Rolf’s Lake. Holton. Oxfordshire. September 20th, 2008.

The JINX Series 2008

  Match 5.

So down to Rolf’s Lake once more for the fifth and final match of this years Jinx Series. Maria had decided to join me for the day as the weather promised to be decent and she’d heard that Paul’s wife Jayne and Nick’s wife Lisa were going to be there as well. So with the car loaded up with a few extra bits and pieces we set off around 8am and with my usual stop for breakfast and a smooth trip down we arrived in the car park at Rolf’s just after 10am. I soon had my nets dipped and after introducing Maria to the assembled throng paid my cash in and topped up on pellets for the match ahead.

The Draw was of course LATE, and surprise surprise Malc had forgotten the days paperwork ensuring that the Series placing's would remain unknown at the end of the day, so no change there then. I’d asked Maria to draw for me today and when she pulled out Peg 31 and I was quite happy with that, a nice short walk and a peg with a bit of form. Gem had pulled peg 8 leaving a few to worry about another Minxing and I had Clive for company to my left on peg 32 and Nick to my right on Peg 29.

I was looking to keep things simple today, just fishing a line at around 10mtrs where I had around 5 feet of water and a back up line by the bush to my right.
Both of the rigs were Malman 4×12 Adam’s on 0·18 to size 16 Drennan Carp Match hooks and I also set up the pellet waggler as I could see a few Carp cruising around on top. I had the feeder with me in its ready sleeve but left it in there as I didn’t think it would come into play today. Bait was 6,8 and 11 mm pellet that would be fished banded along with meat and 6mm expanders and I also had ½ pint of maggots with me in case things proved tough. Feed was simply the fishery 6mm pellets.

So 12·30 and Malc called the All-in. 2 pots of pellet out to the 10mtr line and a couple of handfuls by the bush took care of the initial feed. A banded 8mm pellet was shipped out to the 10mtr line and I was in business, A yell was heard from peg 7 as Dai netted his 1st fish of the day and within five minutes my float slid away, but all to soon the elastic snapped back as I parted company with my 1st foul hooker of the day and for the next 2 hours I was to suffer this another 4 times without putting anything in the net. Nick Williams was over on peg 13 and was starting to put a few together fishing down the margin to his left………..

………… while Clive had managed just a solitary fish and was also suffering with foul hooked fish…………

Indeed looking around most appeared to be struggling with most having just one or 2 fish to show for their efforts apart from Keith on peg 9 and Nick. With 3 hours gone I lifted into another bite and realised that I was connected to a decent fish and after a tense few minutes was delighted to slide the net under one of the better inhabitants of Rolf’s ………

Maria was delighted as she was beginning to believe that she had Jinxed me and soon had the camera out to record the event, even capturing the weight recorded on the scales…

………. 14lbs 04ozs. at last I was off the mark.

Well I wish I could say that it improved from then on, but really it didn’t, not for me anyway, and not for most others either. indeed looking down the car park bank it was starting to resemble a still life………….

Clive however was starting to nick the odd fish though he was still suffering from the odd foul hooker. With just over an hour to go I was attached to another fish, this one hooked in the tail, however despite it’s best efforts I managed to get it’s propeller out of the water and slide it into the landing net. Young Mitch had appeared having weighed a super looking Mirror that was a new PB for him at 15lbs 08ozs and Maria did the honours by getting a photo for him ………

Looking across to peg 14 I could see Alan who was guesting on the day, doing what is commonly know as a ‘Garden Gnome’ impression, and a particularly good job he was doing of it too ……

With around 20 minutes to go I was attached to another torpedo………

…… yes another one hooked in the tail, but after another tug of war this one ended up in the net as well and weighed 13lbs 12ozs. Nothing more for me though Clive did manage one final fish before Malc called the All-out at 5·30 pm ………

Chatting as we packed up it was obvious just how hard it had fished for most, indeed poor young Nick (monkey)to my right hadn’t had a single bite during the whole 5 hours.

Come the weigh-in my 37lbs wasn’t going to cause any stirs and Clive’s section winning 60¾lbs held the lead all the way round to peg 7 where Dai’s 88¼lbs wrapped up his section and Gem’s 13½lbs saved a lot of people a final day Minxing (and gained me a £1). Round to peg 10 and Keith put a match winning 146½lbs on the scales, a very good performance on the day. Hard on his heels came Nick on peg 13 with 119¾lbs to wrap up second place. Slim edged out Steve in their £5 side bet leaving Malc to tie up first place in his own Series with a section winning 56¼lbs from peg 22.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 9	Keith Fellows	146lbs 08ozs
2nd	Peg 13	Nick Williams	118lbs 12ozs
3rd	Peg 7	Dai Thomas	88lbs 04ozs
4th	Peg 18	Ade Williams	62lbs 04ozs
5th	Peg 32	Clive Pritchard	60lbs 12ozs
6th	Peg 22	Malc Doyle	56lbs 04ozs
7th	Peg 40	Tony Roberts	52lbs 12ozs
8th	Peg 34	Paul Roberts	51lbs 04ozs
9th	Peg 4	Ieuan Davies               (Guest)	47lbs 04ozs
10th	Peg 19	Steve Wilson	41lbs 00ozs
11th	Peg 31	Peter Morton	37lbs 00ozs
12th	Peg 38	Mitch Auger	33lbs 12ozs
13th	Peg 14	Alan Loader                (Guest)	33lbs 08ozs
14th	Peg 23	Dave Collier	31lbs 08ozs
15th	Peg 25	Mark Causer	27lbs 00ozs
16th	Peg 26	Simon Mound	19lbs 00ozs
17th	Peg 2	Tim Westmoreland      (Guest)	16lbs 08ozs
18th	Peg 20	Roy Ravenhill	16lbs 00ozs
19th	Peg 28	John Hatch	14lbs 00ozs
20th	Peg 8	Gemma Doyle	13lbs 08ozs
21st	Peg 16	Dave Moore	9lbs 00ozs
22nd	Peg 29	Nick Watkins-Price	DNW

So that’s The Jinx Series over for yet another year. Congratulations to Malc for his series win, and a big THANK YOU for organising what continues to be the friendliest and light hearted set of matches its been my pleasure to fish. Congratulations as well to Clive and Tony for their 2nd and 3rd places, and also to Malc and Dai for taking the pairs title.

This has to be the most successful series ever with 8468lbs 02ozs of fish being brought to the scales over the course of the Series.(8645lbs 02ozs if you include the fish caught by guests)

A new Series record winning weight set by Ade Williams at 266lbs 12ozs in match 1.
Overall there were four 200lbs+ weights recorded. Two for Ade Williams and one each for Simon Mound and Ant Haywood with another thirty four 100lbs+ weights over the course of the series of 5 matches.

Another big THANK YOU to John and Pauline Bennett for allowing us the use of Rolf’s for the entire series and all their efforts.

Finally another big THANK YOU to all that have fished the series, it’s all of you that make it so enjoyable to fish, and long may it continue. See you all to do it again next year you bunch of nutters.

Overall Individual Series Result.

Position	Points	Angler	Series Points	Total Weight
1st	5 points	Malc Doyle	2  1  1  2  1	535lbs 04ozs
2nd	6 points	Clive Pritchard	2  4  2  1  1	614lbs 00ozs
3rd	8 points	Tony Roberts	2  3  1  6  2	512lbs 00ozs
4th	8 points	Nick Williams	1  3  3  2  2	444lbs 00ozs
5th	8 points	Dai Thomas	5  4  1  2  1	395lbs 12ozs
6th	9 points	Ade Williams	1  2  3  5  3	655lbs 04ozs
7th	9 points	Peter Morton	4  4  1  1  3	571lbs 04ozs
8th	9 points	Roy Ravenhill	3  1  3  2  5	454lbs 12ozs
9th	9 points	Colin Sharrard	3  1  2  3  7	440lbs 08ozs
10th	9 points	Dave Collier	2  2  3  4  2	404lbs 04ozs
11th	11 points	Ant Haywood	1  5  4  1  7	442lbs 12ozs
12th	11 points	Paul Roberts	3  2  5  4  2	413lbs 08ozs
13th	11 points	Steve Wilson	4  7  2  1  4	298lbs 08ozs
14th	11 points	Gemma Doyle	1  6  4  3  3	284lbs 12ozs
15th	12 points	Keith Fellows	4  4  5  3  1	375lbs 04ozs
16th	12 points	Mark Causer	3  3  7  3  3	259lbs 00ozs
17th	13 points	Simon Mound	7  1  4  4  4	392lbs 04ozs
18th	17 points	John Hatch	6  2  4  7  5	206lbs 12ozs
19th	18 points	Nick Watkins-Price	5  7  2  5  6	87lbs 06ozs
20th	19 points	Mitch Auger	5  5  5  6  4	256lbs 04ozs
21st	19 points	Kevin Loveland	5  3  6  5  7	204lbs 12ozs
22nd	19 points	Dave Moore	7  5  5  4  5	126lbs 00ozs
23rd	25 points	Dirk Williams	4  7  7  7  7	94lbs 00ozs
24th	28 points	Anne Thomas	7  7  7  7  7	Did not fish

NB: Anglers were allowed to drop their worst section result during the series so that the Overall Series results were decided by best 4 out of 5 section points.
Overall weight counting in the result of anglers tying on points.

Overall Pairs Result.

Position	Anglers	Points	Weight
1st	Malc Doyle & Dai Thomas	26 20  9 13  9 = 51	931lbs 00ozs
2nd	Steve Wilson & Tony Roberts	20 37  6 25 17 = 68	810lbs 08ozs
3rd	Clive Pritchard & Gemma Doyle	8 30 21 15 25 = 69	898lbs 12ozs
4th	Simon Mound & Paul Roberts	35  6 29 18 24 = 77	805lbs 12ozs
5th	Ant Haywood & Dave Collier	11 25 22 20 29 = 78	847lbs 00ozs
6th	Nick Williams & Colin Sharrard	13 25 24 20 27 = 82	884lbs 08ozs
7th	Peter Morton & Kevin Loveland	29 21 22 15 36 = 87	779lbs 00ozs
8th	Mark Causer & Keith Fellows	30 17 44 26 16 = 89	694lbs 04ozs
9th	Ade Williams & Nick Watkins-Price	21 27 25 33 26 = 99	742lbs 10ozs
10th	Roy Ravenhill & John Hatch	33 16 22 33 37 = 104	661lbs 08ozs
11th	Dirk Williams & Mitch Auger	30 42 37 45 37 = 146	350lbs 04ozs
12th	Dave Moore & Anne Thomas	50 44 45 43 46 = 178	126lbs 00ozs

NB: Pairs were allowed to drop their worst points total during the series so that the results were decided by best 4 out of 5 points scores.
Overall weights counting in the result of pairs tying on points.

Colemans Cottage Fishery. Pathfield Lake. September 12th, 2008.

Marsh AC club match.

Saturday saw me traveling down to Witham in Essex for a Marsh AC club match on Pathfield Lake at Colemans Cottage Fishery. I’d been looking forward to this match as I’d never visited the fishery before, but had heard good things about it. As usual I’d arranged to meet up with Dave and follow him down and by 7am we were on the road. Blue skies and sunshine held the promise of a decent day, though this was replaced by dull grey skies as we exited the Dartford Tunnel, but a trouble free trip saw us pulling into the fishery car park around 8am. Into the fishery lodge and we were soon tucking into a hearty breakfast as Dave took the monies and organised the draw.

There were 19 of us present including 4 guests so with the draw done it was back to the car park to sort the kit for the day ahead, and collect our keepnets and landing nets which are supplied by the fishery before we made our way to our pegs….

It had been interesting to watch peoples reactions to the pegs they’d drawn, Dave had been more than happy with drawing peg 6, a peg he’d fished on previous visits, and judging by his reaction peg 11 which I’d drawn wasn’t bad either. Thank heavens for my barrow as peg 11 appeared to be just about as far away from the car park as it was possible to get.

Setting up it didn’t look to bad, though there was a bit of green scum on the surface, but with a bit of an indent on the opposite bank and a few fish moving things were looking promising though the water level looked like it was about a foot down on its usual height.

Tackle-wise I set up a couple of Mk3 Malman self cocking paste floats on 0·16 to a size 12 Drennan Carp Method. one to fish the 18 inches of water in the margins and the other for the 4 feet that seemed to be consistent from 3mtrs out to 11mtrs, and I set up a Malman 4X12 Adam on 0·16 to a size 16 Drennan Carp Match to fish pellet and corn at 6 and 10 mtrs as well as a Malman 0·3g MTD1 dibber on 0·16 to a size 16 Drennan Carp Match that would double up as a shallow rig and margin rig for pellet and corn. I also set up a pellet feeder and pellet waggler for right across. Bait was sweetcorn, pellet and GOT Atomic paste with 6mm hard pellet for feed.

10am and Dave called the All-in and I shipped out 2 large pots of pellet and sweetcorn onto a line at 10mtrs and 5mtrs and fed some pellet down both margins. To give those lines a chance to settle I started off on the pellet feeder across, but despite signs of fish moving about didn’t get a touch in the 1st half hour. Out with the pole onto the 10mtr line but despite switching baits and working the rigs couldn’t buy a bite there either. A look on the pellet waggler was no more productive either and I was starting to worry. Jim Etherington to my right on peg 9 had managed 3 or 4 Carp by now but from what I could see others were struggling. Judy on peg 8 seemed to be in the same boat as me…………

……. and Terry on peg 7 appeared to have had just a single fish…………

About 2 hours in my float finally dipped, but rather than the elastic coming out with a Carp on the other end a small hand sized Skimmer flapped to the top, but was gratefully netted all the same. However with nearly 3 hours gone nothing had joined it. In desperation I filled it in at around 5mtrs pumped some expanders to try as a change bait, grabbed the camera and set off for a stroll looking for a bit of inspiration. Chris on peg 15 was admitting to a few silvers and 3 or 4 Carp and was soon sliding another into the net…………

Tony on peg 17 appeared to be struggling to get to grips with his peg, while Eddie down on peg 23 was handicapped by the painful effects of a slipped disc but was putting a few fish together ……

……… as was Jim Boase almost opposite on peg 26………

Looking across to Wood Lake where there was an open being fished, I could see Browning’s Dave Vincent but he didn’t appear to be having much more luck than us, despite knowing the fishery really well ………

Al on peg 28 was admitting to around 20lbs and with fish bubbling away down the track in front of him seemed to be firmly in the pound seats ………………

Meanwhile Paul on peg 34 was in danger of losing what little hair he had left trying to connect with bites that he was getting fishing the lead tight across to the island, mind you he had come to the match straight from a night shift so probably wasn’t at his best, though it’s always hard to tell with Paul ………

Further along Clive had decided to target his margin and with 5 Carp in the net was hoping to crack on in the later stages ……

Dave up on peg 6 was struggling at this stage too with just 3 Chub and a Crucian, but as I passed Terry on peg 7 he was firmly attached to a rather angry Carp that he’d hooked into the tail, well not so firmly as it turned out as it departed rather abruptly without gracing the landing net after charging round most of Terry’s swim …………

Back at my peg and I noticed a few bubbles coming up on the 5mtr line, so an expander was slipped onto the hook and the rig shipped out. Within 10 seconds the float slid away and a firm lift met with a pleasing resistance and a Common of around 3lbs was soon in the net. Back out and almost straight away I was rewarded with another Carp, this time a Mirror of around 4½lbs. Unfortunately I also suffered from a number of foul hooked fish which with the shallow water tended to charge around like lunatics disturbing the swim preventing me from building up any sort of rhythm though I did manage to keep catching reasonably regularly through to the end when Dave called the All-out at 4pm.

The weigh-in at Colemans is a delight to watch as a bailiff comes round with a quad towing a trailer. The scales are attached to the trailer so that the fish are transferred to the weigh sling weighed and returned with the minimum of fuss and the fisheries nets collected all in one go. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my fish weighed 55lbs, the second best weight at that point behind Jim Etherington’s 66½lbs which contained a right lump of 15lbs. Chris put 64lbs on the scales but it was Al who took the honours on the day with a fine net of fish weighing 88lbs, while Clive took 2nd place with a level 70lbs.

Chatting with Dave Vincent afterwards in the car park it was plain that the Open on Wood Lake hadn’t fish much better with some very good anglers struggling on the day. Back at the fishery lodge for a post match drink and the inquest was conducted. 3 guests had filled the top 3 spots, but all the club members seemed to have enjoyed the day even if the fishing had proved to be harder than expected.

 It’s a cracking fishery and one I’d happily recommend that you pay a visit to if you’re in the area. I know that I’ll definitely be going back to it in the future.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 28	Alan Loader           (Guest)	88lbs 00ozs
2nd	Peg 36	Clive Pritchard       (Guest)	70lbs 00ozs
3rd	Peg 9	Jim Etherington     (Guest)	66lbs 08ozs
4th	Peg 15	Chris Withall	64lbs 00ozs
5th	Peg 11	Peter Morton	55lbs 00ozs
6th	Peg 17	Tony Roberts	53lbs 00ozs
7th	Peg 4	John Holdsworth	40lbs 00ozs
8th	Peg 5	Dave Collier	36lbs 00ozs
9th	Peg 7	Terry Goff	35lbs 00ozs
10th	Peg 23	Eddie Dobson	32lbs 00ozs
11th=	Peg 21	Bob Hucker	24lbs 00ozs
11th=	Peg 32	Graham Manning	24lbs 00ozs
13th	Peg 26	Jim Boase	23lbs 00ozs
14th	Peg 19	Martin Hucker	15lbs 00ozs
15th=	Peg 8	Judy Hermite	13lbs 00ozs
15th=	Peg 30	Ron Mannister	13lbs 00ozs
17th	Peg 12	Mike Etherington   (Guest)	7lbs 00ozs
18th	Peg 3	Zack Johnson	6lbs 00ozs
19th	Peg 34	Paul East	DNW

Next up for me is the final match of this year’s Jinx Series at Rolf’s Lake next Saturday.