Rolf’s Lake. Holton. Oxfordshire. September 1st, 2007.

The JINX Series 2007

Match 5.

Well it’s the final match of this years Jinx Series today at Rolf’s Lake and for a change there’s no driving for me as a fellow Maggotdrowner Paul East aka NoMoreLongWalks had said that he would pick me up as he had managed to secure a guest spot on the match. A sunny morning held the promise of a good day and with Paul arriving in good time we had time to stop of in Battersea on the way for a hearty breakfast, and a smooth trouble free trip down saw us pulling into the car park at Rolf’s around 11am allowing us plenty of time before the supposed 12 noon draw. The one worry was that as we had driven down the sunshine had disappeared to be replaced with a heavily overcast grey sky.

A stroll round the lake soon revealed that the lake was almost back at it’s normal level with most of the platforms finally being above water and that John Bennett had been busy gardening, with a lot of work having been done on the swims.
At the draw there was plenty of discussion, Could Ant hang onto the lead in the series or could a permutation of results today see the long time leader lose out to either Royst, Mark, Brian or Nick and could Dave(yorkie)Moore and Eric maintain their narrow 6 point lead in The Pairs over Mark C and Paul Roberts. The actual draw was a little late (as usual) which meant that we would be fishing from 2pm till 7pm.

Into the draw bag and I drew peg34 on the little lake, a peg widely regarded as a flyer. I’ve only fished it once before on the Saturday of the MD’s Pairs weekend, when the lake was still a fair way above it’s normal level and had managed 73¼lbs from the peg.

 With plenty of time before the start I set up a feeder and a new Shakespeare Mach3 11ft pellet waggler rod that I’ve just brought as well as a couple of top kits for the pole. I was hoping to nick a couple of early fish on the feeder or waggler before concentrating later on the right hand margin.
Looking across I could see Clive who must have run to peg8 as he had drawn it on Bank Holiday Monday and had 202lb 4oz , while the previous Saturday John Walker had 530lbs from the peg, so no pressure there. For company on peg7 Clive had Nick Jones (Polepot) and on 6 Dirk(The Dangler)Williams, with Royst further down on peg 4 and Steve Wilson on 2. While to my left I had Colin on peg36 and Nick(Neo1)Williams on 38 while Mark C was on 40.

So 2pm and the All-in, a big handful of pellet into the bush to my right and another couple in front of it then out to the lily pads with hair rigged meat on the feeder. Looking up I could see that Clive was already in to his 1st Carp, swiftly followed by a Skimmer.
My tip didn’t as much as flicker, normally you would expect lots of little twitches as silvers attacked the bait or even a couple of liners if Carp were present somewhere in the swim, but nothing moved it at all.
Polepot appeared to have snared one on the feeder………

while Mark C had had one and Steve Wilson had had a couple of fish……

but looking down, the bank to my left resembled a still life as both Colin and Nick were in the same predicament as me……….



I’d been religiously feeding my margin swim, but it it was far to early to take a look and as I had seen a couple of fish topping I decided to take a look with the pellet waggler after 40 minutes of inactivity on the feeder. A couple of pouch fulls of pellet and first cast out the rod is nearly ripped from my hand!!!
The fish put up a spirited fight but the rod dealt with it all, despite the fish at one stage tangling itself in the line giving the appearance to some of it being foulhooked and was soon safely in the net. An obvious weigher, it tipped the scales at 14½lbs, a lovely way to get off the mark and christen a new rod at the same time. In the next 30 mins I managed another couple of 6lb’ers and then it died on me.

All the time it had been getting cooler, so much so that I went back to the car for my bib & brace and a fleece. Having a chat with a few of the lads on the car park bank on the way back revealed that it was hard graft for everyone with only the odd fish being caught.
As the afternoon drew on Colin had finally got a Carp of about 5lbs while Neo1 had got one as well along with a couple of Skimmers. Poor Steve had had a bit of a disaster however, while playing a decent Carp his no4 section of his pole had snapped clean in two and he could only watch helplessly as the top 3½ sections of his pole slid below the surface of the lake like Excalibur……….
things had picked up however for Dirk and Royst with them both appearing to be walking away with the match and matching each other fish for fish, although Dirk appeared to have the edge with more of his fish being weighers and including a clonking Golden Orfe that tipped the scales at 6lbs 4ozs.
  With just an hour to go I noticed that Clive had started to finally find a few fish, to little to late, but at least he was catching which was more than the majority of us were doing………

Finally 7pm rolled round putting most of us out of our misery. While my 3 Carp only weighed 26½lbs, amazingly it was enough to give me a section win!!!!!!  Due to the low weights the weigh-in didn’t take as long as usual and it was soon confirmed that Dirk had won the day with his 1st ever Jinx Ton and Royst just missing out due to losing a number of fish, costing him not only the match but the overall win in the Jinx Series  as well.

Ant despite the horror of a DNW on the day hung on to win the Jinx Series  with Royst taking 2nd overall, while the Pairs was won by Dave Moore and Eric Robathan in a close finish with Mark Causer and Paul Roberts.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	peg 6	Dirk Williams	109lbs 00ozs
2nd	peg 4	Roy Ravenhill	90lbs 00ozs
3rd	peg 2	Steve Wilson	62lbs 00ozs
4th	peg 8	Clive Pritchard	61lbs 00ozs
5th	peg 23	Eric Robathan	31lbs 04ozs
6th	peg 7	Nick Jones	29lbs 08ozs
7th	peg 34	Peter Morton	26lbs 08ozs
8th=	peg 18	Dave Collier	25lbs 00ozs
8th=	peg 20	Brian Bevan	25lbs 00ozs
8th=	peg 28	Dave Moore	25lbs 00ozs
11th	peg 38	Nick Williams	18lbs 04ozs
12th	peg 15	Fred Parker	14lbs 04ozs
13th	peg 40	Mark Causer	14lbs 00ozs
14th	peg 26	Tim Westmoreland    (Guest)	12lbs 08ozs
15th	peg 29	Geoff Eggison	11lbs 05ozs
16th	peg 10	Simon Rowley	10lbs 08ozs
17th	peg 36	Colin Sharrard	5lbs 00ozs
18th	peg 31	Tony Roberts           (Guest)	4lbs 08ozs
19th=	peg 14	Nick Watkins-Price	2lbs 00ozs
19th=	peg 25	Anne Thomas            (Guest)	2lbs 00ozs
19th=	peg 32	Paul Roberts	2lbs 00ozs
22nd	peg 24	Dai Thomas	5ozs
23rd=	peg 9	Paul East                  (Guest)	DNW
23rd=	peg 13	Paul D                      (Guest)	DNW
23rd=	peg 17	Malc Doyle	DNW
23rd=	peg 19	Ant Haywood	DNW

So another Jinx Series survived.

A big THANK YOU to Malc for organising what still remains the friendliest series of matches that I’ve ever had the pleasure to fish in, and the reason for that is the anglers that compete in the Series. Thank you all for making it the event it is.

Highlight for me was seeing the look on Nick Jones’s face when he picked up his 1st ever Jinx section at Holly Farm and then repeated it again at Stockton. Well Done Nick, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke.

Can’t wait to do it all again next year. Nurse I think it's time for my medication.

Overall  Series Result.

Position	Angler						Points	Weight
1st	Ant Haywood	1	1	1	2	5	5	268lbs 09ozs
2nd	Roy Ravenhill	2	2	1	1	2	6	334lbs 13ozs
3rd	Brian Bevan	1	6	1	2	2	6	174lbs 05ozs
4th	Dave Moore	1	3	2	3	1	7	258lbs 00ozs
5th	Eric Robothan	4	1	2	3	1	7	197lbs 04ozs
6th	Mark Causer	2	1	3	1	3	7	184lbs 01ozs
7th	Nick Williams	1	6	1	3	2	7	164lbs 01ozs
8th	Keith Ashby	3	1	2	1	6	7	140lbs 01ozs
9th	Paul Roberts	2	2	3	1	5	8	172lbs 07ozs
10th	Nick Jones	2	4	1	1	5	8	122lbs 03ozs
11th	Malc Doyle	1	3	3	2	5	9	162lbs 12ozs
12th	Steve Wilson	2	2	4	3	3	10	172lbs 07ozs
13th	Fred Parker	1	6	6	2	1	10	98lbs 12ozs
14th	Peter Morton	3	6	2	4	1	10	97lbs 10ozs
15th	Colin Sharrard	2	1	6	4	4	11	109lbs 04ozs
16th	Clive Pritchard	3	2	5	3	4	12	156lbs 04ozs
17th	Matt Nutt	3	6	2	1	6	12	147lbs 03ozs
18th	Dave Collier	3	3	6	4	2	12	90lbs 03ozs
19th	Dirk Williams	5	6	6	2	1	14	132lbs 00ozs
20th	Simon Rowley	4	3	5	6	2	14	49lbs 15ozs
21st	Geoff Eggison	4	4	4	4	2	14	43lbs 03ozs
22nd	Nick Watkins-Price	5	2	5	4	3	14	23lbs 12ozs
23rd	Dai Thomas	4	3	6	5	3	15	46lbs 07ozs
24th	Kevin Lake	6	5	4	1	6	16	34lbs 00ozs
25th	Gemma Doyle	6	5	3	3	6	17	21lbs 00ozs
26th	Mark Lake	6	4	3	5	6	18	15lbs 05ozs
27th	David Ashby	4	6	5	5	6	20	16lbs 12ozs
28th=	Jeff Hollidge	5	6	6	6	6	23	0lbs 00ozs
28th=	Malc Hawkins	5	6	6	6	6	23	0lbs 00ozs
30th	Dan Thomas	6	6	6	6	6	24	0lbs 00ozs

NB: Anglers were allowed to drop their worst section result during the series so that the Overall Series results were decided by best 4 out of 5 section points.
Overall weight counting in the result of anglers tying on points.

 Overall Pairs Result.

Position	Anglers						Points	Weight
1st	Dave Moore & Eric Robathan	11	10	10	27	12	43	455lbs 04ozs
2nd	Mark Causer & Paul Roberts	13	8	17	16	30	54	356lbs 08ozs
3rd	Roy Ravenhill & Dave Collier	23	22	38	13	10	68	425lbs 00ozs
4th	Keith Ashby & Nick Williams	24	36	12	22	47	94	304lbs 02ozs
5th	Ant Haywood & Simon Rowley	20	18	22	43	45	103	318lbs 08ozs
6th	Steve Wilson & Kevin Lake	49	27	31	26	38	122	206lbs 07ozs
7th	Geoff Eggison & Fred Parker	35	49	50	28	26	138	139lbs 15ozs
8th	Brian Bevan & Mark Lake	40	55	22	35	43	140	189lbs 10ozs
9th	Gemma Doyle & Matt Nutt	44	53	24	21	70	142	168lbs 03ozs
10th	Dai Thomas & Dirk Williams	49	46	70	36	20	151	178lbs 07ozs
11th	Nick Watkins-Price & Peter Morton	42	50	43	45	24	154	121lbs 06ozs
12th	Colin Sharrard & David Ashby	32	43	53	42	51	168	126lbs 00ozs
13th	Malc Hawkins & Nick Jones	47	47	45	39	41	172	122lbs 03ozs
14th	Clive Pritchard & Jeff Hollidge	45	42	65	52	39	178	156lbs 04ozs
15th	Malc Doyle & Dan Thomas	39	54	47	51	65	191	162lbs 12ozs

NB: Pairs were allowed to drop their worst points total during the series so that the results were decided by best 4 out of 5 points scores.
Overall weights counting in the result of pairs tying on points.