Rolf’s Lake. Holton. Oxfordshire. August 1st, 2009.

The JINX Series 2009

Match 4.

Today saw us back at Rolf’s for the penultimate round of this years Jinx Series. Leading up to the match, the question that had been nagging away at the back of my mind was would the unsettled weather of the previous week have an adverse effect on the fishing today.

Looking out of the window a dull grey day greeted me and it looked like we would be in for more rain at some point, and loading up the car there was a muggy feeling to the air. So having made sure that the waterproofs were in the car today I set off via Battersea for my usual stop at The Jimmy Griddle where one of their ‘Full English Breakfasts’ at least made for a good start to the day. The drive down was smooth enough, though I did drive through a few rain squalls and after a final stop for a coffee at the services, I pulled into Rolf’s car park just after 10·30am.

I was the first to arrive. Now normally the first thing to do on arrival is to dip your nets prior to the match ahead, However John now supplies the fisheries own keepnets and landing nets for visiting anglers to use, so that’s one ritual less on a Rolf’s match day. Anyway John and Pauline were just starting to refill the dip tanks on the weigh stations so I set off with them round the lake and gave them a hand with that and by the time we’d worked our way back round to the car park the others were starting to arrive.

Soon the banter was in full flow. How would it fish? Clive spent a lot of the time with his fingers in his ears and changing the subject as people tried to get him to name a peg. Tony ribbing me as to whether I would draw 13 again? Would The Minx return to form and add a few more to her list? Marcus (Budgie) was back guesting again having been hooked by The Rolf’s Experience as were Webbo and Steve(Steak) and with the weather today was The Jinx starting to flex it’s power once more?

Well the draw was late today (much to Jon’s relief as he had stated that he would swim the lake after the final match if all 5 of the series draws had gone ahead on time) I hung back hoping that someone would get Peg 13 before me, and joy of joys Tony’s ribbing bit him on the arse as Peg 13 stuck to his hand.

 Now Clive and I are partners for the “Pairs” event, and had been heavily tipped as favourites prior to the start of the series, however a couple of disasters in the first 2 matches had seen us languishing down in 10th place, the last match had seen us drag ourselves back to 3rd and we were hoping for a decent pair of draws today to help us improve our position further. Poor Clive however got Peg 23 again, and Jon had obviously drawn well as by the time I reached the draw bag he already had his kit on peg 7 !!! Into the bag and I was more than happy to see peg 8 sticking to my palm, a very decent peg that I’ve never been fortunate enough drawn before.

So with my kit round at my peg it was time to get set up. I tend to be pretty single minded with my approach at Rolf’s, I find that if you set up to many options you just end up confusing yourself. Now you can fish long on peg 8 across to the far bank, but in all honesty my back isn’t really up to fishing long for 5 hours and with the wind gusting and the promise of rain to come I discounted it. Instead I went for just 4 sections straight out in front on the deck, a comfortable distance that I could throw pellet to regardless of what the weather did, and a similar line to the bush on my left. Rigs would be just one for pellet and another for paste. The pellet rig was a was a 4X12 Malman Adam to 0·20 Power Match with a size 12 Guru QM hook while the paste rig was a Malman SC paste to 0·22 Power Match with a size 12 Drennan Carp Feeder hook. Bait for the day was 8mm hard pellet, paste and some corn, while feed was simply 6mm fishery pellet.
So a pretty simple set up which left me a bit of time before the all in, though Jon looked like he was determined to cover all the bases as he made the most of every minute prior to the off.

So 1·30pm and Malc called the All-In and I fed 2 good handfuls of pellet straight out and another to the left then flicked a banded 8mm pellet out in front, and after lifting and dropping the rig the float buried and a good few feet of yellow Vespe streamed out of the top kit. Slow steady pressure soon saw one of Rolf’s Commons resting in the landing net, a weigher that went 11¾lbs, a nice start.

More pellets and back out with the rig, a couple of lifts and it’s déjà vu as once more the elastic streamed from the top kit and a couple of minutes later it’s another Common in the landing net, another weigher, this time going 11½lbs. Back out again, more pellets over the top and within a minute I’m in again resulting in yet another Common, going 10¾lbs this time.

Now with a start like that you can’t help feeling that it’s almost to good to be true, and sure enough next put in sees me attached to a real creature that just steamed off to the far bank, however I managed to turn it then heard a crack, looking up I couldn’t work out what had happened at first, but it was soon apparent that the elastic had gone at the stonfo. Obviously a little bit of wear that I hadn’t noticed, but I couldn’t help feeling annoyed with myself. Feeding more pellet I decided to re rig the top kit as I had all the necessary with me, but it cost me 15 minutes, though I kept feeding while I did it.

Jon was having a bit of grief having lost a couple of fish (probably foul hookers) and was having a bit of a struggle getting to grips with just how the fish wanted it. Meantime I was back in action, my next fish being a Mirror around the 8lb mark.


The fishing for most however was proving to be challenging. The Minx had given her customary scream signifying that she was up and running on peg 19 and you just knew that it had caused a few buttocks to tighten wondering if they were going to fall victim to her today. Indeed as I looked up the car park bank from my vantage point sport seemed to be slow. Webbo took great delight in phoning me to let me know that not only had Steak smashed a couple of top 2′s, but had nearly lost his 3rd & 4th sections in the lake as well.

A bit of a lull in proceedings for me, with a lot of finicky knocks resulted in me finally connecting with a fish which proved to be a Skimmer of around 1½lbs and a switch to corn only resulted in a small Roach. Jon however was attached to something that was obviously a lot more substantial. After a few anxious minutes he had it safely in the net, a lovely looking Mirror that rolled the scales round to 17lbs and a new PB for him.

With me being plagued by finicky bites I decided to try the paste rig as I’d read on Eddie Taylor-Green’s Blog that Vespe sponsored angler Chris Telling had won the previous Wednesday open from peg 8 fishing paste, but I just couldn’t make it work for me on the day as I suffered a frustrating spate of liners and foul hookers.


 Malc appeared having had a stroll round the lake and he seemed to think that it was between Simon E on peg 22 and me, with more than a few struggling at that point, indeed Malc hadn’t had so much as a bite down on peg 40. Nick on peg 36 had been fishing long to the aerator nearly all match with little to show for it, but had finally started to get a bit of action as reward for his efforts.

Dave the Fish was having a quieter time than he would have liked on peg 2, while rumour had it that Fred was  having a steady match on peg 4. Big Dave Moore had been strangely quiet on peg 6, and I did wonder if he’d fallen asleep after doing a nights work on the London Underground prior to the match until he appeared to ask me to witness a couple of weighers for him.

Back on the pellet rig and I started to connect with a few, a mix of Commons and Mirrors that all seemed to average around the 8lb mark. However I was getting quite a few foul hookers, so although it looked to some that I was absolutely bagging, the reality was that not all of them were ending up in the net. However sometimes you get something happen that gives you a hint that today might just be your day, and when I went to put a Mirror of around 8lb in the net and the top ring collapsed leading to me missing the net and the fish landed on the outside of the keepnet allowing me to scoop it back into the landing net, I couldn’t help wondering if the fishing gods were smiling on me today.

With the rain finally arriving in proper fashion with around 2 hours to go, sport appeared to pick up for me (well at least I wasn’t suffering from so many foul hookers) though the frustrating bit was that I couldn’t pick up a single fish from the left hand bush, forcing me to concentrate on the one line. Ryan over on peg 34 was fishing tight up to the buoy in his right hand margin but it didn’t appear to be producing for him today and he’d been snagged up on at least one occasion that I’d seen.

With around an hour to go I heard Malc shout out, which meant he’d finally managed to catch while just 45 minutes from the end a huge sigh of relief could be heard from Simon on peg 9 as he got his first fish of the day, thus avoiding the dreaded DNW though he was still looking odds on for a Minxing. I was still nicking the odd fish, while Jon had gone across at 14½mtrs and finally started to get a few, though he was having problems with sticking sections which made shipping back a bit of a nightmare for him and cost him a few fish.

With just a couple of minutes to go I was into a decent fish, but unfortunately made a schoolboy error. Knowing that there wasn’t long to go I got greedy and tried to hurry it to the net so that I could get another put in before the all out, subsequently I shipped back to quickly and the feisty fish made a bee line for the platform and cracked me off round the legs of it, a silly mistake and I should have known better, and just to rub it in while I was cursing my stupidity Malc called the All-Out.

Packing away wet kit is never fun and Jon had to get straight off but had a real problem with a top kit firmly stuck to a No4, but luckily with Fred’s help he was spared driving home with it stuck out of the window. I soon had my kit back to the car and after chatting to a few of the lads it was obvious that the lake had fished hard for the most part . Just how hard would be revealed by the Weigh-In.


So starting with peg 34 as usual Ryan weighed a hard earned 51½lbs to start things off, and that weight wasn’t troubled till Fred on peg 4 stuck just over 65lbs on the scales edging Jon on peg 7 by 6ozs. With 4 weighers on the board and another 11 Carp in my nets I was sure I’d done the ‘Ton’ and so it proved when my weight was called at 131lbs 6ozs. Paul on peg 16 managed 80¼lbs which would prove to be good enough for 3rd on the day. Gemma on peg 19 recorded a hard earned 33lbs, drawing more than a few groans as several people realised they’d suffered a Minxing or were about to. Simon E had managed a fine 110lbs from unfancied peg 22 for 2nd on the day, while my partner Clive’s 52½lbs gave him 2nd in his section. So a pleasing win for me on what had proved to be a hard day, with a Golden Nugget from the The Minx and one from Webbo by way of a bonus. Gemma had the biggest grin though with 13 victims added to The Minxed List, including Simon and her Dad. As for the Pairs, a couple of decent results today for myself and Clive has seen us move up to second place, but an even better pair of results from Fred and Simon E has seen them pull 2  points further in front, meaning that Clive and I will need to beat them by 13 points in the final match to win the Pairs competition, almost impossible but we’ll give it a real good try.


Next weekend it’s back to Rolf’s again with 3 matches in 3 days, It’s a hard life, but someone has to do it.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 8	Peter Morton	131lbs 06ozs
2nd	Peg 22	Simon Enticott	110lbs 00ozs
3rd	Peg 16	Paul Roberts	80lbs 04ozs
4th	Peg 4	Fred Parker	65lbs 02ozs
5th	Peg 7	Jon Hatch	64lbs 12ozs
6th	Peg 11	Steve Wilson	57lbs 04ozs
7th	Peg 23	Clive Pritchard	52lbs 08ozs
8th	Peg 34	Ryan Hughes	51lbs 08ozs
9th	Peg 36	Nick Williams	48lbs 12ozs
10th	Peg 29	Dave Webster       (guest)	44lbs 08ozs
11th	Peg 10	Alan Loader	43lbs 04ozs
12th	Peg 13	Tony Roberts	40lbs 04ozs
13th	Peg 19	Gemma Doyle	33lbs 00ozs
14th	Peg 38	Andy Spruce	32lbs 08ozs
15th	Peg 6	Dave Moore	32lbs 00ozs
16th	Peg 20	Keith Fellows	30lbs 00ozs
17th	Peg 27	Steve Akal            (guest)	29lbs 08ozs
18th	Peg 2	Dave Collier	26lbs 08ozs
19th	Peg 32	Ant Haywood	26lbs 00ozs
20th	Peg 9	Simon Mound	18lbs 04ozs
21st	Peg 26	Marcus Burgess     (guest)	17lbs 08ozs
22nd	Peg 40	Malc Doyle	16lbs 08ozs
23rd	Peg 18	Mitch Auger	7lbs 08ozs
24th	Peg 30	Terry Goff	6lbs 00ozs
25th	Peg 14	Nick Watkins-Price	5lbs 08ozs
26th	Peg 24	Tim Westmoreland	DNW