Today’s little jaunt started off when Pete Midgley posted up on the Maggotdrowning Forum at the start of the week “Hi all. Have just spoken to Ryan and we are going down to Hartleylands this Saturday. If anyone else is interested in meeting up let me know and if there is enough we could even have a little friendly match“
Now while the day ticket is £7 a day at Hartleylands, peg fees for a small match are £6 and you can use keepnets, so with 6 of us committing to the day a ‘Match’ was booked.
An easy drive down saw me pulling into the car park at around 9·20am to be greeted by Pete, Ryan and Ryan’s dad Keith. Shortly after we were joined by Dave who had collected Alan on the way. A clear blue sky promised a decent day weather-wise though a heavy frost gave it away that the temperature was only 1°C.
Paul the Bailiff arrived to collect the peg fees and I managed to negotiate a £1 discount, which we put into a winner takes all pot. We had pegs 20-25 allowing everyone a feature to fish to, and after a quick draw made our way to our pegs.
I found myself with peg24 for the day.
I would have preferred 25 or 23 which would have given me some open water to have dropped a feeder into, but decided to set up a Drennan 2½AA peacock insert waggler and fish double red maggot to keep busy and warm, though I did set up a small Drennan maggot feeder as a back up, leaving the pole in the rod bag. Pete had kindly picked up a couple of pints of red maggots for me, however I had a bit of a shock to find that they’d sweated up rather badly, but half a bag of GOT Baits worm flavoured Atomic Cloud added to them just about managed to salvage the situation, and this little fella kept popping back all day to sample them.
To my left I had Keith (Ryan’s dad) for company, and having only recently returned to fishing, he contented himself to just set up the pole, while to my right on 23 Alan had set up a groundbait feeder and his pole. to his right Pete (peg22) had set up pole and feeder as well, while Dave (peg21) and Ryan (peg20) just set up feeders.
We got started around 11am and Keith was off the mark straight away with a small Carp.
A pouch full of maggots out to the island followed by my float soon saw me getting regular bites from small Roach and Rudd, nothing big, but regularly enough to keep me warm and interested. Alan was dropping his feeder just off the point of the island and was soon into his 1st Carp of the day.
Indeed everyone seemed to be getting a few and the banter was soon flowing. Pete was alternating between the feeder and the pole and it was while he was on the pole that he became the focus of a fair bit of stick.
He hooked into what most of us assumed was a ‘lump’ and with yards of elastic streaming from his top kit he soon reached the point where it appeared that he could do nothing with it, despite standing up, top kit reaching for the sky it wouldn’t come to the net and despite us exhorting him to stand on his seat, he steadfastly refused on the grounds that “I’m not going to get my new seat dirty” What a Tart. Finally the leviathan of the deep was netted, a Carp that might have weighed 4lbs on a good day!!!!!!!!!!!
Obviously Preston 11 hollo set loose was not quite what the doctor ordered leading to a quick change of top kit.
Dave meanwhile was quietly putting together a few small Carp on the feeder, nothing large, averaging around the 1½-2lb mark, but regularly enough to put him out in front.
Ryan was getting a few as well, though he couldn’t match Dave’s catch rate on the day.
I just kept plugging away with the waggler mostly keeping the silvers going with the odd small Carp. A couple of looks with the feeder had produced a couple of small Carp but the gaps between bites meant that the feeder was soon discarded in favour of the waggler.
All to soon 4pm rolled round and with the fishery closing at 5pm we had a quick weigh-in, with Dave taking the honours on the day and the £1′s with his level 28lbs, while I edged Alan out of 2nd with my 20lbs 4ozs to his level 20lbs, then Ryan and Pete with Keith bringing up the rear.
A good day all round, a few fish, great company with plenty of banter and laughs, a typical Maggotdrowning day really. Thanks to Pete for organising it, I’m sure it won’t be to long before we’re doing it all again.
| Position | Angler | Weight |
| 1st | Dave Collier | 28lbs 00ozs |
| 2nd | Peter Morton | 20lbs 04ozs |
| 3rd | Alan Loader | 20lbs 00ozs |
| 4th | Ryan Wells | 14lbs 12ozs |
| 5th | Pete Midgley | 14lbs 02ozs |
| 6th | Keith Wells | 5lbs 00ozs |
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