Rockells Farm. Saffron Walden. Essex. July 22nd, 2012.

Marsh AC club match.

Once again it’s Rockells Farm in Essex that is the venue for the Marsh AC match today. It’s renowned as a bagging water, in fact it’s where Martin Hucker set the clubs best ever match weight of 383lbs 04ozs back in 2009 so it’s a venue that we always look forward to fishing. However I’d heard from a couple of people recently that it wasn’t producing like it had in the past. Was the reason down to the terrible weather we’ve experienced recently or had something changed? We would find out today.

I met up with Dave at his house at around 6·45am to follow down to the venue. It was already a pleasant morning with the promise of a warm sunny day ahead as we set off , but Dave must have been using his Beatles Sat Nav as we went on a Magical Mystery Tour of Stanstead Airport and the surrounding villages before we arrived at the venue car park around 8am .

Everyone was looking forward to this one and a few of the lads soon had it pegged out while Dave sorted out the money and organised the draw. Peg 14 was mine for the day, pretty much where I’d drawn last year and with plenty of water today hopefully it would produce better sport. Turning left from the car park with my kit I found Eddie, Al, Vic and Kev on the first 4 pegs. My peg was actually the one Simon had last year while Dave had the flyer on the point then Zack and Clive was back on his peg last year. Elsewhere John had peg 1 with Simon on 2 and Martin had run to his peg having drawn peg 3 the same peg he’d broken the club match record on in 2009.

Settling into the peg I couldn’t help noticing a couple of things. The first was the water colour or lack of it, it had that somewhat slate grey appearance that you normally see when the first frosts knock the colour out of the water, and the second thing was that there didn’t appear to be any signs of fish moving. Rockells is so heavily stocked that the fish are always competing for food, colouring up the water and you normally see tail patterns and swirls along with cruising fish as you set up, but hardly anything was showing ….. Very Strange.

The venue is that prolific that the match format is slightly different from our usual in that we have two, three hour matches with a weigh -in after each to avoid keeping too many fish in keepnets for long periods and to make things easier for the scales men. Rigs are simple and strong as you’re looking to catch on a top 2 from the margins to do a really big weight and as such were just 0.3 NG Edger’s on 0·21 Ultima power match straight through to a size 16 Kamasan B911X for pellet and size 12′s for paste. Bait for today was just 6mm hard pellets and strawberry GOT Atomic paste.

With a bit of time before the start Kev strolled down with a coffee and a freshly cooked bacon and sausage roll which set me up nicely for the start.

10am saw the All-in called and some pellets were fed into both margins and right away alarm bells rang again as I could see them fall through the first 12-18 inches of water which is really unusual  as the water is normally so coloured. I banded a 6mm and dropped it into the left hand margin, the float dipped and a lift produced a 1oz roach, not what I was looking for. Now normally at the start of the matches here you start to hear splashing as people are landing carp straight away but today it was very quiet, nobody was into fish straight away.

10 minutes in and I had my first carp, but it was an 8oz stockie, absolutely mint which still had the curtain in its mouth intact, definitely not what’s expected at Rockells.
 I’d like to say it got better but it didn’t. Dave strolled round expressing surprise that nothing was coming to floaters and he strolled down the bank and returned with news that Al and Vic were struggling to put any fish together along with everyone else.

I’d added a couple of sections to try further out but after a couple of hours just had another 3 stockies and a few roach added to my catch so took a stroll looking for some inspiration. Kev was fishing a feeder but was in the same predicament as the rest of us……

Strolling down to Al he was trying his margins, but all the while we chatted he didn’t have a single bite yet alone a fish……

Vic was totally disheartened with the lack of fish as well and it was fast becoming obvious that all was not well……

I strolled back up to see Clive and it was the same story at his peg, just the odd stockie and roach showing, Zack was fairing no better, but Dave was getting the odd stockie from the margins and this was probably due to the fact that he only fed floaters at the start so didn’t overfeed the swim……

John was on peg 1 and was getting a few, but nowhere near the quantity expected ……

Just before 1pm Dave strolled down with another coffee and bacon and sausage roll for me  and with no sign of any improvement we cancelled the first weigh -in and decided to fish straight through. Meanwhile over on peg 9 Ken had managed to connect with a decent sized carp and after carefully playing it had it safely in the net and weighed at 11¼lbs before returning it . I heard that Tony was getting a few but couldn’t really see him although I could see Keith who was having the odd fish……

Vic had decided that he’d had enough in the meantime and tipped back and gone home , and I have to admit that the idea had crossed my mind as well.

Around 2pm there was one hell of a splash from Kev’s peg, he’d tripped and lost his footing as he returned to his peg and gone straight in, by the time I got round to see if he was alright he was back on the bank and draining out and declined my invitation to get back in so I could get a photo……

Meanwhile over on peg 8 Graham had hooked into something that was capable of stretching his elastic as he was fortunate enough to latch onto a decent carp……

I kept searching the swim adding sections exploring further out but to no real effect as no matter where I tried it just produced the odd stockie or tiny roach and it was a blessed relief when the All-Out was called at 4pm.

 I really couldn’t wait to get the kit packed away and the weigh-in had to be one of the quickest in the clubs recent history. on our bank Eddie had 7¼lbs, Al 10¾lbs and Kev had 6¾lbs. My few fish made 9lbs. Dave had the best weight on our bank with 19½lbs, Zack had a meagre 3½lbs and Clive ended with 11½lbs.

The owner appeared while we were weighing in and when I asked him about the lack of fish he was adamant that no fish had been lost or netted and no stockies had been introduced, but I’m afraid that I don’t believe that to be the truth and as a result of what we experienced today I think it’s fair to say that we won’t be returning to Rockells any time soon.

Back at the car park the results were soon sorted John taking the win today with just 41¼lbs, Tony was second with 32lbs and Mick’s 31¼lbs gave him third place and the MK Nugget. The sections went to John, Ken, Al and Dave. Next up for the club is The Reservoir at Hartleylands Farm and hopefully a better days fishing for all.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 1	John Holdsworth	41lbs 04ozs
2nd	Peg 7	Tony Roberts	32lbs 00ozs
3rd	Peg 4	Mick Wright	31lbs 04ozs
4th	Peg 2	Simon Watkins	22lbs 08ozs
5th	Peg 15	Dave Collier	19lbs 08ozs
6th	Peg 5	Keith Ashby	16lbs 12ozs
7th	Peg 9	Ken Walker	14lbs 08ozs
8th=	Peg 17	Clive Pritchard	11lbs 08ozs
8th=	Peg 8	Graham Manning	11lbs 08ozs
10th	Peg 11	Al Loader	10lbs 12ozs
11th	Peg 14	Peter Morton	9lbs 00ozs
12th	Peg 3	Martin Hucker	7lbs 08ozs
13th	Peg 10	Eddie Dobson	7lbs 04ozs
14th	Peg 13	Kevin Loveland	6lbs 12ozs
15th	Peg 16	Zack Johnson	3lbs 08ozs
16th	Peg 6	Terry Goff	3lbs 04ozs
17th	Peg 12	Vic Nugent	DNW