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.