Well today was a bit of a bonus as it wasn’t planned till Thursday night when Maria came home and told me that she had to work on Sunday.
Opening the curtains I was faced with a heavy frost & fog, not what the doctor ordered after the nice weather that we have had down south for the last week.
Anyway, nothing ventured nothing gained so they say, so after a quick spot of breakfast I loaded the gear into the car and set off for Elphicks Lakes,about an hours drive away.
On arrival at the lakes I was taken aback to find that the “LAKES FULL” sign was up, especially as the complex boasts 200 pegs spread over 5 lakes.
Popping into the fishing lodge the owner confirmed this, saying that he was amazed himself, citing the great weather as the probable cause.
Time then for Plan B, so jumping back into the car it was off to Frant lakes, to try and find a swim.
With 6 general lakes and a couple of specimen ones plus numerous small ponds dotted around the complex, there had to be a peg somewhere that I could fish.
Sure enough, although the complex was again busy, there were a few swims vacant on No6, the silver fish only lake, that would do for me.
This lake is horseshoe shaped and I picked the narrower arm as it is only about 3 feet deep, and I reasoned that the sun which had burnt of the fog would warm this up a lot quicker than the other arm which is much deeper and shielded by mature trees.
Now this lake is supposed to hold a good head of Bream up to about 5lbs along with Roach, Rudd, Tench and some cracking Perch. So I just set up 2 rigs on tops rigged with 6 elastic comprising of Preston series B floats (4×12)on ·08 to ·06 with a Preston PR21 in size 20 to finish things off. One set at dead depth (3ft) and the other about half depth.
The baits would be alternated between red maggot, sweetcorn and expander pellet over a bed of micro pellets.
Starting off by cupping in a small pot of micro’s and fishing a single red maggot, a steady run of small Roach & Skimmers were soon coming to hand. Changing to an Expander on the hook to try and find some of their larger cousins brought a lull for a couple of minutes , then the float buried and yards of elastic came streaming from the pole and a good 10 minutes later the culprit was revealed as none other than a Mirror Carp of about 5lbs.
Well for the rest of the day the pattern continued, a few small Roach and skimmers with the odd better skimmer to about 2lbs, and then another Carp that didn’t know it shouldn’t be there would put in an appearance. All in all I ended up with 9 Carp from the silver fish lake, all Mirrors.
A cracking session even if it wasn’t quite what I expected.
Hawthorne AC club match.
Well I have to say that the best part about todays club match at Hartleylands Reservoir was the Breakfast at The Little Chef beforehand.
The Reservoir at Hartleylands is situated at one of the highest points of the farm, and when the wind blows you can really suffer.
Long pole is the name of the game here 12mtrs+, but with the wind being so variable from flat calm to a howling gale all day, presentation proved a nightmare with just a few small Roach as my reward for sticking it out for the first 2 hours.
It got so bad that I sat it out on the feeder for the final 3 hours! Twice the tip went round resulting in a couple of plump 2lb+ Carp. Then right on the final whistle the tip went again and I carefully played a similar Carp to the net, but at the very last second it rolled on the hooklength and was off.
At the scales I weighed 5lbs 14ozs for 5th,but that lost Carp had cost me 3rd place, which just about sums up the way my season has gone in the club matches.
Just one more club match to go at Willow Park next month and then we can do it all over again!!!!!!!!!
Well as Maria had to work late today I thought I’d grab the opportunity of a few hours down at Elphicks, and see if I could catch another couple of species for the Maggotdrowning.com Fishing Race.
I had a leisurely drive down and after stopping for brekkie arrived about 10am.
A quick chat with the lads in the onsite tackle shop confirmed my worst fears, as it hadn’t been fishing well,and with heavy rain yesterday, and more showers promised for today + a falling barometer, things didn’t look too promising.
I drove up to Sandwich lake and was greeted with a howling wind and the first of the many showers to come. Comfort being the order of the day I chose peg 11 as the wind would be at my back.
The plan of attack was to feed a few micro pellets and a pinch of damp pellet crumb + 3 grains of corn every put in, to the left of the concrete overflow at 9 mtrs in about 5 feet of water using a rig consisting of an 8 elastic and a Preston 4×14 durafloat shotted with a bulk of 10′s on 0·10 to a 0·08 hooklength ending in a size 18 PR24 fishing a single grain of corn.
The three lads fishing the bank to my right were all on the feeder,but were only getting the odd small Roach.
Well it was a very slow start and after an hour without a bite I was beginning to think it wasn’t going to happen, when all of a sudden the float slid away, Strike! NOTHING……. MISSED IT!!!!!!
Back out and 5 mins later it went again, This time I connected and was relieved to feel a pleasing resistance, and a minute or two later there in the net was a nice Bream of about 3lb.
After that I didn’t look back as slowly but surely one after another came to the net in the course of the next 4 hours. The smallest was about 2lb while the largest may have scraped 4lbs.
All in all I had 28 of them.
A real nice session, given the conditions but the real icing on the cake was the 3 Tench that decided to add themselves to the mix.
Firstly this one at about 3lb spiced things up…………………
but the last one was the clincher in an already good session, My 1st Goldie of the year
So there you have it…….. 5 hours & 70lbs+ from what some may call a “Commercial Puddle”. A decent days fishing, given the conditions.
Hawthorne AC club match.
7am in the “Little Thief” for a full English breakfast, and looking out of the windows at the driving wind & rain. It’s at times like this that you start to question your own sanity .
Arriving in the car park at Lavender Farm, there were 14 other lunatics assembled to fish this club match on the Match Lake, a rather exposed “snake” venue.
Into the drawbag and 15 stuck to my already wet hand, and after walking round I was thanking my lucky stars that at least the wind was coming from behind me. The peg is regarded as a bit of a flyer in Summer, owing to the island at 12mtrs but has no winter form at all.
Out at 12mtrs nothing was having it despite a softly softly approach, and with the wind veering around constantly presentation was difficult to say the least. Plumbing around earlier I had noticed that the deepest part of the swim was at only 3mtrs and had set up a dead depth rig for this, and with nothing at 12mtrs after 2 hours this was the line I switched to.
The recent cold weather had taken a lot of colour out off the water, but with a squatt cup I trickled in 5 maggots and a pinch of fishmeal every 5mins, and after 30 mins the float buried and a small Carp of about 1lb was netted.
For the next couple of hours I managed to get another 14 fish upto about 3lbs and then that line dried up. For the last hour, try as I might I couldn’t buy another bite. At the end I managed to put 31lbs on the scales, and was comfortably in first place, right up until the final 2 pegs were weighed in and a 38lbs & 50lbs were put on the scales.
Still, no complaints, as I felt I’d got the maximum available from the peg on the day and nobody near me had got within 20lbs of my weight, and at least I managed to pick up some coin to cover expenses.
Hawthorne AC
AT Supercup match.
Well today was the day of our 1st round match in this years Angling Times/Van Den Eynde Supercup.
For reasons best known to the Angling Times, this year instead of being drawn against another team from Kent we had been drawn away against Palmers Green Angling Society From North London.
Their 1st choice of venue, The Grand Union Canal at Berkhampstead was unavailable so they switched the tie to the Horseshoe Match Lake at Tylers Common in Essex, A venue that none of us from Hawthorne had seen yet alone fished.
To make matters worse on arrival the Match Lake was frozen solid, and the match was transferred to two adjoining lakes on the venue.
Fine you may think except we had been given some very good advise with regard to rigs and bait needed for the match lake where a 12oz fish was considered a big bonus, and were now confronted with two lakes supposedly heavily stocked with large Carp, Bream and Tench.
Well the draw was made and we all made our way to our pegs, and tried to assemble enough kit between us to tackle the pegs we were faced with.
Now can someone please tell me why a commercial fishery that charges £7 a peg can’t provide decent paths and solid pegs????????
Almost without exception everyone found themselves sitting in a sea of mud and standing water.
The match itself was absolutely DIRE with a howling wind making the temp of +3C feel more like -5C, and making pole fishing all but impossible in most pegs!!!!!!!!
3 hours into the match and NOBODY had had so much as a bite, and then one of the Palmers Green lads caught a Carp of around a couple of pounds.
Efforts were redoubled, Surely 1 fish would not be enough to win the match? If we could just get 1 fish then we would be in with a chance.
Sure enough with just 10mins to go, Paul Ollerenshaw (our club champ) could be seen very gingerly playing a fish,and while our whole team collectively held it’s breath (and the other team probably willed him to lose it) up came the landing net with the fish in it.
Now for the moment of truth, The weigh-in……… With 10 blank sections, and one fish in each of the remaining 2 it was all down to weight.
First to weigh-in was the Palmers Green angler and his Carp weighed in at 1lb 15ozs, now across to the other side of the fishery, and Paul’s Carp was obviously larger and took the scales round to 4lbs 3ozs 8drms.
It has to be said that Palmers Green anglers are a superb bunch of lads, who despite their obvious disappointment, shook hands in congratulation and wished us well in further rounds. The whole atmosphere of the match was so friendly that plans are already afoot to invite them down to our neck of the woods sometime in the summer for a days “baggin” .
So that’s it, Hawthorne AC are through to the next round.
