Mill Barn Coarse Fishery, Great Wakering, Essex. June 26th, 2010.

Marsh AC club match.

Well it’s time for yet another Marsh AC club match today, and I’m off to Mill Barn Coarse Fishery, just outside the village of Great Wakering down in Essex it’s a new venue for a lot of us and we’re fishing The Reservoir that’s been recommended to us by club member Graham Manning. The weather forecast promises that it’s going to be a scorcher . Anyway with the gear loaded up it wasn’t a bad trip down and I pulled up in the car park of The Anchor where breakfast had been arranged around 7·15am to find Kevin & Jean and Keith & Mick already there. The others soon arrived and Breakfast was promptly dispatched, after which we followed Graham in convoy up to the venue.

Once we had all assembled in the car park, Tony and Colin collected up the fees and got the draw under way. I found myself with peg 5 for my home from the day, a little tucked into the corner restricting my options, but after a chat with Tony & Colin I decided to make the most of it. It was rumoured to be something of a flyer with a sunken island out in front of it, but in reality, the island was really in front of Roger and Rod and I didn’t want to risk casting over either of them ……

I set up 3 rigs for the pole, 2 for the margins where there was around 3ft tight in and another for around 6mtrs where I had around 7ft. I also set up my feeder rod with a running method feeder and the waggler as I’d heard that there was a good head of carp present and I expected them to come up in the water at some point today given the weather. Bait was to be corn and a variety of hard and soft pellets in various sizes, while the groundbait for the feeder was a 50/50 mix of Mojo and GOT Yellow Peril .

The All-In was called at 10am, I fed some pellets and corn into both margins and 1st cast I put the method feeder straight into the trees to my left, Not a good start!!!!! After re-rigging the feeder the next cast was a little better dropping just short of the tree line. It didn’t take long for something to take an interest in the hair rigged corn with the tip pulling confidently round and the culprit, a small common of around 2½lbs was soon safely in the net.

It was already starting to get hot with the sun beaming down, though thankfully a decent breeze was putting a ripple on the water and keeping things bearable. A second carp of around the same stamp soon followed for me, and I could hear from remarks that a few fish were starting to come out further along the bank……

Over on the car park bank I could see that Roger had started on the float and while sport didn’t appear to be fast and furious, it was surely only a matter of time before some fish would start to come his way…….

From my vantage point I could see that Kev had found a bit of early action with some carp and skimmers on the feeder, and I have to say that Kev’s set up certainly makes for a comfortable and relaxed approach compared to the usual seatbox set up you see most people using ……

Colin, to my right was having a look down the margins, and while it was producing a few for him, he was having a bit of trouble from fish shedding the hook, while a couple just snapped rigs like cotton !!……

For my part, the initial good start had come to a grinding halt with just a couple of skimmers added to those 2 initial carp. A look down both margins with the pole producing just another skimmer and a couple of roach, so after re feeding all pole lines I decided to take a stroll and see how others were fairing ……

Mick who had travelled down from Milton Keynes as Keith’s guest was fishing with his usual laid back approach, though he was missing being able to use his beloved meat, a bait he sets great store in ……

Meanwhile Keith on the next peg was starting to get amongst a few from the margins, targeting an area by an inflow pipe. However the fish weren’t letting him have it his own way, sorting out more than a few rigs with one even stripping the red hydro from a top kit showing the fighting qualities of the fish in the reservoir ……

Terry wasn’t experiencing anything like as much action, though he felt he was at least on his way to a better weight than he’d recorded recently, having suffered some poor days with his last 3 visits to Rolf’s in The Jinx Series……

Al had a frustrating start to the day, trying to get the fish going on the Pellet Waggler, he’d spent the first hour trying to steer clear of ducks that were snaffling his pellets every time he fed, but as the match wore on the ducks moved away and he steadily started to put a run of fish together……

Zack was having a bit of a quiet time, but had the satisfaction of landing a double figure Carp which was almost certainly a new PB ……

I stopped off to see how Tony was doing and found that he was suffering too, as the fish were testing his gear to and in some cases beyond its limits, meanwhile on the peg next door I was quite surprised to find Clive with something other than a pole in his hand. Indeed he was having a go with the pellet waggler, and he was having a few, though it was also noticeable that he had a spanking new set of Trambucco keepnets that were floating well, so there obviously wasn’t to much in them at that stage ……

On the end peg though Graham, who had put the venue forward seemed to be putting his experience of the fishery to good use on the end peg and was having a fair old struggle with what was obviously a decent fish ……

Indeed it proved to be a bit of a rarity, in the shape of a fine Grass Carp that must have been very close to double figures and well worthy of a photo for its happy captor.

So back to my peg, another look where I’d fed with the pole failed to produce anything other than a couple of small skimmers, while Colin was still nicking the odd decent carp from his margin lines. I went back to the feeder and as Roger was still fishing close in I gave it a chuck to the sunken island. While this produced a few fish for me I still couldn’t get them lined up and I felt that I was falling behind as Colin was getting larger fish at the same rate as me. I just couldn’t find a bonus fish.

In desperation I had a plumb up with the waggler at around 12mtrs where I could comfortably feed 8mm hard pellets and found around 8ft, and it was this line that I decided to concentrate on for the last couple of hours. This line eventually started to produce with some regularity. Nothing big (the largest was probably no more than 5lbs) but fast powerful fish that took line off the clutch on the strike and fought every inch of the way to the net.

By the time that the All-Out was called at 4pm I felt that I had around 60lbs in the net and had thoroughly enjoyed the day. With the gear packed away and back in the car I caught up with the Weigh-In. Graham had kicked things off with a fine 66¼lbs getting the better of Clive’s 59½lbs though they were both pipped by Tony’s 69¼lbs. Al however had the weight of the day with a fine 92½lbs to ensure the win on the day. Zack’s solitary carp at 10¼lbs did prove to be a new PB for him …… 

…… but John took the car pool from Zack and Martin with 40½lbs. Keith put a level 74 lbs on the scales for 3rd on the day and the bragging right from Mick on the way home in the car to Milton Keynes. Colin weighed 77lbs for second on the day, while my 69¼lbs gave me a share of 4th with Tony. All in all a good day out with the club, with everyone in agreement that the venue is worthy of a return next season.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 12	Al Loader	92lbs 08ozs
2nd	Peg 6	Colin Sharrard	77lbs 00ozs
3rd	Peg 8	Keith Ashby	74lbs 00ozs
4th=	Peg 5	Peter Morton	69lbs 04ozs
4th=	Peg 15	Tony Roberts	69lbs 04ozs
6th	Peg 17	Graham Manning	66lbs 04ozs
7th	Peg 16	Clive Pritchard	59lbs 08ozs
8th	Peg 7	Mick Wright         (guest)	51lbs 08ozs
9th	Peg 9	John Holdsworth	40lbs 08ozs
10th	Peg 2	Kevin Loveland	36lbs 08ozs
11th	Peg 11	Terry Goff	35lbs 04ozs
12th	Peg 1	Jim Boase	17lbs 12ozs
13th	Peg 4	Roger Noakes	11lbs 12ozs
14th	Peg 13	Zack Johnson	11lbs 04ozs
15th	Peg 10	Martin Hucker	10lbs 08ozs
16th	Peg 3	Rod Turner	DNW