington Farm FishOmania qualifier which I was lucky enough to get a ticket for

I came down to Witherington Farm on Easter Monday to have a practise for this match and I fished the Inner Snake peg 89



I had a great days fishing and in the 5 hours between 11am and 4pm I had over 150lb my conclusion from the practise was that it was hard to catch from the far side with only small Carp and Gold fish and the odd Tench showing there were plenty of skimmers down the middle on pellet but fishing tight to the nearside bank on just the top 4 produced decent Carp 1 a chuck on corn

But all the talk on the fishing sites was that Witherington wasn't used to having so many people on the banks with nearly all the pegs on the site in use it was going to be a real gruller and added to that the temperature was expected to soar for the match so many were writing the match off before it started but I still had high hopes

So following my practise session I was looking forward to the match today and hoping to draw on the snake rather than 1 of the lakes so I was more than pleased when I opened my ticket and saw I had draw peg 81 on the inner snake
On the map it shows 81 as being on the bridge and seeing that I got even more excited and rushed off to get my gear out of the car



Unfortunately the map is wrong and 82 and 83 are either side of the bridge and although 82 was left out in the pegging the bridge could only be fished from 83





But still with an empty peg next to me that should give me and excellent inside line and I should be bagging up on Carp

I set up 4 rigs my main hope was the margin swim to my left and I decided to fish tight in to the vacant peg and fish corn on a B911 size 14 direct to 0.14mm Silstar line




Next line was down the middle at about 7m and here I set up a rig to fish pellet on the deck on a B911 size 16 to 0.14mm main line with a 0.12 hook length




Next line was the margin on the far bank at 13m and for that I set up the same rig as for the near bank

And the last rig was a maggot rig to fish at 6m on a B911 18 to 0.12mm Silstar

There's not much room between the 2 snakes so you have to break down twice so that your pole doesn't over hang the margin of the outer snake




At 11am the hooter sounded to start the match and I cupped 2 small balls of green swim stim laced with 4mm sinking pellets out in front at 7m a cup of corn and hemp in the margin swim to my left and the same in the margin swim on the far bank

Then I started on the pellet line with a 6mm soft hooker on the hook first put in and the float bobbled a few times then slowly slid under and I had an 8oz skimmer in the net next put in same result then I had to wait about 20 Min's for the next fish which was again a skimmer of the same stamp

I had seen a few Carp caught further round the inner snake and could hear Carp splashing about from behind me on the outer snake so as Fisho is winner takes all messing about with slivers wasn't going to do me any good and it didn't look like any better fish were going to move in on my feed so I decided to give the margin swim a go
I spent the next hour fishing the margin to my left with no joy not even an indication so I tried the far bank margin and after about an hour I managed to catch a small Carp of about 1lb

I spent the next hour back on the pellet line where I managed to catch another 4 skimmers all around 8oz but still no better fish

A quick look on the maggot line produce nothing so I spent the last 30 Min's fishing the margin swim hoping the Carp would move on to my feed but no joy the hooter went and that was another Fisho qualifier over for me

A lot of people packed up early and tipped their fish back and as I was packing up people round both the inner and outer snakes were tipping back and leaving so as the guy on 83 had had about 12 Carp from under the bridge and the 2 guys to my right had both had a few decent Carp each I decided not to hang about and tipped my fish back looking at them I would guess I had about 4 1/2lb

I loaded the car up and didn't bother waiting for the result as most of the people were coming back moaning about how hard it had been so I just headed home hoping to beat the traffic




Witherington farm is certainly a nice place to fish and after the cracking day I had last Monday I was expecting a lot more but I suppose the amount of anglers and the weather just killed the place but its certainly worth a visit The match was won with I think 109lb from the peg on the outer snake behind the guy on 83 and apparently he caught most of his fish in the last hour

Still I've got a ticket for Monk Lakes so 1 chance left this year

Rolfs Spring league - Match 2

Today is match 2 in the spring league at Rolfs lake in Oxfordshire and I'm quite looking forward to it even though I am fishing the section with the dreaded peg 10 in it

The weather this week has been fantastic settled warm and dry so hopefully the fish will be having it now !

Upon arriving at the lake it was a fantastic sight to see some areas of the lake almost black with moving Carp even peg 10 had its fair share crashing about in front of the platform

This week Paul is back to join myself and Steve in Team Assassins Paul is fishing A section I'm in B section and Steve has C section

At the draw Paul pulled peg 40 out which was black with Carp then it was my turn to try and avoid the dreaded peg 10 as I approached the bag Rolf informed me I had no chance of getting it this week as it had been left out due to 1 team being short of a member so peg 10 was removed with renewed vigour I dived into the bag and came out with peg 9 Steve had a great draw when he pulled in form peg 24 out of the bag

So with Paul on peg 40 and Steve on peg 24 we were at least assured of a few points this week

All week I have been thinking of trying paste this match if the weather held and as it had I had made up some paste and a few rigs in case I drew a decent paste peg and as I had drawn peg 9 which is a decent summer paste peg I decided to give it a go today

I was so certain that the paste was going to work that I set up the Lerc with the red hydro power tops and I didn't bother to set up feeder rod to fish the usual bread but I did set up a waggler rod with a pellet waggler not that I thought I was going to need it today
Plan was to fish paste tight to the bush to my right at about 6m

And I also had another rig set up to fish pellet out in front at 8m and the pellet waggler to fish out to the middle if needed

On the all in I shipped a pot of pellets out in front at 8m and another along the bush to my right at 6m then on with a lump of paste shipped it out along the bush and cupped it in over the top of the pellets and waited expectantly
Then I waited a bit more I tried different size lumps of paste I fed paste I fed pellets I even tried it up in the water but after 2 hours I still hadn't had the slightest bit of interest
For the next hour I tried fishing pellet out in front at 8m with no joy and also the pellet waggler also with no joy
Looking around the section they all seemed to be catching with the exception of Frank on peg 32 opposite me who had caught a Carp first put in then not had a bite since
So I needed to get a Carp at least to keep in contention so I kept on feeding the paste line and after giving up on the pellet lines I went back on to the paste in the hope of snagging a Carp
With an hour to go and still no bites it suddenly dawned on me that I was heading towards a blank and 0 points and all I needed for 2 points today was a fish of any description so I quickly grabbed the Armageddon top 4 out of the rod holdall and set a silvers rig up to fish maggot at 4m on the second put in I had a Roach in the net and 2 points in the bag from then on up to the whistle I continued to catch small roach and skimmers almost 1 a chuck
At the weigh in I was way behind in the section Franks Carp went for 9lb then there was a 25lb and a 30lb and Phil won the section from peg 28 with 50lb I managed to weigh 4lb 14oz
Paul had 33lb from peg 40 for 3rd in section and 4 points my 4lb 14oz gave me 5th in section and 2 points and Steve had a fantastic result with 212lb from peg 24 for first in section and 6 points and won the match as well

Giving Team Assassins 12 points today

We also came in second place today in the team event beating SPRO on weight so we had a most welcome bit of coin to pick up for once
Just a shame I got carried away with trying to catch a Carp for 4 hours again instead of going for silvers from the off but I'm probably too old to learn now

Still it was a nice day and for once we are off the bottom of the league

Rolfs Spring league - Match 1

After the last 2 winter leagues I must admit I had decided not to fish the spring league and wait till it got nearer to paste fishing time

But my results can't get much worse this year so I gave in and signed up again for the Spring league of 6 matches following the same format as the winter leagues ( but hopefully not the same results)

At the draw John Bennett decided to give our team a better name in the hope it would spur us on to better results so this series we are Team Assassins and for match 1 the team consists of my self Steve Wilson and Mike Stimson

I decided to fish A section in the first match with Steve fishing B section and Mike fishing C section

I drew peg 4 out which is another peg I haven't fished yet so I set off round the small lake keen and eager

My plan today is to just fish for silvers at 6m I also intended to set up a line at 11.5m to fish pellet and also another pellet line at 3m along the bush to my left I also set up my feeder rod just in case the Carp appeared in the small lake

My main rig for the silvers was a 4x12 Maver black ice on 0.10mm Silstar match with a 0.08mm hook link to a size 20 Kamasan B611 hook and I set the rig up on a match top with a No5 solid elastic

I also set up 1 pellet rig on 0.12mm Silstar straight thru to a B911 16 hook on a match top with blue hydro and a second pellet rig on 0.14mm Silstar on a power top with black hydro to fish the margin swim

On my main 6m line I intended to fish red maggot over a 50/50 mix of Sensas Roach and crushed hemp groundbait

So on the all in I shipped 2 small balls of groundbait out to 6m and a pot of pellets out to 11.5m and a handful of hemp along the bush to my left then I went out on the 11.5m line with a 6mm soft hooker on the hook hopeing to snag a bonus fish after about 20 mins with no action I gave up and went out over the 6m line with a single maggot on the hook and was straight into small Roach and skimmers

From peg 4 I could see all the other pegs in A section except for peg 7 and from what I could see peg 34 wasn't catching nor peg 37 and Phil on peg 40 had had a few Roach and a decent skimmer and Perch and peg 2 had had 2 small Roach so from what I could see I was about level with Phil on peg 40 so I stuck with the 6m line by changing to 2 red maggots on the hook and fishing over depth by 2 inches I managed to find a better stamp of skimmers and things were starting to look up as I took 3 net fish in quick succession

Talking of peg 2 the lake owner Rolf is fishing for 1 of the teams this week to fill in for a missing member and he drew peg 2

Then after about 2 hours the swim just died and I couldn't find a bite anywhere

About then a large Carp rolled out on the bar in the middle of the lake so as nothing was happening with the silvers line I cast a feeder full of bread crumb out to the bar with a piece of bread flake on the hook in the hope of catching it

peg 34 still hadn't had a bite 37 had had a couple of small skimmers and Phil on 40 and Rolf on 2 were searching around trying to find a bite the same as me

After about 20 mins on the feeder I gave up on the Carp and tried the margin swim but had no joy there either

So I went back out on to the 6m line with a single maggot after sitting watching a motionless float for 10 mins it suddenly dipped then disappeared and as I struck my worse nightmare came true as I felt a very solid very heavy fish but I'm assuming that I had foul hooked it at it didn't run it just carried on with its slow swim past me and round the corner to peg 6 with my No5 elastic having no effect on it I was just reaching for the rest of my pole to add a few sections when the elastic snapped back into the pole and all I had to show for the encounter was a straightened out hook

I tied a new hook on and went back out with another maggot and sat watching a motionless float In the last hour the guy on peg 37 hooked and landed a Carp of 9lb which beat both me and Phil in 1 stroke all of a sudden my swim came back to life and I had 4 or 5 net skimmers on the trot then I notice Phil on peg 40 playing a decent fish and he had just got an Orfe of about 6lb on the surface and sliding it towards the net when the hook pulled

I continued to take small Roach and skimmers right up to the whistle during which time Phil had a decent perch of about 2lb which knocked me further back in the points then with a few mins to go till the whistle Frank on peg 34 landed a 10lb Carp

And that was that Rolf blew the whistle I packed all my gear away and stuck it in the van then headed of round to help with the weigh in

Frank on peg 34 weighed in 1 Carp for 10lb odd the guy on 37 weighed in 1 Carp and a couple of skimmers for 9lb Phil on peg 40 weighed 6lb 6oz Rolf on peg 2 had 2oz and my net weighed in at 5lb 6oz and as usual peg 7 stole the show with 12lb 4oz

From the rest of the sections the only decent weights came from peg 17 with 75lb and peg 24 with 106lb 12oz

As for Team Assassins well the name didn't help we still came last my 5lb 6oz from peg 4 gave me 2 points for 5th in section Steve had 5lb from peg 30 for 1 point and last in section and Mike was top scorer with 41lb from peg 18 for 4th in section and 3 points giving us a total of 6 points today

Not the best of starts to the league but as it warms up it can only get better

Rolfs Winter league 2 - Match 6

Well the last match of the league has arrived and as usual for this league match day has strong winds and now even snow promised

So I'm not expecting too much from the day but I am fishing C section so things could be worse

On arrival at the lake I saw that Rolf had pumped most of the extra water out again and the platforms were once again above water

On the team side Team JCS is once again 1 man short as Paul is still missing and unfortunately this week Rolf was unable to find us a replacement not that it really mattered as we had been last in the league from match 1 and never really looked like getting going

Steve was fishing B section and drew peg 31 and I drew well for once and pulled out peg 18 on C section

As you can see peg 18 is still under water but at least I can still get on the platform

Talking to Ernie on peg 17 it appeared that pegs 17 and 18 had not produced any Carp in the pairs match last week and had fished really hard

My plan of attack today was going to be fishing bread on the feeder over towards the boat between 19 and 20

And I set up the pole to fish out in front at 11.5m I also set up a waggler rod to fish out towards the middle On the all in I cast a feeder full of crumb with a bit of bread flake on the hook over towards the boat and waited ready to pounce on the rod as soon as it whipped round

But unfortunately it never happened and I spent the next 5 hours watching John Bennett bagging up from peg 23 fishing bread on the feeder to the other side of the boat totally amazing that I could be fishing 4 or 5 feet away and not be able to get a bite but that's fishing for ya

Pegs 23 24 and 25 had all caught Carp in the first hour and both pegs 14 and 15 had had a couple of Carp which just left me on 18 and Ernie on 17 without a Carp so I decided to sit it out for a Carp and not bother with the pole to try and get a few silvers for points as an extra point wasn't going to make any difference either way to our position in the league but a few Carp would get some decent points so I sat on the feeder hoping the fish turned on late in the match but as I said it never happened I went right up to the whistle without a single bite and just to make it worse Ernie on 17 had 4 Carp in the last hour fishing bread shallow on a splasher waggler

John Bennett won the section and the match with 110lb of Carp from peg 23

So my DNW earned Team JCS 0 points today and Steve had 6lb 8oz of bits from peg 31 for 2 points leaving us in last place in the league

So that's the second winter league over not the best of weather or conditions on match day and some poor draws but the people fishing the league are friendly and always willing to offer advice and help and Rolf is always welcoming and if you want to get to know a venue you need to see it at its worse as well as its best

But tbh for me summer and decent paste fishing can't come soon enough

Rolfs Winter league 2 - Match 5

Forecast for today did not look good with howling gales and torrential rain expected all day

As I arrived at Rolfs in Oxfordshire it was still dry but the wind was starting to pick up and the black clouds were gathering

This week I am fishing B section and there is 1 peg in B section that I hate with a growing vengeance and as I got out of the van I had the prickly feeling that I could hear peg 10 taunting me from the other side of the lake

A section were first to draw as usual and Steve pulled peg 2 out then it was B section and when my name was called I reached into the bag and as soon as Rolf said "I hope it's not 10" I knew all was lost with dread I opened my hand and looked at the peg ...

This week we have Chris fishing for Team JCS again and he had a great draw by pulling in form peg 23 out on C section

I must admit I have never believed in negative vibes, fate, destiny or for that matter bad luck but as I trudged round the lake heading for my nemesis I was beginning to believe that the curse of 10 is going to haunt me

Due to the forecast gales today my plan had been to sit under the brolly and fish bread on the feeder and hope to snag a few Carp

But having drawn peg 10 yet again I had to put the pole up in the hope of catching something to try and break my run of blanks from peg 10

So my plan is to fish bread on the feeder just my side of the middle

I also set up a pole line at 11.5m

Another at 4m

And a margin swim next to the bush to my right

For bait I had 6mm and 11mm soft hookers, bread, red maggots, meat and corn

And for feeding I had hemp, white crumb and 1/2 a bag of Roach groundbait

On the all in I fed a pot of hemp next to the bush to my right and 2 balls of groundbait at 11.5m and 2 balls at 4m

Then I started on the crumb feeder fishing a large lump of bread flake on the hook

By now the rain was hammering down and the wind was gusting for all it was worth from left to right sitting out in the open on peg 10 all I could do was hang on to the brolly pole and hope for a wrap round on the rod

Looking round the pegs I could see most people were sitting it out for a Carp on the tip with a few catching a few silvers on the pole line so I sat on the tip like the rest hoping for a bite which never came not even a liner

After about 2 hours I gave up on the feeder and went out on the pole at 11.5m I decided to try fishing bread and 11mm pellets to try and get a Carp as most of the people in my section had by now had a fair few silvers and if my last attempts at catching from this peg were anything to go by I was going to need a Carp to get in the points

On my second put in with an 11mm cat meat flavour pellet the float buried and I felt a decent fish on for a fraction of a second but it shook the hook instantly

Spurred on I shipped another pellet out and spent the next hour battling the wind to try and keep the pole in my swim and trying to hang on to the pole and brolly at the same time

Eventually I decided enough was enough and as the brolly was getting blown inside out every other gust now I gave up on the 11.5m line and moved on to the 4m line

3rd or 4th put in on the 4m line with red maggot on the hook I caught a small Roach no blank today for the next 2 hours I managed to keep a slow succession of small Roach and skimmers coming from the 4m line fishing maggot and by feeding a few grains of hemp every put in I had hoped a decent fish might put an appearance in but no such luck eventually Rolf blew the whistle and made us all stop

From what I could see Ian opposite me on peg 31 had blanked but the rest of the section looked to have caught a few decent skimmers and Perch in their silvers and no one on B section had had a Carp so at least I was likely to get a couple of points

I packed my gear away which was by now totally wind swept and soaked and wheeled it round to the van then set off to help with the weigh in A section were first and peg 34 took top weight with 5 Carp for 26lb followed by peg 7 with a few Carp for 19lb

Then on to B section best weight on the section was 19lb from peg 29 I managed to weigh 4lb 10oz

Then on to C section which once again fished better than A and B with best weight coming from peg 24 with 70lb of Carp for an easy section and match win

As for Team JCS Steve had 3lb from peg 2 for 6th in section and 2 points I had 4lb 10oz from peg 10 for 6th in section and 2 points and Chris was our best scorer with 46lb 4oz from peg 23 for 2nd in section and 6 points giving us 10 points today

Still last in the league but we are 2 points closer to the Thame tackle guys and poised to over take them in the last match in the league

Not a good day tbh but I didn't blank even though I managed to draw the 1 peg I hate yet again I should really have set out for the silvers from the start then I might have been more in contention for the section points but 1 Carp would have taken all the points today just a shame I never had 1 still it's getting warmer and soon the Carp will be pushing the silvers out of all the pegs

Rolfs Winter league 2 - Match 4

Well its Match 4 in the league today and the forecast looks ok with a dry and mild day forecast with no frost So I was a bit surprised to find the lake had risen 4 foot since last match and was right back over the platforms and half way up the bank again
This match I am fishing A section and I've come with a plan

A section are first to draw and the first peg out of the bag was peg 7 which left the rest of us drawing for the backing places in the section being last in the section last match meant I was last to draw and peg 40 was left in the bag and as I wanted any peg other than 36 or 37 I was quite happy

As Paul is missing again this match we have Rob Kite fishing for us and he was fishing B section but unfortunately he drew peg 10 not the best of draws

Steve had a slightly better draw with peg 14 on C section but the chances of Team JCS leaping off bottom slot with those draws is a bit slim to say the least

Peg 40 is right down the far end of the little lake and as the picture shows I'm having to sit right back up the bank and to the side of the platform

It's also a very noisy peg with traffic thundering past your back on the motorway

My plan of attack today was so cunning you could almost paint it tan and call it a fox

One of the main problems I am having at Rolfs is I am finding it very hard to come and not fish for the Carp because tbh it dosen't make sense to come to a big Carp Mecca and fish for tiny silvers when you know every peg can throw up 300lb + weights of Carp

But as I knew I was in the little lake this week my plan was to forget about the Carp totally and just fish for slivers (unless I drew peg 7 of course) so with that in mind I made up some light rigs to fish for silvers and put some new no5 elastic in a couple of my match top 3's and the plan was to fish single red maggot over groundbait and catch Roach and hopefully draw some skimmers in too

For ground bait I am using a 50/50 mix of Sensas Roach 3000 and Crushed Hemp and I planned to fish it straight out in front at 11.5m

I also decided to give it an hour on the feeder with bread flake on the hook just in case I could snag a Carp

When Rolf sounded the whistle to start I cupped 2 large balls of ground bait and a hand full of maggots out to 11.5m then chucked a feeder full of white crumb with a lump of bread flake on the hook over into the bay to my right

After about an hour to trying to catch a Carp I gave up on he feeder as watching around the little lake no one was catching any Carp with the exception of peg 7

So I swapped over to my 11.5m line and shipped a single red maggot out and dropped it in over the top of my groundbait after a few seconds the float dipped and I had a little Roach in the net from then on I had almost a fish a chuck for the next hour or so they were only small Roach but they were keen

Looking around the section I could see that peg 7 was running away with the points as expected but no one else was catching except peg 37 who had had a couple of decent net skimmers and I reckoned that my haul of little Roach were keeping me level with him

In the next hour peg 2 had 3 or 4 decent skimmers and peg 37 had 3 more net fish peg 36 had started to catch small Roach and I continued to catch small Roach with a few larger Chubblets starting to make an appearance

In the last hour I reckoned that I had done enough to take second in the section When

Ernie on peg 36 hooked and landed a 3lb+ Perch and the guy on peg 37 had 2 more net skimmers

I continued to catch right up to the whistle but not having a net fish all day I suspected that both pegs 36 and 37 had beaten me

My catch certainly wasn't going to win me any prizes but I must admit I did enjoy the fishing

The weigh station behind peg 2 word of warning not a good idea to put your rod bag on the fence like this because if Rolf spots it you will be going home early!

I soon had my gear packed away and back in the van then it was off round the lake to help with the weigh in

A section was first to weigh in and peg 34 had had a nightmare and ended up with 4drms peg 36 had 6lb 14oz and peg 37 had 5lb 10oz then it was me to weigh and as I tipped my net I was surprised by just how many fish I had and even more surprised when they weighed 5lb 10oz peg 2 was next and he had 3lb peg 4 managed 1lb 14oz and peg 7 stole the section with 20lb 8oz

Best weight on B section was 50lb from peg 28 and the best weights on the day came from C section with pegs 17,18,23 and 24 all catching well but the winner on the day was Mick Lane on peg 23 with 115lb

My 5lb 10oz gave me joint 3rd in section and 5 points Rob had 7lb 14oz from peg 10 for last in section and 1 point and Steve had 12lb 13oz from peg 14 for joint 5th in section and 3 points giving Team JCS 9 points today and still bottom of the table

But it was still an enjoyable day and we are still in with a chance of sneaking past the Thame Tackle guys in the last 2 matches

Court Farm Fishing Lakes

No match today so I am off to Court farm to make up for the last 3 nightmare matches I have had at Rolfs as no matter what the weather or conditions the fish at Court farm are always pleased to see you

Today I am going to fish lake 1 which is the top lake in the site picture and as when I arrived I was the only 1 in the car park I decided that it wasn't going to be too busy today so I settled down in 1 of the large double swims at the large end of the lake

The lake is usually packed so I usually go for 1 of the single swims on the opposite side of the lake or the smaller swims down at the narrow end of the lake otherwise you end up having to share the swim or listen to the winging etc

It doesn't make a lot of difference which peg you fish really as you can get a fish a chuck from any of them but the bank on the other side is steeper and can be awkward for shipping the pole back and the double swims allow you to spread out a bit

Forecast today is for sunny spells and scattered showers so I set the brolly up at the start to save hassle later on

Plan of attack today is going to be fishing 6mm pellet at 11.5m on the deck feeding 4mm sinking pellet straight out in front

I just set up 2 rigs both on Silstar Match 0.14mm line straight through to a size 16 B911 hook and for floats I used Maver Ice pellet floats 1 with a yellow tip which I set to fish an inch over depth and the other with a red tip I set to fish 2 inches off bottom both on purple hydro

The lake is carrying a bit of extra water at the moment so the depth is just over 33 inches and still has some nice colour in it

To start I ship a large pot of pellets out to 11.5m and put a 6mm Natural GOT soft hooker on the over depth rig and ship it out over the top of the feed pellets

by now the feed pellets are starting to fizz and within 60 secs my float lifts then slides under and the hydro is flying out and after a brief but refreshing battle I slide the net under a nice common of about 2lb

And for the next couple of hours I had a constant stream of commons and the odd hard fighting mirror

Most of them were around the 2lb mark with a couple nudging 4lb and every now and again a Roach would beat the Carp to the bait

And even they are big enough now to pull your hydro out

Once the bites slowed down a bit I swapped over to the shallower rig as now the sun was out and it was dead flat calm so moving up in the water brought me back into contact with the fish

And as it was so calm I shortened the line to the float down to about 3 inches to make it easier to hit the bites as now I'm up in the water the bites are far quicker

I also swapped over to the new GOT Green lipped muscle 6mm soft hooker pellets I was lucky enough to get to try from the nice guys at GOT Baits

And the fish seemed to like the new pellets just as much as the old Naturals

The fish I was catching now seemed to be a bit chunkier than the ones I caught on the deck but tbh I can't say whether the pellets produced a better stamp of fish or moving up in the water had the effect but I wasn't complaining

One thing is for sure with the new range of pellets they are certainly made to a better texture and hang on the hook better than jelly pellets and they are of a more uniform size

I continued to catch fish right through the rest of the afternoon and even though its still classed a winter the Carp put up a good fight right the way to net

By about 4pm it looked like it was going to rain so I decided to pack up and get the gear away before it got wet

I really enjoyed my day down at Court farm I'm fully refreshed and ready for the next challenge at Rolfs

Rolfs Winter league 2 - Match 3

Well its back to Rolfs in Oxfordshire this week for match 3 in the 2007 winter league bearing in mind my 2 previous results in the league getting up to find minus 4 and a hard frost didn't inspire me

But I had my repaired pole sections back from Scott at Esselle pole repairs and at least I was fishing C section so might stand a chance of a few fish

As I pulled into the car park the first thing I saw was the level of the lake which was back to normal and most of the platforms were out of the water again

This match Paul was missing from Team JCS so once again Chris is standing in for us and unfortunately he has to fish A section again

A section were up to draw first and Chris pulled peg 4 out of the bag not the best of draws

Next up were B section and Steve pulled in form peg 29 out of the bag

Then it was my turn and as I opened my hand and saw peg 18 I was very happy

Though there is still 3 inches of water over the platform on peg 18 its still 100% better than having to sit back up the bank

Plan of attack today is to fish bread flake on a crumb feeder over towards the boat by peg 19

And fish the pole straight out in front at 14.5m

On the all in I cast the feeder out dropped the rod into the rest and waited for it to leap into action

It wasn't long before the tip shot round and I lifted and struck but there was nothing there

This went on for about 10 mins I kept recasting and the tip was all over the place but I was unable to hit any bite

Then eventually after about 20 mins I managed to hit 1 and I was into 1 of Rolfs Carp as it tore off towards peg 22 at top speed I bent the rod into it stopped the run and started to pull the fish back towards me then all of a sudden the line went slack and it was off and all I had to show for it was a large scale left on the hook

But it was a start so I re-cast and waited poised over the rod ready to pounce on the slightest movement which never came for about 10 mins then rod took off and bent double as another of Rolfs Carp headed for the other side of the lake

But unfortunately as I stopped the run the hook pulled straight away and once again all I landed was a large scale

By now most of the other people in my section had all landed a Carp (most of them foul hookers) so with an hour gone and empty nets it was not looking too good once again as now along with most others my swim had died

I decided to swap over to the pole and fish pellet at 14.5m on the deck without a lot of joy and after 30 biteless mins I swapped over from a 4mm pellet to 1 of the new GOT 11mm cat meat pellets I had been lucky enough to get from the nice people at GOT Baits

I shipped the pellet out to 14.5m lowered it in the float settled down to the tip then disappeared under the water I was so amazed that I forgot to strike and by the time the message sunk in it was too late and the float popped back up

I shipped a new pellet out and sat poised this time as the float cocked and set its self after about 60 secs the float buried and my purple hydro shot out of the power top at a rapid rate I eventually got the fish under control and started to ship it back but I could tell from the fight that it was foul hooked so I had to play it very gently as I needed this fish

Then the fish made a few sharp lunges and the hydro shot back into the top2 and I was left with another scale for my growing collection

I put another pellet on and shipped out but that was it the float didn't move again the guy next to me had 2 nice 3lb + Perch and a couple of Carp but I remained bite less for the next hour

Eventually I managed to hook a fish at 13m on red maggot and thankfully I soon slipped a 12oz Skimmer into my net no DNW for me today

But that was the only 1 I couldn't get another bite anywhere in the peg on any bait

For the last hour I went back on to the feeder over to the boat but despite all the fish I could see topping over in front of peg 22 I still couldn't get a bite

And as Rolf blew the whistle that's how my match ended with just the 1 skimmer from what looked like a fantastic peg at the start

My 12oz got me 1 point for Team JCS for last in section Chris on peg 4 had a nightmare with a DNW and Steve on peg 29 had 40lb for 5 points and 3rd in section

Giving us 6 points today and still a supporting roll in the league

The match was won from peg 2 with 48lb 8oz of Carp caught on the feeder fishing back into the corner

One of the good things to come out of today was the first outing for my new rod holdall as I have spent along time trying to decide which 1 to go for and I have eventually plumped for the 12 tube Daiwa Tournament as it will hold both poles all the top kits and 2 rods as well as bank sticks umbrella and landing net handles with room to spare

I was a bit concerned when I saw the size of it and felt the fully loaded weight that I would be unable to move it but I must say that it was easier to carry round the lake than my old fox holdall

Lastly a view of the weigh station behind peg 16 not that I needed to trouble it today

Still next match I'm back in the little lake and with snow forecast and the way my year is going I'm bound to end up drawing on suicide row again (soon be summer though)

Rolfs Winter league 2 - Match 2

Well its the second match of 6 today in the 2007 winter league at Rolfs in Oxfordshire

After my struggle last match for 1oz I was hoping for a better draw and a better day today

The day started off well I was up early and had the van loaded and ready to go but I was 45 mins too early so I made a coffee and put the tv on to watch the news. Then I had a great idea I could slacken off the elastics in my top kits to save me forgetting to do it on the bank again. So I grabbed the pole out of the van and adjusted all the top kits I then thought that as I had the pole out and some time to spare I would give it a bit of a clean and polish

Things were going really well until I dropped my No5 section and it landed on the edge of the coffee table and snapped clean in half and to make matters worse the section that broke off landed on the No6 and split that section too to say I was not chuffed was a bit of an understatement

Damaged area of No6 section is marked up ready to send off to Scott at Esselle Pole Repairs

While Scott has the section I'll get the 2 chips on the lower joint repaired as well
In a bit of a panic now as time is getting on I grabbed my other pole jumped into the van and shot off to Rolfs
My intention today was to fish the feeder with bread flake on the hook as my main approach and just use the pole for back up in case its hard today but un fortunately my other pole only has red hydro fitted in all the tops which isn't going to be a lot of use for catching silvers
Had I thought about it a bit more I would have picked up a waggler rod instead of the pole but its too late now
Arriving at the lake Rolf told me and Paul that Steve Wilson's car had broken down so he wouldn't be able to make it today
but Rolf had found us a replacement at short notice to take Steve's place today
Our new member Chris was fishing A section and made a cracking draw as he pulled peg 34 out of the bag
Next it was my turn to draw and there were 2 pegs left in the bag peg 10 and peg 32
I might just as well have set off for peg 10 and not bothered drawing because the way my luck was going today there was only going to be 1 out come
So it was no real surprise when I opened my hand and peg 10 dropped out
Paul had a reasonable draw with peg 25

I drew peg 10 in a match last year and spent a fishless 5 hours with the wind howling across the lake at me so as I set off round the lake to set up I wasn't in the most positive of moods



I decided to fish bread flake on the feeder out in front in the middle of the lake
and also set up a pellet line at 13m on the pole

I also set up a rig to fish maggot along the right hand bush at about 4m

Last plan of attack today is to fish to my left back into the bay behind me in front of peg 12

As you can see I cant get on the platform to fish so sitting up the bank the bay is behind the bushes to my left so its going to mean a cast over the top of the bushes to get in front of peg 12
But when Rolf came round to put the scales on the weigh station he told me that there had been fish in the bay all week so later on I might stand a chance of a few Carp

The weigh station behind peg 9

On the all in I put a small pot of pellets out at 13m and a handful of hemp at 4m in front of the bush to my right then cast out a feeder full of white crumb with a bit of bread flake on the hook and not a lot happened the guy on peg 9 hit a Carp first cast fishing bread on a feeder and the rest of us in the middle section of the lake spent an hour casting feeders and waiting for the rod to wrap round

By now the sun was out in full force and straight in my face and the wind was howling straight across the lake towards me

Not very comfortable fishing but the expectation of the rod leaping out of the rest any moment made it worth while

Ernie on peg 31 had a Carp on the feeder and the guy on peg 28 had a nice Carp of 17lb 8oz on the feeder but I sat with nowt no line bites no knocks no movement at all

Ian on peg 32 was now fishing on the pole in front of peg 33 and had landed a couple of Chub

It made it even worse that I had to sit opposite peg 32 after failing to pull it out of the bag

For the next few hours I kept on with the feeder trying bread,corn and pellet and swapping hook sizes and hook lengths but all to no avail still I couldn't buy a bite so I gave the pole a go but with the wind it was hard shipping it out and keeping it in position and when I had it in place it was almost impossible to see the float with the sun straight in my face

With an hour to go Rolf came round and sat behind me and was telling me how hard it was fishing with very few fish coming out round the lake

So I decided to give it a try in front of peg 12 and see if I could snag a Carp but after 45 mins I was still bite less

So in a desperate search for a fish I tried my 4m maggot line in the hope of catching anything for a few points but 15 mins later Rolf blew the whistle and it was all over and I had recorded my first DNW of 2007

So that was a zero points for me towards Team JCS Chris our stand-in for Steve had 13lb 4oz from peg 34 for 5 points and Paul had 8lb 8oz from peg 25 for 3 points giving us a total of 8 points and a supporting roll in the league table

Winner on the day was Steve Palmer from peg 23 with 30lb 2oz

Not a good day all-round for me broken pole no fish no points but at least it didn't rain
Still that's match fishing for ya !

There's always the next match to look forward to

Rolfs Winter league 2 - Match 1

My first match this year is the 2nd winter league at Rolfs in Oxfordshire. Same as the 1st league its run over 6 matches and contested by teams of 3 with 1 member of each team fishing in each section twice on a rotation each match only difference this league is that Rolf has mixed the sections up a bit to make each section fairer

A Section stays the same pegs 34-7 on little lake

B Section is now pegs 9-13 on motorway bank and pegs 28-32 on car park bank

C Section is now pegs 14-18 on motorway bank and pegs 23-25 on car park bank

For this league I am fishing for Team JCS and my team mates are Paul Jay and Steve Wilson

As none of us wanted to fish on A section we drew straws and I lost and ended up with A section Paul drew B section and Steve got C Section

But once I've fished it its over and done with for 2 matches and hopefully by then it will have warmed up a bit and the water will be back to sensible levels

So when A Section were called to draw I stepped forward and pulled peg 36 from the bag things were not looking good as general opinion was the only 2 pegs you didn't want to draw were 36 or 37

Paul drew peg 9 another bad draw and Steve pulled peg 17 an excellent draw

so our chances weren't looking too good with 2 bad draws but that's match fishing

Plan of attack today is simple I intend to fish bread flake on a crumb feeder out in the middle and set up a pellet line at 13m and maggot line at 6m

As you can see from the pictures the water level is still up about 4 foot and covering the platforms

Today the weather forecast is for severe gales and rain later on so I don't hold out much hope for fishing the pole lines and suspect I may be going home wet tonight
For company on peg 37 I had Ian from Thame Tackle the only man to draw a worse peg than me today

On the all in I filled my feeder with damped down white crumb put a piece of bread on the hook and cast out to the middle of the little lake looking around the lake it looked as though feeder was the main choice of everyone today probably due to the building wind and for the 1st hour that's all we did re-cast and look around as no one was having any joy peg 34 which was tipped as a flyer was looking dead on both feeder line and pole lines

In the 2nd hour peg 7 the other flyer in A Section started to catch carp quite regularly but the rest of us just sat and watched

In the next 2 hrs I switched between the feeder and the pole at 13m with pellet but had no joy on either

During this time Ernie on peg 4 landed a decent skimmer and a couple of small Roach peg 34 had taken a couple of small Roach as had peg 40 and peg 7 had continued to catch decent Carp so I needed to get something to grab some section points for the team so I spent the last hour fishing maggot at 6m and eventually with 10 mins to go I landed a small Perch then thankfully Rolf blew the whistle and made us all stop

I packed my gear away and headed off to help with the weigh in in A section peg 34 weighed 00.08 on 36 my Perch weighed 00.01 peg 37 blanked 40 had 01.06 peg 2 weighed 00.04 then Ernie on peg 4 had 02.08 and in a close fought contest peg 7 had 49.00

Best weights on B section were a 41lb and a 36lb from pegs 29 and 31 and in C section best weight and match winner was Lloyd moss with 99.12 from peg 23 with a couple of 30lb backing weights from pegs 18 and 24

My 1oz got me 6th in section and 2 points Paul managed 9lb 12oz from peg 9 for last in section and 1 point Steve had 17lb 8oz from peg 17 for 5th in section and 3 points giving Team JCS 6 points

Winter League 2007

Team-----------------------Total

Rolfs Team Diamond------20

SPRO-----------------------16

Rolfs Team Gold-----------13

GOT Red Lion--------------11

Thame Tackle--------------09

No Hopes------------------08

JCS------------------------06

Well its not a great start to the league but as usual the company was great and next match I'm on B section so lets hope Team JCS get some better draws

Barkham Ponds

I always try to get out fishing on New Years day and start the year off with a good pleasure session.

Last year I went to Pondwood Farm just outside Maidenhead and had a cracking day on lake 2 so I decided to return back to Pondwood this year

As I pulled into the car park I was surprised to see it was empty as there are usually a few people fishing lake 1 for the Catfish and large Carp. As I pulled up to park I saw to my dismay a notice board and in large letters it read GROUNDBAIT BANNED - NO LOOSE FEED - HOOKBAITS ONLY !

I considered for a micro second whether I was prepared to pay the guy £10 to fish his commercial and not be allowed to feed pellets and before I had come to a decision I realized that I had swung the van round and was on my way out the gate probably like the people before me

As there is a new fishery opened up about 1/2 a mile down the road from Pondwood called New Farm Fishery I decided to give that a try But on arrival I discovered the gate was shut and no signs of life anywhere

So I headed straight over to Barkham Ponds just outside Wokingham as they are always open and always plenty of fish to be had

By the time I arrived it was 8.30 and looked like turning in to a nice day weather wise

I decided to fish lake 1 and fish the peg by the channel into lake 3

Plan today was to fish pellet straight out in front at 11.5m and feed micro sinking pellets

And also to fish corn under the far tree to my right which is about 11.5m along the bank So once I'm all set up I put a pot of corn under the tree to the right and a pot of micro pellets out in front at 11.5m rigs are simple today as I only have 2 1/2 ft of water at 11.5m and 2 ft under the tree I am using Malman stable 4x14 floats on both rigs with 0.14 Silstar match line straight through to a B911 size 16 for the pellet and a B911 size 14 for the corn

Hand made Malman Stable floats are ideal for when the fish are shy biters in the colder months


----------Silstar is the best rig line I have found to date

Kamasan B911 hooks find a place on all my commercial rigs these days

Bait selection is as always my favourite GOT pellets for the hook and feed

And of course a can of everyone's favourite








First off I put a 6mm soft hooker pellet on and shipped it out to 11.5m I was fishing at dead depth and within 60 sec the float disappeared and my black hydro whizzed out A steady ship back and I had a nice mirror Carp of about 1lb in the net


Back out with another 6mm pellet and within a couple of mins I had another Carp of the same size on its way to the net I fitted a kinder pot and fed a few micros every put in and for the next hour or so I had regular Carp all on the 6mm pellet and all around the 1lb - 1 1/2lb stamp

By now I was starting to miss a few bites and was getting liners so I shallowed up the rig and came off the bottom 2 inches

First put in the float bobbed a couple of times then buried the hydro shot out a lot quicker and I was into a better fish

A nice steady ship back and I slid the net under a nice mirror of about 2 1/2lb



As I stopped to pay for my ticket (£6.00) when the nice young lady came round collecting I noticed a guy fishing the lake behind me He was hiding behind a tree all dressed in camo gear and I could see 2 rods poking out on a pod with bite alarms and droppers etc unfortunately he had chosen to fish the worst lake on the complex and at most it has 18 inches of water and 1 bite on that lake is classed as a good session hooking the fish is a right bonus but he seemed happy enough
After getting my ticket and a stop for coffee and a biscuit I went back out to 11.5m with a pellet fishing 2 inches off the bottom and continued to catch carp ranging from 1lb to 3 lb and at 1 point I was getting a bite so fast I didn't even have time to tip my loose feed in out of the kinder pot before the hydro was racing out and the tip of my pole was diving under the surface

After a couple of hours the wind started to get a bit stronger and the fish weren't getting any bigger so I decided to give the margin swim a go and see if any of the larger resident Carp were feeding yet

I put a piece of corn on the hook and shipped it out and under the tree to my right I sat for about 10 mins and nothing was happening as I was sat round on my box facing the tree I was watching an old boy who had turned up and decided to fish the small lake near the car park It only has 3 or 4 pegs on it but you can really bag up when the fish are in there he had just dropped his rig into the margin and hooked straight in to a fish of about 7lb I was just shouting across a well done as he held it up to show me it before returning the fish when my pole whipped round and my hydro was heading under the tree a quick battle and I had the fish out of the roots and out into the lake from there on it was a steady ship back and I slid the net under a nice common Carp of round about 5lb



For the next hour I took 12 Carp all between 3lb and 6lb on corn from under the tree to my right By now it was starting to get very overcast and the light was disappearing fast so I decided to pack up and get my gear away before it got wet

As luck would have it I was just sitting in the van having a coffee before heading home when the heavens opened can't be bad a good days fishing and missed the rain
Lets hope the rest of 2007 runs the same way

Rolfs Winter league - Match 6

This week is the final match in the 2006 winter league at Rolfs and even the hard frost on the van windscreen couldn't put a dampener on my spirits today
I soon had the screen clear the van loaded and sped my way to Rolfs in Oxfordshire
By the time I arrived at Rolfs the temperature had risen a few degrees and it was quite pleasant not quite Tee shirt and shorts weather but also not coat weather either. I got my nets laundered by Rolfs net cleaning service wheeled all my gear round to the motorway side of the lake as I'm fishing B Section this week pegs 9-18 and returned to the hut to draw my peg
I was most happy with my draw this week as I wanted either peg 16,17 or 18 and I managed to pull peg 16 out of the bag


As you can see from the picture the lake is still about 4 foot up so I am having to sit on the top of the bank above the platform which makes positioning my nets difficult due to the fact that straight out in front of me for about 6 foot is the platform and if the nets go across it and I fill them with Carp then there is no way I will be able to pull them in without getting into the water to lift them over the edges of the platform so I have squeezed them down between the platform and the bush

As Rolf is allowing running line this week my plan of attack today is going to be a cage feeder with white crumb and bread flake on the hook and I going to fish it about 18m straight out in front of me hopefully just in front of the underwater bar

Main reason for this approach is peg 16 is about 2m further back than peg 15 so using the pole you are at a 2m disadvantage before you start

On arrival at my peg I saw that I had once again managed to draw next to Lloyd Moss this is probably the 5th time this year I have been on the next peg to him and each time he has battered me

Talking to Lloyd as we set up it turned out that he had hurt his back and so wasn't going to bother trying to fish the pole today I also noticed that Bill on peg 18 was also only setting up a feeder rod and no pole. So sensing a gifted advantage I quickly set my pole up
My aim was to stick with my original plan and fish the feeder but if it was hard going then I would swap to the pole and I had corn,pellet,meat and maggots all in reserve

My set up today is my trusted Fox Challenger heavy feeder rod ,okuma inspira reel with 8lb Maxima Chameleon line and a 12 inch Match Team 0.18 hook link with a B911 size 12 hook and a Fox size 3 cage feeder. I am going to use damped down white crumb in the feeder and a large lump of bread flake pinched round the hook

On the all in I picked a tree on the far bank as my marker and cast out a feeder full of crumb with a lump of bread flake on the hook,dropped the rod into the rest tightened up to the feeder and waited ready to pounce!

Straight away the tip started dancing with little knocks from pesky Roach I tried to hit a few of the bites but they were lighting fast and each time I came back with nothing so I decided to sit on my hands and wait for a real bite

After about 5 mins the rod whipped round and leapt out of the rest and I lifted into 1 of Rolfs Carp a nice steady battle with the Challenger rod and I slid the net under a nice 5lb common Carp back out with another feeder full of crumb and after a few mins the rod leap out of the rest again and I soon had another 5lb fish in the net

Things were looking good after the first hour I had 4 Carp in the net Lloyd on peg 17 had 1 Carp fishing bread on the waggler and pegs 18 and 15 were both fishless

I then went through a 20 min spell with no bites and was contemplating giving the pole a shot when again the rod bent double in the rest and I lifted into a fish that roared off towards peg 20 I cranked the drag right up and just bent into the fish and let the rod get it under control eventually the fish gave in and slowly plodded its way back to peg 16 because the platform is under water in front of me I had to play the fish hard and get it on the surface before it spotted the platform legs and dived to safety after a bit of splashing and crashing on the surface I had the fish in the net and a quick trip to the weigh station I had a 13lb mirror on the board

I cast straight back out and within minuets I was playing another fish this time a 10lb mirror

Soon I noticed that Lloyd was starting to catch faster on the waggler and was catching me up, peg 18 was also taking the odd fish now too but I decided to stick with what I was doing and I had a spell of 6 fish in 10 mins 2 in the net and 4 weighers on the board

In the last 30 mins Steve on peg 15 had 2 Carp in quick succession Lloyd was getting a fish a chuck and I started getting fish taking the feeder on the drop I lost about 4 fish which were probably foul hooked but I managed to get a few more weighers on the board by the time Rolf sounded the all out I had 12 weighers on the board for 103lbs and 6 fish in the net

Though Lloyd was saying I had battered him today as he only had 60 odd lb on the board I knew he had sneaked quite a few fish into his nets and it was going to be close but from what we could see round the lake no one else had bagged up so it was going to be between us for 1st place

I packed all me gear away and headed of round to help with the weigh in

There was an 84lb off peg 2 and an 81lb off peg 7 in the little lake then an 86lb from peg 13 and when the scales reached peg 16 I weighed 129lb 8oz and Lloyd on peg 17 weighed 121lb 4oz and Bill on peg 18 weighed 73lb and with the only other decent weight coming from peg 24 with 70lb I had won B section and the match

My 129lb 8oz gave me 1st in section and 9 points Chris had 23lb 14oz for 3rd in section and 7 points from peg 32 and Paul had 12oz for 7th in section and 3 points from peg 38 putting Team Desperate Danns in 2nd place today and finishing in 6th place overall in the league

Winter League 2006

Team-----------------------Total

1.Rolfs Team Gold----------120
2.RS Baits------------------.118
3.Hayes---------------------106
4.Fisherman's B--------------93
5.Rolfs Team Diamond------89
6.Desperate Dann's ---------83
7.Fisherman's A -------------82
8.Musketeers-----------------54
9.Throwbacks----------------51

Well that's it for my first winter league at Rolfs and fishing against venue regulars/experts finishing mid table in the league is a fair result also getting through all 6 matches without a blank was pleasing and finishing on a high by winning the last match made it all worth while

Thanks to Rolf and all the other guys that made it a great winter league

Rolfs Winter league - Match 5

The forecast for today was for torrential rain and severe winds

I don't mind the rain but the wind is a total pain especially on a pole only venue

Any way as I arrived at Rolfs the rain stopped and for the time being it didn't look to bad

As I got out of the van I saw the lake and it was up 4 foot over the platforms

And Rolf had had to put some fencing behind peg 20 to stop the fish from swimming off into the field next door

On the upside as I hadn't been fishing since my last visit Rolf let my nets off their usual vigorous dipping which saved my hands getting frozen in the rinsing tank

This week I'm fishing A section which is the little lake and general opinion is you need peg 34 or peg 7 any thing else and your going to be a spectator so true to form I pulled peg 38 out of the bag

Plan today is to fish 16m down towards the corner and fish just in front of the clump of grass by the reeds

I decided to use pellet, bread and corn as hook baits and feed micro pellets I also set up a second line at 7m straight in front of me to fish for silvers just in case it got dodgy as its a team match and points make section places

For the silver fish line I had red maggots and casters to use on the hook

On the all in I shipped a small pot of pellets out to 16m to my left just in front of the reeds tight to what used to be the bank and went out over the top of them with a piece of bread flake on a size 14 B911 hook tied direct to 0.18 Silstar match on a loose set purple hydro float was a Malman 4x14 Thicko set to fish at dead depth

Holding the pole at 16m in the strong gale force winds that had sprung up on the whistle wasn't too much of a problem for me as the wind was blowing down the lake from right to left so I had it on my back and running down the pole so I had fairly good presentation only thing I didn't have were any indications of fish no bites no movement no nothing I tried both corn and pellet but still could not get a bite

I noticed that the Steve on peg 37 was catching a few slivers out in front of him now and peg 7 was taking decent carp at regular intervals as was peg 34 but everyone else on the small lake seemed to be sat watching dead floats

After about 1 1/2 hours I decided that I needed to forget the 16m line and get something in the net and maybe give the 16m line a go in the last hour for a bonus fish so I swapped to my 7m line out in front of me and on my first drop in with a single red maggot on a size 18 B911 I had a small Roach and same again next put in so I stuck with it and the small Roach kept on coming at regular intervals it felt a bit weird fishing a big Carp Mecca like Rolfs for little Roach but no one else was catching Carp other than Peg 7 and 34 in our section so I thought I'd stick with it

By now pegs 36,37 and 40 were all going for the silver fish and from what I could see I was catching a lot faster than the rest

In the last couple of hour's pegs 2,4 and 6 all had a bonus Carp each in fact I think peg 4 had 2 Carp

In the last 30 mins I gave my 16m line a go to try and mug a bonus fish but had no joy and to my horror Steve on peg 37 landed a decent Perch of about 2 1/2 lbs

Round about then Rolf made us all stop and I packed my gear away just as I was taking it to the van Rolf came round weighing in clockwise for once

Peg 34 weighed in 34lb peg 36 weighed 1lb and peg 37 weighed in 5lb 4oz I was surprised to see how many little Roach I had when I tipped them into the weigh sling but even so they still only weighed 3lb 8oz peg 40 had 1lb 10oz then the others in the section had a Carp and bits for mid teens weights round to peg 7 who had 60lb

Word round the lake was that there were a couple of good weights on the main lake but most had struggled to find any fish although 4 poles were broken today with the mix of strong fighting fish and howling gales 1 Carp also won a top kit and rig off Paul Dann who fished a blinder for Team Desperate Danns today and made up for his last two blanks by winning his section and the match with 144lb from peg 23 for 9 section points Chris had 8lb 5oz from peg 13 for 8th in section and 2 points and I had 3 points for my 3lb 8oz and 7th in section giving us a total of 14 points today and 5th place on the day and 7th place overall in the league

Winter League 2006

Team---------------------------Total

RS Baits--------------------------101
Rolfs Team Gold----------------.101
Hayes------------------------------83
Fisherman's B --------------------76
Rolfs Team Diamond------------. 75
Fisherman's A-------------------- 68
Desperate Dann's ----------------64
Musketeers------------------------54
Throwbacks-----------------------42

Looks like it may be a bit too late now for a late rush at the title but my first winter league at Rolfs has been good fun so far and with 1 more match to go any thing could happen as Rolf is allowing running line for the last match

Rolfs Winter league - Match 4

Scraping the ice off the van windscreen is never a good start to a days fishing but today its match 4 in the winter league and I'm fishing C Section again so hopefully the deeper water will help a bit

After my nets were given the dipping of their lives as usual by Rolf

It was time for the draw and when my name was called I stepped forward and pulled peg 27 out

I decided to fish 13m straight out in front of me today and for bait I was just going to use sweet corn and bread fished over micro pellets I also had a few maggots/casters and a tub of worms just in case things were really hard as ounces can make points
Owing to dodgy elbows I find it very difficult to hold the Lerc at 13m at the moment so I have splashed out and put purple hydro through 2 of my Armageddon power tops as that is much lighter and easier to fish at distance
So lets hope it dosen't meet 1 of Rolfs monsters on its first outing
There is a very tempting bush just to my right

So I set up a top2 with black hydro to fish caster on the deck under the bush the rig is a Malman stable 4x14 float on 0.16mm line with a B911 18 hook tied direct

The other 2 rigs I'm using today are both set up on Malman Thicko 4x14 floats on 0.18mm line with a B911 14 hook direct for the corn rig and a B911 12 hook direct for the bread rig and both are set to fish on the deck

10am and the all in is sounded I ship a small pot of pellets out to 13m and another small pot of casters under the bush to my right

I fitted a kinder pot to the corn rig top2 and started with 1 grain on the hook and shipped 3 or 4 grains out in the pot

The sun was out by now and though it had been minus 3 over night it was quite pleasant sat in the sun while I was contemplating that fact my float shot under and back up before I could react I shipped it in and back out with a few more grains of corn in the pot and sat ready this time the next time it dipped I struck but missed the fish completely looks like its going to be 1 of those days again

Still back out with a new grain on the hook and a few more in the pot and this time when it went down I was ready and struck into a fish and judging by the purple hydro disappearing out of the top2 its not a Roach

A nice steady ship back and a tussle on the top2 and I had a Carp of about 5lb in the net and a smile on my face

The guys either side of me both lost a Carp but looking across the lake I could see pegs 14,15 and 18 were bagging up

Back on peg 27 not too much was happening no bites or indications since I had landed the Carp peg 28 was in the same boat with no bites at all but the guy on peg 26 was starting to catch a few fish on bread I was just considering swapping to my bread rig when the float buried and I was into a decent Carp the hydro streamed out and the Armageddon whipped round as the fish headed off to the end of the lake I eventually got it under control and shipped it back in it felt a heavy fish and was hugging the bottom I had it in and on the top2 and was trying to lift it to get it over the drop off when the hook pulled

I shipped a pot of pellets out to 13m and changed to my caster rig and gave it a try under the bush to my right after a few missed bites I hooked and landed a small Perch

Looking across the lake the 3 guys opposite and also the 3 guys to my right were all catching Carp now on bread so I swapped to my bread rig and went out to 13m but unfortunately I spent the last hour bite less it was almost as though there was a net across the lake between pegs 26 and 14 as pegs 12 and 13 were struggling for bites as were peg 28 and me but all those to my right on both banks were bagging

I was just considering sticking a couple of sections on and going out to 16m when Rolf sounded the all out

I packed my gear away and headed off round the lake to help with the weigh in

There were 5 weights over 100lb with top place going to Lloyd Moss (again) with 186lb from peg 24 and there were quite a few low ounce weights and 2 or 3 DNW's when we got to my peg my Carp and Perch weighed 5lb 6oz not earth shattering but better than the 2oz I had last match and it earned me 2 section points Chris had 76lb from peg 34 for 8 section points and Paul had DNW (again) from peg 16 that gives Team Desperate Danns 10 points this week and leaves us in 6th place in the league with 50 points

Team-----------------------Total

RS Baits --------------------88
Rolfs Team Gold. ----------78
Hayes-----------------------71
Fisherman's B -------------60
Rolfs Team Diamond. -----58
Desperate Dann's .--------50
Fisherman's A -------------50
Musketeers-----------------42
Throwbacks----------------33

Next match I'm back in the little lake on A section

Barkham Ponds

This week I am fishing the Reading Fishing Club match at Barkham Ponds just outside Wokingham

We are fishing the 2 bigger ponds near the car park

I fish these lake quite a bit in the warmer months mainly for the paste fishing which can be fantastic with a fish a chuck the Carp run to just under 20lb with most in the 1-2lb stamp and 100lb+ pleasure catches are common

At the draw I managed to pull peg 2 on the first lake nearest the car park

not the best peg on the lake but it will do me

Plan of attack today is to fish 6mm soft hooker pellet over micro feed pellets at 8m straight in front

And corn over micro pellets tight to the bank under the tree to the left

And 6mm cubes of meat tight to the bank under the tree to the right of me

You need to get tight into the bank on these lakes as the Carp have under cut the banks and some of them go back 2 or 3 feet

10am arrives and at the all in I ship a pot of micro pellets out to 8m and another under the tree to my left with a few grains of corn and a few cubes of meat to my right

Then its out in front with a 6mm soft hooker already I can see a lot of fish over my feed and I'm getting line bites non stop

This lake is not very deep all I have is 2ft out in front and both the margin swims are about 3inches deeper at 27-28 inches

And it appears using micro pellets might not have been a good idea as now my swim is alive and fizzing like crazy. I was expecting it to be hard today so went with the micro pellets but the cold snap didn't arrive over night and its a very mild day and the fish are going for it

Still its too late now I didn't bring any 4mm sinkers so I'll have to stick with the micro pellets

Eventually my float buries and I lift into a nice 1lb common which gives my black hydro a nice stretch in the shallow water

I can hear a lot of splashing coming from behind the willow tree to my right so it sounds as though the guys pegged round there are catching and from the sound of it the bigger fish are feeding too

Phil pegged across in front of me next to the channel into the small pond seems to be struggling to catch and that peg usually wins most matches

And to my left I can see Stef is catching well too with fish the same sort of size as I am catching but he is catching at a faster rate

I decided to shallow up and try to bring the fish up in the water as the line bites on the deck were getting impossible to compete with this had the desired effect and I started to catch a few fish but they were around the 12oz - 1lb mark but I needed some bigger fish if I was going to catch Stef as he was now getting the odd 2 - 3lb fish and was pulling away

As Phil now had had a couple of real lumps from the channel and there was still regular splashing from behind the willow and news that Phil Lush had had 2 or 3 big fish getting on for 12 - 15lb each , I decided to give my margin swims a try and see if I could find some better fish

On the corn I had no interest at all and after 20 mins eventually managed a 12oz Carp on the meat swim so I gave up and went back to my 8m pellet line

By keeping a regular stream of micro's going in I was putting together quite a few fish now still only small Carp but regular and they all managed to get the hydro out of the pole

Behind me for some reason I had a dripping tap and due to the amount of coffee I was drinking and the dripping I was up and down to the trees like a yoyo

Sadly 3pm arrived and the all out sounded by that time I was really enjoying the fishing and could quite easily have stayed on fishing for a few more hours

News filtered through that the other pond had fished very hard and not much had been caught
Having been keeping an eye on Stef across to my left I knew That he had far more fish of a better size than mine



And Phil pegged the other side of the willow had caught a fair few big lumps so it was going to be between those two for 1st and 2nd but I had high hopes of making the frame and taking the coin for 3rd place

When the scales arrived at my peg I managed to weigh 39lb

Stef had 66lb for 1st place and Phil Lush had 63lb for 2nd

And Joe Baker sneaked in with 39lb 8oz to take 3rd

Leaving me in 4th and out of the frame and coin with 39lb

Still a great days fishing

Totally unexpected as I was expecting a hard frost and a 5 hour gruller on the bank

Rolfs Winter league - Match 3

This week I am fishing B Section which is pegs 8 -19 and listening to the chat around the car park while waiting for the draw it looked as though due to the drastic change in the weather this week the best pegs today were going to be from 16 round to 28

As my name was called I stepped up to the draw bag and unleashed the draw bag terror that is my left hand and was pleasantly surprised and happy to see it come out of the bag with peg 9

I have always wanted to fish peg 9 as it looks a great peg and I have spent a few matches watching people bag up on it from the other side of the lake

It's also 1 of the pegs that Rolf has recently put a nice new platform in and also it's not too far to walk to the weigh station

Talking to the guys on the way round to peg 9 I discovered that most people loved the peg and had had big weights off it in the past and that the best way to fish it is 8m out in front and top3 or top4 down the right hand side tree line

I also chose to fish a line just over the bush to the left of the peg

Bait today is 3mm feed pellets, 6mm cubes of meat, 6mm soft hooker pellets and bread

I started with a small pot of pellets out in front at 8m and a small pot down the right hand tree line at about 6m and a handful of pellets just over the left hand bush

Well that's about it for the fishing not a lot happened no bites no indications no swirls no signs of a fish

I tried all the hook baits at different depths and combinations I dropped right down to a size 20 hook on 0.12 line and a 4mm soft hooker in the hope of finding some silver fish but nothing

From what I could see down the lake it was pretty much the same for most people

My team mate Chris on peg 30 had a small Carp right at the start then not much since and the guy on 32 lost 2 foul hooked fish early on and eventually managed to land 2 small carp in the last hour and in the last hour Lloyd next to me (again) on peg 10 found some Carp down the inside

In the last 30 mins I was getting desperate as I was still fishless and needed something to get some points so I went out in front with a size 20 hook and a small piece of bread and after alot of jiggling lifting and dropping I managed to hook and land a 2oz Roach

About then Rolf blew the whistle and made us all stop

A hard day to be sure I think next match I'll be packing a few maggots and a tub of worms

Alough Rolf did mention after the match that due to the lower number of fish in the last few matches that he was lifting the ban on corn so that's back on the menu for next match too

With my gear packed away and back in the van I headed off round the lake to help with the weighing in which wasn't going to take too long today

Best weight on the day came from peg 18 with 114lb and second on the day came from peg 17 with 84lb with 2 or 3 50lb weights round the lake then it dropped down to a few lbs then ounces not too good at all

My 2oz got me 3 points Chris had 6lb from peg 30 for 6 points and Paul had DNW from peg 37 Leaves Team Desperate Dann's with 9 points this week

Winter League 2006

Team--------------------Total
RS Baits ----------------.-65
Rolfs Team Gold-------.--57
Hayes---------------------56
Fisherman's B------------49
Desperate Dann's--------40
Rolfs Team Diamond---.-38
Fisherman's A -----------35
Musketeers---------------34
Throwbacks---------------24

Leaves us in 5th place with 3 matches to go

I'm back on C section next match lets hope the weather settles down a bit before then and gives the fish a chance to get used to it

Rolfs Open Match

Weather Report for today was for a nice sunny dry day with very little wind

So as I had nothing else planned I headed off down to Rolfs for the Sunday Open Match

Reports from the open match on Saturday were not too promising as it fished very hard all round the lake and was won with 107lb from peg 7

I had hoped to draw in the little lake but true to form I drew at the complete opposite end of the lake on peg 15

In the winter league match last week only 8oz came off peg 15 but it certainly looks a nice peg

On setting up I discovered to my horror that I had left my bread at home on the kitchen work top and even worse my meat in the fridge

Looks as though Autumn has arrived at last and the leafs are dropping off at a fast rate

That's a mighty fine looking van parked in the front row in the car park




Well due to the cockup with the bait I'll be fishing pellet today and my plans to practice with bread ready for the league match next week are right out the window

On the all in I ship a pot of pellets out to 13m and another out to 7m and I start off with a 6mm soft hooker over the feed pellets at 7m

After a while the float slowly slides under and I lift into a skimmer of about 12oz not what I wanted but it was a fish at least

I fed a few more pellets and went back out with another 6mm pellet and again the float slowly slid under and I had another 12oz skimmer

I had a long wait before the float disappeared again but this time it was a slightly better skimmer of about 1lb

Unfortunately that was it the float never moved again

I noticed that Lloyd next to me on peg 14 was catching Carp on bread fished shallow at 14.5m as were a couple of guys opposite

As I only had my 13m pole with me I'd have to make do with fishing at 13m and so I put a shallow rig on with an 8mm hard banded pellet and shipped it out to 13m and started to spray a few pellets out to get the Carp feeding up in the water

After an age the float disappeared and my hydro shot out and I was into a Carp alough by the feel of it it was foul hooked so I played it very gently as I shipped down to the top 2 and lifted to raise the fish to net it the hydro snapped back into the pole and I was left with a large scale on the hook

From then on things just got worse the Carp were cruising around the surface totally uninterested in my bait I tried different depths, soft hookers, hard pellet, double pellet I couldn't buy a bite
With 20 mins left to go I managed to snag another Carp but that too was foul hooked and after a couple of lunges it was off and I was left with another scale on my hook
At the whistle all I had was 3 skimmers for 2lb 8oz not a red letter day it has to be said but that's fishing for you
The match was won from peg 34 with 185lb Lloyd on peg 14 was second with 115lb from then on the weights took a steep dip (the top 3 all fished bread shallow)
Still I'm back here next week for the Winter League 3rd round

Rolfs Winter league - Match 2

This week I am fishing in A section which is basically all the small lake pegs 34 - 7
As so far the only peg I have fished in the small lake is peg 37 (twice) So I am looking forward to today and hoping to draw on the opposite bank to 37

So with this thought in mind I was up, loaded the van in double quick time and speeding my way to Rolfs for the 10am draw

10am arrived and so far the promised rain had not shown it's self
A section were called to draw first and when my turn arrived due to staff difficulties last match today was a right handed draw so I was happy to see peg 7 in my hand as it came out of the draw bag



As you can see as soon as I arrived at peg 7 it started to spit with rain so unfortunately it was going to be an umbrella day

Plan of attack today is going to be 3 main lines

Paste at 7m (just in case they are still having it)

Meat/pellet in front of peg 8 platform

And meat/pellet at 13m out in front

Peg 7 is more in the big lake than the small lake and still has a fair depth of water

On the all in I shipped a pot of pellets out to the 13m line a pot out to the 7m line and a few handfuls in front of peg 8

I decided to try the paste first so out went a lump to the 7m line I gave it 15 mins but nothing was showing no movement no liners no nothing whereas out at 13m I could see fish moving so I dumped the past rig (methinks that might be it for paste fishing this year) and went out to 13m with a 6mm pellet on the deck after about 3 or 4 mins alough it seemed more like a life time the float buried and my red hydro made it's first appearance of the day a nice steady battle and soon a 6lb common was in the net over the next hour I netted another 2 Carp around the 5lb mark but lost 10 or 12 fish which were foul hooked and was getting a nice collection of scales

I tried coming shallow I tried mid water and I even tried laying some line on the deck but could get nothing but foul hooked fish

So I swapped to meat and tried an 8mm cube out at 13m with an almost instant response of an 8lb Carp ripping the hydro out after a few hectic runs it was safely in the net and up to the weigh scales to weigh and record it I stayed with the meat feeding pellet over the top of it and alough I was still getting the odd foul hooker I was also getting a few fish and now had the 8lb a 9lb 4oz and a 15lb fish on the board and 4 fish in the net

Looking across the lake pegs 36 and 37 seemed to be catching plenty of fish and judging by the frequent trips to the scales they were decent fish too

By now the rain was hammering down and the level of the lake had risen by over 2 inches and my swim out at 13m had died so I shipped out a pot of pellets and swapped my attention to the inside line in front of peg 8

First put in with a cube of meat the float disappeared and I had a 9lb common in the net in double quick time next put in I had a long weight before the float again slid under the surface unfortunately it also went straight under the platform and round the legs try as I might I couldn't shift it from under the platform and eventually the line gave way undeterred I quickly put another rig on and went back out in front of the platform with a cube of meat and after what seemed like a life time I was treated to a dose of Deja vu as the float shot under the platform and around the legs yet again only difference this time being it didn't stop this time it just kept going destroying my rig on the way

With only 30 mins left I decided to give up on the platform and go back out to 13m and try for another fish before the whistle, eventually I managed to hook and land an 8lb 4oz mirror and that was it Rolf blew the whistle. Hopefully I had done enough to get a few points for Team Desperate Danns

Looks as though the torrential rain didn't put the fish off totally today as 5 ton+ weights were recorded with the winning weight going to Lloyd Moss again with 135lb 12oz from peg 2

I managed to weigh 67lb 12oz which gave me 6th in section and 4 points Chris had 45lb 4oz from peg 16 for 4th in section for 6 points and Paul was our top scorer with 67lb 4oz from peg 25 for 2nd in section and 8 points

Which on the day gave us joint second in the match but knocked back to third on weight but still in the frame and a bit of cash back for once

Winter League 2006

Team------------------------Total
RS Baits----------------------44
Hayes-------------------------38
Rolfs Team Gold--------------37---------------------------------------Fisherman's B----------------31
Desperate Dann's------------31
Musketeers-------------------30
Fisherman's A----------------26
Rolfs Team Diamond---------18
Throwbacks-------------------13

Leaves us in joint 4th after 2 matches with 4 more to come

Next match I'm on B Section and hopefully the left hand will be back from suspension and pull me a good peg out of the bag

Court Farm Fishing Lakes

No match today so I'm off for a pleasure fishing session


I decided to go to Court Farm today Unfortunately if you tell anyone you are going to Court Farm the response is usually unprintable and contains a lot of sighs and groans


Alough it's true that it's too easy to catch fish at Court Farm (to be honest if you fell in you would come out with 100lb in each pocket)and also out of the 1000's of fish in each lake it would be impossible to make 1 good Carp mouth out of the lot

But I love the place

The Carp will take anything you put on a hook and you will get your elastic stretched all day long every put in from any peg

What more could you ask for?

£6 well spent in my opinion only draw back is you have to get there early as the place fills up quick

Well today I chose to fish Lake 1

Lake 1 is stuffed full of small Carp from 2lb - 8lb and has Roach up to 3lb Lake 2 has Carp up to 15lb and Lake 3 has Carp up to 30lb but if you want non stop action then it's Lake 1 you want

I chose a swim down towards the narrow end of the lake opposite the high bank

As you can see it is a very mature lake and nice and sheltered fishing under the trees

Plan today is just to fish soft hooker pellet and feed 4mm sinking feed pellets

I'm going to fish 2 lines 1 at 3m just using the top2 and another at 7m

The depth in this lake is about the same all over which is about 30 inches

As I've still got the Lerc in my holdall from the last visit to Rolfs I'll stick with that but will have to use 0.18 rigs as the 0.14's I usually use down here will be a bit weak for the red hydro

Alough the 2lb Carp down here are great fun on black hydro they still manage to rip red out of the top2

Most people that fish these lakes fish floating crust and sit in deck chairs and in summer it's hard to get a bait into the lake through the cruising Carp even today the Carp are still up on the surface and taking bread

As usual I ship out 2 pots of pellets to 7m and a few handfuls in at 3m and go out with a 6mm soft hooker at 7m a few dips and the float buries and a 2lb carp is on its way to the net

And that the way it goes all day with 1 Carp after another from 1lb up to about 5lb

Every now and again a Roach was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and beat the Carp to the bait

And a net full of them would make a good days fishing

After a break for coffee and a bite to eat at lunchtime I switched to the top2 line

With the same result

A super day with nice weather and a fish a chuck all day well worth a visit if you need a bagging session with no pressure

Rolfs Winter league - Match 1

In an effort to fish more matches at Rolfs Lake in Oxfordshire I have signed up to fish the 2006 winter league
The league consists of 10 teams of 3 and is fished over 6 matches the lake is divided into 3 sections

A section is the small lake pegs 34 - 7
B section is the motorway bank pegs 8 - 19
C section is the car park bank pegs 20 - 33

1 member from each team fishes in each section and the sections rotate each match so if you fish A section in first match then you will fish B section in the next match then C section and back to A section again etc

So A quick 45 min drive saw me at Rolfs bright and early this morning

As Rolf was sorting me out a team to fish with I had no idea who my team mates were

After having my nets washed and meeting up with a few other guys I have met before at matches at Rolfs I eventually discovered I was fishing for Team Desperate Danns and my team mates were the Dann brothers Chris and Paul

Chris was going to fish A section Paul B section and I was allocated C section

10am (ish) and time to draw A and B sections drew and disappeared off to their pegs and it was C sections turn when I stepped up to the bag to draw I used my trusty left hand which had drawn me peg 30 out at the previous Saturday open from which I had managed to come 5th with 100lb 8oz and I would have been well happy with peg 30 today








Clive Pritchard
Maggotdrowners
Just managed to record a Ton Up weight with exactly 100lb from Peg 30 - Perfect .
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...
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Unfortunately my left hand let me down and has been banished to sit on the naughty step for drawing peg 25 out

Not that I have anything personal against peg 25 except that I drew it in the bank holiday open and had 1 bite all day and ended up with 1 fish for 12lb 8oz peg 25 is also on quite a steep bank with not alot of room behind and the bush to the left is over grown and awkward to fish





The over grown branches on the bush flapping about in the wind made it a non runner and trying to fish just in front of it put you right on the slope down the ledge



So I decided to fish out in front at 7m and fish paste and also meat and I also set up a pellet rig to fish under the bush just in case

11.30 The all in is sounded and I ship out 2 pots of pellets to 7m and 1 pot as tight into the bush as I can get it. Then I ship out a large lump of paste to 7m and cup it in over the pellets get comfy on my box and await 1 of Rolfs monsters

Today I am using 1 of my new Malman self cocking paste floats I used 1 in the last match here at Rolfs and took 100lb of carp on the same float which is unusual for me as I usually manage to destroy 2 or 3 floats per match

So looks like at long last I have found a decent float that's up to the challenge




I have also been using Malman Thicko's for all my meat and pellet fishing and as yet have not broken 1



You can check out or buy Malman floats from here http://www.malmanfloats.com/

Gaz may be a pie eating northener but he sure makes strong floats

And if they survive me and Rolfs Carp then they cant be too bad

Any way back on peg 25 not too much was happening after about an hour I had had 2 foul hookers which had ripped the red hydro out then jumped the hook looking across the lake no one was catching so it looked as though the cold wind and extra water had put the fish off today

Eventually Lloyd on peg 24 started to catch a few fish he had decided to fish at 14.5m and was using punched bread on the hook

After about 2 hours I did consider going to the van and getting the Armageddon out and giving it a go at 14.5m as now the bugger on peg 26 was catching the odd fish long too

Then all of a sudden my float buried and headed off to the centre of the lake and I was into 1 of the resident Carp a quick battle and the red hydro soon had it under control and in the net a nice common of about 5lb

All thoughts of struggling to hold 14.5m of pole in the by now gusting wind disappeared and I upped my feeding and shipped out another lump of paste assuming the fish had at last moved in onto my feed

Unfortunately I had assumed too much and I spent the next hour watching Lloyd on peg 24 catch fish and the guys on the other side of the lake loose fish at regular intervals

A swap to meat managed to get me another fish and now I had another common of around 6lb in the net along with the first 1 and I managed to hook and loose 5 or 6 fish on the trot which was a bit un-pleasing to say the least

Rolf came round the lake and said it was fishing hard all round the lake and most were struggling so it looked like it was going to be a low weight match today

For the last 30 mins I swapped back to paste and managed to land 1 more fish of around 6lb and that was it the whistle went and summing up the way the match had gone Lloyd shouted fish on and I started to pack my gear away ready for the weigh in

When the scales arrived at my peg I managed to weigh 17lb 4oz A poor weight by Rolfs lake standards but it ain't the dreaded D.N.W

Lloyd on peg 24 managed 145lb 12oz to win the section and the match (looks like punched bread was the bait for today)

Alough watching the slices of bread that were thrown in after the match float about unhindered by the Carp showed they were not feeding too well

My 17lb 4oz gave me 4 points and 6th in section Paul had 40lb 8oz from peg 12 for 6th in section and 4 points and Chris was our top scorer today with 62lb 8oz from peg 2 for 5th in section and 5 points

Leaves us in 6th place after the first match with 5 matches to go looks like a late run is needed

Winter League 2006

Team............................Total

Rolfs Team Gold ............21
Hayes ..........................21
RS Baits .......................20
Fisherman's B ...............19
Fisherman's A ...............15
Desperate Dann's ..........13
Musketeers ...................12
Rolfs Team Diamond ........7
Throwbacks ....................6

All in all another fine days fishing at Rolfs (Beats sitting on the Thames in flood for a few ounces)

I should be on A section next week (the small lake) lets hope the weather holds

Lemington Lakes

MAGGOTDROWNING.COM INDIVIDUAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

16TH SEPTEMBER 2006

Westminster Lake

Well I travelled up to Lemington Lakes today for the MD's Individual championships

I arrived early so that I had time to enjoy one of their cooked breakfasts before the draw little did I know that this was to be 1 of the high points of my day or else I would have taken a photo of the breakfast

Other Maggotdrowners started to arrive and I met up with old friends and put some more faces to names of new ones

9.30 arrived and time for the draw

I pulled peg 31 out of the bag and never having been to Westminster Lake before I had no idea if it was a good or bad draw

So I drove down to the bottom car park unloaded all my gear and set off to peg 31

The peg looked quite nice so hopefully I would have a good day

My plan of attack today was to fish soft hooker pellets at 11.5m over 4mm sinkers and meat and corn in the margins and I also set up a feeder rod just in case

Plumbing up the swim I had a disappointing shock as there was only 2 ft of water in the margin and 2ft 6in at 11.5m a look out at 14.5m also found only 2ft 6in

I should really have taken stock of my situation at this point because

To my left

Was Peter"Mugger"Morton


And to my Right

Malc "The Jinx" Doyle

I should have known the game was up at this point (trapped between the Mugger and the Jinx) but naively I intended to fish on expecting to catch fish

As the whistle (yes Vince has brought 1) went I shipped 2 pots of pellets out to 11.5m and 1 pot of corn and hemp into the margin swim and dropped a 6mm soft hooker over the top of the 4mm sinkers at 11.5m and waited and waited nothing nowt zilch

After about 30 mins of not a lot happening I managed to hook a small skimmer of about 2oz which I managed to bump off as soon as it broke the surface also around this time Peter who was also struggling on the next peg managed to land a decent skimmer

About this time the hours all seemed to blur into 1 and slowly the hopelessness of my situation started to dawn on me

I tried pellet meat corn I fed pellet tried hemp tried groundbait gave the feeder a go all with the same result nowt not a bite not a dip not even a line bite

Peter was stuck in the same still life as me with nothing since his 1st skimmer and Malc had somehow managed to wrangle a skimmer out too

Next to Peter Dave Red Leader Was catching a few fish as was Hazel on the next peg

The poor guy fishing the other side of Malc lost the will to live and went home and further round that side Muskie had caught 2 Carp

But our little corner remained dead

Eventually Vince Put us out of our misery and blew the whistle

Malc managed to hook another skimmer right on the whistle

A 5 hour blur for me resulting in the dreaded D.N.W

The only positive comment I can make about Westminster lake is - the Platforms are well made and the rats are thriving .

Further round the lake most people managed to catch some fish

Match result

1st Steve12 - peg 21 - 56lb 11ozs.

2nd LG - peg 16 - 54-04

3rd Milo - peg 42 and Matt Nutt - peg 12 both 43-04

Only other high point for me today was unlike Peter and Malc I didn't blank in the raffle

But it was a well run match thanks to Vince and good to meet up with the Maggotdrowners again I just hope for a better draw next time

Rolfs Lake

Jinx Series Match Six

Luckily I managed to get a place on this match as a guest

Most of the people that fish the Jinx series are also members of Maggotdrowners so I have fished with most of them before

A quick 45 min drive from home to Rolfs saw me there by 11.30 and in good time to get my nets washed and my gear sorted ready for the draw at 12pm

As I pulled my hand out of the draw bag I was a bit disappointed to see that I had drawn peg 37 not that it's a bad peg but because I had drawn it in the second day of the maggotdrowners weekend match

But on the upside I caught 105lb from the peg that day so at least I had a fair idea how to fish the peg

To my left on peg 38 was Geoff E and to my right on peg 36 was Gemma as I looked up from setting up my tackle and looked across the lake towards peg 4 I had the fright of my life!

Malc "The Jinx" Doyle was setting up in front of me on peg 4 surely a bad omen and tbh I shudder to think why he is fishing in a pair of Y-fronts

Anyway pushing that thought from my mind 1.30 arrives and time to begin

My plan today is to start on paste at 6m and if I start to get foul hookers or struggle for bites from the off then I will swap to meat straight away rather than wait for 2 hours like last time

So off I go with 2 cups of pellets at 6m and I pot a piece of paste out and drop it in over the top and nothing happens no bites no swirls no fizzing

So I throw some loose feed pellets out over the top eventually the float jigs and bobbles about a bit then buries and my elastic races out of the pole just as I'm starting to ship back in the elastic shoots back into the pole and the fish is off (foul hooked) I spend the next 30 mins foul hooking and loosing fish before I finally manage to hook 1 properly and land it a nice weigher of 11lb

Looking around the lake no one was catching fish Malc was foul hooking and loosing a fair few on peg 4 and Brian was having the odd fish on peg 40 but it seemed like it was fishing hard all round the lake

So I decided instead of striking at the indications on the float that I would just wait until the float buried and the fish hooked its self on the elastic rather than keep getting the foul hookers by striking

and this seemed to be paying off as I soon had 4 weighers on the board and 3 fish in the net although waiting for the fish to hook them selves meant a long wait between fish as no one else was really bagging up it seemed a good move

but the waits between fish were getting longer so I decided to swap to meat and fish it over the same line at 6m using the same tactics waiting for the fish to hook them selves and this seemed to be a good move as I started to catch fish faster and they were taking the meat much more positively

Remembering back to the last time I fished peg 37 and a conversation I had with Gary Thorpe after the match he told me you cant feed too much at Rolfs and if the fish are feeding then up your feed rate to get them havin it

So I started feeding 3 handfuls every put in and this had the desired effect as I continued to catch fish right up till the end of the match

Looking on the board I had 101lbs of weighers and 3 fish in my net which I reckoned would go for about 20lb so hopefully I may be in the frame for once

Once the final whistle went I packed up all my gear and headed off to help with the weigh in and it seemed that Rolfs had fished poor for once with lots of low weights and by the time we got round to peg 40 the best weight was only 61lb 11oz so with Brian estimating he had round 100lb things were looking good for my first win at Rolfs

After Brian's weigh in he totalled 109lb 8oz so all I needed was over 8lb of weighers and I'd won

My big moment arrived (drum roll) and my 3 fish weighed 19lb 8oz giving me a total of 120lb 8oz and my first win at Rolfs

Full Result

1. Clive - 120lb 8oz (Guest)

2. Brian B - 109lb 8oz

3. Biglad - 61lb 11oz (Guest)

4. Derek R - 51lb 4oz (Guest)

5. Malc D - 47lb 12oz

6. Dirk W - 42lb 10oz

7. Simon R - 38lb 8oz

8. Nick W-P - 38lb 2oz

9. Eric R - 33lb

10. Nick J - 32lb 8oz

11. Keith A - 31lb 12oz

12. Mark C - 31lb

13. Kev L - 31lb

14. Geoff E - 30lb 8oz

15. Ant H - 28lb 8oz

16. Chris - 28lb 4oz (Guest)

17. Colin - 26lb 8oz (Guest)

18. Steve W - 23lb 8oz

19. Dave - 22lb 12oz (Guest)

20. Neil Mc - 21lb 14oz

21. Matt N - 18lb 12oz

22. Tony - 17lb 8oz (Guest)

23. Peter M - 16lb 6oz

24. Gemma D - 15lb 8oz (Guest)

25. Dave A - 13lb

26. Dave M - 12lb

27. Dai T - 7lb

28. Paul R - 6oz

29. Nick W - D.N.W

Total Weight on the scales was 951lb 3oz and only 1 Blank recorded.

Another great days fishing with Maggotdrowners and hopefully many more to come

Thanks to Malc for inviting me as a guest for the day and arranging the match and congratulations to Brian for winning the 2006 Jinx Series

NJAA 2006 Reading

This year Reading Fishing Club of which I am a member are hosting the NJAA national


The event is being fished on 3 venues the juniors are fishing on the Thames Promenade at Caversham and the intermediates are fishing on the Thames at Goring and The Beale Park at Pangbourne

Unfortunately I didn't make either of the club teams (by about 30 years) so I volunteered to steward 1 of the sections

Lucky for me I drew C section on the Prom at Caversham - close enough to home to walk down and an on-site cafe

The weather forecast for today was for howling gales and torrential rain so things didn't look pleasant for the kids fishing or come to that the stewards and parents

To get to the Prom at Caversham I walk along the Thames from Tilehurst which takes me past the site used for the Reading rock festival and I would just like to say to anyone that reads this that attended the rock festival You need a black sack full of rubbish stuffing up your arses you filthy b*******'s

Nothing personal of course but if I was in charge of Reading council I would send a dustcart round to the home of every twat that brought a ticket and dump all your crap and rubbish back on your doorsteps!!!!!!!!!

Any way back to the fishing

My job as a steward was quite simple and surprisingly very rewarding all I had to do was make sure there was no cheating by the kids or the parents/coaches and assist any of the kids that have a problem during the match and weigh in the fish at the end

Walking up to my section I was amazed at the tackle these kids had it was like walking past a tackle stall but watching them set up they certainly knew how to use it all

Once the all in was given I sprang into action but unfortunately there was nothing sinister happening that caught my attention so I settled into pacing up and down my section watching the kids fish and I must say that for under 16 year olds they were amazing

The threatened bad weather arrived after about an hour and the winds got up and started howling across the fields which kept me busy picking up poles and pole rollers that had blown over

Unfortunately the Thames was doing it's usual in a match and fishing crap and very little was being caught in my section any way

Word along the bank was that the end sections were fishing better and the middle sections seem to be fishing the hardest most of the kids in C section had had a couple of fish mainly small Perch and Roach and only 2 had still not caught

but by now the wind was out of control and some of the gusts were bringing branches down out of the trees and thanks to the lazy arseholes that attend rock festivals a constant stream of plastic bags cups paper and anything else that could be blown was flying across the fields and into the river

with an hour to go I nipped along to the cafe to get a coffee and was amazed that A and B sections were totally different with much lighter winds than C section and a few of the kids had caught decent Bream and as I passed 1 lad was battling with a 6lb Bream on light elastic and I was pleased to see on my return journey that he had won and was just netting the fish

Back on C section

The wind blew, plastic bags floated around but unfortunately very little action from the fish and that's the way it stayed till the end of the match

The most exciting thing that happened in the last hour was when the people that live in the house opposite arrived home in their helicopter (which I managed to miss) but if you look carefully in the picture you can see it parked beside the house

Any way I had to weigh in C and D sections alough I cant remember the weights I do remember young Jake from Reading fishing Club won D section with 1.1kg

and I think the best on C section was about 200g and 2 out of the 9 didn't weigh in not too good at all

But all the kids seemed to enjoy their day and certainly none of them complained about the conditions or the fishing

A most enjoyable day and a pleasure to watch some stars of the future

Monk Lakes

Maggotdrowners Southern Championships

Monk Lakes 19th August 2006

Match Lake 2

Well I had a nice easy drive down to Monk Lakes today It only took about 1 1/2 hours and as I left home at 6am I was there 2 hours too early

So with some spare time on my hands I had a walk around the complex and after meeting up with some other early maggotdrowners headed off in to get some breakfast

9.30 arrived and time for the draw

having walked around match lake 2 it all seemed to be pretty much the same with no 1 area looking any better than any other apart from the fact that 45 - 49 were by the car park and an easy walk

So I was more than happy when I managed to pull peg 47 out of the draw bag

The pegs either side of me were empty but on peg 45 I had Peter for company and further down on peg 49 Dai

Despite the angle of my Maver windsock the wind was coming straight across the lake at full force and it looked as though I was going to have it in my face all day

With the rain clouds starting to build things were not looking good and with the strength of the wind using an umbrella was out of the question so it could be a wet drive home!

11am and Vince shouts the all in (A whistle would have been better)

I had decided on two lines to fish first attack would be paste @ 8m and another line fishing meat in the margin to my left

Plumbing up on the 8m line I found I had 9ft of water a bit deep for paste when it's blowing a gale but I decided to give it a go

In the margin tight up to the reeds I had 2ft of water

So on the all in I put 2 pots of GOT 4mm sinkers out at 8m and 2 pots of hemp and a few cubes of meat into my margin swim

Then shipped out a lump of paste and tipped it in over the top of the pellets

With the wind and heavy ripple/waves it was almost impossible to get the float to cock at the right height after a few adjustments I had a happy medium and was just considering giving up on the paste line when the pole tip dipped and my black hydro shot out after a short tussle a small Barbel popped up ready to be netted

nice result my first still water Barbel and though it was only about 6oz it fought like a 2lb carp

With this capture all thoughts of giving up on the paste line disappeared and I was soon potting another lump of paste and a few pellets out

A succession of small Barbel around the 6-8oz mark were coming now but it was impossible to keep the float on the surface so I was just waiting for the pole to dip or the hydro to shoot out and then lift into the fish

A quick glance across to Peter and I saw he too was catching small Barbel around the 6-8oz mark but he was fishing at 3m with just his top 2 and it looked like he was fishing pellet shallow but his catch rate was twice what mine was

I should have given up then and moved into the margin swim but as I was catching regularly I persevered with the paste

Eventually after 2 hours and numerous tangles caused by the howling gale and the length of my rig I lost the will to live and threw the paste rig down and decided to give the margin swim a look

I fished an 8mm cube of luncheon meat tight into the reeds and first put in the float bobbled then buried and I had a 6oz Barbel from then on I had a fish every put in mostly around 8oz with a few knocking the 12oz mark though the fish were the same size as the paste line fish these in the margin were a lot less hassle to catch and my catch rate got a lot faster

After about an hour a decent fish ripped my float into the reeds and managed to snag me and as I was using 0.16 straight through with soft set hydro it was impossible to pull for a break which meant clambering down the bank with my top 2 and grabbing the line and ripping it out by hand

Unfortunately this disturbed the swim and moved a lot of the reeds/roots about which resulted in me hooking roots and reeds for about the next 15 mins and the fish seemed to have headed for the hills

So I topped up with a few pots of hemp and sorted out a new rig

During this time Peter decided he was close to the 50lb net limit for both of his nets and put out a third net

He then performed a little known ritual of throwing himself in the lake cussing under his breath and stomping up to his car to change his foot wear

Whatever it's significance it seemed to do no harm because on his return he was still catching a fish a chuck

Also on my next put in my float buried so it looks as if some of his South London water dance magic had spread my way

That's the way it continued for the rest of the match with an 8oz Barbel a chuck with a small break from the Barbel when I caught 2 Golden Tench and a small Carp then back onto the Barbel right up until 4pm when Vince shouted the all out (he really needs to buy a whistle)

When the scales came alone the bank there was a 63lb a 65lb and an 81lb on the board so though I knew I wouldn't beat Peter I was hopeful of coming second in the section but unfortunately I only managed to weigh 78lb 8oz not good enough to put me anywhere in the match but still a great days fishing with 78lb of Barbel

Part of my 78lb 8oz catch kindly photo'd by Peter

Peter managed to catch over a ton of Barbel from peg 45 taking the scales to 100lb 8oz but was only good enough for second place

First spot was claimed by Nick with a fantastic 170lb of Carp

Full Result

1st....Nick Gilbert................ 170lbs 00ozs

2nd...Peter Morton............. 100lbs 08ozs

3rd....Polemad...................... 95lbs 00ozs

4th....Dai Fish........................ 81lbs 08ozs

5th....John Brimicombe........ 80lbs 08ozs

6th....Black Hydro.................. 78lbs 08ozs

7th....Chris Withall................. 70lbs 00ozs

8th....Dave the Fish............... 65lbs 00ozs

9th....Badatfishing................. 64lbs 00ozs

10th..RonB............................ 63lbs 00ozs

11th..nomorelongwalks........ 57lbs 08ozs

12th..Wily Coyote.................. 53lbs 00ozs

13th..Vince (vg1037)............ 52lbs 08ozs

14th..Colin the Pike.............. 44lbs 08ozs

15th..Kevin the Catch........... 24lbs 00ozs

16th..Jessica......................... 21lbs 00ozs

Total weight for the match was 1120lb 8oz

A great days fishing once again with a great bunch of guys

Monk lakes is certainly worth another visit

Rolfs Lake

The MD's Rolfs Pairs Tournament

Dates: Saturday 5th - Sunday 6th August 2006

Venue: Rolfs Lake, Oxfordshire

Number of Places: 30

Format: There will be Two Matches spread over the 5th and 6th August 2006

On Day One (Saturday) the entrants will be split into TWO Groups as follows :

Venue Regulars / Expert Matchmen

Venue Novices / Inexperienced Matchmen

From each group the Pairs will be drawn so that each Pair consists of one member of each group, these Pairs will fish together as a team for the duration of the weekend

________________________________________________

Well having always wanted to fish Rolfs Lake I jumped at the chance to spend the weekend fishing the lake and also meeting some more of the fellow anglers from maggotdrowners

Alough never having fished at Rolfs I have always followed the reports of the lake since Gary Thorpe set the world 5hr match record there of 490lb 8oz

With stories of smashed poles and monster fish I decided not to use my Armageddon and instead to get the old Lerc out of retirement chop it back and rethread it with Red Hydro

So with me faithful old Lerc bristling with new Red Hydro I set off for Rolfs

Saturday

Upon arriving I found Rolf busy washing everyone's keepnets so I had my nets washed then brought some of the much talked about pellets from Rolf and met the rest of the guys from MD's and awaited the draw for the pairs

11am on the dot the pairs were announced and I had been drawn with Kev Coke by all accounts an excellent angler who knew the venue like the back of his hand (in the back of my mind I had a niggling thought that Kevin would not be as happy as me with the draw by the end of the weekend )

11.30 and time to draw pegs I drew peg 18 next door to the peg Gary Thorpe took the world record from and apparently a good peg

I planned to fish 2 lines today Paste at 8m and pellet close in under the bush to my left

But during secret tactical discussions with my partner and fishing guru for the weekend (Kev Coke ) I discovered the swim under the bush was going to be a non runner and I would be better going all out with the 8m paste line

On the all in I went straight in with a pot of Rolfs freedom pellets at 8m and then shipped out a large lump of paste and cupped it in over the top of the pellets

The float went down straightened out and cocked it's self then buried into the depths closely followed by my Red Hydro I was into one of Rolfs carp within 20 secs of the all in

The hydro did its stuff and a nice 4lb common was in the net

I threw a handful of pellets out then shipped another lump of paste out and tipped it in this time the float went down and just didn't stop the hydro was on it way to the middle of the lake again

After a few hectic dashes the hydro soon had the fish under control and another common of about 4/5lbs was in the net

Under 3 mins into the match and I had 2 carp already!!! this was surely going to be a red letter day

Unfortunately the rest of the day didn't follow the same pattern as I went on to foul hook fish after fish and at 1 point the swim resembled a washing machine with all the fizzing and swirling which resulted in my float jigging ducking and diving non stop but in between the foul hookers I did managed to land a few more carp my first weigher to go on the board was an 8lb mirror followed by a 12lb common and topped off by my best fish of the day a 17lb common and I managed a few more 4/5 pounders for the net

Having trashed 5 of the 6 paste rigs I had made up things were looking a bit dodgy but with an hour to go the fish suddenly started taking the paste big time and Dirk who was fishing the next peg to me who had also been suffering all day with foul hookers and lost fish started hooking fish 1 after another

Using my last rig I too was into fish after fish but due to it being my last rig and also taking into account that I had made my rigs up too light I had to play the fish a lot more gently and thus caught at a slower rate

At the final whistle I sat back on my box my arm hurt and my head was buzzing

What a place!!!

I packed all my gear away and set off to join in with the weigh-in

Rolf has a fantastic system for weighing the fish which involves everyone that is fishing and has groups getting the nets out others weighing them and others dipping the fish and returning them all over seen by Rolf with clockwork precision

And it's certainly an experience to see and weigh a 200lb+ bag of carp of which there were 2 today Keith the winner of day 1 with 242lb and my partner Kev Coke with 230lb

When the scales arrived at my peg I managed to put 74lb 08oz on them, which at any other venue would be a fantastic weight but it seemed a little disappointing by Rolfs Lake standards

But there's always Tomorrow !!

Sunday

I sped back to Rolfs this morning ready for another great days fishing safe in the knowledge that having sat up most of the night making up new rigs that today I was a match for Rolfs monsters :)

I made up 5 new paste rigs and decided to go with Maver ice .50 paste floats onto 0.20mm Silstar line straight through to size 12 kamasan B911 hooks

As yesterday I had set up Maver ice 4x12 paste floats onto 0.18mm Silstar line straight through to size 12 kamasan B911 hooks and the carp a Rolfs just laughed at them

I also set up 5 rigs for my secret weapon!!

Speaking to Rolf yesterday and discussing the problems I was having with the foul hooking fish and the washing machine swim he suggested that I should have tried fishing meat a bit shorter in and that would have sorted the better carp out

So as soon as I got home I was chopping meat up into 8mm cubes and making up some new rigs to fish it I decided to go with Maver ice .75 pellet floats onto 0.20mm Silstar line straight through to size 12 kamasan B911 hooks

It appears that after yesterdays results that Kev Coke and myself were in second place in the pairs match with 13 points and Kev had a good feeling that we could pull it round today and win

9am soon arrived and time to draw I came out of the draw bag with peg 37

Talking to Kev he was over the moon and said it was a great draw and as he had drawn peg 34 we should both be on a lot of fish

As I set up my tackle I noticed that Gary Thorpe had drawn peg 36 and was setting up next to me so if nothing else with Kev Coke on peg 34 and Gary Thorpe (world record holder) on the next peg I should be able to learn something

my plan today was to fish paste and pellet at 8m and then come shorter with meat later on and keeping a careful eye on Kev and Gary they both appeared to be setting up to fish paste at round about 8m too :)

The all in came and I shipped out a pot of pellets and then went out with my paste tipped it in and waited and waited a bit more then I watched Kev land a carp then Gary then the guy opposite and still I waited with nowt :(

by now Gary and Kev were landing fish regularly along with a few other in the small lake end

All of a sudden my elastic shot out and I was into a carp :) first fish of the day after 45 mins and a weigher on the board at 9lb 8oz today seemed to be more about missed bites and waiting with nothing happening at last my second fish came another weigher at 14lb 8oz

I noticed that Gary was catching on pellet so I decided to put a pellet rig on and give it a shot after my 4th little skimmer I threw the pellet rig back in the box and went back onto the paste after 3 hours I had 3 fish 2 on the board and 1 in the net this was not going to be good

All of a sudden I remembered my meat doh!!

I put a cube of meat on shipped it out fed some pellets over the top and waited 5 mins passed and then the float buried and I was into a hard fighting carp and as this end of the lake is much shallower they do fight hard

from then on it was constant fish up until the all out :)

The meat did the job I just wish I had remembered it earlier

The main problem I had now was my arm hurt too much and I was having a job to get their heads up to net them

This became obvious when Gary hooked and landed 2 fish in the time I was still playing 1 but never mind I'd had a fantastic 2hrs fishing :)

I packed all my gear away and had a nice chat with Gary Thorpe about Rolfs and other lakes and fishing in general (real nice guy) then we set off to help with the weigh-in

Once again everyone joined in with the weigh-in and it was a good light hearted interesting experience

When we arrived at my peg I thought that I had about the same as Saturday and expressing that to Kev didn't seem to fill him with confidence but as he lifted my net out I was forced to concede that I may have misjudged how much I had caught and my total eventually came out at 105lb 8oz :)

Gary had 206lb and Kev had 228lb

Another fantastic days fishing alough I spent most of the first 3 hours watching Kev Coke and Gary Thorpe fish the last 2 hours more than made up for it

Eventually the results were ready and Kev and I came joint first with Keith and Colin on 26 points each :) unfortunately 1st place was decided on weight and with a slightly lower weight Kev and I were knocked back into 2nd

Full Results

Saturday

Keith & Colin = 377-12 (14 points)

Kev Coke & Black Hydro = 304-8 (13 points)

Bevanboy & Jammy1 = 276-4 (12 points)

Antwood & Geoff P = 253-12 (11 points)

Malc & Simon = 243-0 (10 points)

Chin & Teepee = 234-10 (9 points)

Peter & Dave the Fish = 234-0 (8 points)

Gazmalman & Vince = 215-15 (7 points)

Matt & Tommodiesal = 207-10 (6 points)

Dirk & Bigladwigan = 197-8 (5 points)

David A & SteveB = 163-12 (4 points)

Dave & Cybermanc = 138-15 (3 points)

Neo-1 & Wily Coyote = 71-8 (2 points)

Sunday

Chin & Teepee = 436-4 (14 points)

Kev Coke & Black Hydro = 333-8 (13 points)

Keith & Colin = 328-12 (12 points)

Malc & Simon = 304-4 (11 points)

Gaza & Wily Coyote = 297-4 (10 points)

Gazmalman & Vince = 177-4 (9 points)

Matt & Tommodiesal = 265-5 (8 points)

Antwood & Geoff P = 222-0 (7 points)

Peter & Dave the Fish = 175-0 (6 points)

David A & SteveB = 166-8 (5 points)

Dirk & Bigladwigan = 154-0 (4 points)

Dave & Cybermanc = 152-6 (3 points)

SteveW & Neo-1 = 131-8 (2 points)

Bevanboy & Jammy1 = 63-8 (1 point)

Total Points

Keith & Colin = 26 points (706-8)

Kev Coke & Black Hydro = 26 points (638-0)

Chin & Teepee = 23 points

Malc & Simon = 21 points

Antwood & Geoff P = 18 points

Gazmalman & Vince = 16 points

Peter & Dave the Fish = 14 points

Matt & Tommodiesal = 14 points

Bevanboy & Jammy1 = 13 points

Gazza & Wily Coyote = 12 points

Dirk & Bigladwigan = 9 points

David A & SteveB = 9 points

Dave & Cybermanc = 6 points

SteveW & Neo-1 = 4 points

Individuals Total Weights.

Keith:473.8lb

KevCoke:458.0lb

Gazalman:393.12lb

Malc:387.8lb

Chin:387.8lb

Matt:322.8lb

Teepee:283.6lb

Antwood:268.12lb