Alders Farm Fishery, Great Brickhill, Buckinghamshire.

Marsh AC club match.
Ash Lake.


Well after the JJL Match at Alders Farm yesterday my old club (Marsh AC) had had a match booked on Ash Lake for today. Well it would have been rude not to stay over and fish it as a guest so that I could catch up with some of the lads especially as Keith had kindly offered to put me up overnight. So after a good nights sleep it was good to wake up to a fresh cup of coffee before we set off in Keith's car for the quick 15 minute trip back to Alders.

There the old faces were assembling along with a few new faces who have joined since I left along with another couple of guests, Barry and Dave Pontin who had been at Alders yesterday as well.
All I had to do was put my waterproofs on and pick up another couple of bags of pellet along with a breakfast ticket from Trevor in the shop as I'd left all my gear at the Pumphouse Café overnight.

So a leisurely stroll down the hill to the Café and I have to say that Ash Lake looked spot on, but it had fished hard yesterday and with all the rain and a forcast of more to come I felt it would be trickier today than a lot believed. Anyway into the Pumphouse where we were greeted by Charlotte, Sophie and Debbie who sorted us out with one of their excellent breakfasts as per usual.




Of course Mr Chairman aka Dave the fish was soon after collecting the monies while Keith sorted the pegs for the draw. Now on my many visits to Alders fishing Ash lake it's very rare that I draw one of the so called dolly pegs on the Café bank, normally I end up walking halfway round the lake before finding my peg, so I was more than happy to pull peg 5 out of the bag today. Ideally I would have liked either 1 or 2 which really looked bob on but Simon had 1 and Mick peg 2. Tony was back home on peg 3 ( if I drew pegs 3 and 4 with the regularity that Tony does I'd be embarrassed) Mr Chairman was to my left on 6 and Keith on 7.




Set up was going to be nice and simple today as there was nothing really on the outcome. The Marsh matches are really little more than a social with a weigh-in at the end with the only 'winnings' being £10 if you win your section, it's more about the bragging rights within the club. So 3 top kits containing NG red amber core all rigged up with 0·4g floats on 0·17 n-gauge to a 0·15 hooklength ending in a size 16 B911x to cover the margin and 5mtr line and as an afterthought I pulled out my Mach 3 feeder rod as it was still set up in its ready sleeve from yesterday. Bait was going to be banded 6mm pellets + some red maggots left over from yesterday while feed was just dampened 4mm fishery pellets.

So All-In and a good handful of pellet down the left edge and a pot out to the 5mtr line followed by a banded 6mm at dead depth out to 5mtrs. Normally I would expect an almost instant response but it wasn't to be today. After around 10 minutes of working the rig the float finally buried, this was followed by a brief scrap before the rig came flying back with a scale embedded on the hook, was this the start of having to build a jigsaw fish on my sidetray? 5 minutes later and a more positive sign as I connected with a feisty little 2 pounder that was soon in the net to get me up and running.

The problem was that things never kicked on for me from there. I set up another spot at 5mtrs but despite rotating between the two 5mtr lines and the edge I just couldn't put a run of fish together. Keith had had a decent start but after an hour he'd had to go long to stay in touch but unfortunately for him it seemed to result in an increased number of foul hooked fish that he wasn't able to get out. The man in the pound seats however was Mick on peg 2, ticking along nicely and steadily adding fish to his nets.......




For me it seemed that everything was happening at half pace and in all honesty I feel with hindsight that I tried to force it and overfed on the day. I had one look on the feeder to the island which produced an instant 3 pounder but another 10 casts didn't produce as much as a tap so that was sacked off.

By about 2pm it was time for a stroll with the camera. Simon was beating himself up on peg 1 with fish in front of him but apparently reluctant to feed........




Mick was sailing along and reckoned he'd lost count of how many he'd caught, talk about rubbing it in, while tucked away on Peg 3 Tony reckoned he was struggling but that grin on his face said otherwise..........




Dave to my left had swopped over to maggot on the hook and had taken a run of skimmers, not quite what he was after but better than watching a stationary float, while Keith had moved out onto a longer line and was still putting a few together........




and it seemed that John over on peg 19 was finally found a few fish..........




but the man to watch was Gino on end peg 21 who appeared to be building momentum as the match progressed........




Well the stroll was soon curtailed as the rain set in for the rest of the day. To be honest it was the last thing most needed at that stage and I think it drained the motivation from a few.
I continued to put a few together in one's and two's but still couldn't get a run going and that was it for the rest of the match apart from poor Chris on peg 4 having a top 3 ripped from his hand by a hungry carp. Fortunately I was on hand with my feeder rod and managed to retrieve it on just my second cast, though the fish had come off.

Anyway the All-out was called followed by a clap of thunder as the rain intensified. The weigh in was a little quicker than usual at Alders due to the lower weights than expected and yielded the following results.




Looking back on it now I think I approached it in too positive a fashion given the amount of cold water and pressure the venue had over the previous few days and that maybe I should have kindered micro's and fished expanders, all ifs and buts I know, but every day is a learning day.
Anyway Thank You to the club for allowing me to join them on the day, Apologies to Dave C (Mr Chairman) for beating him off the next peg. A big Thank You to Keith for putting me up overnight and to all the staff at Alders Farm who make every visit to their superb fishery a pleasure.

Joseph James Law Corporate Fishing Day ll

Last year with the inauguration of the Joseph James Law Corporate Fishing Day Maggotdrowning.com had stepped into the breech at the last minute to field a 5 man team after one of the original teams had dropped out and by way of a Thank You the boss of JJL (Andrew Settle) had personally guaranteed that we would have a place for the next event. Well the invitation duly arrived and Dave set about sorting out a team for the event. Unfortunately due to very unfortunate circumstances Dave had to step aside meaning that I found myself in the position of Team Captain, however with Clive able to step in for Dave we soon had a team assembled consisting of myself, Adam Daniells (dumdum) Keith Ashby (Gandhi) Dave Pontin (davered5) and Clive, and with all of us being familiar with Alders Farm feeling we could give it a decent shot on the day.

So that's how I found myself drinking a cup of coffee at 4am on the friday morning before loading up the car and making the 140 mile trip from just outside Barnsley down the M1 to the fishery at Alders Farm. It was a pretty good trip down with just the one stop for an exorbitantly priced cup of coffee before pulling into the fishery car park at around 7·30am. All the Team were there including Barry (Boggis51) who had offered to be our bank runner and steward for the day.

First things first, so our MD's Hoodies were handed out so that the others knew who to fear and with that done we made our way to the shop to pick up our bait and get our nets dipped where we were warmly welcomed by Andrew and Natalie from JJL. From there it was down to the Pumphouse Café where the staff (Charlotte, Sophie and Debbie) coped manfully providing a seemingly endless stream of bacon, sausage and egg rolls along with tea and coffee to feed the assembled anglers and helpers on the day and this was where we got some idea of the quality of anglers we were facing today with teams from JJL, BAE, MFS, Drennan Oxford, Drennan International, Garbolino, Matrix, Preston, Mosella, Colmic and a Mallory Park select team, nearly all containing some very experienced lads including Internationals and Fishomania winners amongst them. This was followed by team registration and a team photo to prove to everyone what a fine body of men had been assembled to represent Maggotdrowning.com.

Adam,Dave, Keith, Peter, Clive.

With that out of the way it was time for me to dip my hand into the dreaded bucket for the team draw, the result of which resulted in the following pegs for us......

Adam Peg 23 on Ash
Dave Peg 7 on Ash
Peter Peg 5 on Oak
Keith Peg 8 on Pines
Clive Peg 15 on Pines


Peg 5 Oak Lake.


So with the match being fished from 11am - 4pm we wished each other well and made our way to our alloted pegs. Peg 5 on Oak lake was a nice short stroll for me situated in the right hand corner by the dam wall but was the one unknown quantity on the day as it's actually the 'Specimen Lake' at Alders Farm and doesn't get match fished. What it does have however is Carp to 37lbs present and quite a few Perch. The pegs are set up for the specimen guys on Oak, so it took a while longer to get my box set up comfortably and with a bit of sun and the wind blowing towards my corner I have to say that I fancied my chances for a few fish if they co-operated. With very limited knowledge of the lake I was going to keep things as simple as possible today and set up a Shakespeare Mach3 11ft medium feeder with a small Guru inline hybrid feeder with a size 14 b911 on a 4" 0·19 N-Gauge hooklink, bait would be 6 and 8mm banded pellet with soaked 4mm fishery pellet for feed. I just set up 3 top kits for the pole all of which were for the 5mtr line, 2 with NG red amber core and one with the green, floats were all hand made pencils by Geoff Palmer, 2 were 0·5's on 0·19 with a 0·17 hooklength to a 16B911 and an 0·4 on 0·17 with a 0·13 to a 18 B911, bait would be banded pellet or red maggot to target the perch with 4mm pellet for feed.

So 11am and it's All-In. A couple of pots of pellet mixed with a few red maggots on my 5mtr line and straight out with the lighter pole rig and a maggot to target a perch. Within around 20 minutes I'd put together around half a dozen perch to avoid a blank and avoid the dreaded DNW, so time for the feeder cast to within about 2ft of the reeds that line the dam wall. A little awkward to set the rod owing to a large sunken branch to my left with smaller branches sticking clear of the water but do-able. About 15 minutes later after about half a dozen casts the tip rattled round and I was briefly connected to something large and angry before the feeder flew back, a straightened 911 was the culprit so it was replaced with a 911X. 10 minutes later it rattled off again and this time I was firmly connected and after a bit of a tussle a lovely double figure Common was safely in the net meaning I had to call for the scales as the fishery had asked for all fish of 10lbs+ that were caught on Oak Lake to be weighed and returned and not kept in keepnets. 12½lbs was the weight recorded and it was back to business.

Barry had been keeping an eye on things around the lakes and returned with news that while Adam appeared to be going along nicely, Dave was having a bit of a grueller and it didn't appear to be much better up on Pines where Clive had a couple but Keith was having a real struggle.


Keith


Clive


Unfortunately by then the sun had vanished to be replaced with rain that would continue off and on for the rest of the match. Over the course of the next 90 minutes I managed another 4 carp, all smaller that the first one but very welcome none the less. One further bite followed on the feeder but unfortunately it kited left and snagged me in some roots resulting in both a lost fish and end tackle. The next couple of hours resulted in absolutely nothing and chatting to Barry it was obvious that a lot of anglers were struggling on all three lakes as a result of the pressure and a lot of colder water entering the lakes over the previous couple of days. With 20 minutes to go I picked up a top 2 and stuck a maggot on to try for a few last minute perch only to see the elastic stream out before pinging back with a largish scale embedded on the hook as the heavens opened once more. It was obviously a sign as I only managed another couple of small Perch before the All-Out sounded at 4pm. Now while fishing in the rain doesn't bother me I really hate packing my kit away in the rain, so I was glad to see the scales appear and my 4 small carp and handful of perch gave me a weight of 30lbs 14ozs for 6th in section and 6 points and I had to be happy with that meaning I had beaten anglers from Preston, BAE, Drennan Oxford, Drennan International, Colmic and Garbolino. The chap from BAE on the next peg had the dreaded DNW while Darren Cox had 14½lbs of perch. Andy Kinder fishing for Mallory park romped our Lake with 116lbs 13ozs

So with the kit packed away it was back to the Pumphouse Café for an after match buffet and presentation and a catch up with the rest of the team. Adam had done really well with a Ton+ to finish 2nd in Section while Dave had suffered a grueller recording just 41lbs and last in section. Keith had also had a grueller on Pines, 12lbs meaning he was last in section while Clive had managed a creditable 26lbs for 7th in his section. The net result of all this meant that we recorded 39 points for 10th overall. As always the staff in the Café had laid on a fantastic buffet for everyone after the match and it went down very well with everyone.

Soon it was presentation time with 3rd place going to the teams from Drennan International and Mosella both on 27 points. Runners up went to the Joseph James Law select team with 25 points.......




and the Winners on the day, taking away a tidy £1000 were the Mallory Park select team with just 15 points.




Finally I'll just finish this with a few words of Thanks. Firstly to Andrew Settle and all at Joseph James Law for creating this event which it's been our pleasure to fish, and to all his staff that were present helping out at the event, providing us all with snacks and refreshments brought to our pegs throughout the day with a smile despite the horrid weather, To Lewis Monk and Trevor Price and all the family and Staff at Alders Farm Fishery for allowing us to use and enjoy such a fantastic Fishery. All the volunteers who helped out with the stewarding on the day, much appreciated by all. Tom Scholey at Catch More Media for capturing the day in pictures and video and finally to Dave Webster who created Maggotdrowning.com and it's forum nearly 17 years ago and it's members who through their contributions made it possible for us as a team to represent you, Thank You.


The Cast of this tale

Monk Lakes. Match Lake 2. June 21st, 2014.

Marsh AC club match.

Well it was back on the bankside for me today for my first match for 11 months. It's no secret that I'd lost my mojo when it comes to fishing recently, my only outing last year being 3 days at Rolf's Lake for Dave Collier's Friday Invitation Match and The Maggotdrowning.com Pairs weekend. However a couple of weeks ago Al invited me to guest on this match at Monk Lakes and I decided to take him up on his kind offer.

 What is it that they say? Preparation Prevents P*** Poor Performance, well my preparation consisted of a quick message to Mick McMillan on FaceBook to find out the score on the venue as it was 2 years since I'd last fished there and renewing my rod license on line at 10 pm the previous night Tackle prep amounted to removing two top kits from my rod bag that I'd broken at Rolf's last year, Hardly ideal to say the least. There must have been some unconscious anticipation however as I woke up before my alarm clock went off on Saturday. Sunshine and the promise of a warm day ahead greeted me as I took a peek through the curtains. A cup of coffee kick started the old grey matter and meant that I was ready and waiting downstairs at 6·15 when Al arrived to pick me up.

With my kit loaded up the first port of call was The Oakdene Café where I treated Al to breakfast and we were joined by Simon and Gino. Keith Powell was going to join us but a phone call confirmed that he was feeling a bit delicate this morning, so he was now going to meet us at the draw. So with breakfast taken care of it was off to Monks, though a road closure and subsequent diversion meant that it was just after 8·30 when we arrived at the lakes.




I have to say that it was nice to receive such a hearty welcome back after my absence of 21 months since I last fished with the club and the subsequent banter soon had me feeling like I'd never been away. Anyway with money paid to Tony in Dave's absence (a victim of "ManFlu" on his return from a recent cruise) it was time to dip into the draw bag. Peg 67 was my destination today, an end peg at the far end of the spit. I couldn't complain at that. Tony (as Dave C's stand in) certainly had some of his luck as peg 45 (the Barbel flyer) was the last peg left in the bag for him.So off to the lake with our kit and over the bridge to the spit and I found Keith on peg 77.....



.......and Clive on peg 56.......

both very good pegs capable of throwing up a winning bag on the day. A few of the lads on the left hand bank had to move up one peg as Gino who had draw peg 66 found it unfishable as the platform had collapsed meaning he ended up fishing peg 65.

Settling into my peg I set about sorting my kit out. 3 top kits were found that had what appeared to be suitable elastics and among the collection of rigs that hadn't seen the light of day for far to long were some Nick Gilbert handmade Power Pencils in 0·5g and 0·4g sizes that were made up on hat looked like 0·21 Ultima power match with size 14 Guru MWG’s,These were set up for a 5mtr line out in front where I had about 3 feet of water and a line 6mtrs down to my left where it was just a bit shallower. Bait was simply 6mm hard pellet for feed and hookbait and some 8mm's and GOT Baits soft hookers as a change bait.

Everyone appeared to get set up quickly and word filtered down that we would be starting 15 minutes early, so the All-In was called at 10·15. A handful of pellets were fed onto both lines. A banded 6mm was shipped straight out to my 5mtr line. After lifting and dropping the rig a couple of times the float slid away and a small Skimmer was on it's way to the landing net. The next fish ripped the elastic out at an alarming rate. obviously one of the resident Barbel that fight far harder pound for pound than Carp. I was also getting trouble with foul hookers and despite varying the depth and playing around with the shotting patterns couldn't really find an answer to it.

Unfortunately the sun and ripple on the water combined to make it really tiring on my eyes and as I couldn't find my sunglasses meaning I was missing a few bites probably from F1's and after about an hour with around 10 lbs in the nets I swapped over to my left hand line.

 Troy to my right on peg 69 had a similar slow start to me, also suffering with a few foul hookers but had managed to pick up a couple of Carp. Al was on the opposite side of the spit on peg 63 and had started on the 5mtr line but hadn't been able to resist the lure of the open water in front of him and was soon fishing his favorite method ...... 13mtrs shallow and was starting to steadily take fish. Pete Thompson was targeting the silvers on peg 61 while Keith Powell was trying to tempt a few lumps from the bush to the left on peg 59. Gino was having a bit of a mare however having lost his first decent fish when it wrapped itself round the platform leg before he got a chance to land it.

Word had it that Keith was catching a few from 77 and that Tony and Simon were going well on 45 and 47. Poor Chris on peg 55 had one of those moments all anglers dread when a fish ripped into his bait so hard that it pulled his pole out of his hand and he could only watch helplessly as the fish towed it out into the lake. Thankfully it didn't sink and the breeze finally blew it back to the margins were he could retrieve it. My left hand swim started to produce almost straight away, not quick but steadily with a mixture of Carp, F1's, Barbel along with the odd Tench and Skimmer. However I was still suffering with the odd foul hooker and these led to a few trashed rigs. These cost me in the end and it was probably due to their age having sat in my box on winders for so long (remember what I said about preparation) I really should have tied some fresh rigs prior to the match as I wasted far to much time today tying fresh ones during the match, which resulted in me not feeding and having to work to get the fish back each time.

 Troy was convinced that I was sacking up, but he obviously wasn't aware that I wasn't landing any of the foul hookers, just seeing the elastic being pulled out and not the collection of scales on my sidetray. Al kept going on about the lumps that Keith P was getting from the bush, but he was catching steadily and would be hard to beat unless one of the flyers produced. I kept plugging away and towards the end had a Golden Tench which made my day as I think they're one of the nicest fish that we catch ......

4·15 and Kevin called the All-Out. I felt that I had around 70lbs in the nets, not enough to win, but given that I hadn't fished a match for nearly a year and my level of preparation (NONE) I'd done OK and enjoyed myself. I packed the kit away and realised I had time to take it back to the van before the Weigh-in. As I got to Keith's peg I noticed he had three nets in so he'd obviously had a good day, although he wasn't admitting to it, being his typical cagey self but we would see what the scales said.



With my kit back at the van I caught up with the weigh-in Chris had tied up his section with 65lbs from peg55 and it would be interesting to see what Tony had managed off peg 45, 70lbs 04ozs was the answer leaving him a little frustrated as after a good start he'd lost the fish for periods during the rest of the match.

 Round to the spit where Clive was first to weigh with 63lbs 08ozs. Now Keith P and Al are a little competitive and had been ribbing each other all match so there was a good bit of it going on as Keith put his fish on the scales, 97lbs 08ozs was the final call, just short of a "TON"....

..... but a great result as like me Keith P hadn't fished for nearly a year, Al however took the bragging rights as his fish came to 115lbs 08ozs allowing him to take the section and the lead so far. My fish weighed in at 90lbs 04ozs which I was more than happy with. Nobody threatened Al till we finally got to Keith waiting patiently. Needless to say he'd had a very good day especially as he'd never fished this lake before and 167lbs 08ozs gave him his section and a comfortable win on the day.

 Back to the car park for a drink from the snack wagon and Tony announced the results and handed out the section money, I'd finished 4th overall on the day and was more than happy with that. Farewells were said and we all departed for our various destinations.

  I'd like to say Thank You to Al for the invite today and providing the transport, much appreciated, and a big Thank You to the Marsh AC members for making me so welcome on my return. I don't think it will be 11 months till the next time,

	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 77	Keith Ashby	167lbs 08ozs
2nd	Peg 63	Al Loader	115lbs 08ozs
3rd	Peg 59	Keith Powell	97lbs 08ozs
4th	Peg 67	Peter Morton	90lbs 04ozs
5th	Peg 45	Tony Roberts	70lbs 04ozs
6th	Peg 55	Chris Withall	65lbs 00ozs
7th	Peg 56	Clive Pritchard	63lbs 08ozs
8th=	Peg 57	Tony Watkins	51lbs 00ozs
8th=	Peg 69	Troy Hillier	51lbs 00ozs
10th	Peg 75	Terry Goff	49lbs 08ozs
11th	Peg 61	Pete Thompson	47lbs 00ozs
12th	Peg 47	Simon Watkins	42lbs 08ozs
13th	Peg 65	Gino Exell	31lbs 00ozs
14th	Peg 49	Jim Boase	30lbs 08ozs
15th	Peg 51	Rod Turner	15lbs 08ozs
16th	Peg 53	Kevin Loveland	15lbs 00ozs

Private Lake, East Sussex. September 29th, 2012.

Marsh AC club match.

 A Private Lake in East Sussex is the venue today for the Marsh AC club match. It’s a lovely secluded venue tucked away in the countryside which is capable of throwing up some very good weights if you catch it on a good day. Hopefully today will prove to be one of those days.

I’ll let you know on my return.

Position	Peg	Angler		Weight
1st	Peg 5	Al Loader		102lbs 08ozs
2nd	Peg 15	Mick Wright		90lbs 00ozs
3rd	Peg 13	Dave Collier		60lbs 08ozs
4th	Peg 12	Vic Nigent		52lbs 08ozs
5th	Peg 6	Clive Pritchard		51lbs 04ozs
6th	Peg 8	Keith Ashby		32lbs 04ozs
7th	Peg 3	Tony Roberts		31lbs 00ozs
8th=	Peg 7	Peter Morton		24lbs 08ozs
8th=	Peg 10	Simon Watkins		24lbs 08ozs
10th	Peg 14	Terry Goff		13lbs 04ozs
11th	Peg 1	Kevin Loveland		13lbs 00ozs
12th	Peg 9	Ken Walker		8lbs 00ozs
13th	Peg 2	Rod Turner		6lbs 08ozs
14th	Peg 4	Tony Watkins	Guest	5lbs 00ozs
15th	Peg 11	Jim Boase		4lbs 08ozs

Colemans Cottage Fishery. Wood Lake. September 15th, 2012.

Marsh AC club match.

 Essex is the destination for me today with another Marsh AC club match at Colemans Cottage on Wood Lake. It’s a venue that’s always popular with the club members and today is our second visit this year so hopefully it will provide a good days fishing for the lads. I was awake before the alarm went off and soon had the cats fed and a couple of cups of coffee drunk before loading up the car before sunrise. I couldn’t help noticing how cold it felt though, the car thermometer registering just 11°C and for the first time in a while I put the car heater on as I set off. It’s a great time to be travelling though with little traffic on the roads and as I cleared the Dartford Tunnel the sun was just rising, promising a lovely day ahead weather wise.

I pulled into the fishery car park at just past 7am and indeed it appeared that I was the first one to arrive. A quick look at the lake revealed that the level was down from our previous visit with the platforms a good 2 feet clear of the water.

 Gerry and Jayne has opened the lodge so the first order of the day was one of Jayne’s large breakfasts  to set me up for the day ahead. Lee was next to arrive, he was guesting today and is always good company so we were soon catching up as breakfast was consumed and the others arrived. I then got a phone call from Terry, his car wouldn’t start so he wouldn’t be joining us today.

With breakfast out of the way Dave soon had the money collected and got the draw out of the way. Peg 27 was to be mine for the match, not one I was familiar with , so gathering up my kit I set off to get acquainted with it.

Arriving at the peg it turned out that I had Dave on peg 25 for company on my right and young Zack to my left on peg 29, with Lee and Chris opposite on pegs 13 and 15.

The carp run to a decent size in Wood Lake and the Barbel are getting bigger all the time so I made up 3 rigs, the first for straight out in front at 5mtrs where I had around 3½ft of water was a 0·4g NG XT Mugger HD on 0·18 Ultima power match straight through to size 16 Kamasan B911Xs while the other 2 were for the margin while the other 2 were 0·2g NG Springer Sampson Margin’s on on 0·18 Ultima power match with size 14 Kamasan B911X’s. Feed would be a mix of corn and damp 4mm pellet while hookbaits would be a mix of pellet, corn and some GOT Baits paste.

10am and Dave called the All-In and I fed both margin lines then dropped a banded 6mm over a few loose pellets on the 5mtr line. A few of the lads were into quick fish but I wasn’t one of those and 30 minutes in I still hadn’t had as much as a bite so I fed a full pot of pellet and corn to see if it would tempt anything in. Well after about 5 minutes the swim started fizzing like a jacuzzi but the bites still refused to come . However Tony over on peg 11 had started to put one or two fish together ……

Finally after around 45 minutes the float slowly slid away and a gentle lift saw a pleasing amount of elastic stretching from the top kit, The fish was quickly subdued and slid over the landing net, a common of around 3½lbs to finally get me off the mark.

 Back out but it appeared that it had been a solitary fish as no more bites were forthcoming, a bit more feed and a few more bubbles but no bites despite varying the depth and the baits I just couldn’t buy another bite.

Chris was opposite on peg 15 and I’ve often taken the micky out of him telling him that his kit looks like a throw back to the 70′s but he was definitely having the last laugh on me today as he started to take fish from his peg while I could only look on enviously …

After 90 minutes I noticed a couple of carp moving in the left hand margin, normally I would have left it longer but I was already getting desperate so dropped a banded 8mm in there. The float buried almost straight away and I connected with a big fish that powered off towards Zack, but almost straight away the rig came pinging back with a large scale on the hook.

A look down the other margin with corn looked like being no more productive until the float vanished from sight, yielding a common around the 5lb mark to add to my meagre total. Lee was having no such problems over on peg 13 however though he was surprised at just how hard the fish fought, giving his hydro a good work out ……

Another try on the 5mtr line finally produced a couple of F1′s after around half an hour but again nothing followed them. I could see odd fish constantly moving through the swim in front of me but nothing appeared to want to settle. Was it because the water was down and I was sitting so high up above the water? had the cold nights upset things? I couldn’t work it out today whatever it was.

Chris’s guest Gary Luck was over on peg 13 and it looked as if he was pretty much in the same boat as me, as I could see his swim fizzing but only producing the odd fish for him ……

Back to the margins for me and I finally managed to tempt another couple of carp from the left hand side, but in all honesty I was going nowhere fast. Around 2pm Chrissy arrived with Dave’s two grandchildren Lily and Alfie who both wanted to catch a fish with Grandad. It’s a good job they hadn’t arrived earlier or they would have undoubtedly battered me today.

More in desperation than anything else I took my feeder rod out and decided to give that a go, but after 3 casts that tangled and snapped off, pretty much summing up the match for me in a nutshell. Meanwhile young Alfie was getting well into helping Grandad catch and land his fish  ……

John (tutu) was suffering a similar match to mine over on peg 21 but as the match drew to a close started to find one or two fish from his margin ……

I battled on with the margins and actually managed to get another couple of carp before Dave called the All-Out at 4pm.
 I have to say that I was glad to hear the whistle today, 6 hours for just 8 fish for around 30lbs wasn’t the outcome I’d expected and with hindsight I got it horribly wrong, getting side tracked by fish I could see in the margins despite them not wanting to co-operate today.

It took me a while to get the kit packed away meaning that I didn’t follow the Weigh-In round as usual and when it got round to me Keith was leading with 118lbs from peg 3 from Tony with 88lbs. Dave with Lily and Alfie’s help had 85½lbs. My fish weighed a level 30 lbs and Zack had 54½lbs leaving me like a bit of cod “battered both sides. The Weigh-In moved on at pace as it does at Colemans and I made my way back to the car park with my kit and loaded it away.

Back at the lodge for the results and Jean had asked Jayne to lay on a buffet complete with Birthday Cake ……

…for Kevin’s Birthday (which was on Sunday) and I have to say it offered the best bites of the day as far as I was concerned.

Dave announced the results after everyone had tucked in and the winner today was Al with a fine 139lbs from peg 35. Keith was second with 118lbs and regained the MK Nugget from Mick and Tony was 3rd on the day.

The next club match is at The Private Lake in East Sussex in a couple of weeks time, but before that next Saturday is the penultimate round of The Jinx Series at Rolf’s Lake which will hopefully give me the chance to get this match out of my system.

	Peg	Angler		Weight
1st	Peg 35	Al Loader		139lbs 00ozs
2nd	Peg 3	Keith Ashby		118lbs 00ozs
3rd	Peg 11	Tony Roberts		88lbs 00ozs
4th	Peg 25	Dave Collier		85lbs 08ozs
5th	Peg 13	Lee Rose	Guest	75lbs 08ozs
6th	Peg 37	Clive Pritchard		72lbs 08ozs
7th	Peg 23	Mick Wright		71lbs 04ozs
8th	Peg 33	Simon Watkins		65lbs 04ozs
9th	Peg 19	Jim Boase		57lbs 00ozs
10th	Peg 29	Zack Johnson		54lbs 08ozs
11th=	Peg 15	Chris Withall		54lbs 00ozs
11th=	Peg 9	Kevin Loveland		54lbs 00ozs
13th	Peg 39	Eddie Dobson		46lbs 00ozs
14th	Peg 5	Graham Manning		36lbs 00ozs
15th	Peg 21	John Holdsworth		31lbs 00ozs
16th	Peg 27	Peter Morton		30lbs 00ozs
17th	Peg 7	Martin Hucker		29lbs 00ozs
18th	Peg 1	Ron Mannister		21lbs 00ozs
19th	Peg 25	Lily & Alfie Bondeau	Guests	18lbs 08ozs
20th	Peg 17	Gary Luck	Guest	15lbs 08ozs
21st	Peg 31	Tony Watkins	Guest	14lbs 00ozs