Lucks Lane Fishery, Paddock Wood, Kent. March 28th, 2009.

Back in mid-February Paul(paulvis69)Slater put the following post up on the Maggotdrowning forum “I’m trying to arrange a match on Saturday 28th March at Luck’s Lane Paddock Wood.”

Which is how despite some misgivings due to the weather forecast and previous experience of the venue in the winter months, I found myself loading up the car and heading down there today to give it a go. Keith (Disco) Driscoll had remarked that he would be stopping at the Oakdene Café, and I met him and Greg Andrews there at around 7·15am for breakfast before we made our way down to the fishery. As soon as I got out of the car in the fishery car park it was obvious just how cold and windy it was, and this was reinforced when I had a walk round for a look at the pegs. I hadn’t fished there since 2004 and thankfully the platforms have been improved since then. I fancied either peg 11 or 12 as they are either side of the only tree that overhangs the water.

Chatting to a few of the lads prior to the draw, hopes were high as some good weights had come out recently. Paul called the draw and after handing over my money I dipped my hand in and was rewarded with peg 12 with Mick for company next door on peg 13.

Settling in it was obvious that the tree wasn’t going to be providing any shelter so decided to keep things relatively simple setting up just a couple of top kits. Both of these were rigged with KC 4×14 Carpa 2′s on 0·16 to 0·14 bottoms with size 16 Drennan Match Carp hooks. The 1st to fish on the deck at around 8mtrs where I had around 3½ft and a distance I felt would be comfortable to fish at given the wind, while the second was set at around 2½ ft to fish to the edge of overhanging tree branches. Bait wise it was pellet all the way with hard 6mm’s for feed and GOT 6mm expanders for hookers along with some hard 8mm’s to fish banded as a change bait.

It was soon obvious that everyone had set up pretty quickly as nearly everyone was walking around and having a chat with half an hour to go, either that or they were just trying to keep warm.

Anyway Paul called the All-in early giving us an extra 15 minutes. I potted out a large pot of 6mm pellet at 8 mtrs (the wind was to strong to throw them) and fed a big handfull by the tree branches. 1st put in at 8 mtrs and after a couple of lift and drops of the rig, the float dipped and I connected with a small Carp of around 8ozs that was swiftly netted to get me off the mark. Really it was a case of steady away from there. The bites were pretty shy though meaning I had to dot the tip as far down as the conditions allowed and hit every dip. It didn’t help matters that the rain soon arrived to heap more misery on us and the wind seemed to keep changing direction.


 After around 1½hrs I had 30 fish in the net but the bites started to dry up on the 8mtr line so I had a 1st look down by the tree, and there were fish there. Colin arrived to see how I was getting on, he’d had half a dozen Carp on paste pretty quickly at the start……………

……… but his bites had dried up and he was starting to feel the cold and was going back to the car park to get some warmer kit and I joined him as I’d left my fleece in the car.

Just up from Colin, was Keith who was catching steadily…………

……… but was going to endure yet more bad luck with his pole, the wind blowing it off the roller and breaking his no 6 section.
Mike (not a lover of having to scratch around for a few bites) was obviously not enjoying himself with very little in the way of fish coming his way………

……… and had also suffered the bad luck to have his no6 section break on the strike which meant that with no spare section he was having to fish short,  and would soon decide to call it quits and depart to the comfort of a warm fire and a glass of wine at home.

The fish that I was getting by the tree were a bit bigger than those from the open water swim, still silly little bites and I had to keep the feed going in to keep those coming and when I received a phone call from Dave the Fish at around 12·30pm I’d just netted my 52nd fish. The amount I’d had to feed to keep the bites coming had caught me out though and I quickly had to pop back to the car once more to get some more pellets. While I knew Keith, Gary and a couple of others were catching steadily I was feeling pretty good about framing as I was sure that I was ahead of those anglers that I could see.

Around 1·30 pm the rain stopped and sun finally appeared, and around 2pm Matt put in an appearance and you couldn’t miss him, red Milo jacket and boots topped off with a red baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses!!!
A very rare site as you seldom see Matt until the average temperature reaches 60°F. Living close by though, he’d ventured down to see how we were getting on and take a few photos……

………. but with dark grey sky’s threatening again he bade us farewell and departed.

Well the rain and wind returned, this time with added hail as a bonus. My bites had slowed but I was still getting the odd better fish from down by the overhanging branches……..

……… with a couple of 5lb’ers being the last of my 92 fish. Thankfully the sun came out oncemore and the wind dropped for the final 15 minutes of the match and allowed us to at least pack up and weigh in in the dry.

Greg set the early pace with a hard earned 57lbs but was soon overtaken by Keith putting 83lbs on the scales, including a 10lber and at that point I though that bonus fish might make the difference. However my 2 nets weighed a total of 88lbs to give me the win on the day and a nice few beer tokens. Thanks to Paul for organising the match and the rest of the lads for their company, it turned out to be quite enjoyable for me on the day.

As an aside, today was the 1st outing for my new PROTAK gear and I have to say that it coped superbly with everything that the elements threw at it keeping me warm and dry all day. Doubtless it will get another good test next Saturday when I’m at Monk Lakes for the 1st Marsh AC club match of the year. I’ll keep you posted.

Position	Angler	Weight
1st	Peter(Mugger)Morton	88lbs 00ozs
2nd	Keith(Disco)Driscoll	83lbs 00ozs
3rd	Greg(splitshot1)Andrews	57lbs 00ozs
4th	Colin H	47lbs 00ozs
5th	Ade(Wingnut)Morgan	36lbs 00ozs
6th	Paul(Paulvis69)Slater	32lbs 00ozs
7th=	Gary(oggie)Ogden	27lbs 00ozs
7th=	Nick	27lbs 00ozs
9th	Mick(The Chippy)Pearson	25lbs 00ozs
10th	Colin(The Pike)Sharrard	18lbs 00ozs
11th	John	17lbs 00ozs
12th	Alex	6lbs 04ozs
13th	Richard(DHL man)Pearson	5lbs 04ozs
14th=	Andy	DNW
14th=	Josh	DNW
14th=	Mike(Omega Mike)Jameson	DNW

Wylands International Angling Centre, near Battle, East Sussex. March 14th, 2009.

Maggotdrowning.com Knock Up.

 

Well it was back to the scene of the MD’s Southern Fur & Feather match today for yet another Knock up organised by Mark(Moleman)Hathaway and Trevor(MT Net)Little through the forum. As I loaded the car up for the drive down it appeared that the weather gods were smiling on us for once with the promise of some decent weather for a change, and hopefully a good few fish would find their way into everyones nets today. Pulling into the fishery car park around 8am a few of the lads were already there and the food hut was soon doing a brisk trade in breakfast rolls and cups of tea and coffee.

By 9am it was time for the draw and it was literally a draw for pegs as Moleman had a bag of numbered cloths pegs. I came out with peg 15 on the day, which was the same peg as I had for the Fur & Feather match previously. Having struggled to get set up comfortably last time, I had my platform with me this time and set it up so that i could use it as a seat, I’d been told by Trevor, who knows the water like the back of his hand that the line to fish was towards a bush on the opposite bank, so that was my plan of attack, I had Bill for company to my right today and Roger(Up Yah)Harris to my left, on the other side of the bridge. The rigs I set up consisted of Malman 4×14 Snake 1′s on 0·12 to an 0·10 bottom with a size 18 hook, one for the margin swim to my right by some weeds where I had a couple of feet of depth. The others were for out into open water at 7mtrs and 10mtrs where I had around 3ft. Bait was maggots and various pellets with some corn for a change bait and some groundbait as well.

While we set up there was a bit of commotion on the opposite bank. Poor Keith(Disco)Driscoll had got his pole out of his holdall, only to watch the whole lot slide down the bank and into the lake!!!! Of course he had to go in for it and thankfully he managed to get the whole lot back. Of course we were all full of sympathy for his plight (Thanks to Vince for capturing it on film )

So 10·30am and the All-in and I fed some maggots and pellets into the margin swim and cupped 5 balls of groundbait in at 10mtrs. I followed out with the rig baited with double maggot. The float settled and just slid away and the culprit, a small skimmer of 2-3 ozs was soon in the net. Bill was in straight away too, but his skimmer was around 1lb!!!! I was soon into a run of skimmers, but they were all the same sort of stamp (2-3ozs) despite switching to 3 maggots on the hook as suggested by Bill, while he continued to bag up with decent 1lb+ examples, and the only reason appeared to be that Bill had a good 4½ft of depth at a comfortable 5mtrs.

Anyway head down and keep going, at least I was catching regularly, even if Bill was battering me, Indeed after a couple of hours I reckoned that I had around 10-12lbs while Bill must have had 40lbs+ and was going to need a second net, Trev meanwhile on the peg to Bill’s right was steadily putting a decent run of fish together alternating between the pole and waggler. Bill was having one of those days though, and soon had loads of Grey Hydro streaming out of his top kit, the culprit being a decent Carp, putting me even further behind………

Having already mentally waved farewell to the £1 I’d had with Bill, I was relying on my customary £1 with Vince to offset it, but my view of Vince was obscured by the island so I just got on with it. The bites kept coming but despite trying various things I just couldn’t up the size of fish I was getting. Very occasionally I would get a better skimmer, but they were always followed by more of their smaller brethren. I seemed to be keeping up with Roger to my left, but even his fish appeared to be of a slightly larger stamp.

Around 2pm Terry(Wily Coyote)Goff put in an appearance, he couldn’t fish today, but being local had popped down to see how things were going just as my bites started to tail off , but I don’t think it was down to Terry as it didn’t seem to matter where you looked as sport seemed to have slowed down for everyone, even Bill.

Vince came round just after 2·30 pm to ask Terry to weigh his fish as he had to get away early as his son was in his first amateur drama production of “The Wind in the Willows”, and of course like any proud parent he wanted to be there. His fish weighed 18lbs 13ozs and he left the £1 with Terry for safe keeping.

With the All-out about to be called Keith’s day unfortunately went from bad to worse. Getting off his box he slipped and the sound of splintering carbon was heard by all across the lake, resulting in a catalogue of carnage (no7 section broken in two, no4 section in 4 pieces and a top 2 pulla kit snapped)

So with the match ending on that unhappy note it was time for the weigh-in. Moleman’s 35lbs 10ozs set the early pace till he was edged out of the frame by Omega Mike’s 37lbs 9ozs from the road bank. Trevor put a fine 50lbs 6ozs on the scales, but it was Bill who took a fine win on the day with 74lbs 2ozs.
My weight of 32lbs 4ozs was only good enough for seventh place on the day, but at least meant that another £1 from Vince had come my way.

All in all a good day in good company as always seems to be the case when the MD’s get together. Here’s to the next one.

Position	Angler	Weight
1st	Bill(Zak Dingle)Gibbins	74lbs 02ozs
2nd	Trevor(MT Net)Little	50lbs 06ozs
3rd	Mike(Omega Mike)Jameson	37lbs 09ozs
4th	Mark(Moleman)Hathaway	35lbs 10ozs
5th	Roger(Up Yah)Harris	35lbs 04ozs
6th	Anthony(Pastehead)Ellis	34lbs 12ozs
7th	Peter(Mugger)Morton	32lbs 04ozs
8th	Tony(spamwham)Roberts	25lbs 14ozs
9th	Simon Elsey	25lbs 08ozs
10th	Keith(Disco)Driscoll	24lbs 05ozs
11th	Paul(Paulvis69)Slater	21lbs 05ozs
12th	Gary(oggie)Ogden	20lbs 06ozs
13th	Vince(Vince G)Gould	18lbs 13ozs
14th	Mick(Old Carper)	18lbs 12ozs
15th	Ade(Wingnut)Morgan	9lbs 07ozs
16th	Mick(The Chippy)Pearson	8lbs 14ozs