Monk Lakes. Match Lakes 1 & 3. August 2nd, 2008.

The Southern Intersite Match.

A nice smooth run saw me pulling into the car park at Monk Lakes at around 8am. I’m fishing for the Maggotdrowning.com team today in The Southern Intersite Match. The Intersite matches were originally conceived as friendly get-togethers where members of the various angling forums could meet and put faces to names from the various forums and enjoy a light hearted day out at the same time. However there’s quite a competitive element to these matches nowadays though the Maggotdrowning ethos is still to enjoy ourselves and enjoy the day without winning.

By 9am all the teams were assembled for the draw, with only the Total Fishing team being an angler short. Our team for the day was Nick Gilbert(captain). Matt Nutt, Gary Thorpe, Matt Love, Vince Gould, Paul East, Bill Gibbins, Clive Pritchard, Trevor Little and Peter Morton(myself). We were fishing Match Lakes 1 & 3 today and my draw gave me peg 112 at the end of the causeway by the aerators on Lake 3. Settling in to my peg i fancied it for a decent days fishing as I had a vacant peg to my left and the wind off my back. I had Ant Sparrow(antmusic) of Total Fishing for company behind me on 113, the other aerator peg and looking across I could see Fred Parker(milo) from TalkAngling and Vince to his right.

I set up 4 top kits so that I was covered to fish the flow and back eddy caused by the aerator to my right, plus a margin and an up in the water rig. I also set up my pellet waggler as i had it with me in its ready sleeve. Feed was a mix of 4, 6 and 8mm pellets with various pellets for hookbait.

11am and the all in and I fed a handful of pellet at 8mtrs on the edge of the flow and followed it out with the rig with a banded 8mm pellet on the hook set just to trip bottom. Almost straight away the float shot under and after a spirited fight I slid the net under a Barbel of around 2lbs and followed this with 2 more in the next 2 put ins.

 Unfortunately it didn’t last, as for the next half hour I was plagued with a series of fast un-hittable bites that despite varying rigs and baits I just couldn’t connect with. The threatened rain also arrived and while not heavy was enough to be annoying.
Upping the feed I finally got a decent bite and gratefully slid the net under the culprit, a nice Mirror Carp of around 3 lbs. By keeping the feed going in I was getting more positive bites from the Carp and after a couple of hours I estimated that I probably had around 30lbs in the net.

Looking across I could see that Fred was concentrating on his margin swim and it appeared to be producing the goods for him……..

My day was steady, I was getting 2 or 3 Carp but then suffering blank spells before the Carp returned. I kept taking a look at my margin swims that I had been steadily feeding from the off but never once got a bite from them. Vince seemed to be having a bit of a struggle too and was definitely falling behind Fred, as it appeared that the only line he could find a fish on was at 7mtrs straight out in front……

At least the sun came through in the later stages of the match making things a bit more comfortable for all concerned. I managed to keep the Carp coming in the final stages and had the feeling that it was close between myself and Ant but couldn’t really see the other anglers in my section as there’s plenty of vegetation that’s grown up between the pegs…………

4pm and the all out was called, and I felt I had 75-80lbs in my nets and while I’d enjoyed my day, felt I should have had more but for the blank spells.

Come the weigh in and my net came to 85¼lbs which only proved to be good enough for 3rd in section and 2 points with Dave Churchward of Angling Forums taking the section and the match with 147¼lbs.
Back for the results and it was obvious that Lake 3 had been the one to be on, with Lake 1 not fishing up to expectations and overall the Maggotdrowning Team finishing 3rd on the day.

Congratulations to Angling Forums for their win in the day and a big Thank You to Vince for organising the match with his usual efficiency. Hopefully everyone enjoyed it enough to do it all again next year.

Angling Forums	34 points
Total Fishing	27 points
Maggotdrowning.com	22 points
Talk Angling	16 points

Peg	Angler	Team	Weight	Points
		Section1
Peg 2	Jeff Driscoll	TA	21lbs 04ozs	2
Peg 3	Nick Gilbert	MD	37lbs 00ozs	3
Peg 5	Andy Gregory	TF	15lbs 05ozs	1
Peg 7	Dave Pearson	AF	49lbs 01ozs	4
		Section 2
Peg 9	M Wright	TA	6lbs 08ozs	1
Peg 11	Gary Thorpe	MD	7lbs 10ozs	2
Peg 13	Lindsay Scott	TF	19lbs 00ozs	4
Peg 15	Mark Hathaway	AF	17lbs 10ozs	3
		Section3
Peg 17	Paul Law	TA	36lbs 10ozs	2
Peg 19	Matt Love	MD	48lbs 08ozs	3
Peg 21	Johnny Beaton	TF	28lbs 10ozs	1
Peg 22	Mark Smith	AF	63lbs 06ozs	4
		Section 4
Peg 23	Ron Byus	TA	42lbs 00ozs	1
Peg 24	Matt Nutt	MD	48lbs 08ozs	2
Peg 26	Chris Martin	TF	86lbs 00ozs	4
Peg 28	Tony Curd	AF	62lbs 08ozs	3
		Section 5
Peg 30	Lance Glover	TA	21lbs 08ozs	1
Peg 32	Bill Gibbins	MD	23lbs 00ozs	2
Peg 34	Tim Suttle	TF	26lbs 08ozs	3
Peg 36	R Graves	AF	58lbs 04ozs	4
		Section 6
Peg 38	Frank Wright	TA	8lbs 08ozs	1
Peg 40	Clive Pritchard	MD	55lbs 02ozs	2
Peg 42	Colin Forsdyke	TF	75lbs 04ozs	4
Peg 44	J Holt	AF	66lbs 08ozs	3
		Section7
Peg 92	Fred Parker	TA	108lbs 08ozs	4
Peg 94	Vince Gould	MD	34lbs 10ozs	1
Peg 96	Russell Grimes	TF	77lbs 12ozs	3
Peg 98	J Swann	AF	66lbs 00ozs	2
		Section 8
Peg 100	R Lucas	TA	47lbs 08ozs	1
Peg 104	Paul East	MD	50lbs 00ozs	2
Peg 106	Dave A T	TF	94lbs 04ozs	4
Peg 108	M Page	AF	61lbs 04ozs	3
		Section 9
Peg 110	Dell Smith	TA	45lbs 00ozs	1
Peg 112	Peter Morton	MD	85lbs 04ozs	2
Peg 113	Ant Sparrow	TF	88lbs 00ozs	3
Peg 115	Dave Churchward	AF	147lbs 04ozs	4
		Section 10
Peg 117	Ian Hornby	TA	106lbs 12ozs	2
Peg 119	Trevor Little	MD	112lbs 00ozs	3
Peg 121		TF		0
Peg 123	Stu Wilson	AF	117lbs 08ozs	4