Marsh AC club match.
Today was the Marsh AC match at Rockells Farm in Essex and I’d arranged to meet Dave Collier at his house at 6.45am and follow him and Colin down to the venue as it’s rather tucked away off the beaten track and a pig to find, Chris Withall had the same idea, and as we set off in convoy it was raining and the weather forecasts in the week previously hadn’t been good, so it looked like we may be in for a wet old day. Round the M25 and onto the M11 and we were brought to a halt by a crash, though thankfully we were soon moving. Intent on following Dave I got a phone call from Paul East, who had missed his turning and taken the scenic route via Colchester, and by the time we’d sorted that one out it was obvious we would have to draw for him.
Arriving in the fishery car park around 8·15am Kevin Loveland and I were dispatched to arrange the pegging for the 18 of us fishing while Dave organised the draw. We were under instructions to leave as many of the pegs close to the car park out as we could, so pegged 9 down the left and the other 9 round the top and down the right of the lake. Happily the rain had stopped and the sky was lightening as we started the draw so perhaps a decent day was on the cards.
I’d been looking forward to this match for a while as Rockells has a reputation of producing some decent weights, I’d only fished there once previously in the depths of winter and blanked, but last years club match which I missed as I was on holiday had produced a 200lbs+ winning weight and a few tons to back it up. I’d spoken to Trevor Price of GOT Baits prior to the match and he’d told me how he would fish it if he was there, so at least I had a good idea of how I was going to approach the day given a half decent draw.
Into the draw bag and I pulled out Peg 3, one of the three pegs at the top of the fishery, and I was more than happy with that. Tony Roberts had drawn Peg1, which I was informed by Dave was the out and out flyer, while Judy Hermite joined us on Peg2. Opposite I could see Martin Hucker who had won the previous match at Churchgate Lakes and Paul finally arrived to take Peg5.
Arriving in the fishery car park around 8·15am Kevin Loveland and I were dispatched to arrange the pegging for the 18 of us fishing while Dave organised the draw. We were under instructions to leave as many of the pegs close to the car park out as we could, so pegged 9 down the left and the other 9 round the top and down the right of the lake. Happily the rain had stopped and the sky was lightening as we started the draw so perhaps a decent day was on the cards.
I’d been looking forward to this match for a while as Rockells has a reputation of producing some decent weights, I’d only fished there once previously in the depths of winter and blanked, but last years club match which I missed as I was on holiday had produced a 200lbs+ winning weight and a few tons to back it up. I’d spoken to Trevor Price of GOT Baits prior to the match and he’d told me how he would fish it if he was there, so at least I had a good idea of how I was going to approach the day given a half decent draw.
Into the draw bag and I pulled out Peg 3, one of the three pegs at the top of the fishery, and I was more than happy with that. Tony Roberts had drawn Peg1, which I was informed by Dave was the out and out flyer, while Judy Hermite joined us on Peg2. Opposite I could see Martin Hucker who had won the previous match at Churchgate Lakes and Paul finally arrived to take Peg5.
Peg 3
Settling into the peg I just set up 3 top 2′s, 2 fitted with Teepee’s paste pots and Mk3 Malman self cocking paste floats, one to fish straight out into about 2ft of water and the other for the margin where there was around 18 inches depth. The third rig was just a Malman MTD1 Dibber for up in the water if the fish rose up to intercept the pellets I was planning to feed. Bait was simple, all I was planning to use was paste, which was the new Atomic Paste from GOT Baits. I’d been forewarned that you can use a fair bit at Rockells, so had premixed a good 6 pints of it the night before. For feed it would just be 4mm pellet and some hemp. The reason for the hemp was that todays match was being split into two 3 hour sessions with a 1 hour break mid way through for a mid-match weigh-in taken at the fishery owners insistence, and I wanted something that I could feed just prior to the break that would stand a chance of holding the fish during this break when we couldn’t feed.
Tony was happy with his peg.
So 10am and Dave blew the whistle for the all-in. A pinch of pellet and hemp out in front of me and the same down the left hand side. Going out with the deeper rig in front I potted in the paste and the float settled and 5 seconds later buried and I was off and running with a little Mirror Carp of around the pound safely in the net. After that it was just a case of trying to get into some sort of rhythm with just a pinch of feed going into both swims regularly and trying to sort the liners from the real bites.
After an hour I had 30 fish in the nets but they were all pretty small, ranging from 6ozs to 1½lbs, but I could see that Martin opposite was getting a better stamp of fish. He was fishing floaters down his right hand margin and I could hear the fish slurping them off the top. Looking down the margin I could see a few tail patterns so decided to have a look down there to see if the fish were of a better stamp and straight away was rewarded with a Common around the 2½lb mark. One of the frustrating things was the number of missed bites, a lot of which you would think were liners, but with very few foul hookers I felt that it was due to the poor condition of a lot of the fish’s mouths making it hard to get a decent hook hold.
Sport remained pretty constant but I trashed 3 rigs when fish took me through brambles that were trailing into the water, and I took 15 minutes out to tie some new rigs, knowing that we would be stopping for an hour at 1pm for a mid match weigh-in. I knew that Tony was catching reasonably well along with Martin, but felt that it would fish even better during the afternoon session.
The problem would be keeping the fish in the margins during the hour’s break for the weigh in and the ensuing commotion of the nets coming out and fish being returned, so with a couple of minutes to go I fed 3 pints of hemp into the margin swim along with a pint of pellet before Dave signalled the all-out.
A chat while we waited for the scales revealed that Judy wanted both Tony and I to give her an hours start in the afternoon, Tony was owning up to having around 70lbs on his clicker (but can you believe one of Pinocchio’s relatives?) while I felt I should have a good 80lbs. By the time the scales arrived Colin had weighed 83½lbs from Peg17 and Martin 110¼lbs.
Tony’s fish weighed in at a level 82lbs while my 2 nets registered 107½lbs. So 2 Ton weights caught in 3 hours and all to play for come the afternoon session.
The problem would be keeping the fish in the margins during the hour’s break for the weigh in and the ensuing commotion of the nets coming out and fish being returned, so with a couple of minutes to go I fed 3 pints of hemp into the margin swim along with a pint of pellet before Dave signalled the all-out.
A chat while we waited for the scales revealed that Judy wanted both Tony and I to give her an hours start in the afternoon, Tony was owning up to having around 70lbs on his clicker (but can you believe one of Pinocchio’s relatives?) while I felt I should have a good 80lbs. By the time the scales arrived Colin had weighed 83½lbs from Peg17 and Martin 110¼lbs.
Tony’s fish weighed in at a level 82lbs while my 2 nets registered 107½lbs. So 2 Ton weights caught in 3 hours and all to play for come the afternoon session.
Martin partakes of some mid match refreshment
Thirsty work this baggin.
Waiting for Dave to signal the afternoon all-in I mixed up another 3 pints of paste just to be on the safe side as I could see the tail patterns still in my margin swim so felt confident. Just after 2pm Dave blew the whistle for the all-in, straight down the margin and the float buried and I was off again as a bright silver Common around 2lbs nestled in the landing net. To be honest the sport remained pretty constant for the next 3 hours and while the average size wasn’t big I did manage to find a few larger examples around the 6-8lbs mark in the last hour. Martin had another good session, but I was pretty confident that I’d caught more than him this time, especially as he’d run out of bait with 5 minutes to go and I’d had another 4 fish in that time.
With the scales starting from our side this time round, a quick chat with Tony revealed that he thought he was in with a chance of his 1st Double ton on aggregate, while I felt that just maybe I was in with a chance of a Treble Ton as I’d caught much better in the afternoon session. Soon the Weigh-in got underway with Tony posting a level 130lbs for an aggregate of 212lbs, Mission accomplished. Judy added 45½lbs for a total of 70¼lbs which is her best ever match weight. My turn next and lifting the 1st net I needed John to give me a hand. As it turned out I was a little bit short of what i needed for a Triple Ton as the 2 nets came to a level 186lbs giving me an aggregate of 293½lbs, by far my best ever match weight by over 100lbs.
Round to Peg4 and Martin had another great session weighing 123½lbs for a total of 232¾lbs and his best ever match weight. As the scales moved round everyone had improved on the morning weights with Dave, Al, John and Paul posting ton plus aggregate weights. Last but one to weigh was Colin, and by all accounts he’d had a cracking afternoon catching a decent stamp of fish and he was admitting to 41 fish in his 3 nets, they weighed 167½lbs giving him an aggregate of 251lbs and second place on the day.
So there you have it, the top 4 anglers all beat their previous best match weights and the top 3 also beat the previous Club match record held by Dave at 231lb. To top it all the final total of 1991lbs of fish weighed in was 300lb higher than the club had ever weighed in and represented an average of 110lb per angler. One hell of a days fishing by anyone's standards.
With the scales starting from our side this time round, a quick chat with Tony revealed that he thought he was in with a chance of his 1st Double ton on aggregate, while I felt that just maybe I was in with a chance of a Treble Ton as I’d caught much better in the afternoon session. Soon the Weigh-in got underway with Tony posting a level 130lbs for an aggregate of 212lbs, Mission accomplished. Judy added 45½lbs for a total of 70¼lbs which is her best ever match weight. My turn next and lifting the 1st net I needed John to give me a hand. As it turned out I was a little bit short of what i needed for a Triple Ton as the 2 nets came to a level 186lbs giving me an aggregate of 293½lbs, by far my best ever match weight by over 100lbs.
Round to Peg4 and Martin had another great session weighing 123½lbs for a total of 232¾lbs and his best ever match weight. As the scales moved round everyone had improved on the morning weights with Dave, Al, John and Paul posting ton plus aggregate weights. Last but one to weigh was Colin, and by all accounts he’d had a cracking afternoon catching a decent stamp of fish and he was admitting to 41 fish in his 3 nets, they weighed 167½lbs giving him an aggregate of 251lbs and second place on the day.
So there you have it, the top 4 anglers all beat their previous best match weights and the top 3 also beat the previous Club match record held by Dave at 231lb. To top it all the final total of 1991lbs of fish weighed in was 300lb higher than the club had ever weighed in and represented an average of 110lb per angler. One hell of a days fishing by anyone's standards.
Sorry for the lack of photos, but as you might have guessed from the report, I was a little too busy to take many today.
| Position | Peg | Angler | Morning | Afternoon | Total Weight |
| 1st | Peg 3 | Peter Morton | 107lbs 08ozs | 186lbs 00ozs | 293lbs 08ozs |
| 2nd | Peg 17 | Colin Sharrard | 83lbs 08ozs | 167lbs 08ozs | 251lbs 00ozs |
| 3rd | Peg 4 | Martin Hucker | 110lbs 04ozs | 123lbs 08ozs | 232lbs 12ozs |
| 4th | Peg 1 | Tony Roberts | 82lbs 00ozs | 130lbs 00ozs | 212lbs 00ozs |
| 5th | Peg 9 | Dave Collier | 41lbs 08ozs | 83lbs 00ozs | 124lbs 08ozs |
| 6th | Peg 8 | Alan Loader | 26lbs 00ozs | 94lbs 00ozs | 120lbs 00ozs |
| 7th | Peg 13 | John Holdsworth | 32lbs 12ozs | 82lbs 08ozs | 115lbs 04ozs |
| 8th | Peg 5 | Paul East | 22lbs 00ozs | 91lbs 08ozs | 113lbs 08ozs |
| 9th | Peg 14 | Terry Goff | 25lbs 04ozs | 59lbs 08ozs | 84lbs 12ozs |
| 10th | Peg 12 | Chris Withall | 35lbs 00ozs | 49lbs 00ozs | 84lbs 00ozs |
| 11th | Peg 2 | Judy Hermite | 24lbs 12ozs | 45lbs 08ozs | 70lbs 04ozs |
| 12th | Peg 18 | Roger Noakes | 15lbs 08ozs | 54lbs 08ozs | 70lbs 00ozs |
| 13th | Peg 7 | Kevin Loveland | 22lbs 00ozs | 31lbs 08ozs | 53lbs 08ozs |
| 14th | Peg 6 | Bob Hucker | 14lbs 08ozs | 35lbs 00ozs | 49lbs 08ozs |
| 15th | Peg 16 | Graham Manning | 14lbs 08ozs | 30lbs 08ozs | 45lbs 00ozs |
| 16th | Peg 15 | Ken Walker | 7lbs 00ozs | 31lbs 08ozs | 38lbs 08ozs |
| 17th | Peg 11 | Eddie Dobson | 8lbs 08ozs | 15lbs 08ozs | 24lbs 00ozs |
| 18th | Peg 10 | Rod Turner | 3lbs 08ozs | 5lbs 08ozs | 9lbs 00ozs |
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