Rolf’s Lake. Holton. Oxfordshire. July 31st, 2010.

 

Jinx Match 5

Well it’s back to Rolfs again today for the 5th match of the Jinx Series . Once more Malc has organised a Friday Jinx 2010 Special Evening Match after the success of the one last year, Although the evening match doesn’t count toward the Jinx Series results a lot of the Series regulars were fishing it as well as a few guests. Unfortunately work has conspired to prevent me fishing it once more but hopefully the feed going in overnight should make for a decent match today. By the time I’d loaded the car it was starting to rain and by the time I was sitting down to breakfast at my usual stop in Battersea it was coming down in stair rods. It had stopped however by the time I got to the M40 and as I drove into the car park at Rolfs the sun was shining.

It was quite strange to arrive at Rolfs and find an almost full car park as I’m normally one of the first to arrive, but with so many of todays anglers having fished Friday’s night match it was to be expected. I soon caught up with the previous nights goings on, and as usual it comprised the usual mix of success and failure. Malc had won the match from peg 8 and with me being in A section today I remarked that I would be quite happy to draw it today. PINK HAT wearers today are Clive and Ade(having missed the previous match) with what must be a first as they are together in The Pairs.

 Well with virtually everyone there early the draw actually started early !!!!!!!!! (quite scary unheard of even). Into the draw bag and I opened my hand to reveal……….. Peg 8, hopefully a good omen for the day ahead.
So with the gear loaded up it was off round the Little Lake to my peg. For company today I had Mat Edwards on peg 7 to my right, while to my left on peg 9 was Kev along with his partner Jean, so I was guaranteed a mid match cup of coffee (Thanks Jean).

Now I knew having spoken to Malc that he’d fed and fished tight to the bush during the night so todays plan would revolve around there and a line out front at around 6mtrs. Rigs were just two MW 0·4 Power Diamonds on 0·20 with a size 16 Guru QM1 for on the deck at 6mtrs, while the margin rigs were two 0·2 MW HC margins again on 0·20 with size 16 Guru QM1′s. I decided against setting up a feeder as I wanted to concentrate on just the 2 lines. Bait and feed were a combination of 6 and 8mm fishery pellets along with some sweet corn.

So at 1pm John rang the fishery bell for the All-In. I potted out 2 large cups of mixed pellet and sweetcorn to 6 mtrs and fed a handful of pellet tight to the bush, then shipped out a banded 8mm pellet to the 6mtr line. Almost before I’d had a chance to start however Mat was landing his 1st feeder caught carp, only a small fish at around 5lbs but a decent start none the less.
Well despite lifting and dropping the rig and flicking a few pellets out continually it was around 15 minutes before my float slid away for the 1st time. It was immediately obvious that it was A: a large fish and B: It was foul hooked. After around 2 minutes I was beginning to think that I might be in with a chance of landing it, however it was not to be as the rig came flying back with a scale the size of a 50p piece attached to the hook. Another 15 minutes passed before the float slid away again, not such a large fish this time but properly hooked which resulted in a nice plump Mirror of around 8lbs safely in the net to get me off the mark.

The next hour however produced nothing more for me other than another 3 foul hooked fish, none of which yielded anything other than a scale to join the collection on the side tray, a small perch on double sweetcorn and a couple of roach. Matt however was still getting a few on the feeder and appeared to be steadily pulling away from me……

 As I pondered my next step my mind was made up for me by the site of a tail pattern in the water by the bush were I’d been feeding. The problem is getting the fish out before they bury themselves in the snags underneath it. Fish to far out from it and you wont get a bite, so it’s a question of being brave and working your way in toward it till you get a bite. Inch by inch I got a bit braver, then the float buried. Maximum side strain saw the fish come out into open water, then the fun began. This was obviously one of the larger residents and it just plodded around for 5 minutes as I made a little ground on it……

 Suddenly it popped up at my feet and I gratefully scooped it into my waiting landing net. A glorious Common and obviously a weigher I was more than happy to see it take the scales round to an even 18lbs. With the fish safely returned I edged the rig in carefully once more and the float immediately buried. An almost instant replay of the previous fish followed before I was once again sliding the net under another large Common and making my way up to the Weigh-Station only to find that this fish also weighed an even 18lbs !!!
3 in 3 put ins was surely hoping for to much, but once more the float vanished and a spirited tussle ensued before the fish, another Common was safely in the landing net……

  Not quite the size of the previous two, this one was a mere 14lbs, but that was 50lbs on the board in around 20 minutes !! However it couldn’t last and the next bite resulted in the rig being dragged through the snags before flying back completely trashed.

Back in with the spare rig but the disturbance had obviously spooked them so I re-fed and took the opportunity to tie another rig. At this point I heard Malc pipe up from the car park bank “Oi Pete, You’re facing the wrong way”  always the joker  he’d noticed that I was sitting with my back to the water as I made up the rig. By now Jean had supplied a welcome coffee and it was back to business, but as I looked up it was obvious that things were picking up on the car park bank as looking up I could see Clive (peg32) Nick (peg29) and Malc (peg28) all playing fish at the same time ……

 By now Mat was alternating between the feeder and his pole and I was convinced he was still ahead of me especially as he’d had a 19½lb Common on the pole. Peg 8 is one of those that stops you from seeing what’s going on around the lake and with very few people having a stroll today I assumed that most were catching. I was still getting bites, but the larger fish seemed to have disappeared, to be replaced by a bunch of psycho Mirrors that seem to fight like fish twice their weight and never know when they are beaten.

 In the last 1½ hours I did manage to get 8 of them safely into the keepnets but an equal number of them won the battle to stay out of them, but a decent Common weighing 12lbs did grace my landing net in the final 5 minutes before John rang the fishery bell for the All-Out at 6pm.

Packing away my gear and chatting to Mat I was happy that I had caught a ‘Ton’ but still convinced that he’d beaten me, but he was adamant that most of his fish were small and he doubted that he’d got a ‘Ton’, though I was sure he had. Anyway with the gear back at the car park it was obvious that while a good few fish had been caught a few of the lads had struggled.

So onto the Weigh-In and the 1st weight of note was Simon (peg 38) with 98lbs who’d finally managed to catch well in the final 1½hrs. However he was immediately overtaken by Ant (peg2) with 112½lbs. Fred (peg5) managed to top that with 115½lbs which would prove to be good enough for 3rd on the day. Mat did indeed have a ‘Ton’, his 1st in a Jinx Match recording 106½lbs but my fish weighed 128lbs for the A section win and 2nd overall on the day. Dave Collier (peg 11) weighed 100½lbs to take the win in B section, his 1st ever in a Jinx Match. Marcus(Budgie) won C section and took the overall win on the day with a fine 130½lbs, also his 1st ‘Ton’ in a Jinx Match. Al (peg23) weighed 105lbs which included a magnificent Common of 20½lbs which is the heaviest fish ever weighed in on a Jinx Match. Finally Clive weighed 99¾lbs to just miss the ‘Ton’ by 4ozs.

So back to the hut where we all chewed over the day and waited patiently for Malc to sort out the day’s results…….

 So with that out of the way it just remained for The Minx to sort out who would have the honour of THE PINK HAT for the final match .
Now of course there are 2 PINK HATS in circulation now and having missed out on a Full House by not getting Fred today (he’ll miss the final match as he’s away on holiday) she decided to put the peg numbers of those that were Minxed today into the draw bag and draw them, so Step forward Jon(Hatchye)Hatch……

and Nick(Monkey)Watkins-Price  ……

 …… who will be the lucky wearers when the final Jinx Match is fished on Saturday 21st August.

As for me, I’ve got a busy weekend ahead as I’m back at Rolfs on Friday for Dave the Fish’s Invitation Match which is followed on the Saturday and Sunday by the Maggotdrowning.com Rolfs Pairs Tournament. Obviously a report of all 3 days will follow but it may be a couple of days after.

OVERALL RESULT

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	15	Marcus Burgess	130lbs 08ozs
2nd	8	Peter Morton	128lbs 00ozs
3rd	5	Fred Parker	115lbs 08ozs
4th	2	Ant Haywood	112lbs 08ozs
5th	7	Mat Edwards	106lbs 08ozs
6th	23	Al Loader	105lbs 00ozs
7th	11	Dave Collier	100lbs 08ozs
8th	32	Clive Pritchard	99lbs 12ozs
9th	38	Simon Mound	98lbs 00ozs
10th	28	Malc Doyle	94lbs 00ozs
11th	31	Geoff Palmer	87lbs 12ozs
12th	40	Steve Akal	85lbs 11ozs
13th	10	Alex Clark       (guest)	85lbs 00ozs
14th	36	Tony Roberts	73lbs 10ozs
15th	26	Dai Thomas	68lbs 12ozs
16th	29	Nick Williams	66lbs 00ozs
17th	34	Steve Wilson	59lbs 12ozs
18th	13	Dave Webster	54lbs 12ozs
19th	17	Gem Doyle	53lbs 04ozs
20th	22	Nick Watkins-Price	52lbs 08ozs
21st	25	Ade Williams	52lbs 00ozs
22nd	14	Paul Roberts	48lbs 08ozs
23rd	18	Mitch Auger	48lbs 04ozs
24th	19	Jon Hatch	44lbs 04ozs
25th	4	Dave Moore	39lbs 08ozs
26th	20	Terry Goff	18lbs 12ozs
27th	9	Kevin Loveland	10lbs 08ozs

Names in PINK are those that were MINXED

SECTION RESULTS

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	8	Peter Morton	128lbs 00ozs
2nd	5	Fred Parker	115lbs 08ozs
3rd	2	Ant Haywood	112lbs 08ozs
4th	7	Mat Edwards	106lbs 08ozs
5th	38	Simon Mound	98lbs 00ozs
6th	40	Steve Akal	85lbs 11ozs
7th	36	Tony Roberts	73lbs 10ozs
8th	34	Steve Wilson	59lbs 12ozs
9th	4	Dave Moore	39lbs 08ozs
Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	11	Dave Collier	100lbs 08ozs
2nd	32	Clive Pritchard	99lbs 12ozs
3rd	28	Malc Doyle	94lbs 00ozs
4th	31	Geoff Palmer	87lbs 12ozs
5th	10	Alex Clark  (guest)	85lbs 00ozs
6th	26	Dai Thomas	68lbs 12ozs
7th	29	Nick Williams	66lbs 00ozs
8th	13	Dave Webster	54lbs 12ozs
9th	9	Kevin Loveland	10lbs 08ozs
Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	15	Marcus Burgess	130lbs 08ozs
2nd	23	Al Loader	105lbs 00ozs
3rd	17	Gem Doyle	53lbs 04ozs
4th	22	Nick Watkins-Price	52lbs 08ozs
5th	25	Ade Williams	52lbs 00ozs
6th	14	Paul Roberts	48lbs 08ozs
7th	18	Mitch Auger	48lbs 04ozs
8th	19	Jon Hatch	44lbs 04ozs
9th	20	Terry Goff	18lbs 12ozs

Rolf’s Lake. Holton. Oxfordshire. July 24th, 2010.

Jinx Match 4

Well after a break of 4 weeks I’m getting back on the bank side today with a return to Rolfs Lake for the 4th Jinx Match. Ade (Slim Shady) is in possession of the PINK HAT today, as is Paul D who missed his turn on the third match through illness so there’s bound to be plenty of banter flying about. Initial thoughts when I looked out of the window this morning were that it looked like a lovely day to be going fishing. As usual a full English was the order of the day at my favorite café in Battersea en route to the lake, and a smooth run down saw me pulling into the car park just after 10am.

A few were already in attendance as there had been a Friday night Open match that they’d fished and stopped over. As usual the car park soon filled up as groups discussed the prospects for the day ahead. Hopefully the feed that had gone in overnight would find the fish with their heads down and ready to have a serious munch. With the 3 sections having been rotated on the previous 3 matches, there was going to be a fresh draw today to decide the sections for the final 3 matches. Unfortunately Ade wasn’t in attendance for his turn on the PINK HAT so Gem decided to wear it herself, but Paul D was and proudly wearing his. Malc had the kids with him once more, so Crystal was dispatched with Liam to collect the ‘Guess the Weight’ monies, so that she wouldn’t feel to bored, and with that out of the way it was time for the draw.

Plunging my hand into the draw bag I found peg 18 was to be my home for the day. I knew that Gem had fished it on the night match so had a quick chat with her to find out how she’d fished it before loading up my gear for the short stroll round there. For company today I had Steve Wilson on peg 17 while Steve(steak) my pairs partner was out of site on peg 19.

It’s a peg that I hadn’t fished previously. It’s a decent looking peg with the large bush separating it from peg 19 on the left and another bush in the right hand margin, but it hadn’t produced a ‘Ton+’ since May 22nd. My plan of attack for today would be 2 margin swims at around 4mtrs that Gem had fished the night before and a line straight out at around 9mtrs.

  I set up 3 rigs, a Malman Adam on 0·20 with a size 16 Guru QM1 that would cover both margin swims. A MW 0·4 Power Diamond again on 0·20 with a size 16 Guru QM1 for on the deck at 9mtrs where I had around 5ft of depth and finally a MW Cookie on a similar set up for up in the water over the 9mtr line. Peg 18 is one of the pegs that you can’t use a rod on in this series, so they stayed in the holdall.
Bait and feed was taken care of by 6 & 8mm fishery pellets and some sweetcorn, along with various soft hookers.

So at 1·30pm Malc called the All-In. I shipped out 2 large pots of mixed pellets and sweetcorn to 9mtrs, fed 2 good handfuls of pellet into the 2 margin swims and went straight out to 9mtrs with an 8mm banded pellet on the hook. The float settled and 5 seconds later buried !!!! and after a spirited fight a chunky Mirror of around 7lbs was safely in the net to get me off the mark.
Next put in and the float was soon away, this time I could feel straight away that the fish was foul hooked and despite my best efforts to get it in, all I was left to show for it was a large scale on the hook . Now foul hookers can be a bit of a nightmare at Rolfs so I decided to catapult my feed in from that point, hopefully spreading the fish out a bit, rather than group them in too tight an area.

At this point a triumphal scream was heard from Gem who was on Peg 9, it signified that she had her first fish safely in the net and meant that the other 25 anglers were staring down the barrel at a Minxing and a chance of wearing THE PINK HAT, especially as Peg 9 has been consistently been producing big weights, and Eddie TG had arrived with his camera and was bound to give her some coaching during the match.

Next put in for me produced a bit of a surprise in the form of a large skimmer, not quite what I was after, but welcome none the less. Steve was also off the mark but was already starting to suffer with foul hookers that would go on to frustrate him throughout the match. Over on the Car Park bank I’d noticed that Nick on Peg 26 had already been up to the weigh station with a couple of fish……

Now Nick started fishing The Jinx Series back in 2005 and while he would only class himself as a pleasure angler, his one ambition is to catch a ‘Ton’ and we’ve all been willing him on to achieve it, but so far in 6 years of Jinx matches he’s been thwarted, but he was off to a decent start today on a peg with a bit of form, so fingers crossed for him.

Tony was opposite me on Peg 22 and seemed to be having a bit of a struggle, indeed he’d been unfortunate enough to bust a top kit trying to keep a fish out of the bush to his left earlier on, and things wouldn’t improve as he would break another later in the match ……

While Dave Moore next to Tony on Peg 23 had also started quietly and was struggling to make anything happen, though he may have been glad of the slow start having fished last nights match as well  ……

After my quick start it had slowed down a bit and after a couple of hours I had 6 carp, but had lost another 5 that had been foul hooked, so I decided to re-feed with 3 big potfuls and take a stroll with the camera.

Fred, fresh from joining the Rolfs 200+ club with a win on Wednesday’s Open was ticking along on Peg 15 and hopeful of a decent last couple of hours down the margin. Simon was tucked away on Peg 14 and owning up to 8 fish, but you could tell that in the back of his mind lay the spectre of a Minxing ……

 Budgie was the lucky occupier of Peg 13 today and reckoned he only had half a dozen skimmers and a solitary carp to show for his efforts, though he appeared to be playing another carp as I walked away……

 Jon on Peg 11 had the look on his face that told you just how much he was struggling, while Al had gone walkabout from Peg 10 which said it all as he seldom leaves his peg in the course of the match ……

 I arrived at Peg 9 to find The Minx doing battle with what was obviously a decent fish……

 Of course Eddie was there as well offering a few hints and tips so things weren’t looking good, a feeling that was reinforced when Gem put the culprit on the scales, a cracking Common of 16½lbs ……

 Geoff and Dave the Fish were next door on pegs 8 & 7, but things obviously weren’t going to plan as Geoff was fishing the feeder!!!! something I haven’t seen him do for a long while……

 Dave was also on the feeder, and if anything was having a worse time of it than Geoff which was strange as there had been a load of fish feeding there prior to the match. However they did seem to be cheered up by watching Dave(Webbo) working his way through his supply of feeders over on Peg 34 as a number of carp took a tour of the lilies in his peg ……

 Malc was on Peg 5, sitting behind him were Crystal & Liam, Crystal looked a little bored so Liam decided she needed his help to smile for the camera……

 Clive on Peg 4 was just retrieving a rig from a tree when I arrived. He’d had a decent start then lost the fish so had decided to take a look down the margin toward the corner ……

 Nick Williams was over on Peg 38 and it seemed that the peg was producing a few for him today ……

 Dai on Peg 36 however had that fixed expression that only comes from having a grueller, while watching almost everyone else putting fish in their nets ……

 So back to my peg and with a few bubbles coming up at 9mtrs my first put in resulted in……………. another foul hooker.
I decided at this point to fish the 6mm hard pellets that I was feeding and that seemed to make the difference. 3 carp and another couple of decent skimmers followed in short order. The one thing puzzling me however is the lack of weighers I’ve had fishing at Rolfs this year, in the three previous matches I’ve only had two weighers that weighed 10lbs and 13lbs. You really need a few bonus fish to do the decent weights, but I just haven’t been able to find them. Still fortunately for me the fish kept coming regularly a mix of Mirrors and Commons that were all around the 7-8lb mark, though I did manage to find one bonus, a Common of 11½lbs before Malc called the All-Out at 6·30pm. Looking down at my clicker I’d estimated that I had around 125lbs, but with rumours of Gem having 100lbs of weighers on the board the Weigh-In was going to be a nervous affair for many of us.

So with the gear back in the car, the general consensus was that an awful lot were on for a Minxing as we made our way to peg 34 to start the Weigh-In. Webbo kicked of things with a level 81lbs. Nick soon set the pace with 123lbs , but Malc put 176¼lbs on the scales, a mark that wouldn’t be beaten, giving him the win on the day. Next was the weight that we’d all been secretly dreading, and you could hear the sighs of resignation when 126¾lbs was called for Gem. Fred on peg 15 ran Malc really close with an excellent 173lbs, giving him 2nd on the day. My carp came up 8ozs short of Gem’s weight but my 3 skimmers saved the day giving me a total of 133¾lbs which was good enough for 3rd overall. The largest cheer of the day was reserved for Nick (Monkey) who recorded 109¾lbs to finally get his ‘Ton’ after 6 years of trying. Nice one Nick.

So while Malc sorted the results Paul Roberts provided the cabaret as he went on to retrieve a keepnet fitting he needed for his next days match. Well it would be rude not to record the event wouldn’t it……

 So with that over and the results announced it just remained for The Minx to decide on the lucky recipient of THE PINK HAT for the next match, and she was spoiled for choice with the line up of The Minxed today, but after a couple of suspected heart attacks among the assembled candidates ……

…………. it came to rest on Clive.

  Well that should be that, but someone reminded Nick that he’d once said that if he ever caught his ‘Ton’ he’d jump in the Lake ‘Fisho’ style. Well Top Fella, true to his word he went for it and luckily Simon caught it on Video to save it for posterity.

 

OVERALL RESULT

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	5	Malc Doyle	176lbs 04ozs
2nd	15	Fred Parker	173lbs 00ozs
3rd	18	Peter Morton	133lbs 12ozs
4th	9	Gem Doyle	126lbs 12ozs
5th	38	Nick Williams	123lbs 00ozs
6th	26	Nick Watkins-Price	109lbs 12ozs
7th	4	Clive Pritchard	97lbs 12ozs
8th	13	Marcus Burgess	92lbs 08ozs
9th	14	Simon Mound	90lbs 12ozs
10th	17	Steve Wilson	88lbs 08ozs
11th	34	Dave Webster	81lbs 00ozs
12th	32	Mitch Auger	79lbs 00ozs
13th	2	Paul Dolby	68lbs 04ozs
14th=	31	Terry Goff	66lbs 04ozs
14th=	25	Ant Haywood	66lbs 04ozs
16th	10	Al Loader	57lbs 12ozs
17th	23	Dave Moore	57lbs 00ozs
18th=	22	Tony Roberts	47lbs 12ozs
18th=	8	Geoff Palmer	47lbs 12ozs
20th	11	Jon Hatch	36lbs 00ozs
21st	20	Mat Edwards	35lbs 04ozs
22nd	7	Dave Collier	30lbs 00ozs
23rd	19	Steve Akal	27lbs 13ozs
24th	28	Paul Roberts	24lbs 00ozs
25th	36	Dai Thomas	15lbs 08ozs
26th	40	Kevin Loveland	3lbs 12ozs

Names in PINK are those that were MINXED

SECTION RESULTS

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	5	Malc Doyle	176lbs 04ozs
2nd	38	Nick Williams	123lbs 00ozs
3rd	4	Clive Pritchard	97lbs 12ozs
4th	34	Dave Webster	81lbs 00ozs
5th	2	Paul Dolby	68lbs 04ozs
6th	8	Geoff Palmer	47lbs 12ozs
7th	7	Dave Collier	30lbs 00ozs
8th	36	Dai Thomas	15lbs 08ozs
9th	40	Kevin Loveland	3lbs 12ozs
Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	9	Gem Doyle	126lbs 12ozs
2nd	26	Nick Watkins-Price	109lbs 12ozs
3rd	13	Marcus Burgess	92lbs 08ozs
4th	14	Simon Mound	90lbs 12ozs
5th	32	Mitch Auger	79lbs 00ozs
6th	31	Terry Goff	66lbs 04ozs
7th	10	Al Loader	57lbs 12ozs
8th	11	Jon Hatch	36lbs 00ozs
9th	28	Paul Roberts	24lbs 00ozs
Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	15	Fred Parker	173lbs 00ozs
2nd	18	Peter Morton	133lbs 12ozs
3rd	17	Steve Wilson	88lbs 08ozs
4th	25	Ant Haywood	66lbs 04ozs
5th	23	Dave Moore	57lbs 00ozs
6th	22	Tony Roberts	47lbs 12ozs
7th	20	Mat Edwards	35lbs 04ozs
8th	19	Steve Akal	27lbs 13ozs