Hartleylands Farm Fishery. Nick’s Lake. September 12th, 2009.

Maggotdrowning.com

 

Southern Championship 2009.

 Down to Hartleylands Farm today just outside the village of Cranbrook to fish the Maggotdrowning.com Southern Individual Championship on Nick’s Lake. Nick Gilbert had kindly taken care of organising this match and there promised to be a good turn out for it.

The view out of the window first thing was a little dull and grey, but the forecast predicted a bright warm sunny day so hopefully things would pick up. With the car loaded it was off to The Knoxbridge Café for breakfast, quite a few of the lads had the same idea so there was a good bit of banter and a couple of new faces introduced themselves before we made our way down to the fishery for the draw. Arriving at the fishery it was obvious that we had a pretty decent turn out for todays match, 24 of us to be exact. Nick finally got the draw under way with Matt’s help. Peg 34 for me, a nice short walk from the car, but not where I really fancied and with Vince drawing peg 23 I feared the loss of a Golden Nugget was very much on the cards.

With my kit at my peg it was time to set up, but for some reason today I really couldn’t get into it and remarked on it to Terry who was on peg 33 to my right……

Anyway with 1½hrs to get ready I finally managed to get things done. 1st thing set up was the feeder rod with a small method feeder to drop to the edge of the island. For the pole I set up 3 rigs……

These were essentially similar to those I’d used the previous weekend ie: a couple of Malman 4X12 Adam’s on 0·18 Power Match with size 16 Drennan Carp hooks to fish pellet as well as a small Malman SC Paste float on 0·20 Power Match with a size 12 Ashima Barbless hook for paste down the edge. Bait was a selection of various pellets and paste with 6mm pellet for feed, while the groundbait was Sonubaits Method Mix……

11am saw Nick call the All-In and I potted in 2 large pots of pellet and groundbait at 6mtrs and a handful of pellet down the margins, then went out on the method feeder to allow the pole line to settle. Well that was the plan but as I picked up the rod I noticed that somehow I’d managed to miss out threading the line through the bottom rod rig !! (told you I wasn’t really focused when setting up) So I had to strip things down and start again. Anyway having re-rigged I dropped it to the edge of the island. A couple of taps and the tip wrapped round, the 1st fish was on, only for it to slip the hook halfway to the net. Better luck next cast however and a small Common of around 1lb had me off and running. I managed another couple of similar examples in the next 20 minutes but got the impression that there weren’t any number of fish there so decided to try the pole line while catapulting some pellets over to the island in an attempt to draw some fish.

Unfortunately the pole line was no more productive, 45 minutes producing just another couple of small Carp and a skimmer. Time for another look on the method. Dropping the feeder close to the island, I’d just set the tip when it wrapped round, lifting into the fish I noticed a boil in the water by the island and a Duck paddling off at a rate of knots. Unfortunately I was attached to the Duck. Well the subsequent fight caused a deal of hilarity, but Terry managed to do the honours with the net. ‘Jemima’ was freed and appeared none the worse for her ordeal and Clive kindly did the ‘David Bailey’ bit for posterity……

With that episode out of the way I went back to the pole. It produced another couple of small Carp and a couple of small Roach, but it was still a struggle so I re fed all the lines and took the camera for a quick stroll. In fact I could hear splashing from Terry’s swim as I stood up, and was just in time to catch him sliding a Carp into the landing net.

Looking across from Terry’s swim I could see Vince and Jessebobs staring straight out in front of them, either they were concentrating hard or was it trying to ignore the bloody awful row singing coming from Al on the next peg ……

Meanwhile Clive was attached to something that was giving his purple Hydro a decent work out and giving him a bit of a run around  ……

Simon and Mick were engaged in exchanging witty repartee, though some may have mistaken it for ripping the pee out of each other and wonder of wonders Mick was actually fishing the pole ……

Over on the other side thing were obviously not going to plan however as Matt (MD’s very own slapper) was fishing short down the margin !!!!……

On the way back to my peg I noticed that Clive was now concentrating his line of attack down the margin ……

…… and felt that it was probably my best chance of getting anything decent, so out came the paste rig for the final part of the match.
Jeff D had started fishing his margin as well and was having a good run of fish, but it really never happened for me. Just 4 Carp in the last hour, though they were of a better stamp than I’d been getting previously. When Nick called All-Out at 4pm I have to say that I was glad it was all over and I soon had the gear packed up and back in the car.

The Weigh-in was soon under way and Jeff’s 59lbs+ was the first weight of any note. My meagre total of 30¼lbs being last in section.
Roy’s (Anglingman) 61lbs+ was beaten by Nick’s level 69lbs, while Al took the section and 3rd overall with 78¾lbs. Vince, despite suffering almost as bad a match as me (Including snapping his waggler rod) had managed 31½lbs and had a rather large grin as I handed him a Golden Nugget. Nick (BAG UP) had walked the section with 114½lbs that also won him the match. Ian Carley (CasterBlaster) put 70lbs on the scales to take the next section while Neil Beard’s 107lbs took the final section and 2nd overall.

Back to the car park for a quick presentation, then the inquests and pee taking started in earnest. Congratulations to Nick(BAG UP)Costar who now holds the title of MD’s Southern Champion, but more importantly ‘The Bragging Rights’ for a year. Thanks to Nick Gilbert for organising the whole thing and Thank You to all the anglers that turned up, without whom there wouldn’t have been a match. Let’s do it all again next year.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 17	Nick Costar (BAG UP)	114lbs 08ozs
2nd	Peg 8	Neil Beard (neilbeard)	107lbs 08ozs
3rd	Peg 25	Alan Loader (al)	78lbs 08ozs
4th	Peg 3	Kevin Pack (Backintheday)	72lbs 08ozs
5th	Peg 14	Ian Carley (CasterBlaster)	70lbs 00ozs
6th	Peg 28	Nick Gilbert	69lbs 00ozs
7th	Peg 32	Roy Gudgeon (Anglingman)	61lbs 14ozs
8th	Peg 35	Jeff Driscoll (Jeff D)	59lbs 06ozs
9th	Peg 16	Greg Andrews (Splitshot1)	53lbs 04ozs
10th	Peg 24	Steve Burgess (Jessebobs)	46lbs 08ozs
11th	Peg 21	Matt Love	45lbs 08ozs
12th	Peg 13	Sven Castle (Svenc)	40lbs 12ozs
13th	Peg 33	Terry Goff (Wily Coyote)	33lbs 12ozs
14th	Peg 36	Clive Pritchard (clive)	33lbs 06ozs
15th	Peg 12	Dai Thomas (Dai Fish)	32lbs 00ozs
16th	Peg 23	Vince Gould (Vince G)	31lbs 08ozs
17th	Peg 34	Peter Morton (Mugger)	30lbs 04ozs
18th	Peg 27	Richard Pearson (dhl man)	27lbs 12ozs
19th	Peg 2	Andy Hodd (Maver1)	26lbs 08ozs
20th	Peg 6	Mick Pearson (mickthechippy)	20lbs 00ozs
21st	Peg 20	Keith Powell (Keith74)	16lbs 08ozs
22nd	Peg 5	Simon Elsey	7lbs 08ozs
23rd=	Peg 9	Phillip Starkey (Crabpellet)	DNW
23rd=	Peg 30	Keith Driscoll (Disco)	DNW