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