Lemington Lakes. Westminster Lake. September 16th, 2006.

Maggotdrowning.com

 Individual Championship 2006.

Well what can I say? Today was a real demonstration of the highs and lows of fishing.
Last year I won this match and Steve12 packed up early having had a dire time. This year it was my turn for a grueller and Steve12 took the title.

I arrived around 8·30am to find the cast already assembling, and after one of Debbie's excellent cooked breakfasts it was draw time. Helping Vince with the draw ensured that the 2 of us had to pick for each other at the end, and while I pulled an absolute flyer (2) out for Vince, he finally managed to tuck me right up with peg30 on Dead Mans corner.

Strolling to my peg I found that I had Clive for company on peg 31, while just up on 27 & 28 were Hazel and Dave. Malc was to join us later on peg34 so the omens weren’t good even then.

Set up was relatively simple with a feeder rod for a chuck to the island, but the pole revealed a max of just 2½ft of water which was at 11mtrs, The margins were alive, however this was with RATS not FISH. All day long they were working the margins, even diving down to grab any feed that was fed.

Anyway 11am and the all in, just as Malc "The Jinx" arrives, and with a couple of pots of pellet mixed with corn at 11mtrs, I went out on the feeder to allow it to settle.
Clive meanwhile was out straight out onto the pole line.

Hazel and Dave were soon into fish (small skimmers) and remarking that thing appeared to be a tad quiet in my swim,
Quiet wasn’t the word, but after about 40 mins Clive had a bite!!!! but managed to bump the small skimmer that was briefly attached. Another 5 mins and I had a bite!!!!!! and soon had a 14oz skimmer safely in the net.

At that point in time both Clive and I should have packed up and gone to the pub, because that was the end of any action in either of our swims.
Malc was trying his best to liven things up, and to be honest the banter was to prove the best part of the whole day for a few of us.

Wayne strolled past on a regular basis doing a fine job for those lucky enough to require fish to be weighed.

Just to cap things off I got a phone call from Dirk, who took great delight in informing me that our pegs were so bad that they aren’t normally included in matches as they never produce. My reply to this information is probably best not printed for fear of offending the more sensitive amongst you.

Musky was plugging away a bit further round with his waggler and had managed to snare a couple of Carp, but other than that I couldn’t really see anyone else and only had Wayne’s updates to go on as to who was catching.

Towards the end it was painfully obvious that it wasn’t going to happen and Clive could be found with a glazed expression on his face, or was he really asleep?

Dave and Hazel continued to snare the odd fish much to their delight, though Dave did manage to lose what appeared to be a decent Carp after it had been on a tour of Hazels swim.

Finally release came in the form of the all out at 4pm though the fun was just about to begin for most in the form of let’s take full advantage and rip the p*ss out of Peter.

Back to the car park and it’s presentation & raffle time, with Wayne once again stepping in as chief ticket seller.
Dave demanded a photo of me handing over the £1 coin that I had accidently dropped into his keepnet at the end of the match. Such a rare site that he had to have a record of it……

2 sections were paid out, 1 to Bezza who had already left, and the other to Smiling Steve Wilson……..

3rd place proved to be a tie between Matt and Milo who both put 43lbs 4ozs on the scales……….

2nd was taken by LG, Dave’s travelling companion with a weight of 54lbs 4ozs………

1st on the day went to Steve12, his weight of 56lbs 11ozs allowing him to take the lions share of the winnings and trophy along with the title of Maggotdrowning Individual Champion 2006………

The raffle raised £95 on the day which is being donated to Cancer Research. Thanks to all those who donated prizes.

I would just like to offer a BIG THANK YOU to Vince who did his usual fine job of organising the day, and another BIG THANK YOU to all of you who attended on the day, which is what really makes things worthwhile. Hopefully we’ll see you all again next year, even if it is at a different venue.

1st	Steve12	56lb 11ozs
2nd	LG	54lb 04ozs
3rd=	Matt Nutt	43lb 04ozs
3rd=	Milo	43lb 04ozs
5th	SteveW	41lb 03ozs
6th	Bezza	37lb 09ozs
7th	Mouse	34lb 00ozs
8th	Bricktop	30lb 13ozs
9th	Daylewlia	27lb 08ozs
10th	Royst	23lb 13ozs
11th	Dave W	14lb 12ozs
12th	Simple Simon	12lb 00ozs
13th	Muskrat	10lb 12ozs
14th	Lake Lady	10lb 03ozs
15th	Vince	7lb 00ozs
16th	Simon (Me)	3lb 07ozs
17th	Polepot	2lb 13ozs
18th	Bucko	1lb 08ozs
19th	Arkwright	1lb 05ozs
20th	Malc	1lb 04ozs
21st=	Peter	14ozs
21st=	Fish4alarf	14ozs
	Tommy	DNW
	Clive	DNW
	MarkC Adroit	DNW

Lemington Lakes. Gloucestershire. Westminster Lake. October 8th, 2005.

Maggotdrowning.com

 Individual Championships 2005.

Today it was an early start as the destination was Lemington Lakes, just outside  Moreton In Marsh in Gloucestershire, the venue for this years Maggotdrowning.com Individual Match which had been organised by Vince. Thankfully the trip there went smoothly and by the time I pulled into the car park at 8am the sky looked to be promising a decent day despite the forecasts, but then Malc The Jinx Doyle had yet to arrive.
Breakfast served up by Andy and Debbie Machin who own the fishery, was a good plateful that set everyone up for the day ahead. People were arriving from all round the country promising a good turn out, new faces meeting old and friendships renewed once more which is what these matches are all about.

Nick(Neo1) had been victim of an alarm malfunction however, which resulted in Malc and Gemma arriving in the Jinxmobile just as the sun was replaced by grey clouds and the wind started to blow.

Back to the function room and 34 anglers assembled for the draw, conducted with Vince’s usual precision, curses were uttered and info sought as it became clear who would be fishing where.

Down at the lake it soon became clear that The Jinx was indeed in attendance as the sun promptly disappeared, the wind started to rise and the sky took on a more ominous shade of grey.

I had drawn peg 25 with Steve12 to my right,

and Simon(me) and MarkC to my left.

Plumbing up all I could find was 2½ft until I got to 13mtrs, where a small drop off gave me an extra foot, and this was where I decided to fish despite the wind making presentation a struggle. Having had a couple of hours practice the previous day I had decided to fish GOT BAITS 6mm expanders over GOT BAITS 4mm hard pellets to keep things simple, and just concentrate on the 1 line.

At the ALL-IN MarkC was soon off the mark with a decent Carp to meat on the straight lead that weighed 12lbs 7ozs. Ady (bigladwigan) had had a Carp of around 5lb 1st put in on corn and Steve12 had a quick couple of Skimmers on the feeder but was struggling for consistency as conditions worsened.

After about 30 minutes I had my 1st Carp of about 1½lbs but it was a real struggle presenting a bait with the wind, but slowly a few more fish found their way to the net.
I was struggling with the occasional foul hooker, but was gradually putting a weight together as I had the 13mtr line to myself as others around me chopped and changed tactics trying to find elusive fish on what was proving to be a very hard day owing to the conditions.

With a couple of hours to go The Jinx could be heard wandering the banks dishing out his own unique brand of encouragement. Steve12 decided the England football match on TV was more inviting than sitting it out as the rain started, leaving me effectively with an end peg.

Then The Jinx arrived at my peg along with the heavier rain that appeared to be following him and proceeded to give the entire lake a running commentary on my struggles. His hilarity when I pulled out of a lump finally leading me to ask him to FOXTROT OSCAR.
The last hour turned into a real trial of endurance, and with a few minutes to go I was into another decent fish that didn’t feel quite right. Softly softly was the course of action and with a couple of minutes to go a nice Mirror surfaced with the hook in its pectoral fin. I netted it and popped it into the keepnet just as the all out was called.

The weigh-in proved just how hard it had fished and with half the lake weighed in SteveW was leading with 32lbs 8ozs. When it got to MarkC it was going to be close, but as Mark put his fish on the scales he realised to his horror that 1 of his Carp that must have been around 4lbs had escaped and the scales only gave him 32lbs 4ozs.

When it came to my turn I was quietly confident and thankfully the scales backed it up, registering 47lbs 8ozs.

Back to the function room for a welcome cup of coffee, the presentations and raffle.

I have to say it was nice to see Vince looking so happy at handing me the Trophy.

On to the raffle and it was good to see the prizes shared around amongst those present, I even managed a bottle of Islay single malt to round the day off.
It had been agreed that the proceeds of the raffle would be donated to the winners charity of choice, so it was my pleasure to donate the £104.00 that was raised to The Kirsty Appeal (Francis House Hospice).

I would just like to say a BIG THANK YOU to Vince who put a lot of effort into organising the match, Malc, Gemma & Dirk for their help on the day, Andy and Debbie Machin and their staff for looking after us at their cracking venue, that we didn’t see at its best due to the conditions on the day.

Finally to all The Maggotdrowners that attended, Thanks for coming, hopefully we can do it again next year in better weather.

RESULTS.

1st	Peter(Mugger)Morton	47lbs 08ozs
2nd	Steve Wilson	32lbs 08ozs
3rd	Mark(mark c adroit)Causer	32lbs 04ozs
4th	Nick(Monkey)Watkins-Price	28lbs 06ozs
5th	Nick(Neo1)Williams	25lbs 12ozs
6th	Bobby (BobbyG)	21lbs 08ozs
7th	Dirk(The Dangler)Williams	16lbs 14ozs
8th	Darren (Badatfishing)	15lbs 12ozs
9th	Richard(Brigg-Ric)Tuxford	15lbs 02ozs
10th	Ian(fish4alarf)Venn	13lbs 05ozs
11th	Dave(Red Leader)Webster	11lbs 12ozs
12th	Vince(vg1037)Gould	11lbs 08ozs
13th	Lee (LG)	10lbs 08ozs
14th	Midge(Midge99)Milnes	10lbs 04ozs
15th	Matt(Bricktop)Schofield	9lbs 10ozs
16th	Dave(Dave The Fish)Collier	9lbs 00ozs
17th	Malc(The Jinx)Doyle	7lbs 00ozs
18th	Andy(Andy222)Felton	6lbs 04ozs
19th	Keith(Gandhi)Ashby	6lbs 00ozs
20th	JMCLincoln	5lbs 14ozs
21st	Adrian(bigladwigan)Wood	5lbs 12ozs
22nd	Dave(Cleggy)Senior	5lbs 10ozs
23rd	Nick(Slimcatcher)Bryan	4lbs 02ozs
24th	Sue(Nora)Senior	8ozs
	Matt Nutt	DNW
	Steve12	DNW
	Simon(Me)Rowley	DNW
	Colin(The Pike)Sharrard	DNW
	John(Arkwright)Anderson	DNW
	Martin O (Muskrat)	DNW
	Roy(Royst)Ravenhill	DNW
	Benno	DNW
	Nick(Big Sedge)Sedgwick	DNW
	Barry(Barrie44)Walker	DNW