Rolf’s Lake. Holton. Oxfordshire. June 13th, 2009.

The JINX Series 2009

Match 2.

The second match of the series today, I’d heard that it had fished hard last weekend in adverse weather conditions and the midweek match was held on the Big Lake as the Carp were finishing their spawning in the Little Lake so it will be interesting to see how things go today. With Maria working today I was up early to take her to work, before setting off to the fishery. A leisurely stop for a ‘Full English’ and another for coffee at the services still saw me arriving ahead of the rest about 10·30am.


 John was cutting the grass and almost ended up in peg 34 when he got a little adventurous on his ride-on mower. Soon the car park was filling up with a full compliment of 28 anglers, with Simon E having replaced Pete Thatcher in the series as he can’t spare the time off work, and Dave and Steve having travelled down from Yorkshire again to take 2 guest spots as they’d enjoyed the 1st match so much.

With the draw on time again, the general consensus was that The Little Lake was still the place to draw. Webbo couldn’t believe his luck, pulling out Peg 6 this time (Golden Hand or what?) and immediately struck a £1 side bet with me knowing that he’s again drawn a form peg, while Clive (my Pairs partner) remarked that the one peg he didn’t want to draw was Peg 23 on the car park bank……………….. so of course he drew Peg 23 (it looks as if his drawing hand is going to be spending some serious time on the naughty step). I drew Peg 13, and drawing it on the 13th wasn’t the best of omens as I’d struggled on the same peg on the last match. On peg 14 I had Gemma The Minx for company and again the omens didn’t look good as Eddie Turner-Green was coming down today to take some photo’s for John, and Gem always does well when he’s around.

Setting up took a matter of minutes as it was just a question of opening my box and picking out the 3 rigs I’d used the previous match, a MW 0·4g XT for the 8mtr line on the deck on 0·20 Power Match with a size 14 Drennan Carp Match and a MW Trev with similar line and hook for up in the water that could double up down the side, while a third rig consisting of a Malman SC paste to 0·22 Power Match with a size 12 Drennan Carp Feeder hook for paste down the Side. Bait for the day was once more a mix of various pellets, paste, corn and meat, with feed taken care of by 4 and 6mm fishery pellets.

1·30pm and Malc called the All-In, and I shipped out 2 big pots of mixed pellets onto the 7mtr line, and fed the right hand margin by hand. The experience of déjà vu was ominous, having baited the rig with a 6mm expander and shipped out, my first two put ins resulted in foul hookers just like the previous match. Malc however was soon into the lake for an early bath, playing the good samaritan this time and retrieving Tony’s spectacles that had dropped into his peg……

Indeed 1½hrs passed before I hooked into a proper fish which proved to be a weigher, a nice 11½lb Common. After another 45 minutes of inactivity and a phonecall from Webbo telling me that he’d only had 7 fish (Oh how my heart bled for him……NOT) I decided to feed heavily and take a stroll to see how the rest were doing.

As I walked past Gem was into a fish, and was taking her time playing it as it was obviously a decent one………………

………indeed her patience was amply rewarded in the shape of a new PB Mirror Carp that swung the scales round to rest on a weight of 15lbs 2ozs…………

Jon on peg 17 obviously had the Gods shining down on him, as I strolled past he lifted into a small roach, but as he started to ship back yards of elastic streamed out of his top kit, the roach obviously having been bumped off, a hungry carp had snaffled the hook and whatever was left on it on the drop !!!!    

Nick and Malc were both struggling at this point and looking down the car park bank nobody appeared to be taking the place apart………………

Indeed Clive found that Peg 23 was living up to his worst expectations, with just a single fish that he’d had on his first put in, just to cruelly raise his expectations.

……………… only to dash them, as he tried in vain to add a second to his tally ……………

Simon E on peg 29 appeared to be putting a few together alternating between fishing shallow and fishing big balls of paste on the deck, while Dave on peg 28 was admitting to 4 fish…………………

Ant on peg 34 was having a few, but Simon on peg 35 seemed to be having the mother of all ‘Mugger Moments©’ as he hadn’t been able to tempt a single fish and was looking at the very real possibility of a Minxing (as were a good few of us at this point)

Slim on peg 37 had landed a carp before the off on a bare hook and was fishing long up in the water to try and tempt a few……

While Al on peg 38 was having to chop and change to keep his bites coming…………

Steve(steak) on peg 40 was putting the odd fish in the net, but was to suffer a minor disaster as one his keepnets top rings collapsed releasing 2 Carp before he could rectify the situation……

Terry (Wily Coyote) had taken 4 fish down the margin on peg 4, but by the look of things they were all out in front of him …

Webbo was quite content on peg 6, though he was mourning the loss of one of his new Malman ‘Elvis’ floats, though looking at his peg I found it hard to feel to much sympathy for him ……

Keith was ticking along nicely on peg 7, but Nick was having a real struggle getting to terms with peg 8……

Andy on peg 9 was getting a bit desperate and had filled in the margin with pellet in a kill or cure attempt to make something happen………

While Dave on peg 10 and Dai on peg 12 were both struggling, Dave having a skimmer and a perch to show for his efforts, while Dai couldn’t buy a bite………

Back on my peg with a few fizzes of bubbles coming up and a few fish cruising I resumed, but despite going through the card, all I could muster were another couple of scales on the sidetray from foul hookers that had taken off at a rate of knots. I did hook one decent fish but that did me under my keepnets and despite managing to thread my top kit under them to maintain contact, it shed the hook soon after.

With about an hour to go I had another foul hooker, but with the hook firmly in it’s pectoral fin I managed to get it into the net, Dave on peg 10 had finally managed a couple of Carp and Dai had snared a Roach to avoid the dreaded DNW and would add a small carp as well before the end.

With half an hour to go Ieuan strolled past having surrendered and resigned himself to a DNW. I managed a final fish, yet another foul hooker, this time in the tail, that did a great job of trashing the swim before I managed to net it.
6·30pm and Malc called the All-Out ending what had been a very frustrating time for me and a few others.

As always the scales told the tale of the day. A DNW and a Minxing for Simon, Al briefly leading with 74¾lbs till Webbo put 94½lbs on the scales that would eventually net him A Section and 3rd place. My own meagre 24½lbs was nowhere near enough to save me from a next peg Minxing once Gemma put 33lbs 2ozs on the scales and took a Golden Nugget off me. Steve had a quietly steady match on peg 15 to register 101lbs for 2nd, while Jon took the honours on the day off of peg 17 with 104¾lbs for B Section and the win. Simon E taking C Section and 4th overall with a level 93lbs to round things off.

So 2 Golden Nuggets lost on the day, one to Webbo and the other to Gemma, along with my 1st Minxing of 2009, mind you I was just one of 13(There’s that number again) that she added to her list today.

So that’s it for today, next up for me is the Maggotdrowning.com Individual Championship at Maver Larford’s Match Lake next Saturday. How will it go? I’ve not got a clue as I’ve never fished there before, but it should be a good day out. I’ll let you know next weekend.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 17	Jon Hatch	104lbs 12ozs
2nd	Peg 15	Steve Wilson	101lbs 00ozs
3rd	Peg 6	Dave Webster        (guest)	94lbs 12ozs
4th	Peg 29	Simon Enticott	93lbs 00ozs
5th	Peg 7	Keith Fellows	77lbs 04ozs
6th	Peg 38	Alan Loader	74lbs 12ozs
7th	Peg 32	Mitch Auger	60lbs 00ozs
8th	Peg 4	Terry Goff	56lbs 12ozs
9th	Peg 40	Steve Akal             (guest)	56lbs 04ozs
10th=	Peg 37	Ade Williams	55lbs 00ozs
10th=	Peg 28	Dave Collier	55lbs 00ozs
12th	Peg 34	Ant Haywood	43lbs 08ozs
13th	Peg 2	Ryan Hughes	40lbs 12ozs
14th	Peg 9	Andy Spruce	36lbs 00ozs
15th	Peg 14	Gemma Doyle	33lbs 02ozs
16th	Peg 8	Nick Williams	33lbs 00ozs
17th	Peg 10	Dave Moore	32lbs 08ozs
18th	Peg 20	Malc Doyle	31lbs 12ozs
19th=	Peg 13	Peter Morton	24lbs 08ozs
19th=	Peg 25	Fred Parker	24lbs 08ozs
21st	Peg 23	Clive Pritchard	21lbs 04ozs
22nd	Peg 31	Paul Roberts	19lbs 08ozs
23rd	Peg 22	Tony Roberts	18lbs 00ozs
24th	Peg 19	Nick Watkins-Price	14lbs 08ozs
25th	Peg 11	Dai Thomas	7lbs 08ozs
26th	Peg 26	Tim Westmoreland	2lbs 00ozs
27th=	Peg 18	Ieuan Davies	D.N.W.
27th=	Peg 35	Simon Mound	D.N.W.