Wyland International Angling Centre, near Battle, East Sussex. December 11th, 2010.

Maggotdrowning.com

 

Southern Fur & Feather.

Once more it’s time for the annual Maggotdrowning Southern Fur & Feather match and once again we’re down at Wylands on House Lake. Various things conspired against me this morning meaning that I was running a little late as I loaded up the car, so I rang Mick the Chippy and asked him to draw for me if I was a little late arriving. Now after last year when there was no hot food to be had from the tea hut I made a quick stop on route for a couple of sausage & egg McMuffins to fuel me up for the day ahead. Thankfully a smooth trip down saw me pulling into the fishery car park at around 8·20am ahead of the draw to find 10 other hardy fools idiots anglers assembled for the day ahead. Indeed it was only Mick and granddaughter Rosie who were missing, but a quick phone call confirmed that they were on their way. Just time for a bacon sarnie and a cuppa then.

Now Mark being the organised fellow that he is had put 14 pegs in, all in the main bowl, so with only 13 fishing took one out (peg 14) come draw time, however when he came to take the last peg from the bag it was missing, Somehow peg 9 had escaped, but rather than redraw it went to Mr Organiser. The Bailiff had called pegs 2,3 and 4 as potential winners, so I was a little bit out with peg 13.

We’d been hoping that despite the cold snap the lake wouldn’t be iced up. No such luck however, so we agreed to delay the start till everyone had cut out a swim. It wasn’t to thick in front of me and I made a start breaking out a swim with my Drennan landing net handle, before strolling round and borrowing Squeaky’s ice breaker to finish off with.

The Fur and Feather is always a light hearted affair and everyone goes home with a prize so I wasn’t planning on taking a serious approach, simply one top kit with White Hydro and a single rig that I made up consisting of a 4×12 KC Carpa Tricky on 0·12 Ultima Power Silk finished off with an 18 Guru WMG hook. Bait for today was simply red maggots with a few micros for feed.

With some still setting up I took the opportunity to stroll round and get another cuppa from the tea hut. Inevitably I ended up having a chat with Mick and Rosie, and by the time I made my way back Mark was ready to call the All-In. For company today I had Stuart aka squeaky roller to my right on peg 1 on the island while to my left was Simon Elsey.

So at 10·40am we were off, double red maggot impaled onto the hook and a pinch of maggot and micros potted in. A shout from across the lake signified that young Rosie had bagged the first fish of the day, no pressure there then as a 10 year old girl took an early lead. A few lift and drops and my float slid gently away resulted in a small roach residing in the keepnet to save the dreaded blank.

It was far from fast and furious, but there was plenty of banter flowing back and forth across the lake. It was soon obvious that the Bailiff had been right about the pegs to be on as they seemed to be producing decent skimmers while all I could find were  small Roach…

 At least I was getting bites though and the fish while small were keeping me busy. By about 1pm I reckoned I might have had 5-6lbs in the net and the lure of a cheeseburger and another hot cuppa from the tea hut proved far too tempting so I set off for a stroll.
Jay was tucked down in the corner on peg 10 and was sliding what looked to be a decent skimmer towards the waiting net……

…… he protested that it was his biggest fish of the day, but Jay knows Wylands well and may have just been fibbing.
Mark was alternating between a couple of lines, taking a couple of fish from each before swapping back again……

He was having a good battle with Greg on the next peg and it looked as if it would come down to whoever nicked a few bonus fish between them……

Andy was facing the handicap of not having a pole to fish with, but he was having a good battle with Rosie on the next peg. Cheeseburger consumed I found Mick chatting to Terry(Wily Coyote) who had popped down as he lives locally to see how we were all doing. Mick was regretting not having broken out a larger swim for himself and Rosie but was doing his best to make the most of it.
Jeff, Wayne and Nick were definitely sitting in the pound seats however, and it was obvious that it was just a question of what order they would finish in the top 3……

Returning to my swim Simon reported having been seen off by a good fish that he thought  was a Carp, while Toby had shown him how it should be done as he’d landed a Carp of around 8lbs, a real bonus on a day like today.


Simon renewed his efforts after this but it obviously wasn’t going to be his day as he then latched onto what he described as a decent Bream only to see that come off short of the net.

I carried on till the end and managed to pick up a few better examples before Mark called the All-Out at 3pm. We soon had everything packed away and in all honesty it didn’t take that long to do the Weigh-In, the results of which are in the table below…


 

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 3	Wayne (map) Taylor	42lbs 10ozs
2nd	Peg 4	Jeff Driscoll	33lbs 06ozs
3rd	Peg 2	Nick Gilbert	32lbs 00ozs
4th	Peg 10	Jay Lay	22lbs 02ozs
5th	Peg 8	Greg (splitshot1) Andrews	19lbs 06ozs
6th	Peg 9	Mark (MoleMan) Hathaway	16lbs 14ozs
7th	Peg 1	Stuart (squeaky roller) Wilson	13lbs 02ozs
8th	Peg 11	Toby (vassago) Wells	12lbs 00ozs
9th	Peg 13	Peter (Mugger) Morton	11lbs 08ozs
10th	Peg 12	Simon Elsey	8lbs 02ozs
11th	Peg 5	Mick (The Chippy) Pearson	6lbs 00ozs
12th	Peg 7	Andy (greentura) Green	1lb 10ozs
13th	Peg 6	Rosie	1lb 04ozs

All that remained was for Mark to work out the results and collect up the prizes for those assembled……………

We added a little twist this year and reversed the prize giving so Rosie got first pick, while Wayne received the Winners Trophy and the honour of organising next years Southern Fur & Feather.

Same again next year please Wayne, I can’t think of to many venues that would have produced such good sport in those conditions. Thanks to Mark for organising todays match.

That’s probably it for me this year, Roll on 2011.

Wyland International Angling Centre, near Battle, East Sussex. December 12th, 2009.

Maggotdrowning.com

 

Southern Fur & Feather.

Time for the annual Maggotdrowning Southern Fur & Feather match and we’re back down at Wylands on House Lake today. Pressure of work has meant that I haven’t been out fishing for nearly 2 months so it was good just to be going fishing today. I was hoping that the weather would be a little kinder than last year, but looking through the curtains it was looking pretty cold and that was confirmed as I loaded the car. I rolled into the car park around 7·50am in tandem with Mark (MoleMan) and found Bill, Simon, Trevor and Wayne already in residence at the tea hut. The bad news however was that there was no food on the go, and the bailiff had only opened it so we could get a cuppa before we started.

Looking across the lake it was obvious that some drastic gardening had gone on since last year with the island that’s reached by the footbridge cut in half to form two, a lot of the trees cut back and a number of bivvy friendly swims installed on the woodside bank and the bank to the left of the bridge.

Mark soon had the draw underway for the 14 of us in attendance and put in 3 more pegs for absentees who hadn’t cancelled. I ended up with peg 16, one of 4 new pegs to the left of the bridge. For company today I had Tony to my left on 17, while to my right was Wayne on 15 and Trevor on 14 next to the bridge. Positioning my box I couldn’t help noticing the icy easterly that was blowing from right to left into our pegs, and then for good measure it started raining.

Now with a good head of silvers present and the cold snap probably slowing the carp down, I’d picked a couple of top kits with soft white Hydro and made up a couple of silvers rigs, 4X12 carpa tricky’s on 0·12 to 0·10 with size 20 Red Drennan Barbless Carp Maggot hooks. Now the main body of house lake offers depths of around 4-6ft on the pole line, so I was a little taken aback to find no more than 2½ft regardless of where I plumbed up. Bait for today was red & white maggot, 4mm expanders and some micro pellet.

10am and Mark blew for the All-in, I potted some maggot and pellet straight out at 8mtrs and a similar amount about 10ft to the left of it.
Out with the rig baited with a single red maggot and 30 seconds later a small roach made sure that I wouldn’t be facing a DNW. Further small roach followed in the next 2 hours, but Tony and I were really struggling, Wayne appeared to be doing a bit better, while Trevor fishing the whip was definitely doing the best of the four of us……

Feeling a little disheartened I grabbed the camera and took a stroll. Jeff had once again drawn on the island and was getting regular action with some skimmers helping him build a decent net. Looking across I could see Mark on the 1st peg and rumour had it that he already had a bonus Carp in the net……

Indeed it appeared that all those on the wood bank had got off to a decent start, especially Simon and Andy……

and I could see that Vince over on the dam was getting a few meaning that he was looking odds on for another Golden Nugget off me today……

I could see Bill sitting in splendid isolation with the tea hut bank all to himself, and as I made my way over he was into a fish that was taking just a bit to much elastic for it to be anything other than a Carp. A couple of anxious minutes followed, but soon it was safely in the net, a nice bonus fish……

Mick looked to be lost in concentration and getting amongst a few silvers himself ……

Indeed the whole of the main part of the lake seemed to be fishing quite well as I made my way back to my peg. I stopped off for a chat with Trev to try and pick his brains as it’s his local fishery and he suggested that I needed to up my feeding despite the bitter cold as that’s what the fish normally responded to. So back to my peg and off with the kinder pot and out with the catapult.

Well it worked to a degree, in that the roach started to come a bit more frequently, but they were still just 1-2oz fish with the occasional 4oz bonus fish. With around half an hour to go Terry (Wily Coyote) Goff appeared having come down to see how we were getting on, and it was as I chatted to Tony that I struck into another roach bite only to see quite a lot of White Hydro, and a nervous couple of minutes followed before I slid the net under a Carp of around 5lbs. However that was the end of the excitement for me and Mark blew the All-out at 3pm just as the rain returned for us to pack up in. Thankfully we were using fishery keepnets so were able to pack up in double quick time and get the gear back to the car before the weigh in.

Mark kicked off with 20¾lbs and was rapidly overtaken by Simon with 24¼lbs, Stuart managed 15½lbs before Andy brought 37lbs to the scales including 3 Carp. Vince’s 16lbs+ secured the Golden Nugget from yours truly while Jay put a match winning 38¼lbs on the scales. Mick recorded 12¾lbs while Bills level 34lbs left him ruing 3 lost carp, anyone of which would have given him the win. Next up Jeff and Trevor both put 25½lbs on the scales for joint 5th place. Wayne had 14½lbs, my meagre total was 11lbs 6ozs leaving poor Tony last to weigh and last on the day with just 4¼lbs to show for his efforts.

At least everyone took home a prize on the day, one day hopefully we’ll catch it on a day when the weather gods are smiling on us.
A Big Thank You to Mark for organising the match, and to all that turned up on the day. Same again next year folks?

Position	Angler	Weight
1st	Jay Lay	38lbs 04ozs
2nd	Andy (CU) Cummings	37lbs 00ozs
3rd	Bill Gibbins	34lbs 00ozs
4th	Nick Gilbert	26lbs 06ozs
5th=	Jeff Driscoll	25lbs 08ozs
5th=	Trevor (M.T.Net) Little	25lbs 08ozs
7th	Simon Elsey	24lbs 04ozs
8th	Mark (MoleMan) Hathaway	20lbs 12ozs
9th	Vince Gould	16lbs 06ozs
10th	Stuart (squeaky roller) Wilson	15lbs 08ozs
11th	Wayne (map) Taylor	14lbs 08ozs
12th	Mick (The Chippy) Pearson	12lbs 10ozs
13th	Peter (Mugger) Morton	11lbs 06ozs
14th	Tony (spamwham) Roberts	4lbs 04ozs

Wylands International Angling Centre, near Battle, East Sussex. March 14th, 2009.

Maggotdrowning.com Knock Up.

 

Well it was back to the scene of the MD’s Southern Fur & Feather match today for yet another Knock up organised by Mark(Moleman)Hathaway and Trevor(MT Net)Little through the forum. As I loaded the car up for the drive down it appeared that the weather gods were smiling on us for once with the promise of some decent weather for a change, and hopefully a good few fish would find their way into everyones nets today. Pulling into the fishery car park around 8am a few of the lads were already there and the food hut was soon doing a brisk trade in breakfast rolls and cups of tea and coffee.

By 9am it was time for the draw and it was literally a draw for pegs as Moleman had a bag of numbered cloths pegs. I came out with peg 15 on the day, which was the same peg as I had for the Fur & Feather match previously. Having struggled to get set up comfortably last time, I had my platform with me this time and set it up so that i could use it as a seat, I’d been told by Trevor, who knows the water like the back of his hand that the line to fish was towards a bush on the opposite bank, so that was my plan of attack, I had Bill for company to my right today and Roger(Up Yah)Harris to my left, on the other side of the bridge. The rigs I set up consisted of Malman 4×14 Snake 1′s on 0·12 to an 0·10 bottom with a size 18 hook, one for the margin swim to my right by some weeds where I had a couple of feet of depth. The others were for out into open water at 7mtrs and 10mtrs where I had around 3ft. Bait was maggots and various pellets with some corn for a change bait and some groundbait as well.

While we set up there was a bit of commotion on the opposite bank. Poor Keith(Disco)Driscoll had got his pole out of his holdall, only to watch the whole lot slide down the bank and into the lake!!!! Of course he had to go in for it and thankfully he managed to get the whole lot back. Of course we were all full of sympathy for his plight (Thanks to Vince for capturing it on film )

So 10·30am and the All-in and I fed some maggots and pellets into the margin swim and cupped 5 balls of groundbait in at 10mtrs. I followed out with the rig baited with double maggot. The float settled and just slid away and the culprit, a small skimmer of 2-3 ozs was soon in the net. Bill was in straight away too, but his skimmer was around 1lb!!!! I was soon into a run of skimmers, but they were all the same sort of stamp (2-3ozs) despite switching to 3 maggots on the hook as suggested by Bill, while he continued to bag up with decent 1lb+ examples, and the only reason appeared to be that Bill had a good 4½ft of depth at a comfortable 5mtrs.

Anyway head down and keep going, at least I was catching regularly, even if Bill was battering me, Indeed after a couple of hours I reckoned that I had around 10-12lbs while Bill must have had 40lbs+ and was going to need a second net, Trev meanwhile on the peg to Bill’s right was steadily putting a decent run of fish together alternating between the pole and waggler. Bill was having one of those days though, and soon had loads of Grey Hydro streaming out of his top kit, the culprit being a decent Carp, putting me even further behind………

Having already mentally waved farewell to the £1 I’d had with Bill, I was relying on my customary £1 with Vince to offset it, but my view of Vince was obscured by the island so I just got on with it. The bites kept coming but despite trying various things I just couldn’t up the size of fish I was getting. Very occasionally I would get a better skimmer, but they were always followed by more of their smaller brethren. I seemed to be keeping up with Roger to my left, but even his fish appeared to be of a slightly larger stamp.

Around 2pm Terry(Wily Coyote)Goff put in an appearance, he couldn’t fish today, but being local had popped down to see how things were going just as my bites started to tail off , but I don’t think it was down to Terry as it didn’t seem to matter where you looked as sport seemed to have slowed down for everyone, even Bill.

Vince came round just after 2·30 pm to ask Terry to weigh his fish as he had to get away early as his son was in his first amateur drama production of “The Wind in the Willows”, and of course like any proud parent he wanted to be there. His fish weighed 18lbs 13ozs and he left the £1 with Terry for safe keeping.

With the All-out about to be called Keith’s day unfortunately went from bad to worse. Getting off his box he slipped and the sound of splintering carbon was heard by all across the lake, resulting in a catalogue of carnage (no7 section broken in two, no4 section in 4 pieces and a top 2 pulla kit snapped)

So with the match ending on that unhappy note it was time for the weigh-in. Moleman’s 35lbs 10ozs set the early pace till he was edged out of the frame by Omega Mike’s 37lbs 9ozs from the road bank. Trevor put a fine 50lbs 6ozs on the scales, but it was Bill who took a fine win on the day with 74lbs 2ozs.
My weight of 32lbs 4ozs was only good enough for seventh place on the day, but at least meant that another £1 from Vince had come my way.

All in all a good day in good company as always seems to be the case when the MD’s get together. Here’s to the next one.

Position	Angler	Weight
1st	Bill(Zak Dingle)Gibbins	74lbs 02ozs
2nd	Trevor(MT Net)Little	50lbs 06ozs
3rd	Mike(Omega Mike)Jameson	37lbs 09ozs
4th	Mark(Moleman)Hathaway	35lbs 10ozs
5th	Roger(Up Yah)Harris	35lbs 04ozs
6th	Anthony(Pastehead)Ellis	34lbs 12ozs
7th	Peter(Mugger)Morton	32lbs 04ozs
8th	Tony(spamwham)Roberts	25lbs 14ozs
9th	Simon Elsey	25lbs 08ozs
10th	Keith(Disco)Driscoll	24lbs 05ozs
11th	Paul(Paulvis69)Slater	21lbs 05ozs
12th	Gary(oggie)Ogden	20lbs 06ozs
13th	Vince(Vince G)Gould	18lbs 13ozs
14th	Mick(Old Carper)	18lbs 12ozs
15th	Ade(Wingnut)Morgan	9lbs 07ozs
16th	Mick(The Chippy)Pearson	8lbs 14ozs

Wyland International Angling Centre, near Battle, East Sussex. December 13th, 2008.

Maggotdrowning.com

 

Southern Fur & Feather.

Well it was off down to Wylands, just outside Battle today for the Southern Fur & Feather match on the fishery’s House Lake, that’s been organised for the lads on the Maggotdrowning forum by Trevor(MT Net)Little. Loading up the car it was cold, windy and pouring down with rain (the sort of morning that makes you question your sanity) and it didn’t get any better during the trip down. Pulling into the fishery and as I got out of the car I realised it was even windier than I thought. A quick bacon sarnie and a coffee while I caught up with the other 14 lunatics assembled proceeded the draw and it has to be said that nobody looked too enthusiastic to get started. In fact the conversation revolved around which were the closest pegs to the snack bar.

Anyway peg 14 by the footbridge stuck to my palm. A stroll down with the tackle revealed a pretty steep bank that would test the seat box legs out, all in all a little precarious. Mick to my right on 13 was in pretty much the same predicament while across the footbridge I had Jeff D and Al on 15 & 16. Once I’d managed to level the box up I stuck the brolly up. With the wind swirling and the angle I was fishing at, it meant that I couldn’t get right out of the rain but at least it offered a bit of shelter.

I just set up 2 pole rigs, both consisted of Malman 4×14 Snake 1′s on 0·12 to an 0·10 bottom with a size 20 red Drennan carp maggot hook, one for under the bridge, but with only just a couple of feet of depth I wasn’t expecting much from there. The other was for out into open water at 7mtrs where I had around 3½ft. Fishing any longer was out of the question really with the wind and driving rain, Bait was just red maggots with some corn for a change bait and some micro’s for feed.

10am and Trevor called the All-in. A pinch of micro’s and maggots followed by a maggot baited hook soon produced a small roach from the open water swim and set the pattern for the day. Looking round after about an hour though , very few were looking comfortable, though everyone appeared to be catching the odd fish. Now I’ve had my Preston Dri-Fish suit since they 1st came out and it’s served me well, but despite regular NikWaxing after 4 seasons of abuse it’s due for changing, and today the conditions found it out. I could feel the water starting to leak through, so decided to retreat to the snack bar for a warming coffee. I wasn’t the only one either. Mick produced a bottle of Brandy and a shot was added to the coffee (strictly for medicinal purposes of course) Sitting there certainly seemed a better idea than battling it out with the elements and offered a good view of the lake.

Nick Gilbert right in front of us seemed to be doing OK, alternating between waggler to the island and the pole line, as did Mark(MoleMan)Hathaway a couple of pegs along to the left of Nick. Tony(spamwham) pegged between them was having a bit of trouble however with his umbrella with the wind doing its best to wrap Tony up in it …………

I returned to my peg for another go, but I have to say that my heart wasn’t in it, despite the Roach still being there. I stuck it out till about 1pm, but I was cold damp and miserable, so gave it best, tipping back about 6lbs of Roach and hastily getting my gear back to the car. A session with the hand drier in the loo got some feeling back in my hands and I returned to the snack bar to watch the rest of the match, and by the time that Trevor called the All-out at 3pm there were half a dozen of us there.

The weigh-in didn’t take long, Mark(Moleman) taking the honours on the day with 32lbs 15ozs from Nick’s 30lbs 03ozs, though the real shock was Omega Mike sticking it out for the whole 5 hours for 19lbs 10ozs and 3rd place !

So a quick presentation saw Mark with a nice shiny trophy, while the rest of us all took home a little something from the prize table for Christmas. Thanks to Trevor for organising the day, we all agreed that it was a cracking venue and that we’d like another go at it in better weather. On a final note all the lads chipped in the pools money and Keith at Wylands chipped in £2 from each of our peg fees, meaning £75 was donated to the Maggotdrowning Christmas Appeal Nice one lads.

Position	Angler	Weight
1st	Mark(MoleMan)Hathaway	32lbs 15ozs
2nd	Nick Gilbert	30lbs 03ozs
3rd	Mike(Omega Mike)Jameson	19lbs 10ozs
4th	Jeff(Jeff D)Driscoll	13lbs 04ozs
5th	Alan(Al)Loader	11lbs 10ozs
6th	Tony(spamwham)Roberts	11lbs 05ozs
7th	Trevor(MT Net)Little	7lbs 08ozs
8th	Bill(Bill G)Gibbins	6lbs 06ozs
9th	Simon Elsey	4lbs 04ozs
	Peter(Mugger)Morton	DNW
	Mick(The Chippy)Pearson	DNW
	Vince(Vince G)Gould	DNW
	Kevin(The Catch)Loveland	DNW
	Matt Love	DNW
	Wayne(map)Taylor	DNW

The DNW’s aren’t a reflection on the fishery as the 6 anglers all caught,
 but packed up early and tipped their fish back.