Sunday 18 May 2003

Falkenville Mushroom Farm. Hailsham .May 18th, 2003.

Hawthorne AC club match.

MushroomFarm.jpg Falkenville Mushroom Farm picture by pnm123

Today was the first match of the new club season,and the venue was Falkenville Mushroom Farm just outside Hailsham in Sussex.
Now we’ve fished Falkenville before, normally on the main lake or the matchlake, but today we were trying a newer lake on the complex.
It’s a canal type lake about 12mtrs wide supposedly stocked with a bit of everything.
Unfortunately to say that it’s exposed would be an understatement and with a grey sky and strong winds everyone opted for the cooked breakfast in the barn before the draw, as it promised to be the best part of the day.
Well into the drawbag and peg 17 stuck to my hand, slap bang in the middle of the stretch, totally exposed and with just a few stick-ups to fish to, I just knew I wasn’t going to enjoy it.

The View from Peg 17 looking towards the low numbers…

As is usual on one of our club matches the wind dropped as we were setting up, lulling us into a false sense of hope, but as soon as the all in sounded the wind sprang up again,never to drop away again. 
Now most of the fish in the lakes at Falkenville are reared at the owners own fish farm and the killer bait is normally pellet or paste, and with no cover and a very shallow margin on my side the line of attack had to be across at 12 mtrs where I had a small shelf and about 3 ft of water.
Micro pellet with a few maggots and bits of sweetcorn were potted in with a Kinder cup and an expander pellet on the hook.
Bites were mere knocks, and trying to fish a dotted down float at 12 mtrs in a howling wind isn’t my idea of fun, but by chopping and changing I was able to nick a few little blade skimmers and Chublets.


Nearly everyone except the 2 end pegs were struggling when with an hour to go I had a run of 4 bites and 4 Carp. Alas they departed almost as soon as they had arrived, but I did have one more fish before the final whistle, a bit of a surprise ……… a small Barbel

Those 4 bonus fish boosted my weight at the end to 6lbs which was good enough for 4th on the day and  7 points towards the club championship. 





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