Monk Lakes Fishery. Puma Lake. March 28th, 2005.

I had arranged a day out with Dave Collier today which led to us meeting up in the car park at Monk’s just after 7·30am. The 1st thing on the agenda was breakfast, kindly paid for by Dave. Duly fortified we made our way down the left hand side of Puma Lake and selected a couple of swims for ourselves, in fact Dave ended up in the same swim that Andy (The Hat) had fished when we visited last December at Simon’s invitation.

Dave and I both set up our poles to fish at around 11mtrs which offered a comfortable 4½-5ft of water. Feed wise Dave elected to cup in hemp while I adopted a loose feed approach with pellet, maggot and a few grains of corn.

Almost straight away small Chub found our baits taking them on the drop, so a quick delve into my winder tray found a margin dibber rig more suited to Carp that was added to a top kit with green dual core (6-10) And I soon had some more small Chub on double maggot fished 2ft deep.

What we really wanted was to get amongst the better fish so back onto the bottom rigs and Dave soon had something a little better pulling back, which resulted in……


………….A Goldie for Dave.
Soon we were getting amongst the Skimmers and small Tinca’s while still attracting a few Chub, Most of my Tench were of the usual green variety but occasionally one of the Goldies would put in an appearance to brighten things up for me too.


Don’t mention the Goldies to The Hat.
Around noon Simon (The Monk) and his good lady appeared for a chat, and while we chatted away Simon decided to have a go with my gear…

Well he may have bred every fish in the lakes, but they obviously decided that being netted by him once was enough, so shut up shop and refused to bite for him.

Throughout the morning a few of the larger Carp had been cruising around, in fact earlier one had cruised past Dave’s feet in the margins and despite Dave hanging a bait in front of it, it had carried on its merry way.

Well as Dave and I stood chatting, having said farewell to Simon, one cruised into the margin of my peg, I threw a few grains of corn in front of it and it went straight down for them. Grabbing my up in the water rig and hooking a grain of corn on I dropped it in only to see the Carp suck it in straight away. STRIKE and it’s on and it’s then I remembered that it’s only a light elastic. Thankfully it was more of a plodder than a turbo nutter and 5 mins later Dave is doing the honours with the net.
It looked to have a little bit of damage so rather than weigh it I slipped it straight back, as we both agreed that it was probably a scraper double.

 

The afternoon wore on and I stuck to corn for hook bait and feed. I managed another 5 small carp in amongst the Tench and Chub that kept coming at regular intervals.

Typical Puma stockie.

while Dave managed a few more Goldies and Skimmers among the ever present Chub.
4pm saw us call it a day as a cool wind sprung up. All in all a most enjoyable day in good company, with things looking good for the Southern Friendly MD’s match in May.

Framfield Fishery. Spring Lake. March 13th, 2005.

Hawthorne AC club match.

Well stupidity overcame common sense this morning, as instead of just rolling over and staying under a nice warm duvet cuddled up with the wife when the alarm went off at 6am, I got up and decided to give it a go on my club’s match.

 So at 7am there I was loading the tackle into the car for the drive down to Framfield Lakes just outside the village of Uckfield. Frost on the car didn’t bode well, and the frost on the surrounding countryside got heavier as I approached the venue.

On arrival more disappointment entered the equation as the onsite catering wagon was closed, so no hot cuppa or bacon sarnie to start the day.

Now there are about 7 pegs you don’t really want to draw as you can’t reach the islands from them, so of course I drew peg 60 which is probably as far away from an island as it’s possible to get. Out came the waggler, while the next peg set up a bomb rod, so between us we would see if anything was about. I also set up 4 sections of pole to target a dead reed bed in the margin to my right.

10am and all-in was called, and after an hour the waggler had produced just a couple of tiny Roach, while next door hadn’t had a touch. Also a cold crosswind had sprung up ruining presentation, so it was pole time. Targeting a small gap about a foot square between the reeds, it was a question of feeding 4 grains of corn and fishing a single grain till a bite or fish arrived.

Well apart from watching those fishing to the island catching, I actually managed to winkle a few small Carp out and at the final whistle managed to put a level 19lbs on the scales which was enough for 6th place on the day.

So hard work in the cold and wind, but given the limitations of my peg on the day I was reasonably happy with the result.