Marsh AC club match.
Today is a Marsh AC club match at Churchgate lakes in Essex and I’d arranged to meet Dave at his house and follow him down to the venue. Dave’s wife Gladys is fishing today, It’s rare that she fishes club matches, the only one she’d fished previously was at Churchgate last year when she beat Dave much to a lot of peoples amusement, so there’s no pressure today.
I managed to persuade Dave to stop at McDonalds in Erith so that I could grab a couple of McMuffins for breakfast as the venue’s Café won’t be open today, and a smooth trip down in convoy with Dave and Colin saw us arrive just after 8am to find the majority of the 20 members due to be fishing today waiting in the car park for us. While Dave sorted things out Tony Roberts and I went round the lake sorting the pegs for the draw. Back to the car park for the draw and I find peg 8 is mine for the day, just one away from the peg I had last year.
Looks nice doesn’t it? The problem was the wind which was gusting strongly all over the place, but mainly from right to left as I looked. Plenty of clouds were scudding around as well and some of them were an ominous dark grey promising rain. I elected to go with the pole at no more than 10mtrs where I knew I would find about 7 feet of water, the rushes growing as far out into the water as they were made it difficult to set up a margin line, but I wasn’t to bothered as previous experience told me that it normally only produced tiny Pumpkinseeds and razorblade Skimmers & Roach. I also set up the feeder to target the corner of the island on my right.
Baitwise I’d brought a fair selection with me, maggots, sweetcorn and pellets along with some groundbait as there’s supposed to be a fair head of Bream in the lake.
10am and the all-in and I cupped 6 big balls of groundbait laced with corn, pellet and maggot onto the 10mtr line and went out on the maggot feeder to let it settle. 20 minutes on the feeder yielded just a solitary 2oz Skimmer however. Onto the pole with a 6mm expander on the hook and an instant bite saw a 6oz Skimmer joining it’s friend in the net. Then it went very dark and within seconds the heavens opened. Leaping up and struggling into my waterproofs I returned to find a couple of pints of maggots trying to re-enact “The Great Escape” before I managed to get a lid on the baitbox, while I tucked my phone, cigarettes etc away into dry pockets. Within 5 minutes it has eased and it stopped completely after another 10 minutes as bright sunshine burst through.
Luckily I managed to riddle the maggots off and transfer them into some dry groundbait and dry off the sidetray and get back to things pretty quickly, but just another couple of Skimmers put in an appearance in the next half hour, but I still couldn’t buy a bite on the feeder.
All round the lake people appeared to be struggling and that was confirmed when Tony Roberts came walking round as Tony is one of those anglers that never normally goes walkabout. However Martin Hucker to my left on peg 6 had got off to a flyer.
… with a couple of decent Carp and 3-4 Bream in the net by halfway, all taken on the maggot feeder.
I heavily refed the pole line and went for a stroll myself to see who was catching what and noticed Kevin(The Catch) Loveland on peg 10 sliding the net under a small Carp that he’d tempted on the feeder out by the island…
Judy, tucked away down in the corner on peg 14 had suffered the misfortune of losing a couple of decent Carp in the 1st 10 minutes and was doing her best to winkle out a few, while Paul(nomorelongwalks) could be found staring at a stationary quivertip and hadn’t had a single bite despite some encouragement from Alan who was having a wander as it wasn’t happening for him either…
While Dave was quietly starting to put a few together and Gladys was happily catching whatever was lurking down the margins on a top3………
Continuing round, nobody else seemed to be doing much, Colin on peg 2 had nicked a couple on the feeder out by the island but was finding it hard going……
though John Holdsworth on peg 5 next to Martin was admitting to a decent Carp and Bream in the net.
Back at my peg a look on the pole line produced just another solitary Skimmer despite ringing the changes on hookbait, so I refed with a couple of pots of pellet and went back out on the maggot feeder. Casting to the same spot wasn’t easy with the wind gusting all over the place, but after 15 minutes the tip wrapped round and after a couple of minutes a nice F1 of about 2lbs was in the net.
In the next hour and a half I added 4 more but felt I was having to wait to long between bites so with about an hour to go went back out onto the pole line once more. Almost straight away the float buried, but this wasn’t a Skimmer as yards of Black Hydro streamed from the pole. To be honest it felt more like a submarine and was obviously one of the large Carp present in the lake. On last years match I’d been fortunate enough to get one at the death that had won me the match, could lightning have struck twice? Well after 10 minutes and despite various encouraging??? shouts from around the lake, I still hadn’t seen the fish and the feel of it told me that it was foulhooked. I’d applied as much pressure as I dared, I could even hear the Hydro humming through the pole in the wind and with my arms aching I sat down, lit a cigarette and smoked it while the fish just plodded around. Once more I piled on as much pressure as I dare even getting on my box in an effort to get it up in the water. It finally surfaced about 15 yards out, a Big Common Carp just before the hookhold gave way. This was followed by some language that’s probably better not committed to print. Needless to say several expressions of sympathy passed around the lake about my loss…..yer right they did.
For the rest of the match I stuck it out on the pole line hoping against hope that another might turn up, but only a few small Skimmers had obliged by the time Dave blew the whistle at 4pm for the all-out.
So on with the weigh-in, and we were treated to Bob Hucker looking well pleased to have caught a PB Carp of 10½lbs to make his day……
Kevin had managed 8 small Carp which took the scales round to 21½lbs for 3rd on the day, and with Dave’s level 19lbs having beaten Gladys’s 16lbs 2ozs I’d like to say that Dave was most understanding when my 15lbs 10ozs came up ounces short of what was needed to beat Gladys on the day. Of course it wasn’t going to happen though, as Dave had taken more than enough stick from me over being beaten by his good lady last year, so I’m sure he’ll enjoy getting his own back by publishing the result on the various internet forums we both use.
Winner on the day was Martin with 35½lbs, his 1st ever match win in 5 years of trying. Well done Fella and here he is with the larger of his 2 Carp on the day……
Second place went to John Holdsworth with 31¼lbs which included a PB Carp of 13½lb and a PB Bream of 5lbs…
| Position | Angler | Weight |
| 1st | Martin Hucker | 35lbs 08ozs |
| 2nd | John Holdsworth | 31lbs 04ozs |
| 3rd | Kevin Loveland | 21lbs 08ozs |
| 4th | Dave Collier | 19lbs 00ozs |
| 5th | Judy Hermite | 17lbs 04ozs |
| 6th | Tony Roberts | 17lbs 03ozs |
| 7th | Gladys Collier | 16lbs 02ozs |
| 8th | Peter Morton | 15lbs 10ozs |
| 9th | Bob Hucker | 13lbs 00ozs |
| 10th | Colin Sharrard | 11lbs 00ozs |
| 11th | Graham Manning | 7lbs 04ozs |
| 12th | Simon Watkins | 6lbs 04ozs |
| 13th | Roger Noakes | 6lbs 00ozs |
| 14th | Ken Walker | 5lbs 12ozs |
| 15th | Rod Turner | 3lbs 08ozs |
| 16th | Zack Johnson | 2lbs 10ozs |
| 17th | Jean Algar | 1lbs 08ozs |
| 18th= | Bob Sullivan | DNW |
| 18th= | Al Loader | DNW |
| 18th= | Paul East | DNW |
So that’s it for another Marsh AC match. Next stop for me is 3 days at Rolf’s Lake at Holton in Oxfordshire from next Friday. The reports from that will appear in due course on my return.
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