Marsh AC club match.
Well an early wake up call so that I could drop Maria off at work saw me with plenty of time to get back home and cook myself a bit of breakfast before donning the thermals and waterproofs and loading the car up in the pouring rain and setting off to Monk Lakes to meet up with the members of Marsh AC for our 1st match of the year on Match Lake 2.
Now the main thing about Marsh AC is that it is a small friendly club with membership by invitation only, in essence it’s a Social Club that organises a days fishing for it’s members. The format of these days fishing loosely resembles a match in that there’s a draw for pegs, but there is no Club Championship or Cups to be won, in fact the only cash that gets paid out is section money, no 1st, 2nd or 3rd place prizes. It suits the members and keeps the pot hunters away.
Pulling into the car park at around 8am it was good to see that the vast majority of the usual suspects were in attendance, along with a couple of guests (Bill G and Alan from the Maggotdrowning Forum), Paul East was missing however, it turned out that he’d forgotten to buy a new license and for some reason had forgotten that you can buy one on-line or over the phone. At least it had stopped raining, though the grey skies and brisk wind promised to make it a challenge.
Anyway to the draw, and anyone of 3 corner pegs would have been nice, 45 because it’s an out and out flyer with a resident shoal of Barbel, or 56 and 66 at opposite ends of the causeway as these have aerators at their sides and unlike the other match lakes they aren’t roped off allowing you to fish tight to them. No such luck though, 53 sticking to my fingers providing my home for the day.
One thing about the match lakes at Monk’s is that there are plenty of fish, so that whatever the draw you’re guaranteed to have a few fish in front of you to provide a decent days fishing. A stranger feature to this particular lake however is the fact that the depth shelves from around 5 feet in front of peg 55 to around 10 feet in front of 45, and when the wind blows straight down the lake as it was today it sets up a terrific tow!!
I set up 2 pole rigs to fish a couple of lines, the 1st at around 10mtrs where I had just over 6ft of water was a 4X18 KC Carpa2 on 0·16 straight through to a size 18 Drennan Carp Match hook and the 2nd for the margins where I had a couple of feet of water against the reeds was a 4X12 Carpa shelf with similar line and hook that I could also use up in the water on the main line if need be. I also set up a pellet waggler, though I suspected that it wouldn’t be a realistic option due to the wind and tow.
Bait for the day was red maggot, corn and pellet, and I also made up some groundbait to get some feed down through the tow. This was Special G with some corn and a good helping of micro pellet added.
10am and the All-in, and straight away I fed 5 good balls of groundbait on the 10mtr line, with a good helping of pellet, corn and maggot down the right hand margin which I would continue to top up through the match as there was a vacant peg between me and the next angler.
Out to 10 mtrs with a single grain of corn, I just let the rig edge through the groundbaited area with the tow and was rewarded with a confident bite that produced the 1st fish of the day, a nice chunky FI of around 1½lbs. The wind and waves on the water meant that presentation wasn’t ideal but by sticking at it I managed to put another 8 in the net along with around a dozen small Tench in the next 2 hours. Alan to my right was having a grim time and was struggling to buy a bite with only a couple of fish in the net and Tony next to him was having trouble coming to terms with the tow that the lake was generating, but putting a few together holding a heavy rig back against the tow.
It seemed that every time I looked up towards Colin on peg 45 he was either playing or netting a fish and it was obvious he would take all the catching. Looking across to the lads opposite fishing on the causeway, I could see Dave had turned his back on the wind and was fishing short to the channel where the aerator is and appeared to be putting a steady run of fish together, while Terry next door to him was also catching close in to the margin, while Bill was fishing a longer line and sorting a few out.
With a lull in my fish, I fed 4 more balls of groundbait in a bid to kick start things and had a quick stroll with the camera. Colin as I suspected was catching well despite trying to deny it and it was a pleasure to see that Judy on peg 46 next to him was putting a couple of tips I’d given her to good use and was enjoying some good sport too.
Back at the peg and a quick look at the margins revealed just a solitary small Chub so back out and I was soon into a run of small Tench and Skimmers with a couple of decent Ide for good measure.
Kevin to my left had resorted to a Polaris set up with a groundbait feeder to beat the tow and was starting to find a few fish, while Martin was really struggling to get a bite.
With a couple of hours to go Alan finally managed to find some Barbel down his margin line, while Tony having changed to a feeder to combat the tow was steadily starting to put fish in the net, Despite several looks, my margin just never came to life, forcing me to stick it out at 10mtrs, and while I caught steadily to the end it was mainly small Chub and Tench with just a couple of bonus Barbel around the 2lb mark.
With 15 minutes to go the skies grew darker and the temperature dropped noticeably and just to top it off it started to rain. 4pm and the All-out saw everyone hurriedly packing away followed by the weigh-in. Third to weigh, my 51¼lbs put me briefly into 1st place which I knew wouldn’t last. Alan’s 34½lbs was a decent return given that he had nearly the whole of that in the last 2 hours, while Tony’s 48½lbs meant that I had at least won my section. Judy put a very creditable 54¾lbs on the scales (Her best ever match weight) to briefly lead till Colin weighed his level 87lbs for the match win. Jim round on 56 managed 55¾lbs that would prove to be good enough for 3rd while Dave put a very decent 62½lbs on the scales for 2nd and might have run Colin even closer if it hadn’t been for a few lost fish during the course of the day.
Still despite the weather trying it’s hardest, overall it proved to be a decent day with no dry nets and an average of around 39lb per angler between the 17 of us. A decent days fishing by any standards. Roll on the next one.
| Position | Peg | Angler | Weight |
| 1st | peg 45 | Colin Sharrard | 87lbs 00ozs |
| 2nd | peg 66 | Dave Collier | 62lbs 08ozs |
| 3rd | peg 56 | Jim Boase | 55lbs 12ozs |
| 4th | peg 46 | Judy Hermite | 54lbs 12ozs |
| 5th | peg 53 | Peter Morton | 51lbs 04ozs |
| 6th | peg 50 | Tony Roberts | 48lbs 08ozs |
| 7th | peg 64 | Bill Gibbins | 42lbs 08ozs |
| 8th | peg 65 | Terry Goff | 42lbs 04ozs |
| 9th | peg 47 | Ken Walker | 39lbs 04ozs |
| 10th | peg 49 | Roger Noakes | 36lbs 04ozs |
| 11th | peg 51 | Alan Loader | 34lbs 08ozs |
| 12th | peg 57 | John Holdsworth | 33lbs 00ozs |
| 13th | peg 54 | Kevin Loveland | 24lbs 12ozs |
| 14th | peg 58 | Zack Johnson | 17lbs 08ozs |
| 15th | peg 61 | Arthur Thompson | 15lbs 04ozs |
| 16th | peg 55 | Martin Hucker | 10lbs 04ozs |
| 17th | peg 60 | Graham Manning | 7lbs 00ozs |
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