Monk Lakes. Match Lake 4. December 28th, 2007.

Last outing of 2007.

Well after planning on going to Hartleylands but not being able to confirm that the fishery would be open, 4 of us (Dave, Tony, Bill and I) from the Maggotdrowning Forum  arrived at Monk Lakes today at around 9·30am to have a light hearted knock-up on match lake 4. We were expecting Vince to join us but a text message at 8am telling me that he’d spent the night chatting to God on the big white phone ruled him out.

The weather was dull and overcast, but at least it wasn’t raining, and though the temp said 10°C the howling wind made it seem a fair bit cooler. With Bill, Dave & Tony looking to fish the pole I let them take the 3 vacant pegs with the wind on their backs.

while I went round to the left hand side and settled into a swim that would allow me to cast to the lee of a small island

I was going to try out my new Christmas Present from Maria, a Shakespeare Mach 3 11ft feeder rod and 1oz tip which I’d teamed up with a Stradic 3000. the rig was just a small free-running Drennan Carp Feeder with an 8″ hooklink to a Fox Series2 18 hook with double red maggot as bait. I’d also set up my Mach 3 Micro with a Malman Floats 3SSG styro pellet wag set at 18″ deep with a Fox Series2 18 hook again just in case anything was up in the water.

1st cast out and a gentle tap on the tip followed by a 2″ pull produced what was to be the 1st of many Chublets around the 4oz mark. Likewise Bill was straight into action with a run of small Carp. Dave and Tony were having to work a bit harder for their fish to start with but soon started to put a few together, indeed Tony managed the best fish of the session when he he landed this Tench that tipped the scales at 4½lbs as well as a cracking Roach of 1lbs 10ozs …

The whole session was really just a social, with breaks taken for chats and the sampling of a rather fine 12 year old Rum that Dave had brought back from his recent cruise adding a warming glow to proceedings.

Later on I tried the waggler and despite not being able to feed the line owing to the wind almost every cast produced either another Chublet, small F1 or Mirror.

Around 3pm we called a halt and a quick weigh-in revealed 28lbs for me, Bill had 30lbs, Tony 20 lbs and Dave 13lbs. Quite satisfying given the conditions. If we had concentrated I’m sure we would all have doubled our weights but that wasn’t really the name of the game today. It was just good to be out on the bank with a few friends enjoying ourselves, and a nice way to end my fishing in 2007. 

Merry Christmas Mr Price. Alders Farm Fishery.

Well todays little jaunt promised to be something of a slightly different nature with no actual fishing involved. I had been contacted a few days earlier by Ray Best of GOT Baits  to see if I could lend him a hand with a bit of a cloak and dagger mission.

So a 3 hour journey of hellish proportions due to fog and road works on the M1 saw me pulling into the car park at Alders Farm at around 3·10pm to meet up with Ray and his wife Maria.

The reason for all this? Well……. The lads that are sponsored by Trevor Price’s company GOT Baits  had a whip round to buy Trevor a new seat box, to say that his old box had seen better days is an understatement (and that’s being diplomatic about it)
Ray had sourced a new Matchbox Pyramid and Stax System complete with graphics, and we thought that we may as well get some photos while it was pristine as it probably will never look as good again.

The object of the exercise was to surprise Trevor with it after the 3rd round of the Winter League that was being fished today, which explains why the 3 of us were hiding in the car park slowly freezing this afternoon.

How cold was it? Well…… even a Robin flew into Maria’s car to get warm.

 Around 4pm Ray popped down to the Pump House next to the Match Lake to make sure that every thing was in place, and a phone call 15 minutes later confirmed that the coast was clear as I made my way down the hill from the car park with the kit in the dark, illuminated by a full moon.

Tea and hot minced pies were being served after the end of the days match and Trev didn’t have a clue till he was presented with it, and then he was genuinely lost for words.

It was a truly great moment to see one of Anglings Nice Guys on the receiving end for once, after all the support that he’s given his sponsored anglers and various angling websites and charities over the past seasons.

Congratulations Trev, it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving fella.

Monk Lakes. Match Lake 1. December 15th, 2007.

Maggotdrowning.com

 

Southern Fur & Feather.

Well where to start? Back in early October, I remarked to Vince that it might be an idea to run a Fur & Feather before Christmas if anyone fancied it. The main criteria for a venue was that everyone should get a few bites and fish at a time of year when a lot of venues struggle if the weather takes a turn for the worst. A chat with Ron at Monks secured some pegs on Match Lake 1 and a post put up on the Maggotdrowning Forum to see if there was any interest.

Soon the banter was flowing, generating a healthy response to the match, even in the days leading up to the match when the weather forecast predicted that the conditions might lead to an outbreak of Brass Monkeys searching for their Balls.

Come the day and it was heartening to see a turn out of 25 anglers with only 3 wimps no shows that couldn’t be bothered to let us know either by PM or E-mail assembled for what in reality was no more than a knock-up. Just a £5 optional pool and a commitment to bring a prize ensuring that nobody would go away rich but nobody would depart empty handed.

Draw over we made our way up to the lake where the aerators had been left on overnight to try and stop ice forming, though in reality the lake is so exposed to the wind it was highly unlikely to happen.

I had drawn peg 6, with Paul (nomorelongwalks) and Sven for company on 2 & 4 and Matt (yalding bloke) on 8 and the prospect of watching Bill G opposite me on peg 18 for a full 5 hours.

Now in the past some have referred to me as a Tackle Tart, however it would seem that Matt has elevated the concept to another level. Sitting there in his bright red Santa Claus Milo fleece out came the £100 stainless steel/red foam Milo pole roller, followed by the red foam Milo rig roosts, kept in plastic cases to keep them clean (his excuse was that they were new, yeah right) I think we may have to start calling him RED MAN. However disaster was about to strike as his pole dropped off the roller resulting in a snapped no5 section. I’m not sure I would have been able to raise a smile if I’d just done £200+ worth of section………

Feeling lazy I had just set up the pole to fish about 10mtrs, bait was red maggot with a few pellets to feed. I really should have set up a feeder and waggler as alternatives and with hindsight it was a mistake, as when I did set up a feeder later on it was to little to late.

10 am and the All-in and I could see Vince over on peg 20 was straight into a fish…
………. rapidly followed by Nick on 19……
and Matt was soon off the mark with an F1 on the waggler, while Bill and I were still gazing at an inactive pole line, though Bill did get the chance to christen his new pole sock when he used it as a landing net on a small fish to get off the mark. It was obvious that the lads opposite were in for a more comfy match with the wind off their backs (Nick’s favourite) while we had to endure the wind into us for the whole match.

Soon I was off the mark with an F1 followed by a Skimmer and a small Tench, but  I would struggle to put a run of bites together throughout the whole match. Dave the Fish put in an appearance around 11am  having decided against fishing, as the sub zero conditions were playing havoc with his arthritis but kindly provided me with a very welcome hot cup of tea. Bill switched over to the waggler in an attempt to keep up with Nick and Vince…………..
while word filtered round that Mike and Trevor on pegs 36 & 35 were doing OK on the waggler.

Try as I might Matt was catching 2 fish to every one of mine, and with Sven starting to catch well on the feeder as well as Kevin opposite on peg 17……
I swapped over to the feeder for the final part of the match. Just 4 more Carp proved that it wasn’t a good move and that I should have stuck with the pole, but I was quite happy to hear the whistle for the All-out at 3pm.

Dave helped me to weigh half the lake while Vince and a helper weighed the other half, and it was pleasing to see that everyone had something to weigh. In total there was a total of 520lbs of fish weighed in, an average of just over 20lbs per angler, excellent given that the temperature never felt as if it had risen above freezing all day and just goes to show what a decent venue Monk Lakes is.

Back to the tearoom for the results, with Mike coming out on top with 54lbs 12ozs to Trevor’s (MT Net) 44lbs 04ozs with Matt taking 3rd with 37lbs 00ozs. Then the presentation of the prizes and a good table-full ensured that everyone went home with something from the day, a few more faces had been put to names from the forum, and everyone seemed to have enjoyed it in a perverse sort of way.

I’d just like to add a word of thanks to Vince for his help and a special mention to Dave the Fish, who despite not feeling up to fishing still turned up and stayed to help out with the weigh-in, Many Thanks Mate. 

The long distance award as always went to Dai Thomas for making the trip up from the Welsh Valleys for a days fishing with his fellow Maggotdrowners, you’re a star.

We’ll have to do it again, though preferably when it’s a little warmer.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 36	Mike Jameson	54lbs 12ozs
2nd	Peg 35	Trevor Little	44lbs 04ozs
3rd	Peg 7	Matt Love	37lbs 00ozs
4th	Peg 19	Nick Gilbert	36lbs 12ozs
5th	Peg 18	Bill Gibbins	35lbs 00ozs
6th	Peg 10	Jay Lay	29lbs 14ozs
7th	Peg 28	Steve Clinch	29lbs 04ozs
8th	Peg 24	Roger Harris	21lbs 12ozs
9th	Peg 17	Kevin Loveland	21lbs 08ozs
10th	Peg 14	Ian Jones	20lbs 04ozs
11th	Peg 4	Sven Castle	20lbs 00ozs
12th	Peg 13	Jim Boase	19lbs 04ozs
13th	Peg 6	Peter Morton	18lbs 10ozs
14th	Peg 42	Chris Withall	18lbs 00ozs
15th	Peg 20	Vince Gould	17lbs 00ozs
16th	Peg 2	Paul East	14lbs 00ozs
17th	Peg 31	Tony Roberts	13lbs 10ozs
18th	Peg 38	Clive Pritchard	13lbs 00ozs
19th	Peg 26	Dai Thomas	11lbs 08ozs
20th	Peg 41	Alan Loader	10lbs 04ozs
21st=	Peg 40	Pete Midgley	9lbs 00ozs
21st=	Peg 37	Andy Spreadbury	9lbs 00ozs
21st=	Peg 34	Ron Bignold	9lbs 00ozs
24th	Peg 9	Ryan Wells	4lbs 02ozs
25th	Peg 29	Terry Goff	3lbs 12ozs