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

Colin:233.0lb

Peter:231.8lb

GeoffP:207.0lb

Gaza:206.8lb

Bevanboy:206.4lb

Dirk:197.0lb

Cybermanc:193.5lb

Blackhydro:180.0lb

Dave the fish:178.0lb

Steve B:165.4lb

David A:165.0lb

Bigladwigan:154.8lb

Tommodiesel:150.7lb

Simon:142.4lb

Jammy1:133.8lb

Wily Coyote:105.12lb

Steve W:100.0lb

Vince:98.7lb

Dave:98.0lb

Neo1:88.0lb

Total weight caught over the weekend was 6,134lb

Well that was my first trip to Rolfs and I hope there will be plenty more the place is awesome

I had a fantastic weekend met some fellow Maggotdrowners I'd met before and met alot more for the first time and I'm looking forward to next years MD's trip to Rolfs

But a 17lb carp and a 105lb match weight are going to be hard to beat