Rolf’s Lake. Holton. Oxfordshire. June 7, 2008

The JINX Series 2008

Match 2.

Sunshine greeted me as I loaded the car up for the trip to Rolf’s for the second match in the JINX SERIES. With plenty of time I was able to make my usual stop for Breakfast in Battersea. While I was there I phoned Malc to find out the state of the fishery as I knew he’d been there since the previous day with Dai, Mitch & Gemma helping John after the flash floods that had hit the area on Wednesday. Telling me that the lake was high but fishable, he then passed on some information that Nick Williams was threatening to fish in his underpants if the lake was too flooded, suffice to say that it nearly put me off my breakfast. However wiping the image from my mind that Malc had described I managed to polish off breakfast and carry on.

Pulling into the fishery car park at around 10·30am people were already arriving for the 11am draw. A chat with John revealed that at it’s height the lake had been within 2 inches of overflowing into the car park. With 2 pumps running the effort that John & Pauline had put in along with his helpers had once again got it to a fishable state even if it was still at least 3 feet above normal.

Mind you just how the lake would fish on the day was open to debate though John felt that the huge influx of water into the lake and the fact that some of the fish were still spawning would lead to a hard match.

Inevitably the draw was delayed as Malc sorted out which pegs were fishable, but it wouldn’t be a JINX match if it ran smoothly would it!!!!!

Into the draw-bag and peg 14 stuck to my hand, quite a shock as I always seem to draw on the little lake. Loading up my barrow I set off round the lake and seeing everyone setting up so far up the bank was a bit strange……

Anyway after lugging all my gear round I found that I had got Mitch to my right on 13 and Neo to my left on 15…

along with Clive on 16 for company today. A quick chat with Clive who spends a fair bit of time at Rolf’s reveals I’d got the end of the bar at around 20yds straight out, so I set up the pellet wag and feeder and plumb up a pole line at around 6mtrs where I could feed by hand to fish pellet and paste, though I also had sweetcorn and meat as change baits. Feed was the fisheries 6mm pellets and hemp.
So 1·30 and the all in, 2 big handfuls of pellet and hemp onto the 6mtr line and a pouch of pellet out to the bar followed by the pellet wag, and straight away it buries, softly softly into the net, a nice Common Carp around 6lbs, into the keepnet with the fish, another dozen pellets followed by the wag which buries again and another Common joins its pal in the net.

Well it slowed a bit after that, it seemed that there were a ton of silvers pecking at the pellet and I did connect with a couple of Skimmers, I tried upping the feed but that just turned it into a Jacuzzi. I kept altering the depth and managed another 3 Carp, but in all honesty I wasted far to much time trying to make it work.

With the swim still fizzing I went out with the feeder onto the bar, but had only had a couple of half hearted taps after about 20 minutes when the rod was ripped off the rest!!!!! This was a big old lump and it just plodded around stubbornly refusing to get its head up. Slowly I gained ground on it and it finally popped to the top, a bleedin great Common, it was certainly the largest fish I’ve ever hooked at Rolf’s, but just as I reached for the net it rolled on the line which parted like cotton.

Now at that point I should have changed my approach as the lads on the car park bank had all started to catch, but I re-tackled and went back out on the feeder and wasted another 40 biteless minutes.

Out onto the 6mtr line that I’d been feeding regularly and 1st put in the float buried resulting in Carp number 6 in the net, then a couple of foul hookers that I parted company with followed.

Roy over on peg 28 was starting to motor taking decent fish regularly…
Paul on 24 also seemed to be over his Rolf’s block, and having got his Ton in the previous match was motoring on towards another……
While Dave Collier on peg 30 was also romping along after a slow start to the match.
I’d blown it after letting my frustration get the better of me and chopping and changing rather than sticking at one approach. With an hour to go I picked up the shallow rig with a banded pellet, shipped out to 13mtrs and just kept firing hemp & pellet at it and had my best hour of the match with another 7 Carp including a weigher that I mugged as the all out was called.
It was to little to late though as I knew in my heart of hearts that I didn’t have enough in the net to compete on the day.
The scales told the tale of the day however with their slow progress round the lake. Kevin Loveland had drawn the same peg as his previous match where he’d had a mare, however today he’d managed 136½lbs, to record his 1st ever match TON. Paul had broken the 150lb barrier and Roy put 177lbs on the scales which would only be good enough for 3rd on the day!!!

Meanwhile down on peg 40 Ade Williams (Slim Shady) following up from his DOUBLE TON on the 1st match had managed a 2nd successive DOUBLE TON…

 but had still been beaten by Simon, fishing his 1st JINX match of the year he had a battle with Ade throughout the whole match…

Finally coming out on top with an excellent 221¾lb, a great performance on the day.

My weight? 92½lb only good enough for 15th on the day, though I did have one small consolation in that at least I managed to get my £1 back from Gemma and avoid a Minxing.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 2	Simon Mound	221lbs 12ozs
2nd	Peg 40	Ade Williams	206lbs 04ozs
3rd	Peg 28	Roy Ravenhill	177lbs 00ozs
4th	Peg 32	Malc Doyle	154lbs 12ozs
5th	Peg 24	Paul Roberts	150lbs 04ozs
6th	Peg 22	Kevin Loveland	136lbs 08ozs
7th	Peg 30	Dave Collier	128lbs 04ozs
8th	Peg 35	Mark Causer	126lbs 00ozs
9th	Peg 34	Keith Fellows	122lbs 08ozs
10th	Peg 16	Clive Prithard	121lbs 12ozs
11th	Peg 9	Colin Sharrard	118lbs 12ozs
12th	Peg 6	Tony Roberts	112lbs 12ozs
13th	Peg 7	Jon Hatch	110lbs 00ozs
14th	Peg 15	Nick Williams	100lbs 12ozs
15th	Peg 14	Peter Morton	92lbs 08ozs
16th	Peg 4	Dai Thomas	69lbs 08ozs
17th	Peg 13	Mitch Auger	69lbs 04ozs
18th	Peg 23	Ant Haywood	68lbs 04ozs
19th	Peg 37	Dave Moore	61lbs 00ozs
20th	Peg 8	Tim Westmoreland       (Guest)	48lbs 04ozs
21st	Peg 38	Gemma Doyle	23lbs 00ozs