Framfield Fishery. Spring Lake. March 24th, 2008.

“Anyone coming out to play Easter Monday?” That was the perfectly innocent post put up by Pete Midgley on the Maggotdrowning Forum that resulted in this little episode. Loading up the car, a sunny day appeared to be in the offing and with just a light frost I felt we could be in for a decent day.

A smooth traffic free drive of 40 miles down to Uckfield in East Sussex even allowed me to stop off at McDonalds for a bit of breakfast, where I found Pete Thatcher, Martyn Dwayne and Mark Hathaway too, meaning I pulled into the fishery at around 8·20am. Worryingly the car thermometer still only said just 1°C though.

Today was the 1st time that I’d been down to Framfield since March 2005, so I really didn’t have a clue what to expect. Anyway into the draw bag and peg 64 stuck to my hand. They say that a good indication of how well you’ve drawn is how many keepnets they hand you. I was given just the one while Kevin, who had drawn 63 and a few others were given two, so I figured I may have drawn out of the favoured areas.

As I settled into 64 I was faced with probably 17½mtrs to the island which had seen some vigorous pruning since the last time I’d seen it. Having hurt my ribs at work the previous week long pole was out of the question, so I set up for around a comfortable 8mtrs and found a reasonably level 3ft all over, and with it being just a couple of inches shallower in the margins 1 rig covered all. I also set up a waggler to fish across if need be. Bait was simply sweetcorn to be fished over the fisheries own pellets with a few expanders as a change bait.

To my left I had Bill G for company on peg 65, so a decent bit of banter was guaranteed if nothing else.

10am and after a warming cup of coffee fortified with a drop of Bushmills generously provided by Kevin, I potted in some pellet and sweetcorn at 8mtrs and fed some pellet by the dead rushes in both margins for later. Straight out to 8mtrs and after 20 mins the 1st bite of the day resulted in a nice Common Carp of around 3lbs gracing the net. I just kept topping up the feed with a T-pot containing a dozen pellets and 3-4 bits of corn at regular intervals, with the same being fed by hand into the margin swims.

After a couple of hours I’d managed 6 Carp which had been matched by Bill, though I felt my fish had been a little bigger. Weather wise the day had deteriorated with a mix of rain sleet and snow coupled with the wind making things very cold and unpleasant.

Of course as with all things Maggotdrowning there had to be some Pee taking somewhere along the line and todays target was Pete Midgley, who in the run up to the day had posted……“I think I would still beat Ryan if I had a bit of bamboo, a length of rope and a lump of cheese.”

So of course Bill G hadn’t been able to resist producing the relevant bit of Preston Imitations kit.

Pete however took it all in the spirit that was meant and even had the good grace to pose for the obligatory photo.

Meanwhile word was circulating Mark Hathaway and Martyn Dwayne were doing relatively well with Stephen Tanner putting a few together from the supposed flyer.

Kevin had changed over to a set up incorporating a maggot feeder and polaris float and was soon into a run of Carp as he cast into the gap between the islands. Unfortunately he hooked up on the island after a while losing his float in the process. Not having another he reverted to a straight maggot feeder, but for some reason this didn’t seem to be so productive and he reverted to the pole.

Quite a few were struggling for even a bite however and people were ringing the changes in an attempt to buy a bite. Colin may have taken things a shade to far however, disguising himself as a bush in attempt to draw fish into his margin swim.

Bill meantime had gone for a stroll to stop himself from seizing up and by the time he returned it had allowed me to sneak a couple of fish ahead of him.With about an hour to go things had started to pick up with Tony Roberts finally getting amongst a few on the maggot feeder hard across to the island, Colin getting a couple of decent Perch as reward for his efforts and even Trevor Little getting a couple although he was to tip back without weighing in.

I managed to tempt 5 more Carp from down the edge in the last hour, though a lump snagging me in the reeds in the last 10 minutes was to cost me at the death.

At last 3·30pm rolled round and the all out, quickly followed by the weigh-in. Mark Hathaway leading with a very decent weight on the day of 55lbs 2ozs followed by Stephen Tanner on 48lbs 12ozs, a very creditable effort as it was his first match. As the scales reached me I thought I might scrape 40lbs, so it was a pleasant surprise when they recorded 54lbs 8ozs putting me into 2nd place, though it left me ruing that lost fish.

So that was it, just leaving the 14 anglers to pack up and get home to thaw out. Despite the conditions we had caught some fish and had a few laughs as always. We must do it again, but please, can we have some better weather next time?

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	peg 58	Mark Hathaway	55lbs 02ozs
2nd	peg 64	Peter Morton	54lbs 08ozs
3rd	peg 62	Stephen Tanner	48lbs 12ozs
4th	peg 57	Martyn Dwayne	36lbs 00ozs
5th	peg 63	Kevin Loveland	27lbs 04ozs
6th	peg 65	Bill Gibbins	25lbs 12ozs
7th	peg 66	Tony Roberts	24lbs 08ozs
8th	peg 59	Pete Thatcher	17lbs 00ozs
9th	peg 61	Terry Goff	12lbs 04ozs
10th	peg 56	Dave Collier	10lbs 10ozs
11th	peg 71	Pete Midgley	8lbs 00ozs
12th	peg 69	Colin Sharrard	7lbs 00ozs
13th	peg 68	Ryan Wells	6lbs 08ozs
14th	peg 67	Trevor Little	DNW