Hartleylands Farm Fishery. Nick’s Lake. August 6th, 2011.

Maggotdrowning.com

 

Southern Championship 2011.

 Today is the day of the Maggotdrowning.com Southern Championship which means that I’m off down to Nick’s Lake at Hartleylands Farm just outside the village of Cranbrooke in Kent. Nick Gilbert had kindly taken care of organising the match this year. The early morning glance out of the window revealed a cloudy overcast morning, and the weather forecast wasn’t for much in the way of improvement. I soon had the car loaded up and by 7am I was on my way.

The first port of call today was The Knoxbridge Café, where a few of the lads were meeting for breakfast. I got there just after 8am to find most of the usual suspects were already in attendance a ‘Knoxbridge Special Breakfast’ soon had me set up for the day ahead, and it was then just a matter of jumping back into the car for the five minute trip down the road to the fishery.

As we waited for the draw word came through that Tony was marooned on a stationary M25, and a quick phone call to him confirmed that he wouldn’t be able to make it today, which left 16 of us fishing today. Prior to the draw Nick was doing a brisk trade in his floats which he had with him, but we were soon picking our pegs……

I found peg 13 was to be mine for the day, not a peg that I would have chosen, as I’ve never fished there before and it’s not considered one of the noted pegs. Nick Costar (Bag Up) had drawn peg 8, and would take some beating with his Method approach, while Al had drawn 9, another good peg. Matt and Mick had 23 and 24 and Nick Gilbert was on peg 17, on his own at the top of the lake with the wind blowing into it.

Reaching my peg I took stock, a comfy chuck to the island for a feeder, and a promising reed lined margin to the right and a overhanging bush to the left, with the wind blowing from right to left across me ……

I set up 3 top kits. The first with a 0·2g NG XT Power Pencil made up on 0·16 Ultima Power Match straight through to a size 16 Guru MWG for straight out in front at around 6mtrs where I had around 4ft of water. Then a NG 0·3 XT Sampson margin on 0·16 Ultima Power Match finished off with size 16 Guru MWG for tight to the reeds in my right hand margin where I had 2 feet of water and a 0.2 NG Edger on 0·16 Ultima Power Match finished off with size 16 Guru MWG that would be used tight to the bush on my left. I also set up the feeder rod to fish the method to the island. Bait was a selection of 4, 6 and 8mm pellets along with some GOT Baits soft hookers and some paste.

Kevin appeared with a welcome cup of coffee courtesy of Jean and after a brief chat made his way back to his peg for the start of the match. With everyone set Nick called the All-In at 11am. I fed a pot of mixed pellet at 6mtrs and a handful in each margin before shipping an 8mm pellet out to the 6mtr line. a couple of dips then the float buried resulting in a hand sized skimmer to get me off the mark, which was followed by a couple more identical examples. Not quite what I was hoping for especially as the two Nick’s both appeared to be off to flyer’s along with Al, in fact rumour had it that Bag Up had taken a couple of near doubles in consecutive casts within the first 15 minutes !!!!!!

Up to my left on peg 15 was Toby(vassago)Wells, and from what I could see it appeared that he was suffering with a similar slow start to the match like I was ……

After upping my feeding on the 6mtr line my next fish was a Carp, only a small one at around 1½lbs, but it gave a good account of itself before sliding across the rim of the landing net. This signalled the start of a run of Carp, but after about an hour I could tell that I wasn’t catching fast enough and was already falling behind. Time to take a look on the method. I’d previously soaked some 4mm pellets for use on the feeder, so using those in conjunction with a hair rigged banded 8mm pellet it was out to the island with the feeder. It was quite shallow out by the island and I could see fish turning toward the splash of the feeder as it landed, and while it soon started to produce fish for me, they were all small fish of around the 1lb mark. Nick on peg 17 was making serious inroads into the lake’s Carp population and still taking fish regularly……

I stuck it out in the hope that a few better examples would show up, but it just didn’t seem as if it was meant to be today. Sipping a second cup of coffee from Jean I decided to have a quick look with the pellet waggler, as I had been catapulting 6-8 8mm pellets to the island every couple of minutes while fishing the method and it was already set up in it’s ready sleeve. The set up was ideal to reach the island but after half a dozen casts it was all to obvious that the wind was making presentation to difficult for it to be effective.

I could see that Al was still catching at a steady rate, and his commentary on Bag Up’s progress kept everyone aware of how well he was catching. I could also hear plenty of splashing coming from Nick’s peg although the bush to my left stopped me from seeing quite how well he was doing. However I could see Mick over on peg 24 and he seemed to be catching well down his left hand margin ……

A quick look down both margins produced nothing apart from a solitary small Roach, so it was back to the 6mtr line for me. I was soon back among the Carp, still not large fish, but a slightly better stamp at around 1½-2lbs to those I’d been catching on the method. The problem was that I couldn’t increase the catch rate, it was just steady away. Finally with about 30 minutes to go the fish turned up in my right hand margin and I managed to take a few better fish around the 3-4lb mark before Nick called the All-Out at 4pm, but it was to little to late for me.

Packing up and chatting to Toby it was obvious that we’d had pretty similar matches, and I felt that I probably had around 70lbs to show for my efforts.
So with my gear back in the car it was time for the Weigh-In.

Mick R kicked things off with 39½lbs, but Simon recorded the days first ‘Ton’ with a fine 137lbs. Kev could only manage 37lbs 10ozs. Bag Up put 185lbs on the scales, but Al topped that with 197lbs 10ozs. My fish came to 88¼lbs, while Toby had 79¼lbs. Nick showed just what a busy day he’d had 140 Carp for a weight of 222¼lbs. Lee had 82lbs and Matt had 128¼lbs but Mick won their peg to peg tussle with 177¾lbs. Dave had 50½lbs while new boy Gino had 30lbs. On peg 32 Terry’s 112½lbs was just 4ozs better than Rusty’s 112¼lbs from peg 33, and Keith was last to weigh with 49¾lbs.

So back to the car park for the results. The Winner on the day and Maggotdrowning Southern Champion 2011 was Nick Gilbert. Al Loader took second place on the day while Nick Costar was third overall.

Thanks to Nick for organising the match and to all those that supported it on the day.

Lastly to Hartleylands Farm, what a fishery, Over 1700lbs of fish weighed in, meaning an average of over 100lbs per angler, it shows the quality of the fishing on offer.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 17	Nick(Master Baiter)Gilbert	222lbs 04ozs
2nd	Peg 9	Al(al)Loader	197lbs 10ozs
3rd	Peg 8	Nick(BAG UP)Costar	185lbs 00ozs
4th	Peg 24	Mick(mickeym)McMillan	177lbs 12ozs
5th	Peg 5	Simon(sidev77)Watkins	137lbs 00ozs
6th	Peg 23	Matt(the slapper)Love	128lbs 04ozs
7th	Peg 32	Terry(Wily Coyote)Goff	112lbs 08ozs
8th	Peg 33	Russell(Russ G)Graves	112lbs 04ozs
9th	Peg 13	Peter(mugger)Morton	88lbs 04ozs
10th	Peg 21	Lee(LEEMANS)Rose	82lbs 00ozs
11th	Peg 15	Toby(vassago)Wells	79lbs 04ozs
12th	Peg 26	Dave(dave the fish)Collier	50lbs 08ozs
13th	Peg 35	Keith(keith74)Powell	49lbs 12ozs
14th	Peg 2	Mick(mick r)Rumford	39lbs 08ozs
15th	Peg 7	Kevin(Kev the Catch)Loveland	37lbs 10ozs
16th	Peg 27	Gino(naughtycockney)	30lbs 00ozs