Old Bury Hill Fishery. The Estate Lake. August 27, 2007

So Bank Holiday Monday and Maria was working today, so after dropping her at work at 6am I popped back home to load my kit up and set off towards Dorking, having decided to take the opportunity to reacquaint myself with The Old Estate Lake at Bury Hill Fisheries. Surprisingly for a Bank Holiday the traffic was very light and in just under an hour I was pulling into an already busy car park at the fishery.

Stopping off at the Boathouse to get my day ticket I notice that things have moved on since I last visited with a much better stocked tackle and bait section now in place and a quick glance along the Front Bank reveals that most of those swims are already taken. I really wanted to get among a few of the Bream that the lake is known for, so set off along the Long Bank in the hope of getting one of the swims amongst the lily pads.
Carpers, carpers everywhere, but just as it looked like I would be unlucky I found a swim 2 shy of the culvert that would do nicely for the day, allowing me to reach the pads on both sides at 14½mtrs and with a decent amount of open water in front should I hook a Carp.

The rig was simplicity itself, a top2 rigged with black Hydro with a 4×12 KC Carpa Tricky float rigged up on 0·17 Carptec line straight through to a barbless 18 fox series2 hook to fish on the bottom in about 4ft of water. Bait was to be GOT Baits  6mm expanders, with a few of these being fed along with their 4mm hard pellets.

It wasn’t hard fishing really just a question of feeding the 2 opposite lines and alternating between them till a bite came along, which it finally did after about 30mins. A little dip and it just slid away and within a minute there in the net was one of OBH’s smaller Bream going around 3lbs …

The promise of another bright hot sunny day looked as if it may have an adverse effect on sport but by sticking at it I’d had 10 between 3 – 4½lbs by 11am.

Next put in and a similar bite saw a lot of Hydro heading through the pads, cranking the pressure onto my Super PowerLite a tug of war ensued, slowly and surely the pressure told and the fish came out into open water. The commotion had brought the angler from the next swim round to watch and within a couple of minutes there in the net was a nice Common Carp of around 10lbs……

The chap in the next swim was called Paul, fishing more conventional Carp gear of matched rods and baitrunners on a pod, and soon he was into a Carp that has taken a hair rigged Halibut pellet. It was soon netted and weighed in at 12lbs. He'd only got a basic camera so I captured it on my digital to e-mail to him later………

Another couple of Bream for me and then I was into another tug of war, this time in the other set of pads!!!!!!! Once again the constant pressure told and the fish popped out into the open water and after 3-4 minutes of dogged plodding it slid over the net, a much chunkier fish this time coming in at just over 12lbs with Paul snapping a picture for me………

A quick phone call to Malc to find out how he was doing on a pole only match at Drayton reveals he wasn’t!!!!!!!!! Yep, the Peugeot had let him down once again and he was waiting for the recovery truck……………… Some things never change. Another quick call to Dave revealed that he and Stu were on a Barbel hunt on a river somewhere in deepest Yorkshire, but at that point in time they hadn’t had one.

Paul meanwhile had another nice Common while I had 3 more Bream in successive put in’s followed by another Carp, a Mirror this time, which thankfully charged out into open water allowing me to bring it to the net relatively easily. In the net it looked a little weird as it appeared to have a massively underslung mouth, it hasn’t affected it’s appetite though as it appeared otherwise fit and well at around the 10lb mark…

Yet more Bream put in an appearance and around 3pm I was thinking of packing up to avoid catching the Bank Holiday traffic on the way home when the float slid away and I was attached to another Carp, yet another Common and with Paul doing the honours it proved to be my best of the day at 14lbs. As I started to pack my gear away Paul was in again , and after a spirited fight I found myself doing the honours again, this time it’s another lovely Common tipping the scales at 17lbs……….

So that was it for me, a very pleasant days fishing with some good company and a final tally of 17 Bream and 4 Carp. Paul was stopping on for a few more hours so I bade him farewell having made sure I had his E-mail address to forward the pictures on to him.

Next up it’s the final round of The Jinx Series at Rolf’s Lake next Saturday, Hopefully Malc will get there but with his car you wouldn’t bet on it.

Hartleylands Farm Fishery. The Reservoir. August 18th, 2007.

Marsh AC club match.

Well I was out with the members of Marsh AC today for a club match on The Reservoir at Hartleylands Farm, Cranbrook, Kent.
A quick look out of the window revealed a dull grey day with the rain falling, so after a spot of breakfast it was time to load the car up, not forgetting the waterproofs as it looked like being a wet old day. Hartleylands is about 40 miles away from home and a relaxed run down takes about an hour meaning that I arrived just after 8am just as it stopped raining, in plenty of time for the 8·30am draw.

Holidays, weather and a number of other factors mean that there were only 12 of us present for this match, meaning that there was plenty of room for us as we had the whole of the Reservoir booked. Into the hat and I found that I had drawn peg 25, not a draw that particularly excited me, but as with most pegs on the water it should be good for a few fish.

Today was really going to be a day for me to try a few things out. I’ve become more and more disenchanted with the Hydrolastic that I’ve been using over the past 18 months/2years. I really don’t feel that it gives me the control especially when it comes to decent sized carp. With this in mind I’ve stripped the red hydro out of the power kits of my main pole and my margin pole. I’ve replace these with solid yellow Vespe (22+) in 2 of the kits for my main pole and solid orange Vespe (25+) in the margin pole kits, all set as soft as possible.
I also had a bucket of unbranded feed pellets that my local tackle dealer had asked me to try out and give him my thoughts on. They’re green 4mm with a strong fishmeal smell, lighter than swimstim ones though and when they’re dampened the colour doesn’t leach out of them. Bait was to be paste made up with bait-tech Special G Green groundbait, though I did have some Dedra’s with me as a back up.

Setting up didn’t take long with just 3 top kits, a margin rig, another for 4mtrs in front and another for 7mtrs.
Looking across I could see Colin and Terry discussing their prospects for the day ahead……

 and Dave making sure he had everything with him as he settled into peg 17, which had set a new fishery record of 288lbs the month before……
Tony, my partner on the recent MD’s pairs weekend was just up from me on peg 21, while Paul, my guest on the day settled into peg 29 close to the car park.

10am and the all in and I fed 3 large handfuls of pellets into both margins along with a handful at 4 and 7 mtrs. Straight out to 7mtrs with a large knob of paste and after a minute the float buried and after a short but spirited scrap the first fish of the day was in the net, a scale perfect Common of around 4lbs. Straight back out with the paste and a few pellets over the top and a minute later I was in again resulting in a similar sized Mirror resting safely in the net. Back out and within a minute the elastic streamed out and a 5lb Mirror slid over the net, Happy Days!!!!!

At this point the day took a turn for the worst, the bites just stopped!!!! Despite rotating through all the lines nothing!!!!
I could see that others were still managing the occasional fish. Just after 11·30 I got a bite down my left hand margin and after a spirited fight managed to put the net under a nice mirror around the 8lb mark, but then things went quiet for me again. Just after 12noon Vince put in an appearance, he had hoped to be fishing today but family commitments scuppered that, however he found the time to pop down for a brief chat just as Dave came round with a hot steak slice from the farm shop, always very civilised affairs the matches Dave runs.

A change to double Dedra’s on the hook resulted in a couple of bites to which I was only briefly connected, hard to imagine that the worms had covered the hook point to prevent a proper hook up, so maybe they were foul hookers? However I did manage to land a couple of smaller Carp before Vince left, but felt I was dropping behind in the match as I could see Tony further up still sneaking a few out from the margins though a couple of better fish had managed to get the better of him as revealed by his rather forthright comments on the matter.

Young Zack, the club Junior was nicking the odd fish on the feeder……
and Chris on the opposite side to me was starting to put together a run of decent fish.

With an hour to go I decided to concentrate on the 4mtr line but all it produced was a couple of Skimmers while Tony appeared to be getting a fish a chuck now. Finally with 10 minutes to go I got another Carp, another decent Mirror around the 8lb mark swiftly followed by another of a similar stamp just before the all out.

Weigh in time and all was revealed, Colin, Terry, Dave and Chris had all been amongst the fish with Chris’s good late run earning him 2nd on the day with 88lbs 8ozs. Graham Manning on peg 15 managed 81lbs 8ozs for 3rd on the day, but everyone was eclipsed by Tony’s level 116lbs for a fine win on the day.

1st	Tony Roberts	116lbs 00ozs
2nd	Chris Withall	88lbs 08ozs
3rd	Graham Manning	81lbs 08ozs
4th	Terry Goff	69lbs 12ozs
5th	Dave Collier	69lbs 08ozs
6th	Colin Sharrard	54lbs 08ozs
7th	Peter Morton	43lbs 00ozs
8th	Jim Boase	33lbs 12ozs
9th	Zack Johnson	28lbs 08ozs
10th	Paul East	28lbs 00ozs
11th	Kevin Loveland	24lbs 04ozs
12th	Martin Hucker	17lbs 00ozs

So to sum up, a decent days fishing in good company as it always is with the gang from Marsh AC. Maybe not the best of days for me personally, but far from the worst. Nice to get out and catch a few fish after my nightmare at Stockton the previous week, and it didn’t rain at all until I got into the car to start the drive home.

Where to next? Well it’s back to Rolf’s in 2 weeks time for the last round of the Jinx Series, unless of course I manage to get out over the Bank Holiday Weekend.

Stockton Reservoir. Southam. August 10th, 2007.

The JINX Series 2007

Match 4.

Well, off to Stockton today for the 4th round of the Jinx Series. A nice trouble free drive up saw me arrive in plenty of time enabling me to take a leisurely stroll round what I consider to be one of BW’s most scenic waters and to have a look at the pegs we would be fishing today.

 In previous Jinx matches I’ve fished on the venue we have fished “The Boards” pegs, but for this match we were on those to the right as you enter from the car park including those known as The Animal pegs due to them being surrounded by masses of rushes which can make extracting any of the resident Carp something of a challenge. They are also home to plenty of bird life too………

Most of us arrived in good time allowing for a pre match drink in The Blue Lias Inn and the chance of a chin-wag and a chance to catch up.
As usual Malc had forgotten a number of things including the weigh sling and draw sheets so the draw was a little delayed, meaning that we would be fishing from 1·30 – 6·30pm.

The draw bag had dealt me peg 41, right on the end of the Animal Pegs so that I had relatively open water with just the end of the reeds reachable with a short cast on the feeder. To my left I had Paul Roberts accompanied by his good lady Jayne (Though rumour has it that she’s really his community care worker) on peg 42. While to my right on peg 40 was young Ant Haywood, current leader of this years Jinx Series, and only needing another section win to tie up the series with one match to go.

My plan of attack was going to be simple, just setting up a feeder rod  for the chuck to the edge of the reeds alternating baits between meat, catmeat, corn, pellet or worm until I could find what they wanted. Initially I didn’t set up my pole intent on sticking with the feeder.

All in and most started on the feeder but Ant fed heavily at both 16mtrs and 8mtrs before spending a short time on the pole. Paul soon discovered that with Colin to his left and myself to his right he was surrounded by “Cockneys” and it would be fair to say that it set the tone for a sustained 5hrs of light hearted banter and mickey taking.

Sport was so slow that it was almost none existent, even this fella didn’t seem to be having any luck…………..

though Ant managed to foul hook a Carp and played it patiently to the net with plenty of encouragement from yours truly and a short while later this was followed by another similar fish………….

Me? I couldn’t buy a bite and after 2½hrs out came the pole. Dave Collier came up for a chat and almost right on cue the float dipped up up popped a foul hooked Perch, straight into the net and at least a DNW had been avoided, this was soon followed by a Rudd that swallowed a worm twice it’s size, I was positively baggin……….NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Paul was getting a few bites on the paste by now but was having trouble keeping them out of the reeds, but at least he was getting some fish into the net. I sat the final hour out on the paste over pellet and was briefly attached to a couple of Carp before they vanished into the distance, but the reality was that the final whistle was a blessing, as I had the feeling that I could have sat there for another 5 hours and progressed no further.

So yet another £1 coin handed over to young Gemma due to her MINXING me as I weighed in an incredibly generous 4ozs from the scales-man.(The cheque’s in the post Malc.)

Paul edged out Ant for the section, but he’s still in pole position for the series. Matt Nutt won on the day with 6 Carp all caught on the pellet for 48lbs.

I still love the venue but it can be incredibly frustrating and it beat me today but I will return as it’s one of those venues that I really enjoy.

Next weekend I’m out with the members of Marsh AC at Hartleylands Farm where we’re fishing the Reservoir, hopefully I’ll manage a few more fish than today, but who knows? I’ll let you know the outcome. 

Position	Angler	Weight
1st	Matt Nutt	48lbs 00ozs
2nd	Roy Ravenhill	41lbs 08ozs
3rd	Paul Roberts	28lbs 00ozs
4th	Gary Thorpe                (Guest)	26lbs 00ozs
5th	Nick Jones	24lbs 08ozs
6th	Brian Bevan	23lbs 12ozs
7th	Dirk Williams	23lbs 00ozs
8th	Fred Parker	21lbs 12ozs
9th	Ant Haywood	17lbs 08ozs
10th	Nick Williams	16lbs 12ozs
11th	Eric Robathan	15lbs 04ozs
12th=	Steve Wilson	15lbs 00ozs
12th=	Dave Collier	15lbs 00ozs
12th=	Jimmy L                       (Guest)	15lbs 00ozs
15th=	Mark Causer	10lbs 00ozs
15th=	Keith Ashby	10lbs 00ozs
17th	Kevin Lake	9lbs 12ozs
18th	Malc Doyle	8lbs 04ozs
19th	Tim Westmoreland        (Guest)	8lbs 00ozs
20th=	Dave Moore	7lbs 08ozs
20th=	Clive Pritchard	7lbs 08ozs
22nd	Dave Ashby	7lbs 00ozs
23rd	Gemma Doyle	6lbs 04ozs
24th	Geoff Eggison	1lbs 08ozs
25th	Nick Watkins-Price	12ozs
26th=	Peter Morton	04ozs
26th=	Colin Sharrard	04ozs
28th=	Mark Lake	DNW
28th=	Dai Thomas	DNW
28th=	Simon Mound                (Guest)	DNW

Willow Park Fishery, Aldershot. August 3rd, 2007.

The Southern Intersite Match.

Well today saw me making the relatively short trip down to Willow Park Fishery at Ash Vale for the Southern Intersite match and within an hour of leaving home I was pulling into the car park to see many of the participants already there, ready and eager for hopefully a good days fishing, despite the fact that it was obviously going to be a scorchingly hot day.

Breakfast taken care of, most of the anglers were eager for the draw and while we waited many took the opportunity to catch up with old friends and meet some new ones that they had only spoken to on the various forums before. In that respect it was nice to meet up with bad.boy bagger and bagging up art, two lads from Bath who use the TalkAngling forum and had told me how much they had enjoyed reading this blog, Cheers Lads.

A quick phone call meanwhile revealed that unfortunately Dai Thomas wouldn’t be joining us as an electrical problem with his car had forced him to return home to Wales. However a local stepped in to make up the numbers for us ensuring that we would not be short on the day.

Vince’s team meeting was short and to the point, with just 1 instruction…….DON’T WIN!!!!!!!!.
I should probably explain at this point that Maggotdrowning.com team members don’t take the Intersite Team matches too seriously, indeed when the series started, it was designed to be light hearted, and an opportunity for anglers from other sites to meet each other, put faces to names and have a bit of fun. We have just carried on with that ethos despite a competitive edge creeping in for some other teams.

So with the draw over it was time to make our way to our pegs. I already knew that I would be fishing the Big Lake and peg 73 on the culvert bank was going to be “home” for the next 5 hours.

 A nice comfy peg and with the pegging leaving every other peg out, plenty of room to operate. Given the good head of Bream present I set up 2 feeder rods and paced them both out to around 45yds and clipped them both up.
Groundbait was the new Bait-Tech Special’G’ Green with Casters and chopped worm added and worm, caster or a combination of both as hookbaits. I did set up a pole for a line at 8mtrs but this was very much a get out of jail option as I wanted to concentrate on the feeder.

All set up with 25 minutes to go I took a stroll round to see Vince who was on peg 59 over on the Bungalow Bank in what can be a good Bream swim with the wind blowing into it, though todays bright sunshine rather negated that. He had Perry Stone, one of the local experts for company on end peg 57 but seemed relaxed enough when I left him to get back for the start.

So 11am and the Klaxon signalled the start of the match. A whole Dendra was selected as bait and the feeder punched out and within 30 secs of the feeder settling the tip pulled round and a 8oz Skimmer found it’s way to the safety of the net “Happy Days” a point guaranteed for the team, job done.

2½ hours later and I hadn't had another touch, despite a phone call offering encouragement from Dave (RedLeader) trying various combinations of hook lengths etc, not even a liner. Reluctantly I opted for the pole, balling in 3 big balls containing chopped worm & caster and offering either half a Dendra or double caster on the hook. A couple of small indications early on, but it was not till Geoff P phoned me from Scotland to see how it was going that I finally managed a Perch quickly followed by a Skimmer and a net Roach. Sport was never fast and furious but at least I was putting a few bits into the net on a regular basis including a nice Crucian of around the pound.

With around an hour to go something took a liking to my offering of double caster and as the float slid away my strike was met with a very solid resistance. Vince phoned at this point and we had a quick chat as to just how far Black Hydro could stretch, as I was obviously attached to a large lump of a Carp I told him that I'd phone him back.
Thankfully the fish seemed to be more of a plodder than a torpedo and after 10 anxious minutes it was finally in the landing net. Adrenalin probably made it look bigger in the net than it really was and I could have sworn it was a ”Twenty” however the scales later confirmed it at 17lbs.
Back in after re-balling with another 3 balls of groundbait brought me a few more perch and roach, when with 15 minutes to go I was attached to what was obviously another double figure Carp which while not quite as large as the 1st was more of the turbo charged variety!!!!! Once again the Hydro received a full workout, but just as I began to feel that I had the beating of it, it surfaced and rolled across the line parting it like cotton.
5 minutes later the klaxon sounded and that was it match over.

Round came the scales and my 7lbs odd of bits added to the Carp gave me 24lbs 10ozs which was good enough for 2nd in section, edged out by Martin Harper aka The Runner on peg 75 who had the Bream and Crucians turn up on his pole line with an hour to go enabling him to put 29lbs 2ozs on the scales, a good result from the lake on the day.

Back to the car-park for the results and it was soon apparent that The Maggotdrowners had stuck to the team instructions with Vince’s 3lbs+ just being edged out by Perry Stone’s 87lbs 14ozs for the Individual win on the day. 

Middle Lake had by popular consent been exceptionally hard on the day Clive had managed a creditable 14 ozs but was edged out of worst place by Paul (NoMoreLongWalks) with 13ozs.

 Small lake had produced some more consistent weights but not to the expected level.

Thankfully none of the MD’s won their sections though Fred(Milo) and I nearly blew it finishing 2nd in ours, allowing us to take our customary last place on the day with 19points.

I’d like to say a word of thanks to Dave(Pikey)Pearson for his efforts organising the match, superbly done as always, it’s not his fault that we always seem to have heat wave conditions on the day of the Southern Intersite. Nice to put some names to yet more faces, we’ll have to do it again next year, though hopefully not at Willow Park. 

OFFICIAL INTERSITE RESULT

Angling Forums	30 points
Total Fishing	28 points
Talk Angling	23 points
Maggotdrowning	19 points

	Section Winners
	Small Lake
Giles Cochrane	Total Fishing	46lbs 07ozs
Dave Baptist	Angling Forums	29lbs 08ozs
John Holt	Total Fishing	53lbs 02ozs
Mark Harrington	Talk Angling	79lbs 15ozs
	Middle Lake
Hillbilly	Total Fishing	18lbs 08ozs
Paul Fillmore	Total Fishing	11lbs 07ozs
Mark Nevins	Total Fishing	16lbs 13ozs
Dougie Graves	Angling Forums	12lbs 06ozs
	Big Lake
Perry Stone	Talk Angling	87lbs 14ozs
Martin Harper	Total Fishing	29lbs 02ozs