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