Rolf’s Lake. Holton. Oxfordshire. June 19th, 2010.

 

Jinx Match 3

Well it’s Saturday once again and that means it’s time for the 3rd Jinx Match. It looked like a lovely summers day in prospect when I pulled back the curtains today and the sun streamed through the window. However I soon revised those thoughts as I loaded the car and a distinctly chill wind lowered the temperature somewhat. Definitely an excuse for a Full English en route to the lake. Anyway, good time was made and I pulled into the car park at Rolf’s around 10·15am.
A good few of the lads were already in attendance, and with a fresh mug of coffee the prospects for the day ahead were soon under discussion as we waited for the draw.

Now of course Paul D was going to be the owner of THE PINK HAT today. Unfortunately his wife had phoned Malc the previous evening to say that he was ill and wouldn’t be there !! Well Gem decided to put the names of those previously Minxed on the first 2 matches into THE PINK HAT to find a substitute owner for the day……………………… and the lucky winner was Steve Wilson……

On to the draw and I’m in Section B today, the home of my nemesis…… PEG 13.
In to the bag I plunged my hand, and thankfully found peg 10 was to be mine for the day, Simon being the lucky occupant of PEG 13 for today……

Now I’ve never fished peg 10 before so a quick chat with John soon gave me some idea of what to expect as he’d fished it on the Wednesday Open.
So round to the peg with my gear and I find that I’ve got Clive for company on peg 11, but surprisingly neither peg 8 or 9 have been drawn today, unfortunately though the right hand bush stops you being able to fish into 9, but it meant that Jon opposite on peg 32 would have a rake of water to go at unopposed. All the while it was growing noticeably cloudier and cooler while the wind put a good ripple on the water and I was glad I’d brought a hoodie with me.

John had recommended targeting the skimmers at 6mtrs on corn at the start, so rig 1 was a 4X12 Malman Adam on 0·20 power match straight through to a size 16 QM1. Rig 2 was a MW 0·4g XT for the 10mtr line on the deck on 0·20 Power Match with a size 14 QM1, while rig 3 was a MW Trev on 0·20 Power Match with a size 14 Drennan Carp Match for pellet and paste down the margin. Setting up my cupping kit the thread snapped off, so no cup kit today. Never mind, I could feed the 6mtr line and margins by hand and a catapult would suffice for the 10mtr line. Bait for the day would be various pellets, corn and paste, with the feed being the usual mix of fishery pellets.

So 1pm and Malc called the All-In. A good handful of pellet with a few bits of corn followed by a couple of bits of corn on the hook out to the 6mtr line ……

Within a minute the float buried and lifting into it I felt a decent sized Carp power off towards peg 9. It was also obvious that it was foul hooked in the tail and I was going to have trouble doing anything with it! Well after around 5 minutes it was obvious that the hook wasn’t about to lose it’s hold, so I decided to show it who was boss. WRONG DECISION!!!!!!! as I lifted the top kit there was a loud BANG next to my right ear, leaving me as the proud owner of a 6 piece top 2……

…… but still attached to the fish. Recovering from the shock I had no option other than to hand-line the fish, and thankfully I managed to land it without further drama, a chunky Mirror that weighed 13lbs.

As I returned the fish I could see Jon doing battle, he also had a foul hooker, but thankfully for him he got it in safely with no damage to his kit, a 12lb’er being the culprit in his case……

Taking a few minutes to compose myself, a look around the lake revealed that things had got off to a generally slow start for most, though Clive had managed a couple of decent skimmers to get himself off the mark, however it wasn’t long before both he and Simon decided to take a look down their margins which resulted in them both fishing into peg 12……

My swim had been trashed though by the foul hooker charging around it, and for the next hour or so all I could manage were a few small roach and skimmers, regardless of which line I tried. Budgie over on peg 28 appeared to have made the best start to the match having had 2 or 3 carp, though he’d also lost a couple ……

Gem had been heard to let out her customary scream and asked me to witness the fish as she weighed it at 8½lbs, was it an omen of Minxings to come? Hopefully not to many today, as Gem and Malc would be taking a couple of hours out from the match today to visit Malc’s mum who is in hospital.
For the majority though, it was proving hard. The Jinx Effect obviously being back with a vengeance for this years series. With around 2 hours gone I decided to re feed and take a stroll with the camera. Clive had that look of studied concentration that only a veteran of countless visits to Rolfs can carry off.

While Simon’s smile was probably trying to hide a fear of a second Minxing in 7 days having been beaten by The Minx along with 21 others on the Wyrley & Essington Canal the previous Sunday ……

Tucked away on peg 14, young Mitch was quietly getting on with it despite wearing some rather dubious headgear of his own ……

Next door on peg 15 was Keith (guesting today) on his first ever visit to Rolfs. He’d suffered an early demonstration of the power of Rolfs fish when one had given him the run around for 15 minutes on the pellet waggler, and had obviously decided that the pole would be easier on his arms……

Ant was on peg 17 today, Now there’s always a bit of friendly rivalry between him and Simps, but he was hoping to at least pull back a result today ……

Fred (milo) was up on peg 18, it’s proved to be one of those infuriating pegs this year, a good weight one match and very little the next, but Fred was sticking at it determined to get a few out of it……

Terry on peg 19 was having a mare with just a few small perch to show for his efforts so he had a bit to do to avoid a third straight Minxing this series ……

Next door on rarely fished peg 20 was Ade (slim shady). Now Ade is probably Gem’s number one target for a Minxing this year having avoided having his name added to The Minx List for the best part of 3 years despite a couple of close shaves, but even he was looking worried today, though he did hook into his first carp of the day as we chatted ……

Geoff on peg 22, who’d once more travelled down from Scotland was contenting himself fishing for anything with fins. Meanwhile Nick(monkey) was sitting it out on peg 25 and hoping things would pick up as the match progressed ……

On peg 26 was Paul, who once again had drawn a car park peg on a day that he had his good lady Jayne to accompany him……

Tim was struggling pegged between Budgie and Steve on peg 31, and although Steve was getting a few bites they weren’t all from carp but skimmers……

Round on peg 34 Dai was starting to get a few bites, but was having trouble with fish shedding the hook for no apparent reason ……

Dave Moore was on peg 36 and was once more being given a good going over by the Rolfs residents, as they were happily showing themselves in his swim, but refusing to co-operate by taking any of his offerings regardless of how he presented them …

Malc and Gem had left for the hospital by now, and Al was down on peg 40 with his son (Little Al) for company today, but he only had 3 small carp to show for his efforts. Tony had managed 3 decent carp from peg 2, but shortly after I took this photo……

he was comprehensively seen off by a proper lump leaving him with a busted top kit. As I arrived at peg 4 Kevin was re-elasticating a top kit having been unfortunate enough to tread on a top kit as he went to weigh a decent carp……

…… unfortunately that wasn’t the end of it for Kev, as later on another carp pulled the freshly elasticated top kit off his pole and consigned it to the depths of the lake as he was playing it. Meanwhile round on peg 7 on his own, Mat was quietly enjoying himself catching a few decent fish, one of which was caught on camera by Simon ……

So back to my peg once more, and I wish I could say that things improved, but alas they didn’t, just another few small roach snaffling the bait. Simon had finally got something with a bit of weight, though not what he was expecting in the shape of a cracking Golden Orfe …

Jon was still taking the odd fish, as was Budgie, but the man that started to motor towards the finish of the match was Clive who managed to tempt a decent run of fish from under the bushes to his right ……

Most of which I witnessed as he brought them to me to verify their weight ……

Malc and Gem had returned by now, Malc having a couple of quick fish as soon as he returned to his peg, and Gem also managed to add another couple to her tally and crank up the pressure to avoid a Minxing.

With half an hour to go my swim at 10 mtrs suddenly burst into life, giving me 3 carp in 3 put ins and with about 5 minutes to go I had a 4th which dived under my platform as I tried to net it. Fortunately I managed to extract it from there, much to Simon’s amazement, but as I shipped out to try for another Malc called the All-Out.
Now you may remember that I mentioned that Al had his son Little Al with him today, well with the match over Little Al had a go with dad’s gear for 10 minutes. Well he’s obviously a natural as within a matter of moments he’d caught a carp for himself……………………………….. an absolute cracker of a Common that weighed 14lbs……

As we packed up our kit I noticed that Gem had taken all her nets out, so 27lbs would be the target to avoid a Minxing and I was pretty confident I’d avoided that thanks to the final half hour. With the kit back at the car there were a few worrying about their fate as the Weigh-In started.

Dai got off to a good start with 78¾lbs on the scales which would prove to be good enough to win the section, indeed it wasn’t even challenged with Tony’s 59¼lbs and Matt’s 60¾ lbs coming closest. My fish made 40½lbs, but was firmly beaten by Clive’s 87¾lbs not only taking the section, but the overall match as well. Poor Simon’s meagre 7¾lbs ensured consecutive Minxings for him. The next interest focused on peg 20 and Slim’s weight, which came in at 24½lbs meaning that The Minx had got him at last.
Nick recorded 58¼lbs to just pinch C section from Keith’s 57lbs 2ozs (a decent result on Keith’s first ever visit) Finally Budgie’s level 79lbs prove good enough for 2nd in B section from Jon’s 72½lbs.

So finally with the results out of the way, all that remained was the ritual humiliation where those that had been Minxed were lined up for The Minx to chose the recipient of THE PINK HAT to be worn at the next Match ……

Well in all honesty there was only going to be one person that got it…… The proud owner of THE PINK HAT for Match 4……………

Ade (Slim Shady) Williams
NB: Don’t worry Paul D hasn’t escaped THE PINK HAT and a suitable forfeit will be in place in time for the next match.

OVERALL RESULT

Position	Peg	Name	Weight
1st	11	Clive Pritchard	87lbs 12ozs
2nd	28	Marcus Burgess	79lbs 00ozs
3rd	34	Dai Thomas	78lbs 12ozs
4th	32	Jon  Hatch	72lbs 08ozs
5th	7	Mat Edwards	60lbs 12ozs
6th	2	Tony Roberts	59lbs 04ozs
7th	23	Nick Willams	58lbs 04ozs
8th	15	Keith Powell (guest)	57lbs 02ozs
9th	14	Mitch Auger	53lbs 04ozs
10th	18	Fred Parker	49lbs 00ozs
11th	10	Peter Morton	40lbs 08ozs
12th=	4	Kevin Loveland	35lbs 08ozs
12th=	31	Steve Wilson	35lbs 08ozs
14th	40	Al Loader	34lbs 12ozs
15th	17	Ant Haywood	30lbs 12ozs
16th	25	Nick Watkins-Price	29lbs 04ozs
17th	38	Malc Doyle	28lbs 08ozs
18th	5	Gem Doyle	26lbs 13ozs
19th	20	Ade Williams	24lbs 08ozs
20th	36	Dave Moore	21lbs 00ozs
21st	22	Geoff Palmer	17lbs 12ozs
22nd	26	Paul Roberts	15lbs 08ozs
23rd	29	Tim Westmoreland	14lbs 08ozs
24th	19	Terry Goff	12lbs 08ozs
25th	13	Simon Mound	7lbs 12ozs

Names in PINK are those that were MINXED

SECTION RESULTS

Position	Peg	Name	Weight
1st	34	Dai Thomas	78lbs 12ozs
2nd	7	Mat Edwards	60lbs 12ozs
3rd	2	Tony Roberts	59lbs 04ozs
4th	4	Kevin Loveland	35lbs 08ozs
5th	40	Al Loader	34lbs 12ozs
6th	38	Malc Doyle	28lbs 08ozs
7th	5	Gem Doyle	26lbs 13ozs
8th	36	Dave Moore	21lbs 00ozs
Position	Peg	Name	Weight
1st	11	Clive Pritchard	87lbs 12ozs
2nd	28	Marcus Burgess	79lbs 00ozs
3rd	32	Jon  Hatch	72lbs 08ozs
4th	10	Peter Morton	40lbs 08ozs
5th	31	Steve Wilson	35lbs 08ozs
6th	26	Paul Roberts	15lbs 08ozs
7th	29	Tim Westmoreland	14lbs 08ozs
8th	13	Simon Mound	7lbs 12ozs
Position	Peg	Name	Weight
1st	23	Nick Willams	58lbs 04ozs
2nd	15	Keith Powell (guest)	57lbs 02ozs
3rd	14	Mitch Auger	53lbs 04ozs
4th	18	Fred Parker	49lbs 00ozs
5th	17	Ant Haywood	30lbs 12ozs
6th	25	Nick Watkins-Price	29lbs 04ozs
7th	20	Ade Williams	24lbs 08ozs
8th	22	Geoff Palmer	17lbs 12ozs
9th	19	Terry Goff	12lbs 08ozs

Monk Lakes. Match Lake 2. January 17th, 2009.

1st trip of 2009.

It was off down to Monk Lakes today for a session with a friend of mine from the Maggotdrowning.com website, Andy (The Hat) Spreadbury. Andy had treated himself to a new float rod for Christmas and was eager to try it out, and I’d resurrected an old Bob Church Boron spliced tip match rod that hadn’t seen the light of day for at least 10 years. We had planned to go between Christmas and the New Year, but postponed it due to the cold snap, but with a bit of milder weather during the week decided to go for it today.

Loading up the car it was raining, but the forecast was for it to brighten up later in the day. A crash in Catford held me up briefly so that it was around 8·45am when I finally pulled into the fishery car park to meet Andy. Greeting done with, it was into the shop for some bait (maggots), a quick chat with Ron at the counter (he was kind enough to let us use our keepnets) and pay for the day ticket followed by a coffee from the snack wagon before driving up to the match lakes.

Climbing out of the car the first thing to hit you was the wind (no surprise at Monks I’m afraid) and it had a real chilling bite to it today. Lake 2 looked the best bet and with 4 anglers already on the prime corner (pegs 45-49) the spit looked favourite as we would have the wind of our backs. We soon had our gear sorted and over to our pegs, settling for pegs 58 & 59.

 I soon had the old Bob Church rod set up, matching it with an old Stradic reel freshly loaded with 3lb Maxima. I rigged up a 4AAA peacock insert waggler finished of with a size 18 Drennan Match Carp hook at the business end. Andy had soon rigged up his new rod, a Shakespeare Mach 3, 13′ Float Lite, a lovely pencil slim blank and had it set up with a similar rig to mine.

So around 10am we got down to the fishing just as the sky seemed to get a shade darker and the wind stronger. The old rod was a tad heavier than some of the latest stuff but was quite at home punching the waggler out and I was soon into a rhythm catapulting a regular pinch of maggots out and twitching the float to try and induce a bite. Working my way through the depths I finally got a bite with the bait hard on the deck. soon the spliced tip was hooped over and the rod handled the fish effortlessly as a nice little Mirror of around 2½lbs slid over the net to get me off the mark…………

Andy was off the mark soon after with a nice F1 to christen his new rod……

………and seemed more than happy with the performance of it. Shortly after we were treated to a short rain squall just to remind us that it was winter (though I must confess to looking round to see whether Bill G had put in an appearance) That soon blew over however to leave us with blue sky and sunshine.

A couple of F1′s were added to my net but Andy appeared to be struggling, so I strolled over to see if I could help.

After a little adjustment to Andy’s shotting I stood back to watch him fish. A couple of alterations to little things like rod-rest positioning etc then we turned our attention to Andy’s feeding. Now Andy is probably fine with a catapult firing out boilies when he’s carping, but maggots on a windy day leads to what you might call a scattergun approach. He also has no concept of quantity!!! Trying to get him to just fire out 6-8 maggots regularly round his float somehow turns into 30-40 as and when in a general direction (well they all land somewhere in the lake). It did bring instant rewards though in the shape of a couple of tiny skimmers.

I returned to my peg but was distracted by a couple of the resident swans that seemed to be preoccupied with practising their take-off and landing techniques, but after 5-10 minutes of that the Cob decided to practise a bit of posing……

I had to get back to some kind of feeding rhythm and I soon had another Mirror and a couple of F1′s as I started to get regular bites once more. Andy came up to ask me what the fish was that he had in his landing net as he wasn’t sure, It was a decent Ide, which pleased Andy as it was the 1st he’d ever caught ………

I managed an unseasonal Tench and a decent skimmer that pretended to be a Trout, leaping clear 3 or 4 times before Andy was back again with more fish ID questions. A Golden Orfe this time and another 1st for Andy and an opportunity for another photo call  ………

A nice Perch of around a pound put in an appearance for me just to add a bit of variety, but the noticeable thing was that although I kept altering depths during the course of the session the only time I could get a bite was when the bait was nailed to the deck, and that a number of the fish had what appeared to be small creamy coloured leeches on them, which I took to indicate that they may had been laying up semi dormant during the icy spell the previous week and were only just starting to feed, though I might be wrong on that one, who knows for sure.

We fished on until just after 3pm, when with the light starting to fade and the wind feeling a touch colder we decided to call it a day. As Andy had his Avon’s with him we had a quick weigh-in to see how it had gone on the day. Andy was first to weigh and his fish came to 29½lbs……

While my fish tipped the scales at 34½lbs ………

Gear back in the cars, there was just time for a cup of coffee and a cheeseburger from the snack wagon as we mulled over our thoughts on the day. All in all a decent day in good company and a couple of nice nets of fish given the conditions. Andy seemed more than happy to have christened his new rod and had hopefully picked up a few tips along the way and we’d had a few laughs and a bit of banter, which is what it’s all about really, we’ll have to do it again soon.


For those of you that are interested, to give you a different viewpoint, the following is Andy’s thoughts on our day………


Winter for me, used to be a grim time in the fishing year. Sitting behind a pair of carp rods, week after week, freezing cold, bored, frustrated at the lack of action, and thoroughly fed up with the whole thing wondering what the hell I was doing there. Then I discovered Maggotdrowning.com. With the discovery of this band of lunatics came new friends and a window on a world of Angling I had hitherto had scant knowledge.

First the pole, then the waggler on the many commercial fisheries in the South-East became my winter interest and I am happy to say that through Maggotdrowning I have had some not only really enjoyable sessions in terrific company, but I have learnt an enormous amount – mostly from the Master of the Poles himself – our very own Sir Peter of Morton. It was with Sir Peter I was fishing one of my favourite places today – Match Lake 2 on the Monk Lakes complex near Staplehurst, known to all Kent anglers. It’s always a Grand Day Out with Peter and today was to be no different……..

The Session

I left home in a downpour and things looked decidedly grim – Monks is very exposed and the combination of high wind and rain can make a session on there arduous to say the least! We decided to go for pegs with the wind at our backs and this proved a wise decision as the wind really got up on occasions during the day.
Straight out of the rod-bag it’s my brand new Shakespeare 13 foot Match Lite (£85 from Devon Angling and price matched by the excellent Invicta Angling of Ashford). This was its first outing and I was really keen to see how it would perform; this was teamed with an old Shakespeare ‘Powerplay’ rear drag jobby filled with 3 lbs. Line, the rig terminating in 0.1 Preston Powerline and a size 18 Tubertini.

First up and it’s a little Chublet for me, closely followed by Peter with a hard-fighting carp of three pounds or so. This was going to be a very good day, marred only by a family of mental retards fishing the far bank, shouting to one another in what can only be described as ‘ape language’. The dad seemed to be permanently turned to maximum volume and appeared to have the intelligence of a Geranium. Peter asked me if I had a gun as he wished to put the poor man out of his (and our) misery!
As usual, Peter’s catch-rate began to exceed my own and I sat there scratching my head wondering what it was he was doing that I wasn’t. I thought I’d got a grasp of the basic principles (acquired during previous sessions with Peter) of Feeding being the key to success, the Little and Often principle applying to pole and waggler fishing in general. I was obviously not doing it right and it was not long before Peter had spotted this too and stopped fishing to come to my aid….
“Lets have a look at your rig Spreaders”.

I willingly offered up my end-tackle, thinking “he won’t find much wrong with that” a bulk around the base of the float and a single number eight, nine inches from the hook acting as a tell-tale. Peter grasped the line, screwed up his face in disgust and pointed to a single shot I’d got a foot below the float,“What’s that doing there?!”“Erm; it’s a shot to take the float down a bit – I had too much sticking out of the water”
Peter had an ‘Oh my God’ look about him as he made lots of adjustments to my shotting.

“You need to stabilise the rig in this wind as there’s a bit of tow on today; there’s four shots tapering down to the number eight, up from the hook and the locking shot are closely tucked up at the base of the float”.

This was an altogether better rig which on casting felt a lot better, it didn’t drift so much on the tow, away from my feed. Ah feed. Now that was another disaster.

“Cast out and fire out six maggots around the float”

I grabbed what I thought was a small pinch and fired them off in the general direction of the float, the strong wind unfortunately taking them several yards away from the float, (well that was my excuse anyway!)

“Andy, the general idea is to actually feed where the hookbait is – not five yards from it. All that will happen is the fish in the area will go and eat the feed there rather than where your hookbait is! And I did say half a dozen not half a bloody handful!”

On paper, Little and Often sounds as easy as anything, but how many is Little, and how long (in time) is Often? Here was the answer – six maggots every minute and a half and they have to be spot on around the float otherwise you’ll just end up drawing the fish away from your rig rather than to it.

After this I spent the rest of the session trying to get these few basic principles right – and how difficult it proved to be. Granted, the wind didn’t help although on the day it was a useful training aid in practicing skills with the catapult, but for a relative numpty, I found it remarkably difficult to get right, my maggots flying hither and yon, scattered to the four winds on occasions. Peter had the answer to this too – fish a lot shorter. Better to bait accurately at short range, than inaccurately at longer range.
From then on, with just a few maggots landing around the float every few minutes or so my catch-rate began to pick up and I managed to put together quite a respectable net of fish – F1s, some Ide

(a first for me as I’d never caught one before – a fish like a huge Roach and very hard fighting), a Golden Orfe (again another first), skimmers, and a lone Tench. At the end of the session we had a weigh-in (we had special dispensation from Ron at Reception), and I was very pleased to record twenty-nine and half pounds – the most I think I’ve ever weighed-in at Monks. Peter was of course ahead of me with thirty-four and a half pounds which would have been much, much more had he not stopped fishing to sort me out and give me instruction.
Once again it was a Grand Day Out in smashing company. My thanks to Peter for persevering with me throughout the session – what a frustrating pupil I was! Here’s to the next time we go fishing.