Monk Lakes. Match Lake 2. August 19th, 2006.

Maggotdrowning.com

 

Southern Championship.

Having dropped Maria off at work at 6am and then loaded the car up, I took a leisurely drive down to Monk Lakes arriving earlier than anticipated at around 8am. Once again the fishery had put the “Welcome Maggotdrowners” sign out, and after parking up I thought I’d take a quick look at match lake 2, only to find that Terry (wily) Clive (blackhydro) & Darren (badatfishing) along with RonB had beaten me to it.

A quick look confirmed that you would either have the wind full in your face all day or off your back depending on your draw.
Some seemed to fancy peg 45, whether for the short walk or the fact it was a corner end-peg was open to debate. whoever drew it would have the wind full in their face however with very little chance of getting a brolly up should the threatened bad weather appear.

Back for a bit of breakfast and the draw, and pulling into the car park is a white Carlton estate and Dai’s arrived for his 1st outing since he had his operation. He’d spoken to me a couple of days earlier saying that he fancied it having not been out for months, and my mention that he just might just finally catch a GOLDEN TENCH here probably made his mind up though.

At the draw Vince announced that the previous match had been won from peg 45, so you can imagine just how delighted he was to see it resting in my hand when I pulled it out of the hat.
Setting up it was obvious that fishing long up in the water would be hard work, and as I had been off work for the previous 3 days with a pulled muscle in my back it wasn’t really an option for me. Plumbing up though revealed a good 2 feet on a top 2 line with just 3 feet at about 5 meters.
With every other peg missed out I was pretty sure that I could catch close, so made up my mind to go for it from the off, and with Clive (blackhydro) to my left setting up to fish further out I would be able to see if I needed to lengthen my line as things progressed.

11am and Vince called all-in and I fed 3 lines, 2 just a comfortable underarm for 4mm pellets and another cupping in at 5 meters. Baits for the day were just GOT 6mm expanders and Paste, but before I could put a pellet on a shout from Dai had me running down the bank to capture this moment …
Just the sort of thing that makes it all worthwhile, the smile wouldn’t leave Dai’s face for the rest of the match.

Back on my peg and I dropped the top2 rig in and the float just kept going!! Had I overshotted it? obviously not as the black hydro streamed out of the top. 30 seconds later and an 8oz Barbel was safely in the net and I was off and running.
Looking around it was soon evident that plenty of people were putting a few fish in their nets and miraculously the wind was holding the threat of rain off despite plenty of grey clouds scudding past.
It soon became obvious that my peg was solid with small Barbel, super fit fish in perfect condition that gave a good account of themselves on soft set Black Hydro.
Now a constant bone of contention on forums is Barbel in still waters, I can only say that these fish in Monks are as fit as any that I’ve caught in rivers over the years and appear none the worse for wear due to their environment. Indeed they have been bred at the fish farm that adjoins the Monk Lakes complex.

Sport was steady and with 3 and a bit hours gone Dave the Fish came along for his customary chat while he had a sarnie, and admitting to around 40lbs for his efforts so far. I estimated I had around 100 fish split between my 2 nets and decided to use a 3rd net for the final part of the match. Getting up to reposition my nets, I slipped !!!!!! Both feet straight in past my ankles, thankfully I had a spare pair of boots in the car, so a quick time out to change and sort things out left me with around an hour to go.

Thankfully despite this disruption they were still there and I caught steadily right up to the end at 4pm landing my last fish as Vince called the all out.

Weigh in time, and our bank had obviously been Barbel Alley, Dave starting off with 65lbs just edging RonB’s 63lbs. Dai proving he was back in the groove putting a very creditable 81lbs on for a section win, Clive just missing out with 78lbs.
My 3 nets totalled 100lbs exactly, putting me into pole, but with Nick Gilbert admitting to 80lbs or maybe a tad more.

Next up was Polemad who had been opposite me, just missing out on a “TON” with 95lbs.

Then we came to Mr Gilbert. What can I say? other than “I’ll NEVER BELIEVE ANOTHER OF HIS ESTIMATES AGAIN!!!!!!!” as his 80lbs guesstimate transformed itself into 170lbs!!!!!!. a superb weight on the day comprising of nearly all carp as with the wind behind him he had been able to catch up in the water on banded pellet all day.
It proved to be Nick’s biggest ever match weight making him a worthy winner and MD’s Southern Champion 2006.

The rest of the weigh-in Produced yet more weights between 50-80lbs, even Vince’s daughter Jessica managing a creditable 21lbs with dad’s help.
While Vince himself despite spending time with Jessica putting together a nice bag weighing 52lbs.
So back for a welcome cuppa and the results revealing that the 16 anglers present had put 1120lbs on the scales, an average of 70lbs per angler.

1st	Nick Gilbert	170lbs 00ozs
2nd	Peter(Mugger)Morton	100lbs 08ozs
3rd	Rob Page	95lbs 00ozs
4th	Dai Thomas	81lbs 08ozs
5th	John Brimicombe	80lbs 08ozs
6th	Clive Pritchard	78lbs 08ozs
7th	Chris Withall	70lbs 00ozs
8th	Dave Collier	65lbs 00ozs
9th	Darren Smith	64lbs 00ozs
10th	Ron Bignold	63lbs 00ozs
11th	Paul East	57lbs 08ozs
12th	Terry Goff	53lbs 00ozs
13th	Vince Gould	52lbs 08ozs
14th	Colin Sharrard	44lbs 08ozs
15th	Kevin Loveland	24lbs 00ozs
16th	Jessica Gould	21lbs 00ozs

All that remains is to say a BIG THANK YOU to Vince for organising the day, and all those that turned up to make it a most enjoyable day, I’m sure we’ll be doing it all again in the not to distant future.