Colemans Cottage Fishery. Cottage Lake. October 17th, 2009.

Marsh AC club match.

Well it was down to Colemans Cottage today for an impromptu final match on Cottage Lake with Marsh AC to give Kevin a fitting send off before he and Jean leave for The Bahamas. Now Cottage Lake is the original more established lake at Colemans and doesn’t get used for many matches, so it’s a bit of a trip into the unknown for most of us.
With very little info available anywhere about this lake and the nights getting colder it was anyone's guess how it would fish, but I always enjoy fishing a water that’s new to me, so I soon had the motor loaded this morning and was away in good time and pulled into the fishery at around 7·50am to be greeted by Tony who’d already been for a scout round the lake. First things first, up to the lodge where Terry, Eddie, Kevin and Jean were already in attendance and a ‘Full English’ was soon ordered and dispatched, and as the rest of the crew arrived a few of us set off to peg the lake.

First impressions were that it looked a little gem, only 19 pegs but well established in comparison to the newer lakes at the fishery and having decided which pegs to leave out we made our way back to the lodge, where Dave got the draw under way for the 13 of us present. Today for a bit of fun Dave had drawn 3 teams, 2 teams of 4 and one of five, with the team of 5 being able to drop their worst result, and I was in the team of 5 along with Colin, Graham, Zack and Rod. Into the hat and Peg 2 was mine, so gear collected from the car and down to the lake. For company today I had Rod on Peg 1 to my left and Kevin on Peg 4 to my right. The platform on my peg had seen better days, but nothing that couldn’t be sorted thanks to my box’s telescopic legs.

From the little info I’d managed to glean it seemed that there was a fair head of Carp, including some proper lumps and plenty of silvers. Looking at my peg, I had a tree overhanging the left hand margin and a bush to the right. The wind made it feel pretty chilly though luckily it was off my back. I decided on a pole approach, setting up 3 rigs. The 1st being a 4X12 Malman Adam on 0·20 power match straight through to a size 14 QM1 for a line at around 8mtrs where I had around 3½ft of depth, and 2 Malman MTD1′s similarly rigged for down the margins 2ft deep in the left and 1ft in the right hand. Bait for the day was going to be 6mm GOT expander pellets and corn with 6 mm pellets for feed.

10am and as Dave called the All-In I shipped out a pot of pellet with a few grains of corn to my 8mtr line and fed some pellet down both margins. Tony was in to a fish almost straight away while I shipped out my rig baited with a grain of corn. No instant response for me however despite lifting and dropping the rig to try and provoke some action, just little dinks that I couldn’t connect with. Looking around a few people appeared to be taking the odd silver, but nobody appeared to be off to a flyer. 30 minutes in having changed to expander on the hook a good positive bite resulted in several feet of elastic, and after a spirited scrap a pristine Common of around 3lbs was safely netted to get me off the mark. A second followed soon after, a Mirror this time of a similar size.
I could see Colin over on Peg 8 fishing tight to the bush overhanging his left hand margin and he seemed to be matching me fishing his favourite paste……

Twenty biteless minutes followed before the next bite, this time however it felt like a much more solid fish as it plodded off, steady pressure took it’s toll however and after about 5 minutes I slid the net under a Common that must have been close to 10lbs. Another couple of fish soon followed, sadly not of quite the same stamp, both of them being closer to 2lbs than 10, but very welcome none the less. So 5 fish in the net for around 20lbs and things were looking good, the next bite however resulted in me being attached to something that felt more like a submarine than a fish, It just steadily headed off across the lake and all I could do was hang on with the pole tip under the water till the hook pulled. Unfortunately it trashed the rig. With a new rig sorted it was back out, but it took a good 20 minutes till another bite produced a small but perfectly formed Mirror of around 8ozs. A look down both margins produced nothing at all, so I decided to re feed and have a stroll with the camera while things settled.

Rod appeared to be having a bit of a struggle with just a solitary skimmer to show for his efforts, while Graham was taking a steady stream of small silvers from his peg. Eddie seemed to have a decent feature to fish to, but the fish didn’t seem to agree and he was working hard for little reward……

Terry was another who was having trouble getting to grips with things and it was becoming pretty obvious that the overnight drops in temperature during the previous week had taken its toll on things. Young Zack had managed to winkle out a couple of Carp on the feeder however and was looking reasonably happy with his lot……

Martin had nicked a Carp as well and had also encountered a submarine that had seen him off. Round to Dave who was plugging away fishing maggot which had produced some silvers and a couple of Carp for him……

Tony was in pretty much the same position as Dave and fishing for anything with fins, while Colin’s paste attack had produced 5 Carp for him, though he’d lost 3 fish which he felt were foul hooked, and while Jean watched on from behind, Kevin had managed a couple of Carp on corn……

Back to my peg and I decided to try a banded 6mm on the hook and almost immediately it produced a plump Common of around 1½lbs swiftly followed by a 12oz skimmer. I struck into the next bite and all hell seemed to be let loose as a big Carp charged off then boiled on the surface, a large Mirror that was hooked in the tail!!!!! Steady pressure saw me making progress, but the fun was still to come. Colemans supply all the nets at the fishery, but the landing nets are only 18″ spoons. Somehow and more by luck than judgement I managed to get the fish up and it’s head in the net 1st time, then the hook fell out. The fish was a stunning Mirror of around 10lbs, the orange of it’s tail contrasting wonderfully with its dark brown flanks. Dave arrived and was surprised that I’d got it in so quickly as he felt sure that I would still be playing it. A quick chat during which I missed a couple of bites then Dave was on his way.

The afternoon settled into a pattern where I would get a couple of fish then have to wait 15-20 minutes before I would get another couple, and I felt this could be down to the fish patrolling around rather than settling and the water starting to loose a bit of it’s colour as it got cooler making the fish a little spooky. Still I was putting fish in the net though I always felt that Colin had the edge as he was keeping up with me and his fish seemed to be of a better average size.

Rod at last seemed to have had a a change of fortune hooking a decent Carp only to suffer one of those horrible moments as he played it all the way to the net only to have his 8lb line break for no apparent reason. Dave however had better luck when he latched into a decent fish, and although it gave him a bit of a runaround he soon had it safely in the net……

My last fish proved to be a Tench of around 1¾lbs and when Dave called the All-Out at 4pm I’d taken 17 Carp to go with that Tench and the skimmer which I felt would be somewhere close to 60lbs.

So Kit packed away and on to the Weigh-In with Kevin once more taking up his familiar role of scalesman. Rod kicked things off with 1lb for his solitary skimmer, while my fish came to 62½lbs. Kevin recorded 15¼lbs while it was Colin who took the honours on the day with a fine 67¾lbs. Tony found that his 25¼lbs was only good enough for 4th on the day as Dave produced 27¾ for 3rd. Martin recorded a level 14lbs and Zack 12½lbs. Ken produced 8¼lbs while Terry had struggled for 8½lbs. Bob could only muster 3¾lbs and Eddie had only 3½lbs to show for his efforts. Graham being the last to weigh produced a hard earnt 10¼lbs as his reward for plugging away at the silvers.
So back to the Lodge for a welcome cuppa and a slice of bread pudding paid for by Dave.

It turned out that our team had won on the day, meaning that Zack received his first ever pick-up from a match. While the weights had been a little disappointing in general I felt that the conditions hadn’t shown the lake in it’s best light, Match wise although it holds 19 pegs it probably can’t hold more than 16 in comfort which restricts it a little, but I for one would be more than happy to fish it again.

So that’s it, definitely the final Marsh AC match of the year, well unless we sneak out somewhere for an impromptu Christmas match. Where am I off to next? Who knows? but the report will be here when I find out.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 8	Colin Sharrard	67lbs 12ozs
2nd	Peg 2	Peter Morton	62lbs 08ozs
3rd	Peg 20	Dave Collier	27lbs 12ozs
4th	Peg 9	Tony Roberts	25lbs 04ozs
5th	Peg 4	Kevin Loveland	15lbs 04ozs
6th	Peg 11	Martin Hucker	14lbs 00ozs
7th	Peg 12	Zack Johnson	12lbs 08ozs
8th	Peg 19	Graham Manning	10lbs 04ozs
9th	Peg 16	Terry Goff	8lbs 08ozs
10th	Peg 13	Ken Walker	8lbs 04ozs
11th	Peg 17	Bob Hucker	3lbs 12ozs
12th	Peg 18	Eddie Dobson	3lbs 08ozs
13th	Peg 1	Rod Turner	1lbs 00ozs

Now the club doesn’t operate a championship as such but for a bit of fun I worked out a table of the seasons results using a 20 point system, allowing for an anglers worst result to be dropped and 1 point awarded for a DNW. Guests results were not included in the table and the matches at the Private Lake and Cottage Lake at Colemans weren’t included as neither of them were official club matches. As you can see it was very close in the end with Colin and Tony tied at the top. However Colin had 3 match wins to Tony’s 2 and also caught a greater weight of fish. My blow out on the 1st match at Monks and missing the 1st match at Colemans knocked me back. Perhaps I should have worked it out on aggregate weight.

Position	Angler	Monks	PeaLane	Colemans	Rockells	Nicks	Colemans	Rayne	Points	Total Weight
1st	Colin Sharrard	20 pts	14 pts	20 pts	17 pts	18 pts	20 pts	11 pts	109 pts	580lbs 04ozs
2nd	Tony Roberts	17 pts	15 pts	18 pts	16 pts	20 pts	18 pts	20 pts	109 pts	568lbs 12ozs
3rd	Dave Collier	19 pts	20 pts	19 pts	18 pts	15 pts	16 pts	d.n.f.	107 pts	535lbs 04ozs
4th	Peter Morton	9 pts	17 pts	d.n.f.	19 pts	17 pts	19 pts	18 pts	99 pts	625lbs 04ozs
5th	Terry Goff	13 pts	1 pt	13 pts	15 pts	13 pts	13 pts	17 pts	86 pts	325lbs 12ozs
6th	Martin Hucker	6 pts	8 pts	11 pts	20 pts	10 pts	12 pts	16 pts	77 pts	499lbs 04ozs
7th	John Holdsworth	8 pts	12 pts	7 pts	d.n.f.	12 pts	13 pts	19 pts	71 pts	155lbs 00ozs
8th	Ken Walker	18 pts	11 pts	9 pts	9 pts	d.n.f.	10 pts	8 pts	65 pts	122lbs 00ozs
9th	Jim Boase	d.n.f.	19 pts	12 pts	8 pts	11 pts	d.n.f.	14 pts	64 pts	134lbs 08ozs
10th	Judy Hermite	10 pts	16 pts	d.n.f.	12 pts	14 pts	d.n.f.	11 pts	63 pts	171lbs 04ozs
11th	Chris Withall	11 pts	18 pts	17 pts	d.n.f.	16 pts	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	62 pts	105lbs 08ozs
12th	Rod Turner	7 pts	1 pt	16 pts	7 pts	8 pts	14 pts	9 pts	61 pts	75lbs 08ozs
13th	Zack Johnson	14 pts	9 pts	8 pts	6 pts	9 pts	11 pts	7 pts	58 pts	96lbs 14ozs
14th	Roger Noakes	12 pts	13 pts	4 pts	11 pts	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	15 pts	55 pts	109lbs 08ozs
15th	Simon Watkins	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	15 pts	d.n.f.	19 pts	17 pts	d.n.f.	51 pts	212lbs 08ozs
16th	Graham Manning	16 pts	7 pts	d.n.f.	14 pts	d.n.f.	9 pts	d.n.f.	46 pts	154lbs 12ozs
17th	Eddie Dobson	d.n.f.	10 pts	10 pts	10 pts	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	12 pts	42 pts	82lbs 04ozs
18th	Kevin Loveland	15 pts	d.n.f.	14 pts	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	29 pts	48lbs 08ozs
19th	Ron Mannister	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	6 pts	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	14 pts	20 pts	32lbs 00ozs
20th	Bob Hucker	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	5 pts	13 pts	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	d.n.f.	18 pts	94lbs 08ozs

(d.n.f. = Did not Fish.   20 pts = Match Winner.)

Hartleylands Farm Fishery. Peartree Lake. October 13th, 2009.

Well today is a rare midweek day out with a few of the lads from Marsh AC and Maggotdrowners . Not a club match as such, just a days fishing as Kevin has returned to these shores for six weeks before he and Jean finally make their move to The Bahamas. So that Kevin can get a final bit of fishing in ahead of their departure we’d arranged this trip down to Hartleylands today along with a final official club match at Colemans Cottage on Saturday.

I’ve still got a few days of Holiday to fit in before the end of the year, so booked the day off to venture out for an all to rare weekday session. Loading up the car just before 6am it was noticeably chilly and the car thermometer only read 4°C. I’d arranged to meet a few of the lads at The Knoxbridge Café for a spot of breakfast beforehand and when I got there Kevin, Jean and Al were already tucking in and we were soon joined by Tony and Jim. Soon we made our way down to the fishery to find the car park packed as there was a Police match on Nick’s and Bramley.

Dave soon had the draw organised and with just 13 of us fishing we just used the odd pegs on Peartree and I found Peg 19 in my hand. I soon had my gear round to the peg, though a soft trolley tyre made it harder work than usual.

Settling in I had plenty of island to go at and I decided on a nice simple day fishing the method feeder, so setting up really took no time at all seeing as the rod was already set up in its ready sleeve. Indeed I had plenty of time to go back to the car and sort out my trolley tire.

For company today I had Tony to my right on Peg 17 and DaveT (Faye’s Dad) on Peg 15, while to my left on Peg 21 was Terry. Apart from the groundbait I just had a selection of pellets for the hook and a few maggots.

Dave blew the All-In at 10·15. I banded a white 6mm pellet and with the feeder clipped up dropped it around a foot from the island. Within 30 seconds the tip wrapped round and a nice little Common Carp of around 1lb was soon safely netted to get me off the mark. Back out and the tip wrapped again and Common number 2 was safely netted. The third cast produced exactly the same result, Happy Days.

Or not as it proved, subsequent casts produced not even a tremble on the tip, going through various hookbaits had no effect at all and after an hour I decided to get the pole out. A quick look in my box found a suitable rig, a 4X12 KC Tricky on 0·14 power match with a size 18 Drennan Carp Match hook. Plumbing up at around 9mtrs I found a nice even patch at around 3½ft deep. It was noticeable that nobody had really been catching much, apart from Bill up on Peg11, so I decided to go for it and balled 6 balls of groundbait in to see if I could draw a few fish, Then went back out on the method to let things settle. Another 20 minutes on the method produced nothing however, so time for the pole. 20 minute on the pole was biteless as well so I fed 2 pots of pellets and took a stroll.

Tony had a few on the method and had mugged a 4lb’er from the margin, but was struggling to put any sort of run of fish together……

Dave T was happy with his lot as he’d managed to snare a carp that he was sure was his best ever on his new pole ……

Jim was having a bit of a struggle tucked down in a corner on peg 13 and was having to watch Bill regularly putting a fish or two into his nets, even though he was suffering blank spells of his own……

Martin and Rod were suffering in a similar vein to Jim, though John was managing the odd fish on the feeder from the end of the island.
I got round to Dave just as he was into another fish on the feeder, just a small stockie carp but welcome all the same……

Al strolled round with his wife who’d come down to see him for a couple of hours and she and Jean were taking orders for pies from the farm shop, so with my order placed I strolled round to Kev who was actually into his second fish of the day ……

Stopping for a chat with Terry he was struggling big time without a single fish to show for his efforts, despite there being fish moving in the reeds in his left hand margin.

Settling back into my peg I banded a 6mm pellet and shipped out and settled for feeding just 10-15 pellets every put in. 10 minutes of lifting and dropping finally produced a bite, and a chunky little Mirror of around 1½lbs was a welcome result. Jean and Al’s wife arrived with the pies, and that Meat & Potato pie looked like it was going to be the best bite I was going to get on the day. I wish I could say it got better as the day progressed, but it didn’t, apart from Jean turning up with a freshly brewed mug of tea courtesy of Dave. Far to long between bites was the story, but I plugged away and ended with 19 fish which I thought might scrape 20lbs, by the time Dave called the All-Out.

The Weigh-In didn’t take long. Kev kicked off with just a couple of fish for 2½lbs. Dave had fared better with 28¼lbs to show for his efforts, while John managed 14¼lbs. Bill took the bragging rights on the day with a hard earned 49lbs, while DaveT managed 30½lbs for second (Including his 8½lb PB Common) Tony managed 22¼lbs to edge out my 19¾lbs. Terry managed to find a few in the end to weigh 16¼lbs while Al managed 30¼lbs for third on the day.

So no great shakes fishing wise, but good company and far better than a day at work. It’s off to Essex and Colemans Cottage on Saturday and hopefully a few more fish.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 11	Bill Gibbins	49lbs 00ozs
2nd	Peg 15	Dave Talbot	30lbs 08ozs
3rd	Peg 23	Al Loader	30lbs 04ozs
4th	Peg 3	Dave Collier	28lbs 04ozs
5th	Peg 17	Tony Roberts	22lbs 04ozs
6th	Peg 19	Peter Morton	19lbs 12ozs
7th	Peg 21	Terry Goff	16lbs 04ozs
8th	Peg 5	John Holdsworth	14lbs 04ozs
9th	Peg 9	Martin Hucker	4lbs 08ozs
10th	Peg 13	Jim Boase	3lbs 08ozs
11th	Peg 1	Kevin Loveland	2lbs 08ozs
12th	Peg 25	Roger Noakes	1lbs 12ozs
13th	Peg 7	Rod Turner	DNW