Rolf’s Lake. Holton. Oxfordshire. June 20th, 2008.

TalkAngling.co.uk Forum Match.

I was lucky enough to get my name down for this match when it was posted on the TalkAngling forum back in January by Ian Hornby as I really enjoy visiting Rolf’s whenever I get the chance.

Pulling back the curtains a grey day with rain greeted me, and to think that today was the longest day!! Anyway car loaded in good time along with the waterproofs and off. With my usual stop in Battersea for a spot of breakfast I made good time with a trouble free trip down, pulling into the car park at around 8·30am.

 There were a few of the usual faces from the lads that fish The Jinx Series there, though Malc who should have been fishing was a notable absentee due to the fact that yet again his car had expired on the roadside the previous day, but it was good to catch up with the TalkAngling lads, some of whom I’d met previously and some who were new faces. It was also good to see that not only was the lake back down to something like it’s usual level with all the platforms above water, but the colour had returned to something approaching its normal hue after the flooding of a couple of weeks ago.

9am and draw time. Into the bag and peg 24 appeared in my hand! A bonus for me as it’s on the car park bank, somewhere I rarely get a sniff of and it has a bit of form. No barrow today, just a nice short walk. With a grey cloudy sky and rain still falling it looked like it would be a bit of a grueller, especially as we were fishing from 11am – 4pm which is earlier than most of the summer matches at Rolf’s that are normally fished from 2pm – 7pm as the Carp don’t seem to get their heads down till around 3pm.

Anyway I set the pole up with just 1 shallow rig and a margin rig to tackle the bush to my right. I also set up the pellet waggler and the feeder as a back up because I could see Carp topping over the bar at around 20yds, so hopefully I could mug a couple of fish early before they backed off. Feed was simply the fishery 6mm pellets and plenty of them, with some of them damped down and mixed with a good helping of hemp to put through the feeder. Hookbaits were the fishery 8mm hard feed pellets that would be fished banded on a hair.

So 11am and the All-in. 2 big handfuls of pellet fed by the bush to my right and a couple of pouchfuls out to the bar closely followed by the pellet waggler. Another pouchful and the line tightened up and I was into my first fish of the day and after a spirited fight I had a nice Common of around 7lbs safely in the net.

However try as I might I couldn’t tempt a 2nd and I’d noticed that Dave(Yorkie)Moore……

……opposite on peg 16 had managed a couple of fish on the feeder, so I swapped over to mine and was rewarded with a couple of quick fish including a weigher.

Now normally the feeder line doesn’t last, but I continued to get the odd fish . Looking down the car park bank most appeared to be struggling on the pole line, but at least the rain had stopped.

On the other side of the bush to my right on peg 23 I had Steve Wilson for company……

…he was fishing the pole shallow, but was being pestered by Roach that seemed to be beating the Carp to his bait.

Clive had dawn one of his favorite pegs, 19 but appeared to be really struggling to tempt a fish …

As did Ron next to him on peg 20 despite his natty line in headgear……

Simple Simon over on peg 14 had brought along his bank runner and sherpa Sprucey for moral support once more and was giving his new Maver 401 it’s maiden outing. Having won his last match at Rolf’s with a cracking 221lbs 12ozs he was hoping for a repeat performance, but the Lake seemed determined to teach him a lesson today……

…However he did have the enjoyment of seeing my feeder rod with a good bend in it at regular intervals and Sprucey was counting my fish and giving him regular updates. During all of this I also received a couple of phone calls from Malc and Dave Collier checking on the days progress, and while I commiserated with Malc on missing out, it was heartening to know that at least he was enjoying spending some quality time at home with his kids.

Around 3pm things started to pick up for most of the lads that had persevered with the pole, but as I was still getting fish on the feeder….

I stuck with it till the end. 4pm and the all out and with 5 weigher’s and 22 fish in the nets I was pretty happy with my match and was quite looking forward to the weigh-in.

However there was a short wait for the weigh-in, the reason being that John Bennett has acquired a LARGE piece of stone for the entrance of the fishery and needed a hand to get it in place. Well with the help of several stout bodies, some scaffold poles and finally Simple Simon’s car………

…… and a stout chain, it was finally in place, and very impressive it looks too.

So on with the weigh-in with Pole Killer setting an early benchmark with 94lbs from peg 34, that was soon being topped by Paul Law (justin case) on peg 36 with a fine 150¾lbs. Some real interest came at peg 38 however where Mrs Sumo (Sue) who’s starting to make a habit of beating her husband Sumo had spent the match. 

Sue’s fish weighed 41½lb and Sumo was looking glum. Steve Davis(DNW) on peg 2 had managed a very creditable 120½lbs while round at peg 7, Tim Suttle (first peg) had taken full advantage of a very good peg (especially with pegs 6&8 not in) to take 1st place on the day with an excellent 193lbs . Clive on 19 had finally managed a few in the last hour to take the section with 71lbs 10ozs. Round to Sumo on peg 22 where despite a couple of weigher’s on the board he could only muster 37½lbs…

……… allowing Sue to take the bragging rights on the day. Round to my peg and my 27 fish gave me a pleasing 161¾lbs for 2nd on the day and a new PB match weight.

In total a weight of 1531lbs 10ozs was put on the scales, an average of just under 70lbs per angler.

So all in all a good day. Thanks to Ian H for organising the day, and to all those that attended. We’ll have to do it all again, though perhaps we can fish it from 2-7 next time.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 7	Tim Suttle	193lbs 00ozs
2nd	Peg 24	Peter Morton	161lbs 12ozs
3rd	Peg 36	Paul Law	150lbs 12ozs
4th	Peg 2	DNW	120lbs 08ozs
5th	Peg 34	Pole Killer	94lbs 00ozs
6th	Peg 32	Steve Owen	83lbs 00ozs
7th	Peg 19	Clive Pritchard	71lbs 10ozs
8th	Peg 14	Simon Mound	68lbs 04ozs
9th	Peg 4	Tony Walsh (Rive T)	59lbs 12ozs
10th	Peg 16	Dave Moore	59lbs 00ozs
11th	Peg 30	Harry911	50lbs 06ozs
12th=	Peg 10	Nige C	47lbs 08ozs
12th=	Peg 18	Bad Boy Bagger	47lbs 08ozs
14th=	Peg 23	Steve Wilson	45lbs 04ozs
14th=	Peg 26	Mark	45lbs 04ozs
16th	Peg 38	Mrs Sumo	41lbs 08ozs
17th	Peg 13	Ian Hornby	40lbs 08ozs
18th	Peg 9	Squeeky Roller	39lbs 00ozs
19th	Peg 22	Sumo	37lbs 08ozs
20th	Peg 40	Tim Westmoreland	33lbs 08ozs
21st	Peg 28	Lee 66	31lbs 02ozs
22nd	Peg 20	Ron Byus	11lbs 00ozs

	Section Winners
A  34 – 2	Paul Law
B   4 – 13	Tim Suttle
C  14 – 22	Clive Pritchard
D 23 – 32	Peter Morton

Packington Somers Fishery. Molands Mere. June 14th, 2008

Maggotdrowning.com

 

Individual Championship 2008.

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Well an early start saw me have a trouble free 120 mile run up the M40 and beyond to Packington Somers Fishery arriving around 8am in plenty of time to dip my nets and grab a cuppa and a sausage sarnie, Soon the car park started to fill but a phone call from Keith to let me know that his car had expired on the M6 put a bit of a downer on things.
Linda, Bucko’s wife was soon into full raffle ticket selling mode parting us from our pennies, and I have to admit to a bit of a shock when I looked round to see Mark Downes (The England Manager) and Ken Giles unloading their kit!!!! but they were there for another match.

9am and Vince got the draw underway for the 41 of us in attendance with his usual efficiency. Into the draw bag and 48 stuck to my fingers. Into the car and round I drove to find my peg. On arrival I found that I had Nick (Monkey) and Bucko for company on the day.

I have to say that the peg looked 1st rate A solid concrete slab to fish from with a raft of lilies in the margin to my left, a large bush overhanging the right and a comfortable chuck of around 25yds to the island. The only thing was that I didn’t see a single sign of fish moving.
I just set up a couple of rigs for the pole, one for the 6ft of water that I had at 11mtrs and another for the margins that would double up as a shallow rig. I also got the feeder out of its ready bag, but did change the hooklength from the one that had been previously employed at Rolf’s.
Bait would be a selection of dendra’s, casters, corn and pellet with the groundbait being Special’G’ with a selection of hook baits added.

With a bit of time to spare I had a stroll over to the pegs behind me to have a chat with Colin and Lee Richards (missabite) from where I could also see Vince setting up on his peg which he had got me to draw for him, and I have to say that it looked like I’d done him proud.

Just before the all in Vince popped over for a quick chat and blew the whistle for the off before returning to his peg.
I flicked a pinch of caster and pellet into my 2 margin lines and cupped 3 balls of groundbait onto the 11mtr line before picking up my margin rig and dropping it in next to the lilies with 2 casters on the hook. Almost instantly the float slid away and a small Tench of around 8ozs was soon into the net. Next put in resulted in a hand sized Skimmer. 2 fish in 2 put ins, unfortunately it all went pear shaped after that. The margin line appeared to contain nothing more than 1″ long Perch that seemed to be having their own competition to see who could swallow a bait the deepest.

Moving out to the 11mtr line to get away from the suicidal little buggers succeeded, but unfortunately the line seemed utterly devoid of any fish whatsoever. I tried under the bush to my right but apart from a couple of 2oz Roach that was it, while another look to the lilies showed the Perch were still in residence.

Looking across it didn’t appear that anyone else was setting the place alight, so the feeder was put into action baited with half a Dendra. After about 30 minutes of inactivity Paul (nomorelongwalks) phoned for an update just as I had a 2″ pull and connected with a Skimmer of around 1lb, but my report to him was hardly upbeat. I was having to wait far to long between bites to do any damage. Vince phoned but hung up abruptly, phoning me back to let me know that he’d just lost a decent Carp at the net, but had followed up by netting a decent Tench and Bream.
I sat it out adding the occasional small Skimmer and losing the one decent Tench, a fish of around 4lbs that I hooked when it spat the hook about a foot from the net.

Thankfully 4pm signalled the All-out to put an end to my torture, and at this point I have to say thanks to John Burchell’s team on the scales, because I can’t remember seeing a weigh-in conducted with such speed and efficiency for a long time, not that my 5lb 9ozs of bits taxed the scalesmen too severely.

So Back to the clubhouse where £1 coins were handed over to Besty, Dave and Dirk though somehow I’d not had a £1 with Vince today, and a buffet was laid on prior to the prize giving and the raffle.

So to the winners the spoils (apologies for the picture quality, must have set the camera wrong)
1st place….. Lee Richards taking the Trophy and a new Matchbox S series seatbox system supplied by Jim Burton of Matchbox.

2nd place….. Matt Nutt and a Matchbox seatbox.

3rd place….. Mike Globe and a Matchbox seatbox.
The Section winners all received Shimano reels supplied by John at The Matchmen, Nottingham.

The raffle was very well supported raising £224 which will be split between the Kent Air Ambulance and Great Ormond Street Hospital, and almost everyone appeared to take home a prize of some sort.

In closing I’d just like to say Very Well Done to Vince and his team of helpers for his usual Superb Organisation.
A Big Thank You to Ray Best for all his efforts in sourcing the prizes that were generously donated by Jim Burton and all at Matchbox Tackle and by John at The MatchMen in Nottingham.
Thanks to Jon Burrell and his Team for the use of their fishery.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 44	Lee Richards	43lbs 14ozs
2nd	Peg 21	Matt Nutt	40lbs 07ozs
3rd	Peg 12	Mike Globe	38lbs 15ozs
4th	Peg 37	Vince Gould	29lbs 13ozs
5th	Peg 54	Eric Robathan	27lbs 11ozs
6th	Peg 29	Neil Jeacock	25lbs 12ozs
7th	Peg 26	Midge Milnes	24lbs 09ozs
8th	Peg 15	Dirk Williams	21lbs 08ozs
9th	Peg 58	Steve Ford	20lbs 13ozs
10th	Peg 11	Tony Roberts	20lbs 04ozs
11th	Peg 27	Gary Thorpe	18lbs 01ozs
12th	Peg 55	Alan West	17lbs 12ozs
13th	Peg 13	Ray Best	17lbs 10ozs
14th	Peg 18	Jake King	15lbs 13ozs
15th	Peg 8	Chris Kendall	15lbs 04ozs
16th	Peg 40	David Wall	14lbs 12ozs
17th	Peg 25	Lee Swinborne	13lbs 10ozs
18th	Peg 16	Dave Webster	12lbs 12ozs
19th	Peg 43	Mark Gallagher	12lbs 04ozs
20th	Peg 23	Steve Steak	11lbs 02ozs
21st	Peg 31	Paul Scatt	10lbs 12ozs
22nd	Peg 53	Mark Causer	10lbs 07ozs
23rd	Peg 2	Andy Spruce	10lbs 02ozs
24th	Peg 4	Simon Elsey	9lbs 12ozs
25th	Peg 17	Roy Ravenhill	8lbs 01ozs
26th	Peg 45	Colin Sharrard	7lbs 09ozs
27th	Peg 33	Ant Haywood	7lbs 04ozs
28th	Peg 19	Rob Powell	7lbs 02ozs
29th	Peg 14	Mick Large	6lbs 00ozs
30th	Peg 48	Peter Morton	5lbs 09ozs
31st	Peg 57	Lee G	5lbs 06ozs
32nd	Peg 9	Roger Embury	5lbs 04ozs
33rd	Peg 50	Nick Watkins-Price	4lbs 12ozs
34th	Peg 51	John Buxton	4lbs 02ozs
35th	Peg 3	Simon Mound	4lbs 00ozs
36th=	Peg 46	Brian Gray	3lbs 08ozs
36th=	Peg 35	Steven Parker	3lbs 08ozs
38th	Peg 52	Ian Venn	2lbs 05ozs
39th	Peg 56	Clive Pritchard	2lbs 00ozs
40th	Peg 3	John Haigh	1lb  00ozs
41st	Peg 60	Steve Oswick	D.N.W.

	Section Winners
A	Tony Roberts
B	Dirk Williams
C	Neil Jeacock
D	David Wall
E	Eric Robathan

Rolf’s Lake. Holton. Oxfordshire. June 7, 2008

The JINX Series 2008

Match 2.

Sunshine greeted me as I loaded the car up for the trip to Rolf’s for the second match in the JINX SERIES. With plenty of time I was able to make my usual stop for Breakfast in Battersea. While I was there I phoned Malc to find out the state of the fishery as I knew he’d been there since the previous day with Dai, Mitch & Gemma helping John after the flash floods that had hit the area on Wednesday. Telling me that the lake was high but fishable, he then passed on some information that Nick Williams was threatening to fish in his underpants if the lake was too flooded, suffice to say that it nearly put me off my breakfast. However wiping the image from my mind that Malc had described I managed to polish off breakfast and carry on.

Pulling into the fishery car park at around 10·30am people were already arriving for the 11am draw. A chat with John revealed that at it’s height the lake had been within 2 inches of overflowing into the car park. With 2 pumps running the effort that John & Pauline had put in along with his helpers had once again got it to a fishable state even if it was still at least 3 feet above normal.

Mind you just how the lake would fish on the day was open to debate though John felt that the huge influx of water into the lake and the fact that some of the fish were still spawning would lead to a hard match.

Inevitably the draw was delayed as Malc sorted out which pegs were fishable, but it wouldn’t be a JINX match if it ran smoothly would it!!!!!

Into the draw-bag and peg 14 stuck to my hand, quite a shock as I always seem to draw on the little lake. Loading up my barrow I set off round the lake and seeing everyone setting up so far up the bank was a bit strange……

Anyway after lugging all my gear round I found that I had got Mitch to my right on 13 and Neo to my left on 15…

along with Clive on 16 for company today. A quick chat with Clive who spends a fair bit of time at Rolf’s reveals I’d got the end of the bar at around 20yds straight out, so I set up the pellet wag and feeder and plumb up a pole line at around 6mtrs where I could feed by hand to fish pellet and paste, though I also had sweetcorn and meat as change baits. Feed was the fisheries 6mm pellets and hemp.
So 1·30 and the all in, 2 big handfuls of pellet and hemp onto the 6mtr line and a pouch of pellet out to the bar followed by the pellet wag, and straight away it buries, softly softly into the net, a nice Common Carp around 6lbs, into the keepnet with the fish, another dozen pellets followed by the wag which buries again and another Common joins its pal in the net.

Well it slowed a bit after that, it seemed that there were a ton of silvers pecking at the pellet and I did connect with a couple of Skimmers, I tried upping the feed but that just turned it into a Jacuzzi. I kept altering the depth and managed another 3 Carp, but in all honesty I wasted far to much time trying to make it work.

With the swim still fizzing I went out with the feeder onto the bar, but had only had a couple of half hearted taps after about 20 minutes when the rod was ripped off the rest!!!!! This was a big old lump and it just plodded around stubbornly refusing to get its head up. Slowly I gained ground on it and it finally popped to the top, a bleedin great Common, it was certainly the largest fish I’ve ever hooked at Rolf’s, but just as I reached for the net it rolled on the line which parted like cotton.

Now at that point I should have changed my approach as the lads on the car park bank had all started to catch, but I re-tackled and went back out on the feeder and wasted another 40 biteless minutes.

Out onto the 6mtr line that I’d been feeding regularly and 1st put in the float buried resulting in Carp number 6 in the net, then a couple of foul hookers that I parted company with followed.

Roy over on peg 28 was starting to motor taking decent fish regularly…
Paul on 24 also seemed to be over his Rolf’s block, and having got his Ton in the previous match was motoring on towards another……
While Dave Collier on peg 30 was also romping along after a slow start to the match.
I’d blown it after letting my frustration get the better of me and chopping and changing rather than sticking at one approach. With an hour to go I picked up the shallow rig with a banded pellet, shipped out to 13mtrs and just kept firing hemp & pellet at it and had my best hour of the match with another 7 Carp including a weigher that I mugged as the all out was called.
It was to little to late though as I knew in my heart of hearts that I didn’t have enough in the net to compete on the day.
The scales told the tale of the day however with their slow progress round the lake. Kevin Loveland had drawn the same peg as his previous match where he’d had a mare, however today he’d managed 136½lbs, to record his 1st ever match TON. Paul had broken the 150lb barrier and Roy put 177lbs on the scales which would only be good enough for 3rd on the day!!!

Meanwhile down on peg 40 Ade Williams (Slim Shady) following up from his DOUBLE TON on the 1st match had managed a 2nd successive DOUBLE TON…

 but had still been beaten by Simon, fishing his 1st JINX match of the year he had a battle with Ade throughout the whole match…

Finally coming out on top with an excellent 221¾lb, a great performance on the day.

My weight? 92½lb only good enough for 15th on the day, though I did have one small consolation in that at least I managed to get my £1 back from Gemma and avoid a Minxing.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 2	Simon Mound	221lbs 12ozs
2nd	Peg 40	Ade Williams	206lbs 04ozs
3rd	Peg 28	Roy Ravenhill	177lbs 00ozs
4th	Peg 32	Malc Doyle	154lbs 12ozs
5th	Peg 24	Paul Roberts	150lbs 04ozs
6th	Peg 22	Kevin Loveland	136lbs 08ozs
7th	Peg 30	Dave Collier	128lbs 04ozs
8th	Peg 35	Mark Causer	126lbs 00ozs
9th	Peg 34	Keith Fellows	122lbs 08ozs
10th	Peg 16	Clive Prithard	121lbs 12ozs
11th	Peg 9	Colin Sharrard	118lbs 12ozs
12th	Peg 6	Tony Roberts	112lbs 12ozs
13th	Peg 7	Jon Hatch	110lbs 00ozs
14th	Peg 15	Nick Williams	100lbs 12ozs
15th	Peg 14	Peter Morton	92lbs 08ozs
16th	Peg 4	Dai Thomas	69lbs 08ozs
17th	Peg 13	Mitch Auger	69lbs 04ozs
18th	Peg 23	Ant Haywood	68lbs 04ozs
19th	Peg 37	Dave Moore	61lbs 00ozs
20th	Peg 8	Tim Westmoreland       (Guest)	48lbs 04ozs
21st	Peg 38	Gemma Doyle	23lbs 00ozs