Private Lake, East Sussex. July 5th, 2009.

Well it’s off down to a Private Lake in East Sussex for an impromptu session at Bill Gibbins invitation as he’s booked the Lake for today and invited a few of us down to join him for a bit of a Knock Up.
It looked like being a nice day as I loaded the car up and set off, though some idiot trying to drive through some road works to escape the attention of the local constabulary nearly stymied things at the off. However it didn’t really delay me and I arrived at about 8·45am.

Bill was off round the lake pegging out so I dipped my nets and chatted with Roger, John, Ray, Al, Terry and Clive and as Bill returned Dave rolled up to complete the numbers for the day. Al collected the cash as Bill organised an impromptu draw. Peg 2 was my reward, while Al got peg 1 and Dave peg 3 (both rated pegs). Roger had peg 4 with a comfy chuck to the small island, while John was just round the corner out of my site on peg 6. Bill had the back of the large island all to himself on peg 7. Terry had peg 8, while Ray and Clive had pegs 10 & 11 to round things off.

Not having fished the lake much I’d asked a bit of advise and the general consensus was a line around 10mtrs out in front and another down the left hand margin where the outflow to the lake is as it normally holds a few. Sitting there in the morning warmth with a mix of sun, clouds and a bit of breeze it didn’t look bad at all.

Setting up was nice and simple as I was just after a nice relaxed days fishing so I wasn’t about to over complicate things with numerous rigs and options. Just 2 4X12 Malman Adam’s to 0·18 with size 16 Drennan Carp Match hooks to fish 8mm banded pellet on the deck at 10mtrs straight out and a MW Trev with similar line and hook for up in the water that could double up down the inside. Bait was 8mm pellet with 6mm for feed.

10·00am and the All -In was called and I dumped a large pot of pellets out at 10mtrs and fed down the left margin by hand. Straight away I could see Roger was into what appeared to be a decent fish on the feeder, and indeed he was soon into a steady run of them.

I could hear a fair bit of splashing coming from Al’s peg, but it turned out that apart from one early fish he was having a bit of a mare, with fish slipping the hook and trashing a couple of rigs.

I’d managed a couple of Carp of about 3lbs each by the hour mark……..

……… but was being pestered by small roach snatching at the pellet, as a brief change down to a 6mm on the hook confirmed. From what I could see Terry was getting amongst a few, but it transpired that he was losing just as many as he was managing to get into the net.

Ray and Clive seemed to be ticking over nicely, with Clive seemingly having the better of it from his peg and rumour had it that he’s had an absolutely cracking Tench.

Dave was fishing down into the corner on peg 3 and had around 9 fish when he went for a stroll at about 12·30, which was a couple more than I had. Bill came wandering round on the way to fetch his sunglasses and reckoned that John had 7 fish and was admitting to having had around 20 fish himself (though he reckoned they were on the small side)

By 1·30 I decided to stretch my own legs so Having topped up both pegs with a decent quantity of feed, strolled round with my camera. Dave had gone back to fishing short (4 sections) down the side as it was more comfortable for him and it was still producing for him. Roger was still catching on the feeder, even if he was having a bit of a fight to get them in the landing net.

Battling through the undergrowth I found Bill in the act of unhooking yet another Carp, and although he tried to play it down I’m sure I detected a quiet hint of confidence.

Terry, while having caught a few, had it seemed lost just as many again including a proper lump that gave him no chance. Ray was suffering the attention of to many Roach, hindering his attempts to build a weight, but Clive was looking happier than I’ve seen him look for a few weeks as he was starting to put together a decent bag as his margin swim got stronger.

Al had finally come to terms with his swim as well, and after his initial troubles early on was starting to put some decent fish in his nets.

Back to my peg and I continued to pick up fish to the end of the session, but try as I may finding one over 3lbs seemed beyond me. 

while Dave was catching at pretty much the same rate as I was, his fish were of a noticeably better stamp than mine.

The All-Out was called at 4pm and I knew that it wasn’t going to be a place for me today. Chatting to the owner as I packed up he reckoned that with 24 fish I should have a comfortable ton, but I knew that my fish were small, and told him I would be lucky to have 75lbs.


Anyway we would soon see as the scales were starting at Al’s peg. It was immediately obvious that Al had caught a much better stamp of fish as he recorded 140¼lbs to set the standard. My fish went 74lbs 6ozs, so I wasn’t far out. Dave had a little more than he thought with 103¼lbs, while Roger suffered with to many small fish recording 122½lbs. John’s fish only came to 61lbs but none the less represented his best ever weight from the lake. Bill was next up and halfway through things were looking close, but he came up just short with 136lbs meaning the loss of a Golden Nugget to Al. Terry was left a bit frustrated with his 85lbs, which left him ruing the loss of so many fish during the course of the day. Ray had the lowest weight on the day with 60½lbs, but it was Clive who finally took the honours on the day, and a Golden Nugget off Bill, with a fine 149lbs which included a cracking Tench, which if it hadn’t recently spawned would have gone way better than the 7lbs 2ozs that it actually weighed.

So that was it for the day, 9 anglers putting over 900lbs of fish on the scales, in lovely surroundings, with good weather and even better company. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 11	Clive Pritchard	149lbs 00ozs
2nd	Peg 1	Al Loader	140lbs 04ozs
3rd	Peg 7	Bill Gibbins	136lbs 00ozs
4th	Peg 4	Roger Harris	122lbs 08ozs
5th	Peg 3	Dave Collier	103lbs 04ozs
6th	Peg 8	Terry Goff	85lbs 00ozs
7th	Peg 2	Peter Morton	74lbs 06ozs
8th	Peg 6	John Manktelow	61lbs 00ozs
9th	Peg 10	Ray Vicary	60lbs 08ozs