Old Bury Hill Fishery.Milton Lake .April 28, 2002

Hawthorne AC club match.

The venue was Milton's Lake today for the first Hawthorne AC club match of the new season and also the first Round of the club's Knockout Cup. I'd drawn peg 17 today and it was about as far away from the "Flyers" as it's possible to get, but in the last couple of weeks the fish had started to respond to corn or meat fished over pellet, so that was to be the plan of attack for the day. The wind was already pretty strong and blowing from my right to left, with the promise of it getting stronger later. Knowing that I had no more than 4 ft of water in front I set up a Drennan .8gm Lake on 0·12 matchtec with a 0·10 matchtec hooklength and a size 16 Preston PR22 hook. (This hook has quite an unusual shape,with a pronounced swept shank that i find ideal for meat and corn, and has great holding power) The other was just a dibber on 0·12 straight through and the same pattern hook. I had started off at 6 mtrs as I didn't want to feed to a spot that I wouldn't be able to reach later. A couple of pots of "Swim Stim" 3mm pellets, corn & meat in front & one against the marginal reeds to my left was the initial feed. For the first couple of hours sport was very slow and produced just a couple of skimmers as the wind got steadily worse and showers came and went. People all around were having to alter their lines as the wind increased while I was able to keep fishing on my chosen line. 

 Unfortunately meat produced not one bite while maggot only resulted in micro-rudd.  So I decided to stick with corn ( a bait I always have confidence in) and with an hour and a half to go, the float buried and a lovely Crucian of about 1lb was safely in the net. Two more plump Crucians followed and then 3 Tench, the best of which probably went about 3lbs. Another couple of Crucians and a Bream of about 3lb were added before the final whistle. All the fish came from the 6mtr line with not a single bite from the margin swim. At the Weigh-In it persisted down with rain, and the wind was so strong that it was difficult to read the scales. The pegs either side of me weighed in 8lbs 10ozs and 2lbs 8ozs, while I weighed in a level 16 lbs to finish 5th. That was enough to get me through to the next round of the Knockout and gave me 6 points towards the club championship.  Well 1 down 16 to go.