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.
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….
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…………
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.
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