Rolf’s Lake. Holton. Oxfordshire. July 5th, 2008.

 The JINX Series 2008

Match 3.

Back down to Rolf’s Lake today for the 3rd match of THE JINX SERIES, and after my second place and a new PB match weight on my last visit to Rolf’s 2 weeks ago on a TalkAngling forum match I was really looking forward to this one.

Loading up the car it was quite sunny, but a stiff breeze was blowing plenty of cloud about and the forecast wasn’t the best and when I reached the M40 after my customary breakfast stop the heavens opened. Thankfully it had stopped by the time I reached the services at junction 8 and as I was running early I stopped off for a coffee where I found Kevin and Jean having breakfast. We soon arrived at the lake and John was just opening the gate so we were soon parked up and got our nets dipped in readiness for the day ahead.

Soon the usual suspects started to turn up. John (Hatchye) stoically taking plenty of stick that he knew was coming his way over his lost (not) car keys on the previous match. Dave(The Fish) was on tenterhooks as his daughter was expecting his 1st grandchildren (twins) and Mark C was missing as his 1st grandchild had arrived earlier that morning. However it also appeared that Simon And Gem were loved up again and all touchy feely, with Malc threatening to pour a bucket of water over the pair of them.

The previous night Simon and I had discussed where we fancied drawing and I said that as I’d never drawn between pegs 2-8 I’d love one of them, so into the draw and out popped peg 7 for me. A quick chat with John who said it was an out and out feeder peg at the moment put me right. So gear loaded onto the barrow and round to the peg.

For company I had Colin on peg 8 and Slim on Peg 6. John had told me that it was possible to catch short on the pole if the feeder didn’t produce, but I decided to be single minded and just set the feeder up. The rod I use is a Shakespeare Mach3 11ft medium feeder that I’ve paired with a Shimano Stradic and although a couple of people have remarked that they feel it’s not up to the job I find it spot on. It’s got a lovely through action which coupled to the clutch on the Stradic I finds eliminates the risk of hook pulls at the net.

Bait for the session was simply dampened 6mm fishery pellets with a good helping of hemp added to put through the feeder and 8mm fishery pellet and punched meat for the hook.

Of course having just the one rod to set up, and that was in a ready sleeve, I had a fair bit of time on my hands to take a few of the photos that I use to illustrate these reports on my blog, but while I was looking for subjects Clive caught me with his camera.

1pm and the all-in, out with the feeder and the tip pulled round as I tightened up and the resulting Carp was safely in the net before Slim had even cupped his first pot of feed onto his pole line.
Kevin was soon off the mark with a 14lb weigher from peg 34, followed by Colin who also snared an early one on the feeder.

A couple of hours in and Kev’s match took a turn for the worse when The Jinx struck as a Carp ripped his rod off of the rest and dragged it out to the pads before he could retrieve it. However Malc was on hand and was soon stripped and in…

but although he found a few mangled top kits amongst the pads there was no sign of Kevin’s rod.

I’d had a steady start, though I did experience a lull for around half an hour after Malc’s bath, while a concerned Slim finally managed his 1st fish, a Skimmer and that was soon followed by a cracking Perch…

Colin had a lovely Chub on the feeder that was a new PB for him at 5lbs 8ozs…

From my peg I could see up the car park bank on the big lake and there seemed to be a few fish being landed, especially by Tony who seemed to have a fair bit of elastic out at frequent intervals.

As the match wore on I just managed to keep up a steady catch rate and the little lake seemed to wake up for a few of the lads. Dave had a few from down the edge of his peg as did Simon

Slim finally managed to get amongst a few, but it was to little to late to enable him to notch up a third double ton in a row…

Meanwhile Colin decided that as he couldn’t match my catch rate on the feeder he would have a look on the pole down by the bush to his left, and although it produced a few fish for him, he had a pretty frustrating time as he lost a fair few as well.

 One of the funniest tales of the day went to Clive on peg 40…

who having fed to the bush on his left at peg 40 during the match, finally went to fish to it, only to find that it had vanished !! The wind being so strong that It had blown it back onto the bank.

With around an hour to go I had 4 weighers on the board and around 10 fish in each of my two nets, so put a third net in, just to avoid crowding the fish that were already in the nets, and by the time the all-out came at 6pm I’d added another five in that net and a weigher to the board. I was pretty confident that I’d beaten everyone that I could see, but felt that Tony could be in contention as I’d seen him catching well up on the car park bank during the match.

So off with the scales, and Clive put the 1st ton on the scales and left him wondering what he could have had if his bush hadn’t hidden during the match. With nobody overtaking Clive the scales reached my peg, I nervously watched as the scales gave me a total of 186lbs, and another new PB match weight. Colin also managed to top the ton and we moved on to Nick W-P. Now Nick is a confirmed pleasure angler who only fishes the Jinx matches, and we’ve all been encouraging him to try and break the ton. Unfortunately he hadn’t managed it this time, but his weight of 64lbs 14ozs was a new PB match weight for him so he’s getting there. Malc had managed yet another Jinx Ton and we finally came to the car park bank. Gem on 22 had one of her quieter days (Other things on her mind probably) and a £1 coin came my way, though she still managed to hand out 7 Minxings.

 Dai on 23 looked shattered and 129¼lbs was the reason why, his PB match weight and 1st Jinx Ton. Next up Steve finally after 7 years of trying registered 128½lbs for his 1st Jinx Ton. Roy, who seems to have a season ticket for the car park bank weighed 126lbs. Then we came to Tony who with 70lbs+ in weighers on the board was going to run me close. Luckily for me he came up a little short, having to settle for 170lbs, still a great days fishing though. A final mention for young Mitch who was last to weigh-in. It’s his 1st season fishing The Jinx Series and he dearly wants a Ton, and has improved his weights on all 3 matches, today it was not to be, but I’m sure he’ll get there if he just sticks at it.

  

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 7	Peter Morton	186lbs 00ozs
2nd	Peg 30	Tony Roberts	170lbs 00ozs
3rd	Peg 23	Dai Thomas	129lbs 04ozs
4th	Peg 24	Steve Wilson	128lbs 08ozs
5th	Peg 28	Roy Ravenhill	126lbs 00ozs
6th	Peg 16	Malc Doyle	107lbs 04ozs
7th	Peg 40	Clive Pritchard	106lbs 12ozs
8th	Peg 8	Colin Sharrard	102lbs 04ozs
9th	Peg 38	Dave Collier	87lbs 04ozs
10th	Peg 6	Ade Williams	85lbs 00ozs
11th	Peg 36	Simon Mound	84lbs 00ozs
12th	Peg 32	Mitch Auger	83lbs 04ozs
13th	Peg 2	Ant Haywood	69lbs 04ozs
14th	Peg 22	Gemma Doyle	67lbs 08ozs
15th	Peg 9	Nick Watkins-Price	64lbs 14ozs
16th	Peg 14	Nick Williams	55lbs 08ozs
17th	Peg 18	Jon Hatch	50lbs 04ozs
18th	Peg 26	Paul Roberts	49lbs 00ozs
19th	Peg 4	Keith Fellows	47lbs 04ozs
20th	Peg 13	Dave Moore	35lbs 00ozs
21st	Peg 34	Kevin Loveland	14lbs 00ozs

So that’s it but I’ll be back at Rolf’s on Friday 25th July for 3 days. The Friday is Dave Moore’s 40th Birthday Bash and the Saturday and Sunday is the Maggotdrowning Pairs Championship which I won last year with Tony Roberts. It promises to be great fun and of course a report will be forth coming, but before that there’s the MD’s Southern Championship at Hartleylands and a Marsh AC match at Churchgate Lakes. I’ll keep you posted.