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

Alders Farm Fishery. Great Brickhill. Buckinghamshire. September 13th, 2012.

Marsh AC
Alders Farm Fishery

Once again I’m travelling up toward Milton Keynes to Alders Farm Fishery just outside the village of Great Brickhill. It’s for a Marsh AC match that’s been arranged by club member Keith Ashby who lives reasonably close to the fishery. Today is really just a friendly knock up though with a few of the venue regulars invited to make up the numbers today, but it’s a fantastic venue that’s capable of throwing up some mega match weights, so well worth taking the day off work for.

Living down in South London an early start was called for to avoid the London rush hour, so the alarm went off at some ungodly hour and with the cats fed and a couple of cups of coffee consumed, the car was loaded up in the dark and I was on my way by 5·30am. The plan worked a treat and gave me a clear run up the M1 and A5 meaning I pulled into the car park just after 7am. Trev’s van was already parked up and young Mark Quick has obviously been dropped off as he was sitting on his box surrounded by the rest of his kit in splendid isolation.

Dinah soon appeared and set up the dip so we could rinse our nets off and Trev staggered into view with a couple of gallons of maggots that he had to riddle off ready for the anglers today. With that done it was time to open the shop and we were soon chatting over the prospects for the day ahead as other anglers started to arrive including Keith, the organiser of todays match and pretty soon the banter was starting to flow back and forth. Anyway with some fishery pellets purchased my stomach was telling me it was time to make my way down to The Pumphouse for breakfast, so I collected my kit and headed off down the hill.

Dinah already had breakfast under way when I got there, in fact Kevin and Jean were already tucking in. A coffee and a full English soon had me ready to face the day ahead as the rest of todays anglers arrived. One of those was Mal Talbot who Trev describes as ‘Mad as a box of frogs‘ but he’s fished at the top level for many years and now helps out presenting the Alders Farm and GOT Baits video’s that Trev produces, so spends a fair bit of time at the fishery. Standing out on the veranda taking in the sunshine you could see that there were plenty of fish moving, an encouraging sign but with the recent colder nights I had a feeling that it could be a little harder than expected today.

Around about 9·30am Keith called everyone to order (no small task) and got the draw under way. Into the bag and peg 34 finds it’s way to me. I was more than happy with that as Vic had told me it was a good peg to draw.

So off to collect my kit and make the short trip to the peg. Kev was settling into peg 38 along with Dave on peg 36, while to my right I could see Mal on peg 32, so no pressure there then !!!

Peg 34 is a lovely looking peg that had a decent view over the rest of the lake, There’s a big bush overhanging the water to the left and a smaller one in the margin to the right. It’s quite shallow with a maximum of around 2 feet of water but that doesn’t normally have an adverse effect on the fishing.

I set up 3 identical rigs that were freshly tied, all 0·2g NG Springer Sampson Margin’s on on 0·21 Ultima power match with size 16 Kamasan B911X’s to finish them off that would be fished on a top 2 +1 at around 18 inches deep. Bait was simply 4mm fishery pellets that I damped down for feeding while hook baits were just hard 6mm’s along with corn and GOT Baits soft hookers as change bait.

With a bit of time before the All -In I strolled round for a chat with Mal and found him perched on his trusty red ASI making the most of the glorious sunshine ……

 and was soon joined by Dave and Kevin. After a while I left them chatting and made my way back to my peg for a quick check that everything was ready before we started.

 At 11am Keith called the All-In so I fed some pellet along the bush to my left and some pellet and corn into the right hand margin before shipping a banded pellet out to the bush. a couple of tentative dinks before the float vanished but the lift offered little resistance before a rudd surfaced and promptly fell of the hook, not the start that I was looking for, so I re-fed and dropped in again. This time the float just buried and a lot more resistance this time as a hooked carp tore off in the shallow water. I soon had it under control however and in the net, a 2½lb mirror to get me up and running. It was steady away from there on in if I’m honest, I wasn’t catching quickly but I did catch steadily, the only real problem was lost fish, but with hooked fish charging off when they’re hooked in shallow water it’s inevitable that you’ll lose a few if the hook hold isn’t spot on.

I could see that Mal appeared to be matching me fish for fish, but looking round the rest of the lake, although people were catching, it didn’t appear to be at the expected rate that the lake is capable of. Indeed after around an hour Dave appeared to see how I was doing and reckoned that he only had around 15lbs to show for his efforts.

I just kept feeding the two lines but concentrated on the left hand bush as I didn’t want to disturb the margin to early. After a couple of hours I had around 25 fish in the nets and could see that Vic over on peg 2 appeared to be putting a few together as well ……

I could hear Al over on peg 6 complaining that all he could find were small fish in the 1lb – 1½lb range, but knowing Al he was probably fibbing. Clive however seemed to be doing OK when my camera lens caught him in the act of landing a fish ……

My fish appeared to back off just before 1pm, so as is my custom I re-fed quite heavily and took a stroll with the camera to allow things to settle. Terry was tucked away on peg 29 and struggling to come to terms with it today and only taking the occasional fish ……

Keith was on peg 28 and with nobody on the next 3 pegs he was targeting the margin with corn, the fish were certainly there as he could see their tails waving at him, but getting them to take his bait was proving to be a frustrating exercise as they continued to ignore it in favour of the free offerings ……

As I made my way back Mal was still plugging away steadily taking a succession of fish in glorious sunshine, at least that’s the way it appeared ……

Returning to my peg it was now in the shade and with the breeze blowing onto my back I felt the need to put my fleece on. Back out with the bait and the fish had settled again and I took a look down the margin for the first time as I could see fish moving in and out of it. It did produce bites but the fish were much smaller than I had been taking from the bush so after around 30 minutes I reverted back to there.

With around 2 hours to go Kev was having a bit of a grueller on peg 38 as it just wasn’t producing for him today, but Dave started to catch at a better rate which cheered him up no end ……

Things had obviously picked up for Al as well as he was heard to ask Keith if the match could be extended for a bit longer, a request that Keith declined.

I managed to keep the fish coming steadily till the end of the match and by the time that Keith called the All-Out at 4pm I had 67 fish in my nets. Packing away my kit Mal appeared reckoning that I’d beaten him and shook my hand. I wasn’t so sure as it seemed to me that he’d been catching at a similar rate, but the scales would have the last say on that.

Trev had come down to start the weigh in on the pumphouse bank and as Dave had the club scales with him Keith started to weigh-in on our side. Kev had indeed had a frustrating day with just 28½lbs to show for his efforts. Dave’s peg had come good in the last couple of hours allowing him to put 126½lbs on the scales. At my peg my fish weighed 177½lbs and Mal was proved to be right when his fish came in at 119½lbs . Simon had quietly put together 74¼lbs from peg 30 while Terry’s fish registered 58½lbs. Finally Keith weighed in with a level 87lbs and with the weigh-in on our side concluded we made our way back to The Pumphouse for the results.

Trev had laid on Tea and Coffee and broken out the biscuits which was very welcome as the assembled anglers discussed their experiences of the day. Finally Keith had the results collated and was ready to announce them.
It turned out that my weight had been good enough for me to take the win today with Al taking second place and Vic taking third.

I’d just like to say a big Thank You to Keith for organising the match for us, and another Big Thank You to Dinah,Trev, and all the staff at Alders Farm, Top Breakfast, great fishing, it’s hard to ask for more unless it can be moved closer to where I live.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 34	Peter Morton	177lbs 08ozs
2nd	Peg 6	Al Loader	147lbs 00ozs
3rd	Peg 2	Vic Nugent	146lbs 04ozs
4th	Peg 10	Josh Blavins	136lbs 04ozs
5th	Peg 36	Dave Collier	126lbs 08ozs
6th	Peg 32	Mal Talbot	119lbs 08ozs
7th	Peg 7	Troy Hillier	114lbs 12ozs
8th	Peg 1	Charlie Lancaster	93lbs 08ozs
9th	Peg 28	Keith Ashby	87lbs 00ozs
10th	Peg 30	Simon Watkins	74lbs 04ozs
11th	Peg 5	Mark Quick	69lbs 08ozs
12th	Peg 8	Clive Pritchard	68lbs 12ozs
13th	Peg 3	Pete Iles	65lbs 12ozs
14th	Peg 29	Terry Goff	58lbs 08ozs
15th	Peg 16	John Holdsworth	51lbs 04ozs
16th	Peg 4	Martin Hucker	32lbs 00ozs
17th	Peg 38	Kevin Loveland	28lbs 08ozs
18th	Peg 12	Chris Withall	19lbs 00ozs

 

Alders Farm Fishery. Great Brickhill. Buckinghamshire. June 23rd, 2012.

Maggotdrowning.com

Alders Farm Match

Like a lot of these things today’s trip to Alders Farm all started when back in early April, Linda (Mermaid) made quite an innocent post on The Maggotdrowning Forum asking whether there would be any interest in a match of some sort at the venue. It was soon obvious there was a bit of interest and before long Linda found herself entering into a new job, that of ‘Match Organiser’ having managed to get a Saturday in June sorted.

I travelled up with Dave the fish today and it was around 8·20am when we arrived at the fishery, First things first and a quick trip to the new on site tackle shop tackle shop for some fishery pellets and a chat with Trevor Price and then getting the nets dipped while Dave dropped our gear at the bottom of the hill. A good few were in attendance and I found Linda to check in, she handed me a name badge, a nice touch so that everyone would know who was who. Next stop was down to The Pumphouse overlooking the lake to grab a quick breakfast and catch up with some more of todays participants. Much chat over the prospects for the match and the general consensus was that the unsettled weather and rain during the week would keep the weights down today, though everyone should enjoy some good sport.

Around 9am Linda called everyone to the draw. Gary Thorpe had kindly sorted the choice of pegs for the draw, so into the draw bag and peg 5 was attracted to my hand, not a bad peg and I was happy with that. So off to collect my kit and make my way to my peg……

There were a fair few of us pegged on the pumphouse bank with Jonny on peg 1, Lee peg 2. Fellow Jinx Squad members Fred and Clive had pegs 3 and 4 while to my left was Linda’s husband Chris on peg 6. It was nice to see Chris fishing as he tends to be employed as Linda’s ghillie normally. Next up was Rod on peg 7 and Nick on peg 8, while Keith had plenty of space to himself on peg 12.

Settling into the swim the first thing that was noticeable was that yet again the wind was blowing firmly into me, not a bad thing in itself, but it meant that I’d be sitting there all match with a fleece on looking across to those sitting there in polo shirts, or in Andrew on peg 27′s case a very poor taste in football shirt.

Trev had told me that the end of the bush on the right was the sweet spot in the swim, with a back up at 5mtrs straight out so setting up was quite straight forward. Just 3 rigs all pretty much identical as the swim is pretty shallow(around 18 inches at the end of the bush and around 2½ feet at 5mtrs) . These were all Nick Gilbert’s handmade NG Power Pencil’s, two 0·4 gm and a 0·5 gm, all made up on on 0·21 Ultima power match straight through to size 16 Kamasan B911X’s nice and simple and strong enough to stand up to what would hopefully turn into a good bagging session. Bait was simply 2 bags of 6mm fishery pellets, a couple of pints of red maggots and a couple of tins of corn along with some GOT Baits soft hookers.

With everything set there was a bit of time for a quick chat with Rod, Chris, Clive and Fred before Linda called the All-In at 10·30am. A couple of pots of mixed pellet maggot and corn at 5mtrs and a similar handful fed to the end of the bush but before I can get a bait in the water Clive is playing his first fish of the day……

I soon had a banded 6mm on the hook and dropped at the end of the bush. The float simply buried and produced a…………..rudd, not the hoped for carp, there’s loads of them in Ash Lake and it’s normally just a case of working through them and keeping the feed going until the carp move in and push them out. After about 5 rudd the next bite produced firm resistance as a carp powered off. Now these carp aren’t huge, indeed the average size is probably around 3lbs, but being that the water is shallow they just power off when you hook them and fight well above their weight. In that respect it’s probably handy that I’m used to fishing Rolfs where the carp are of a far larger average size. It’s just a question of getting their heads up so they take a gulp of air and sliding them over the net.

I felt that Clive had got off to a better start in the first hour as I was only picking up odd fish, but as we moved into the second hour I was starting to catch him up as he had longer gaps between his fish. In fact looking around it was obvious that this was going to be one of those days where you had to work for your fish as nobody seemed to be really bagging up, but I was reasonably confident that if I could keep the fish coming at the same rate a ‘Ton’ was definitely on the cards. My back up line at 5mtrs however was only producing the odd fish so that was written off pretty early on.

Looking on I could see Clive hanging on as increasing amounts of red hydro appeared from the end of his top kit, obviously a decent fish it appeared hell bent on reaching the island, steady pressure finally told though and it was a very relieved Clive that finally netted another fighting fit carp……

Chris was having a bit of a mare however as the rudd stubbornly refused to make way for carp close in, forcing him to fish long to find any carp, but even then a few to many were slipping the hook as he played them ……

About 2pm Trevor Price had a stroll round taking a few pictures and seeing that I thought I’d better have a quick session with my camera so I had a few pictures for this report. I strolled down to Rod (isis) to find him cursing the rudd, they seemed to have settled into his peg and were doing a great impression of Piranhas devouring anything he cared to put on the hook. Nick (pastie) on peg 8 was starting to get among a few however and looked to be getting one over on his Dad, Steve (rookery54) who was across on peg 16 ……

While over on peg 20 I could see Trev (grannyspodder) who seemed to be waiting far to long between bites today ……

Meanwhile on peg 22 it looked to me like Gary (shooter560) had decided to try paste in an effort to up his catch rate ……

On peg 27 Andrew (lemon1) had at least covered up his rather dubious taste in football tops, while Keith was wishing for an upturn in sport like he’d had on his previous visit here when he’d set a new match best for himself ……

and tucked away on peg 30 was Dave the fish, I’d noticed that he’d been catching as well as anyone on that bank, and with this sort of fishing suiting his style felt he was bound to be in with a shout at the end……

Back on peg 3 Fred (Milo) was smiling but it hid the frustration of not getting the best from his peg as he was suffering with to many foul hookers and lost fish ……

While a look across to Lee (red baron) saw him with a smile on his face as he slid another carp over the waiting landing net……

Steve (big Stump) seemed lost in concentration on peg 38, probably hoping to avoid being beaten by the next peg ……

Which happened to be occupied by the Match Organiser herself, Linda (Mermaid) who was obviously targeting fish in the margins ……

As was Simon (sidev77) who obviously had the same aim as Steve ……

Back at my peg I’d just netted my first fish on my return when what sounded like a rifle shot came from the left, Nick had destroyed a Tri-Cast top kit when a carp had buried itself in the margin reeds. Moving into the last hour I was still taking fish on a steady basis from the edge of the bush in between being heckled by Clive and Chris to the effect that I was bagging and it must be solid with fish in the peg………………. hurtful that neither of them felt that it may be down to my superior piscatorial ability.

 Anyway despite this harassment I soldiered heroically on till the All-Out was called at 3·30pm. Looking down at my clicker I had 49 carp recorded on it and I felt that I had a comfortable Ton+ in the nets, which I felt was a decent effort given how hard the lake had fished today.

As we packed away our kit and waited for the scales the chat turned to how the day had gone. Rod now understood why Gary Thorpe refers to rudd as ‘Vermin’ having suffered a peg full of them all day and Nick showed off his new multi piece top kit. Clive felt he may have 50-60lbs though I was convinced he had more. The scales were moving around the lake pretty fast so it was obvious that it hadn’t fished as it can today and when they got to Keith (Gandhi), my travelling partner Dave the fish was leading with 117lbs the only ‘Ton’ so far……

Keith started the weights on the pumphouse bank with 71lbs 14ozs …… 

Rod followed with 15½lbs and Chris put 40¼lbs on the scales ……

My 3 nets weighed a total of 132lbs 07ozs to take the lead with 4 still to weigh ……

Clive did indeed have a bit more than his estimate with 89lbs to show for his efforts…

and while Lee was last but one to weigh with 102lbs 06ozs ……

and Jonny was last to weigh in with a fine 123lbs 06ozs.

Back to the Pumphouse for the results where we found that the staff had kindly laid on hot drinks for us, a really nice touch. Linda then called us all to order and paid out the sections……

Section A:
1st: Peter (Mugger) Morton £20
2nd: Jonathan (jonny_b1989) Broadbent £15

Section B:
1st: Nick (pastie) Allen £20
2nd: Keith (Gandhi) Ashby £15

Section C:
1st: Dave (dave the fish) Collier £20
2nd: Tony (Tony_grig) Grigorjevs £15

Section D:
1st: Simon (sidev77) Watkins £20
2nd: Linda (Mermaid) Billington £15

Third overall on the day went to Dave the fish, Second to Jonny and the winner was Me and I have to say that I was both surprised and delighted when Linda presented me with an engraved tankard as a trophy, a lovely end to the day……

In conclusion I have to say a Big Thank You to Linda and Chris on behalf of all who attended, spot on organisation, right down to badges so that everyone knew who was who. I think you may have created an annual fixture for the MD’s calendar in the future.

Another Big Thank You to Trev, Gary and all the staff at Alders Farm, Top Breakfast, great fishing, even on a hard day, fully deserving of the Stillwater of the Year Award that the fishery won in the National Angling Awards last year.

Finally, Thanks to all the forum members that attended, plenty of good banter along with more than a few laughs as expected on a Drowner’s match and good to meet up and put some faces to names from the forum.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 5	Peter (Mugger) Morton	132lbs 07ozs
2nd	Peg 1	Jonathan (jonny_b1989) Broadbent	123lbs 06ozs
3rd	Peg 30	Dave (dave the fish) Collier	117lbs 00ozs
4th	Peg 2	Lee (red baron) Mitchell	102lbs 06ozs
5th	Peg 29	Tony (Tony_grig) Grigorjevs	94lbs 06ozs
6th	Peg 4	Clive (Black Hydro) Pritchard	89lbs 00ozs
7th	Peg 8	Nick (pastie) Allen	85lbs 04ozs
8th	Peg 24	Keith (Gwinear13) Webb	83lbs 12ozs
9th	Peg 12	Keith (Gandhi) Ashby	71lbs 14ozs
10th	Peg 28	Keith (keith74) Powell	69lbs 10ozs
11th	Peg 22	Gary (shooter560) Funnell	68lbs 12ozs
12th	Peg 34	Simon (sidev77) Watkins	66lbs 06ozs
13th	Peg 36	Linda (Mermaid) Billington	59lbs 08ozs
14th	Peg 27	Andrew (lemon1) Stevens	51lbs 14ozs
15th	Peg 38	Steve (big Stump) Chadwick	51lbs 00ozs
16th	Peg 3	Fred (Milo) Parker	50lbs 01ozs
17th	Peg 16	Steve (rookery54) Allen	50lbs 00ozs
18th	Peg 32	John (John-Tutu) Holdsworth	40lbs 09ozs
19th	Peg 6	Chris (Mermaid’s Ghillie) Billington	40lbs 04ozs
20th	Peg 20	Trev (grannyspodder) Matthews	20lbs 00ozs
21st	Peg 7	Rod (isis) Rose	15lbs 08ozs