Monk Lakes. Match Lakes 1 & 3. April 28th, 2007.

Disabled Angler.co.uk
Charities Championship Match.

Well today was the day for the 2nd qualifying match for the Disabled Angler.Co.Uk Charities Championship.
A nice smooth run down to Monk Lakes saw me pulling into the car park around 7·45am soon to be followed by Paul East (NoMoreLongWalks) A quick look at the lakes confirmed it would be windy as usual and with nothing more to be learnt we adjourned for breakfast.

After a while the usual suspects started to arrive, Vince armed with the reams of paperwork that accompany him when he organises a match. Dirk and Craig who he’d dragged along for company. Wayne Panting with his helper Rob Panding, who would also be fishing today. Young Sven for his annual outing onto the match circuit and Clive seeking some respite from his recent gruellers at Rolf’s. Dirk and Craig then set about parting the assembled anglers from a few more with the offer of raffle tickets and a chance in the guess the weight competition.

Draw time saw 39 anglers booked in, mostly lads hoping to get an insight on the venue before next weeks Fishomania qualifier, meaning every other peg was left out on the 2 lakes. Myself(peg24), Dirk(peg22), Paul (peg20)and Vince(peg16) drawn almost together on the causeway of Lake 1 with Sven opposite me on the far bank leading to a £1 side bet mini-match being hastily agreed.

Setting up I opted for the pole, finding a comfy 5ft at 11mtrs and a couple of feet in the margin on either side. I’d taken a waggler rod with the intention of fishing the pellet waggler, but the wind from left to right made it a non starter IMO, though the angler on the peg to my right went with it, so I would be able to judge whether I had made the right decision.

11am and all-in with 2 large pots of GOT 4mm sinking pellet and a few grains of corn going in at 11mtrs and a big handful going into both margins. Bait for the day was GOT 6mm expanders and their 6mm soft hookers in both catmeat and liver flavour.

A small Tench and an F1 in the 1st couple of put ins was a nice start but the wind was making presentation hard.
I stuck at it for about 30mins before having a look on the inside with a top2 which produced a Skimmer straight away.

Paul behind me was bemoaning the fact that he couldn’t catch up in the water regardless of what he tried, but it was probably due to the fact that he had come straight from a night shift and was cream crackered.

Dirk was enjoying himself as usual putting more than a few fish into the net and so he should have been, seeing as I had drawn his peg for him, his usual flyer of an end peg right next to the aerators'.

Over on the other side Sven seemed happy enough even though from what I could see sport appeared to be pretty slow ……
…………. he wasn’t alone in this however as from what I could see nobody was exactly taking the place apart.

Vince appeared to be struggling with trying to decide which was his best line to fish, though he did have me worried for a while when he came over with a ball of paste for me to try, saying that he was starting to bag a few carp on it ( you have to have fished with Vince to know that “bagging” is a relative term where he’s concerned)
Around 1·30 Dave (The Fish) Collier put in an appearance and very kindly got the teas in for us allowing us to go through to the end at 4pm. I’d had a steady match catching pretty regularly with a real mixture of fish… F1′s, Carp, Barbel, Ide, Tench (both green and golden), Skimmers and even a solitary Perch making up my net that I guessed went over 50lbs but which I knew wasn’t going to be good enough.

Packing up while we waited for the scales was when disaster struck!!!!!! Leaning across my box to lift up the footplate the box tipped and three of my drawers went flying into the swim. Much hilarity ensued as my fellow anglers offered their sympathy as I delved around up to my armpits retrieving spools of line, disgorgers and all the various bit’s and bobs that had come to inhabit those draws over the years.

Scales time and Vince managed a mid thirties weight, while Paul tipped back for a DNW. Dirk took the coin with 72lbs with me only managing 66lbs and Sven a meagre 10lbs, not that he was gloating or anything when he got his hands on our coins…

Back to the car park for the results and it was soon apparent that the lakes had fished hard on the day, though a total of 1871lbs 12ozs was put on the scales, averaging out at just under 48lbs per man.

Raffle done and out of the way it was result time, and firstly the section winners received their coin……

Section A	peg 18	J Young	83lb 08oz
Section B	peg 32	B Maylyn	83lb 08oz
Section C	peg 108	C Pritchard	55lb 00oz
Section D	peg 132	B Ramsden	68lb 12oz

In overall 3rd place was A Willet with 94lbs from peg 12 on Lake 1………


Takingthe runners-up spot with 97lbs 1oz from peg 92 on Lake 3 was Gary Cross………

In 1st place with the only Ton-up weight of the day of 122lbs from peg 112 on Lake 3 was Rob Panding……
Finally just a word of Thanks to Vince for the bulk of the organisation, and a further word of thanks to all the Anglers that supported the day allowing us to add a further £391 to the total for the year. Looking forward to next year already.

1st	R Panding	122lbs 00ozs
2nd	G Cross	97lbs 01ozs
3rd	A Willet	94lbs 00ozs
4th	J Young	83lbs 08ozs
5th	B Malyn	83lbs 08ozs
6th	D Williams	72lbs 00ozs
7th	J Clark	68lbs 12ozs
8th	T Bailey	68lbs 04ozs
9th	P Morton	66lbs 00ozs
10th	A Cumming	63lbs 12ozs
11th	T Clark	60lbs 00ozs
12th	S Joy	56lbs 12ozs
13th	C Pritchard	55lbs 00ozs
14th	G Barbata	54lbs 10ozs
15th	D Wheeler	51lbs 04ozs
16th	A Milsom	50lbs 12ozs
17th	S Sharpe	50lbs 08ozs
18th	K Borer	48lbs 12ozs
19th	J Hague	47lbs 12ozs
20th	M Dowling	47lbs 04ozs
21st	S Pearson	46lbs 12ozs
22nd	T Baker	45lbs 09ozs
23rd	D Ward	44lbs 12ozs
24th	A Walker	42lbs 12ozs
25th	A Szekeres	41lbs 04ozs
26th	J Webber	38lbs 08ozs
27th	W Panting	37lbs 12ozs
28th	W Taylor	36lbs 08ozs
29th	I Carley	36lbs 00ozs
30th	I Webber	35lbs 08ozs
31st	V Gould	35lbs 06ozs
32nd	M Collins	34lbs 08ozs
33rd	D Sage	33lbs 04ozs
34th	A Piper	32lbs 02ozs
35th	C Hunt	24lbs 00ozs
36th	I Covey	21lbs 00ozs
37th	S Castle	10lbs 00ozs
38th=	M Leask	DNW
38th=	P East	DNW

A very pleasant and unexpected aside to this match was both Vince and I being presented at the end with a small token of their appreciation from Disabled-Angler.co.uk for our efforts in putting the match together.

Alders Farm. The Match Lake. April 14th, 2007.

Matt Nutt’s Charity Match
supporting
Disabled Angler.co.uk.

Well today was the day of Matt Nutt’s match at Alders Farm in support of The Disabled Angler.co.uk 2007 Charities Championship, which this year is aiming to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Relief and Rainbows Children’s Hospice. It’s days like this that show just how the internet brings like minded individuals together for good causes, with members from Maggotdrowning.com, The Danglers, The GOT forum and Total-Fishing amongst those attending on the day.

A foggy trip down meant that I arrived at about 7·50, just in time to get my tackle together and head down to the fishery café for breakfast and a chance to view one of the more off the wall fundraisers on the day. Trevor Price of GOT Baits had been persuaded to part with his old faithful slippers after the lads on the GOT Forum pledged £200+ just to be allowed to burn them at the end of the match …

9am and the draw saw me with peg 33 for my match, with Gary Page of GOT Baits for company on 32, Nick Bryan on 34 and Dirk on 35………

Plumbing up saw me facing pretty much the same as the previous Sunday with just 2½ ft at 12mtrs and a shallow bramble lined bay with maybe 18 inches depth to my right for a margin swim.

The all-in was called at 10·15 and a couple of pots of GOT 4mm sinkers were potted out on the 12 mtr line and a handful into the margin. Straight out to 12 mtrs with a GOT 6mm soft hooker at dead depth and within 30 seconds I was playing my 1st fish of the day, a small Carp of about 2lbs . Indeed the 1st hour went well for me with 10 Carp finding their way to the keepnet all falling to pellet fished at dead depth allowing me to keep pace with Gary on 32.

Nick on 34 however was suffering one of those matches ……

The Carp in his peg were obviously related to Harry Houdini, slipping the hook on numerous occasions, Indeed 1½hrs into the match all he had to show for his efforts were a couple of tiny Rudd.

Unfortunately after my good start things slowed down, I would get 2 or three bites allowing me to nick the odd fish and would then have to wait 15-20 minutes for another run of bites. Gary however was catching more regularly, although he appeared to be suffering from a few lost fish, probably foul hooked at least he was managing to keep the bites and fish coming.

Further round on 30 Matt was having a bit of a struggle and resorted to impersonating a Jap Sniper as he tried to winkle a few lumps out from under his marginal bush…

Along on 28 Wayne Panting was getting a fair few fishing meat up in the water (one of the few today to catch up in the water) along with Steve Wroe on 29 next door, while further along Keith aka Gandhi could be seen doing his best to sneak a few out of his margin………

I finally managed to put a run of fish together in the last 40minutes, just a bit to little to late, and with the all-out called I knew Gary had battered me off the next peg. The weigh-in just confirmed it, my 25 Carp totaling just over 63lbs while Gary put 114lbs 11ozs onto the scales for a comfortable win.

Wayne from The Danglers had had a decent day on his 1st visit to the fishery, the scales recording his weight at 81lbs 7ozs for a very creditable 2nd overall……

Back to the café for the results and a raffle and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had won my section thanks to Gary taking the win.

The really good news however was the presentation by Matt of the proceeds of the day…… £1417 !!!!! with the promise of more to come in, which was gratefully accepted by Dirk on behalf of Disabled-Angler.co.uk.

All that was left was to give the send off to Trev’s slippers which was done with some style ………

So a great day all round, A Big Thank You to Matt for organising the match, and to all the anglers that took part. I can’t wait for next year.

Alders Farm. The Match Lake. April 8th, 2007.

TalkAngling.co.uk Forum Match.

At the back end of December last year Keith aka Gandhi had offered to organise a match for the members of the TalkAngling website who had expressed an interest in fishing at Alders Farm, and is often the way with these things the 20 places were soon filled. I made sure I got my name down for this one as I hadn't fished there before, but had heard plenty of good reports about the venue. As with most of these type of events those with allegiances to more than one site ended up being involved, but that just adds to the banter and fun on the day.

A nice smooth journey from South London found me arriving in the car park by 7·30am, closely followed by MarkC, Royst and Eric.The biggest shock however was the arrival of Malc (The Jinx) and daughter Gemma (The Minx) a whole hour before the draw !!!! Soon it was time to dip the nets and face “The Hill” down to the Match Lake and a waiting breakfast, and I have to say that it’s a top breakfast that really sets you up for the day.

9am and draw time and a £1 side bet was agreed with The Minx before peg 3 stuck to my hand, a nice short walk. A quick chat with a couple of the GOT anglers saw my plan of attack formulated for the 5 hours ahead and I was soon settled in with Chris BT for company on peg 2 and Phil Young aka Madd on peg 4.
The plan was to be fishing on the deck at 12mtrs where it was about 3ft deep and to keep pinging a few pellets in to see if they would come up later while feeding a line under the bush to my left where hopefully a few lumps would show later. Bait wise I went with a mix of GOT expanders and soft hookers with 4mm hard feed pellets.

At the all in I put a handful under the bush and 2 pots of pellet out on the 12mtr line before going straight out over it. Within a minute I’d bumped one but next put in came back with a nice chunky Mirror around the 2lb mark.

Looking over to the other side I could see  Mick Wilkinson taking in the sun in his shorts and Matt stripped to the waist while I was shielded from the sun by the bush to my left and with the wind blowing towards me sat shivering in bib & brace and fleece, even Malc remarked on it when he came down on one of his customary wanders.
Match wise it proved to be a bit frustrating as I suffered runs of unhittable bites and a number of foulhookers. Laying a couple of inches of line on the deck, or moving up off the deck appeared to have no effect, with the fish only wanting it at dead depth and nothing showing under the bush. Numbers wise Chris and I probably had the same number of fish, but his appeared to be a better stamp.

Weigh in time rolled round at 3pm and it was noticeable that the usual pegs hadn’t produced while normally unfancied ones had and this was put down to the fact that ours was the 3rd match on the venue in 3 days. Never the less with a total weight of 1184lbs 12ozs weighed in between 20 anglers averaging out at just under 60lbs per peg it goes to show what a good venue Alders is.
Winner on the day was Vic Nugent who had 47 carp making up his winning bag of 111lbs 12ozs.
 

Many Thanks to Keith for organising the day, I certainly enjoyed it and will be back next Saturday to fish Matt Nutt’s Charity Match in aid of Disabled Angler.Co.Uk .

1st	Peg 38	Vic Nugent	111lbs 12ozs
2nd	Peg 5	Simon Edwards	100lbs 07ozs
3rd	Peg 23	Roy Ravenhill	82lbs 03ozs
4th	Peg 18	Gary Thorpe	79lbs 13ozs
5th	Peg 28	Trevor Price	70lbs 06ozs
6th	Peg 36	Keith Ashby	70lbs 04ozs
7th	Peg 4	Phil Young	69lbs 14ozs
8th	Peg 17	Mark Causer	68lbs 00ozs
9th	Peg 2	Chris BT	67lbs 04ozs
10th	Peg 32	Matt Nutt	61lbs 06ozs
11th	Peg 8	Tony Walsh	58lbs 12ozs
12th	Peg 3	Peter Morton	57lbs 08ozs
13th	Peg 29	Mick Wilkinson	54lbs 04ozs
14th	Peg 7	Malc Doyle	51lbs 13ozs
15th	Peg 1	Pete Thompson	50lbs 06ozs
16th	Peg 6	Rob Bailey	47lbs 04ozs
17th	Peg 20	Eric Robathan	32lbs 15ozs
18th	Peg 27	Gemma Doyle	25lbs 01ozs
19th	Peg 21	David Ashby	13lbs 13ozs
20th	Peg 34	John Kingfisher	11lbs 11ozs