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

Marsh AC club match.

Down to a Private Lake in East Sussex today for a Marsh AC club match. This isn’t really an official club match, but Dave managed to get a booking and felt that some of the members might enjoy the chance to have a days fishing there. We’re expecting 16 of us to be fishing, including 5 guests. The Lake is a prolific fishery with a large head of Carp that’s well capable of throwing up some very good weights . However the weather leading up to the match has been very changeable so just how it’ll fish today is anyone's guess.

Looking out through the bedroom window it looked like we were in for a decent day weather wise and I soon had the car loaded. A quick stop for a bit of breakfast on the way and I was pulling into the fishery car park just after 8am. A good number had arrived before me including the guests. Keith & Mick had come down from Milton Keynes, Bill and Clive had joined us as well for the day and Al arrived in the nick of time as usual.

Dave, in his usual efficient manner, soon had the monies collected and the draw under way. Keith drew Peg 1 and Bill couldn’t disguise his delight at drawing Peg 4 in the other corner. I found myself holding Peg 12, up on the right hand bank with Terry on Peg 11 and Tony on Peg 13 for company today.

Reaching the peg I realised that I’d fished it once before, and caught bugger all off it, but that had been in the depths of winter, so hopefully today would prove to be better.

So down to business and get set up for the day. I set up a couple of Malman 4X12 Adam’s on 0·18 Power Match with size 16 Drennan Carp hooks to fish pellet and corn as well as a small Malman SC Paste float on 0·20 Power Match with a size 12 Ashima Barbless hook. I also set up a Malman Slapper on 0·18 Power Match with a size 16 Drennan carp match hook for up in the water and to double up down the margins. Todays bait was various pellets, paste and corn with 6mm pellets for feed.

With a few minutes before the All-In I strolled down to see Tony who appeared to be covering all the options with half a dozen top kits set up……

Keith and Mick appeared deep in thought, Keith no doubt wondering if he was going to get the better of Mick today, as Mick has developed the happy knack (for him) of beating Keith when they fish together ……

So at 10am Dave blew the whistle for the All-In I shipped out a pot of mixed pellets and corn to the 8mtr line and some fed by hand into the margins, but before I could ship my rig out I could see both Bill and Colin into fish straight away !!!! Anyway out with the rig with an 8mm banded pellet A bit of lifting and dropping of the rig soon saw the float slide away and I soon had my first fish of the day, a nice plump Common of around 4lbs safely in the net.

Looking across Jim had an early fish on the feeder to get him off the mark and so had young Zack……

Word had filtered round that Chris had got himself a decent Tench, and that Clive had found a couple of fish as well to get him off the mark. I’d taken another couple of Carp before I lost a fourth when the rig line parted for no apparent reason, it hadn’t parted at a knot or where any of the stotz had been applied. Anyway back out with another rig and I was soon into a fish once more, this one being a better sized Mirror that must have been around 7lbs. So with about an hour gone I reckoned I had about 20lbs and felt things looked good for the rest of the match.

Tony had taken 3 fish by now (“1 about a foot deep, 1 at around 3ft and another on the drop” ) while Terry to my right had 5 in the net ……

In the next half hour I managed just one more fish, a Common around 5lbs, but it was noticeable that sport had slowed all round the lake apart from Peg 15 that is, as Al seemed to be the only one catching regularly. I decided to re feed quite heavily to see if I could draw some fish, and took a stroll with the camera.

Indeed Martin on peg 10 hadn’t even had a bite and was at a loss to explain why, while Terry seemed to have a re-occurrence of a problem he’d suffered with here before, in that he was losing 50% of the fish he hooked for no apparent reason. Chris was concentrating on the end of the bush in the right hand margin of his swim but was only admitting to 4 fish in his nets ……

Clive had resorted to casting a straight lead to the island, and as I arrived he was playing a Common that was giving a good account of itself, but was soon safely in the net ……

Colin was fishing his favourite paste down the right hand margin, but despite a decent start was now biteless ……

Bill tucked away in the corner had started off like a house on fire, his first two put in’s having resulted in a couple of doubles, which had swiftly been followed by a couple of smaller fish, but he was struggling to and had resorted to fishing hard up to the reeds to try and tempt a bite from fish that could be seen moving in them ……

Indeed the tactic seemed to have worked for him, because as I reached Jim’s peg I looked back just in time to see him playing a fish ……

Keith on Peg 1 was another having a bit of a frustrating time having been told he’d drawn one of the favoured swims. He’d managed a double early on followed by another couple of smaller fish, but was now struggling for a bite……

Al however was now putting a steady run of fish together, though he reckoned they were mainly small ones, but at least he was catching regularly ……

I wish I could say that things improved from that point on, but I would be lying if I did. It was as if someone or something had switched the lake off with only the very occasional fish coming out in the next 4 hours. I had one more bite at around 3 pm which produced another Carp, but that was it for me. In fact there was a communal sigh of relief at 4pm when Dave sounded the All-Out to put us out of our collective misery.

As we packed away, the inquest on the days events started, with everyone scratching their heads and at a loss to explain just why the lake had appeared to have switched off, not that anyone could come up with a convincing answer though.

So to the Weigh-In, Keith kicked things off with a hard earned 30¾lbs, and just a single fish for both Zack and Jim. Bill registered 40¾lbs and was immediately overtaken by Colin with 42½lbs. Dave had just 2 fish while Simon managed 20½lbs. Clive managed 45¼lbs for the lead at that point, meaning that Bill had to part with a Golden Nugget and Chris recorded a level 31lbs. Round to the opposite bank where Martin had dry netted. Terry’s seven fish came to 36¼lbs leaving him regretting those lost fish. My six fish totalled 29½lbs while Tony’s six came to 26½lbs. Mick’s fish weighed in at 20¼lbs meaning that Keith had done him for once today. Al was home and dry with his first keepnet and eventually recorded an even 122lbs for a very comfortable win on the day, and was also the last to weigh as unfortunately Graham had dry netted as well.

So back to the car park. Congratulations to Al and a lot of head scratching all round, as none of us had experienced a day like that on the lake before and were at a loss to explain it. Still it had been another good day in great company and pleasant surroundings, even if the fishing hadn’t been up to expectations. We’ll have to do it all again soon, just a few more fish would be nice though.
 

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 15	Alan Loader                 (guest)	122lbs 00ozs
2nd	Peg 8	Clive Pritchard             (guest)	45lbs 04ozs
3rd	Peg 5	Colin Sharrard	42lbs 08ozs
4th	Peg 4	Bill Gibbins                 (guest)	40lbs 12ozs
5th	Peg 11	Terry Goff	36lbs 04ozs
6th	Peg 9	Chris Withall	31lbs 00ozs
7th	Peg 1	Keith Ashby                 (guest)	30lbs 12ozs
8th	Peg 12	Peter Morton	29lbs 08ozs
9th	Peg 13	Tony Roberts	26lbs 08ozs
10th	Peg 7	Simon Watkins	20lbs 08ozs
11th	Peg 14	Mick Wright                (guest)	20lbs 04ozs
12th	Peg 6	Dave Collier	10lbs 04ozs
13th	Peg 3	Jim Boase	6lbs 12ozs
14th	Peg 2	Zack Johnson	5lbs 04ozs
15th=	Peg 10	Martin Hucker	DNW
15th=	Peg 16	Graham Manning	DNW