Rolf’s Lake. Holton. Oxfordshire. September 3rd, 2008.

Rive T’s TalkAngling.co.uk Forum Match.

It was down to Rolf’s Lake today for A RiveT Piscatorial Promotion along with the lads from TalkAngling. I Missed getting my name down for this when it was posted on the forum, but managed to get on the reserve list, and nearer the day I was in probably due to the fact that it was a weekday, but as I’d got few holiday days left it wasn’t a problem for me to get a day off.
The weather didn’t look like it was going to be the best with rain pretty much all the way down.

People soon assembled and got their nets dipped, and it was good to catch up with some faces both old and new. Dave’Yorkie’Moore, one of the Jinx mob had snuck down for the day and I was able to finally catch up with Lee(Mouse)Woodhouse on his 1st visit to Rolf’s. Mr & Mrs Sumo were in attendance with Sue hoping to beat hubby once more. Tony(RiveT)Walsh and Larry gathered in the monies and it was Draw time. With everywhere fishing so inconsistently at the moment including Rolf’s I was hoping for either pegs 7 or 8 or the Car Park bank to avoid a long walk and the peg that stuck to my hand was 22, the 1st peg on the Car Park bank.

Now John had been gardening once more and the left hand bush has had a good old pruning, but the brambles to the right are still intact and with nobody to my right till Dave Moore opposite on peg 18 today I fancied it for a few. To my left I had Matt6900 on peg 23 and Curtains on peg 25……

Rigs were my usual ones for Rolf’s with 2 to fish pellet consisting of Malman 4×12 Adam‘s on 0·18 to a size 16 Drennan Carp Match hooks, one for straight out at 6mtrs where I had around 5ft of water and the other to fish up against the brambles and to the edge of the bush where there was around 3½ft. I also set up a paste rig with a Mk3 Malman self cocking paste float on 0·21 to a size 12 Drennan Carp Method. I also set up the feeder as I always do at Rolf’s. Bait wise it was 6 and 8mm fishery pellets. a bit of hemp, paste and 6 and 10mm cubes of meat.

So 11am and with the rain falling the All-in was called and I dumped 2 large potfuls of pellet onto the 6mtr line and a handful along the brambles and another to the edge of the bush to my left. While those settled I chucked the feeder over to the edge of the bush on peg 20. On the 4th chuck the rod wrapped round just as I was feeding the brambles once more, but fortunately I managed to connect and after a spirited tussle was rewarded with a nice Common of around 8lbs in the net.

Matt was fishing out a bit further on the pole and was soon off the mark as well…….

but already had the fish fizzing on his pole line and started to suffer with a number of foul hookers though he did manage an acrobatic Skimmer. I’d had no more joy on the feeder and with a few bubbles coming up over my feed at 6mtrs had gone onto the pole and by constantly working the bait I was rewarded with my 2nd fish of the day, a Mirror of around 6lbs.

With thunder starting to rumble in the distance and the rain getting heavier sport was slow with nobody appearing to be doing well around us, just the odd fish coming out though reports were that pegs 7 and 8 were doing OK and a few more fish coming out on the Little Lake. Matt and I had managed a couple more each and Dave had got off the mark with a fish that he’d hooked in the tail that had led him a merry old dance before he netted it.

Thankfully around 1·30pm the rain had eased off and the sun actually came out and with so little action I re-fed and took a stroll to let things settle. Tucked away on peg 13 I found Paul(Justin Case)Law who’d had a bit of a frustrating start but was starting to get amongst a few fishing down his right hand margin……

Looking across I could see Lee on peg 31 doing his best to get to grips with a sort of fishing which is pretty different to his normal approach on the Midland canals………

……….and it seemed that he was being handed a lesson off the next peg by Sue(Mrs Sumo) ………

Back to my peg just as the rain started again and the 6mtr line produced another couple of Carp and Matt found a nice Carp from under his right hand bush, but was then frustrated by a number of Roach that moved onto his bait. I couldn’t buy a bite from the brambles but finally managed a weigher from the edge of the left hand bush. Curtains on peg 25 finally started to get a few weighers and it looked like Matt and I would be playing catch up ……

Peg 17 had started to catch regularly but poor Dave on 18 was having one of those days that we all dread watching others catch without being able to do anything about it himself despite going through all the methods ……

Matt’s fish seemed to have dried up on him and he packed up before the all out and tipped back while I managed a final couple of fish from the 6mtr line before the All-out at 4pm.

 The scales started from my peg and 67½lbs was my reward for the day and a section win. Lee managed 24lbs 6ozs made up of 3lbs of silvers and 2 Carp of 9lbs and 12lbs 6ozs but had lost 7 fish during the course of the day but somehow managed a section win although he was soundly beaten by Sue. The best weights on the day came from the Little Lake with 160lbs winning, 148lbs 2nd and 120lbs 3rd. All in all not the best of days, but certainly better than being at work.

As always though it was good to catch up with friends both old and new and enjoy a day in good company, Hopefully it won’t be to long before we do it all again somewhere. One word of warning though, Don’t have a Mars Bar bet with Lee, as he doesn’t pay up, probably because he eats them all.

NB: It would appear that the result sheets have been mislaid, but if they ever turn up I’ll post the full results.

Rockells Farm. Saffron Walden. Essex. August 16th, 2008.

Marsh AC club match.

Today was the Marsh AC match at Rockells Farm in Essex and I’d arranged to meet Dave Collier at his house at 6.45am and follow him and Colin down to the venue as it’s rather tucked away off the beaten track and a pig to find, Chris Withall had the same idea, and as we set off in convoy it was raining and the weather forecasts in the week previously hadn’t been good, so it looked like we may be in for a wet old day. Round the M25 and onto the M11 and we were brought to a halt by a crash, though thankfully we were soon moving. Intent on following Dave I got a phone call from Paul East, who had missed his turning and taken the scenic route via Colchester, and by the time we’d sorted that one out it was obvious we would have to draw for him.

Arriving in the fishery car park around 8·15am Kevin Loveland and I were dispatched to arrange the pegging for the 18 of us fishing while Dave organised the draw. We were under instructions to leave as many of the pegs close to the car park out as we could, so pegged 9 down the left and the other 9 round the top and down the right of the lake. Happily the rain had stopped and the sky was lightening as we started the draw so perhaps a decent day was on the cards.

I’d been looking forward to this match for a while as Rockells has a reputation of producing some decent weights, I’d only fished there once previously in the depths of winter and blanked, but last years club match which I missed as I was on holiday had produced a 200lbs+ winning weight and a few tons to back it up. I’d spoken to Trevor Price of GOT Baits prior to the match and he’d told me how he would fish it if he was there, so at least I had a good idea of how I was going to approach the day given a half decent draw.

Into the draw bag and I pulled out Peg 3, one of the three pegs at the top of the fishery, and I was more than happy with that. Tony Roberts had drawn Peg1, which I was informed by Dave was the out and out flyer, while Judy Hermite joined us on Peg2. Opposite I could see Martin Hucker who had won the previous match at Churchgate Lakes and Paul finally arrived to take Peg5.

Peg 3

Settling into the peg I just set up 3 top 2′s, 2 fitted with Teepee’s paste pots and Mk3 Malman self cocking paste floats, one to fish straight out into about 2ft of water and the other for the margin where there was around 18 inches depth. The third rig was just a Malman MTD1 Dibber for up in the water if the fish rose up to intercept the pellets I was planning to feed. Bait was simple, all I was planning to use was paste, which was the new Atomic Paste from GOT Baits. I’d been forewarned that you can use a fair bit at Rockells, so had premixed a good 6 pints of it the night before. For feed it would just be 4mm pellet and some hemp. The reason for the hemp was that todays match was being split into two 3 hour sessions with a 1 hour break mid way through for a mid-match weigh-in taken at the fishery owners insistence, and I wanted something that I could feed just prior to the break that would stand a chance of holding the fish during this break when we couldn’t feed.

Tony was happy with his peg.

So 10am and Dave blew the whistle for the all-in. A pinch of pellet and hemp out in front of me and the same down the left hand side. Going out with the deeper rig in front I potted in the paste and the float settled and 5 seconds later buried and I was off and running with a little Mirror Carp of around the pound safely in the net. After that it was just a case of trying to get into some sort of rhythm with just a pinch of feed going into both swims regularly and trying to sort the liners from the real bites.

After an hour I had 30 fish in the nets but they were all pretty small, ranging from 6ozs to 1½lbs, but I could see that Martin opposite was getting a better stamp of fish. He was fishing floaters down his right hand margin and I could hear the fish slurping them off the top. Looking down the margin I could see a few tail patterns so decided to have a look down there to see if the fish were of a better stamp and straight away was rewarded with a Common around the 2½lb mark. One of the frustrating things was the number of missed bites, a lot of which you would think were liners, but with very few foul hookers I felt that it was due to the poor condition of a lot of the fish’s mouths making it hard to get a decent hook hold.

 Sport remained pretty constant but I trashed 3 rigs when fish took me through brambles that were trailing into the water, and I took 15 minutes out to tie some new rigs, knowing that we would be stopping for an hour at 1pm for a mid match weigh-in. I knew that Tony was catching reasonably well along with Martin, but felt that it would fish even better during the afternoon session.
The problem would be keeping the fish in the margins during the hour’s break for the weigh in and the ensuing commotion of the nets coming out and fish being returned, so with a couple of minutes to go I fed 3 pints of hemp into the margin swim along with a pint of pellet before Dave signalled the all-out.

A chat while we waited for the scales revealed that Judy wanted both Tony and I to give her an hours start in the afternoon, Tony was owning up to having around 70lbs on his clicker (but can you believe one of Pinocchio’s relatives?) while I felt I should have a good 80lbs. By the time the scales arrived Colin had weighed 83½lbs from Peg17 and Martin 110¼lbs.
Tony’s fish weighed in at a level 82lbs while my 2 nets registered 107½lbs. So 2 Ton weights caught in 3 hours and all to play for come the afternoon session.

Martin partakes of some mid match refreshment

Thirsty work this baggin.

Waiting for Dave to signal the afternoon all-in I mixed up another 3 pints of paste just to be on the safe side as I could see the tail patterns still in my margin swim so felt confident. Just after 2pm Dave blew the whistle for the all-in, straight down the margin and the float buried and I was off again as a bright silver Common around 2lbs nestled in the landing net. To be honest the sport remained pretty constant for the next 3 hours and while the average size wasn’t big I did manage to find a few larger examples around the 6-8lbs mark in the last hour. Martin had another good session, but I was pretty confident that I’d caught more than him this time, especially as he’d run out of bait with 5 minutes to go and I’d had another 4 fish in that time.

With the scales starting from our side this time round, a quick chat with Tony revealed that he thought he was in with a chance of his 1st Double ton on aggregate, while I felt that just maybe I was in with a chance of a Treble Ton as I’d caught much better in the afternoon session. Soon the Weigh-in got underway with Tony posting a level 130lbs for an aggregate of 212lbs, Mission accomplished. Judy added 45½lbs for a total of 70¼lbs which is her best ever match weight. My turn next and lifting the 1st net I needed John to give me a hand. As it turned out I was a little bit short of what i needed for a Triple Ton as the 2 nets came to a level 186lbs giving me an aggregate of 293½lbs, by far my best ever match weight by over 100lbs.

Round to Peg4 and Martin had another great session weighing 123½lbs for a total of 232¾lbs and his best ever match weight. As the scales moved round everyone had improved on the morning weights with Dave, Al, John and Paul posting ton plus aggregate weights. Last but one to weigh was Colin, and by all accounts he’d had a cracking afternoon catching a decent stamp of fish and he was admitting to 41 fish in his 3 nets, they weighed 167½lbs giving him an aggregate of 251lbs and second place on the day.

So there you have it, the top 4 anglers all beat their previous best match weights and the top 3 also beat the previous Club match record held by Dave at 231lb. To top it all the final total of 1991lbs of fish weighed in was 300lb higher than the club had ever weighed in and represented an average of 110lb per angler. One hell of a days fishing by anyone's standards.

Sorry for the lack of photos, but as you might have guessed from the report, I was a little too busy to take many today.

Position	Peg	Angler	Morning	Afternoon	Total Weight
1st	Peg 3	Peter Morton	107lbs 08ozs	186lbs 00ozs	293lbs 08ozs
2nd	Peg 17	Colin Sharrard	83lbs 08ozs	167lbs 08ozs	251lbs 00ozs
3rd	Peg 4	Martin Hucker	110lbs 04ozs	123lbs 08ozs	232lbs 12ozs
4th	Peg 1	Tony Roberts	82lbs 00ozs	130lbs 00ozs	212lbs 00ozs
5th	Peg 9	Dave Collier	41lbs 08ozs	83lbs 00ozs	124lbs 08ozs
6th	Peg 8	Alan Loader	26lbs 00ozs	94lbs 00ozs	120lbs 00ozs
7th	Peg 13	John Holdsworth	32lbs 12ozs	82lbs 08ozs	115lbs 04ozs
8th	Peg 5	Paul East	22lbs 00ozs	91lbs 08ozs	113lbs 08ozs
9th	Peg 14	Terry Goff	25lbs 04ozs	59lbs 08ozs	84lbs 12ozs
10th	Peg 12	Chris Withall	35lbs 00ozs	49lbs 00ozs	84lbs 00ozs
11th	Peg 2	Judy Hermite	24lbs 12ozs	45lbs 08ozs	70lbs 04ozs
12th	Peg 18	Roger Noakes	15lbs 08ozs	54lbs 08ozs	70lbs 00ozs
13th	Peg 7	Kevin Loveland	22lbs 00ozs	31lbs 08ozs	53lbs 08ozs
14th	Peg 6	Bob Hucker	14lbs 08ozs	35lbs 00ozs	49lbs 08ozs
15th	Peg 16	Graham Manning	14lbs 08ozs	30lbs 08ozs	45lbs 00ozs
16th	Peg 15	Ken Walker	7lbs 00ozs	31lbs 08ozs	38lbs 08ozs
17th	Peg 11	Eddie Dobson	8lbs 08ozs	15lbs 08ozs	24lbs 00ozs
18th	Peg 10	Rod Turner	3lbs 08ozs	5lbs 08ozs	9lbs 00ozs

Hartleylands Farm Fishery. The Reservoir. May 13th, 2006.

Marsh AC club match.

Well what a day!!!!!!!  I was at Hartleylands today on the reservoir to fish a match as a guest of Dave the Fish and the club members of Marsh AC. I've had the pleasure of fishing as the club's guest on a few occasions now and it's always a good day out with plenty of good natured banter amongst the members making for a fun days fishing.

 A glance round the car park revealed I wasn’t the only one guesting today, as Jess & Szabi (jackcatcher & tinkerbelle), Terry (wily coyote) appeared, and a brief walk round the reservoir revealed that the Carp’s thoughts had turned to Lurrrrrrrrrrve as they thrashed around in the marginal reeds spawning which could make for a challenging days fishing today.
Draw time saw me get peg 20 in the far corner where the inlet pipe comes in. The initial plan was to fish the baggin waggler as it had produced well for me on a previous visit to the venue with Terry the previous month, with the option of fishing paste in the margins later on.

At the all in, I immediately fed 3pints of hemp into each margin in an attempt to draw the Carp in and hold them there, then I went out with the Baggin wag. An hour in and despite recasting every 60 seconds to get plenty of bait in I only had 3 small Carp to show for it. The wind was blowing from left to right and into my bank and I was having problems with the presentation, so decided to have a look at the margin.

Out with a bit of paste into the left hand margin, and almost straight away the float buried and a plump little Common of around 3lbs was soon in the net. I started to put a few together but was having trouble with liners, it seemed that there were to many fish in the swim despite me relying purely on struck off paste to do any feeding.

Jess wandered up to try and gather a few tips, but all I could advise was to stick at it, as trying to perfect paste fishing is hard enough, without the added complication of getting used to a pole for the 1st time in a match, which is what Jess was trying to do.

Dave arrived with a welcome hot pie from the farm shop at around 1pm, and shortly after disaster struck. I had latched into a very decent double that appeared jet propelled and it managed to bottom out Red Hydro. Something had to give and unfortunately it was the number 4 section with a BANG followed by a rather loud expletive. The reservoir is deep and all to soon the top kit and what was left of the number 4 was re-enacting The Titanic. Why is Malc never around when you need him????

With no spare number 4 with me it was out with the margin pole to resume once I had calmed down, and slowly started to get a few more by alternating between the left and right hand margins.

With an hour to go Dave wandered up from 2 pegs down to see how I was doing, and ponder whether he should stick with the paste for the last hour.
My swim was getting stronger & stronger and I took my empty silvers net out and replaced it with another carp net as I was pretty sure that there were a good few fish in the 1st one.

The last hour went well with fish coming from both margins, until with 5 mins to go, another lump took off and just kept going!!!!. Something had to give and this time it was the dual core that the kit was rigged up with, and that was it for the match as far as I was concerned.

Weigh in time and Paul the bailiff arrived to do the honours. John on peg 1 (the willow) got things started with a 50lbs+ net, Terry on peg 8 with another despite protesting that he’d struggled. Colin was well up with a 60lb+ net and the lad next to him just missed out on 50lbs by ounces.

I was next up and I pulled my 2nd net first, which weighed 45lbs, not bad for 55 minutes fishing. Pulling up the other net I realised that I would need a hand, and sure enough there was over 100lbs of fish in there!!!
My total weight came out at 152lbs 4ozs, and represents my best ever weight in a match. To top it off Paul (The Bailiff) told me it was the best weight from the Reservoir so far this year.

Tony, next peg down also manage a 100lb+ bag at 107lbs though he had taken most of his fish on corn whereas I had had all mine on paste bar the 3 that I had on the Baggin Wag at the start.

Next up was Dave the Fish with a 70lb+ bag, a third of which came in the last hour as he stuck with the paste.

Finally we got to Jess & Szabi and while Jess managed a creditable 30lb bag in his 1st match with a pole, however Szabi inevitably beat him with a 40lb bag.

So there we are a smashing days fishing (in more ways than one) in excellent company.
Finally a BIG THANK YOU to Dave and the lads & lasses of Marsh AC for allowing me to join them, a pleasure as always and I look forward to doing it again if they’ll allow me.

1st	Peter Morton             (Guest)	152lb 04oz
2nd	Tony Roberts	107lb 13oz
3rd	Colin Sharrard	71lb 04oz
4th	Dave Collier	64lb 15oz
5th	Gareth Stevens	57lb 03oz
6th	John Holdsworth	56lb 03oz
7th	Chris Withall	55lb 10oz
8th	Terry Goff                (Guest)	53lb 09oz
9th	Dave Wormall	43lb 12oz
10th	Szabi                        (Guest)	41lb 13oz
11th	Jim Boase	37lb 05oz
12th	Jess Brind                 (Guest)	34lb 10oz
13th	Roger Noakes	31lb 07oz
14th	Judy Hermite	27lb 12oz
15th	Martin Hucker	26lb 06oz
16th	Billy Smith	20lb 13oz
17th	Zack Johnson	7lb 12oz

Rolf’s Lake. Holton. Oxfordshire. April 30th, 2006.

Rolf’s Teams of 3. Spring League.

Well the 2nd round of the series and I drew peg 31 on C section, (the previous winning peg) but for me that was just about the highlight of the day I'm afraid.
At the moment Rolf’s hasn’t settled down with the fish seemingly content to stay in various pegs and avoid others at all costs.
The change in pellet supplier along with a ban on how much you can feed has also effected the water, and in my opinion the new feed pellet is of such poor quality, that the fish appear to actually back off from swims where it’s fed.
I feel that the way forward may be to feed Hemp or groundbait in the future ignoring pellet all together, but only time will tell.

Back to the match and s hours of toil and frustration forjust 4 bites produced 3 small carp for me weighing a meagre 13lbs for 2 points.
Keith in B section fared a bit better and managed 31lbs 8ozs for 3 points.

The star on the day for the F4W team was Steve Wilson who weighed 97lbs 8ozs from peg 34 for a section win and 8 points, finishing overall runner-up in the match.

This leaves F4W tied on 22 points in 5th after 2 rounds of the series.

Rolf's Lake, Holton, Oxfordshire. April 23rd, 2006.

Rolf’s Teams of 3. Spring League.

Well Sunday morning found me loading the kit into the car for a 60 mile trip to Rolf’s Lake in Oxfordshire where I was taking part in the Spring Teams of 3 League with Malc and Nick as part of the Fish4Wales Team.
It was dull and overcast day with the threat of rain and a fine drizzle would come and go all day leaving everything soaked by the end.

Waiting in the car park for the draw Malc decided to sort out a couple of rigs for the match ahead. Reaching into his seat box he produced this…………

Draw time and peg 14 in B section is mine and on arriving I find GaryH (milomadness) on peg 15 to keep me company, while Nick is opposite me on peg 25.
I had watched Gary Thorpe (The World Record Holder) fish this peg last year, shallow and long, so decided to try the same.
 3 hours in and with just 2 bites and 2 bumped carp to show for my efforts I was looking at the dreaded blank and decide on a change of attack. 3 big pots of hemp & pellet go in on the 10mtr line, and I went in with a rig at dead depth, alternating between pellet and bread on the hook.
That got me out of jail and I manage 6 carp at the death to pip GaryH on the next peg with 47lbs 10ozs.
Matt Nutt had the pleasure of being pegged next to Malc (complete with pink baseball cap) but still managed to bag a few, though not as many as he’s used to on this venue.

Team wise we had all struggled but with top weight between the three of us I at least relieved Malc & Nick of £1 each. As a team we managed 6th= on the day so at least we aren’t last. Just got to try and improve next Sunday.

Framfield Fishery. Spring Lake. August 18th, 2002.

Hawthorne AC club match.

Well we all assembled in the car park at Framfield Fishery, which is a complex of 3 lakes set in the countryside just outside the town of Uckfield in Sussex.
Today we were to fish Spring lake, which is the main match lake, and is mostly stocked with Carp.

Spring Lake.

Anyway it transpired that there had been a cock-up on the alarm clock front by the Secretary. So there we were waiting for the Drawbag and scales to arrive .
Anyway after a short delay and a lot of ribbing on his arrival out came the draw bag. In goes the hand and out comes peg 43.
As I arrived at my peg one thing became glaringly obvious, I couldn’t reach the island, which was about 20mtrs away, also in previous seasons this swim had a large bed of lilies to fish to on the right hand side. NOT ANY MORE!!!!!

Plumbing up I found 12 inches in the margins and only about 2½feet at 13mtrs. For the margin swims I set up a dibber on my margin pole. These swims would not be touched until I could see the mud being disturbed by feeding fish.
On the 13 mtr line it was to be 2 simple rigs,both to fish banded pellet. The first one was just 18inches of line and a hook (size 14 PR22) and the other was a Drennan Carp2 float set at dead depth to target any fish that followed the constant stream of pellets down to the bottom .
I also set up a feeder rod,but this would only be a get out of jail option if things went horribly wrong, which seems to be the case more often than not at the moment.

Peg 43.

Anyway at the off and two good handfulls of hemp go into the margins on each side along with some corn to await developments. Out to 13mtrs and into a rhythm of 5-6 pellets every 30 secs.
Straight away the 2 pegs to my right were into fish as they could reach the island.
If that wasn’t bad enough I had the beginnings of a headache that was to get worse as the match went on and no it wasn’t due to drink the previous night.

After about an hour on the up in the water rig along came carp No1...........

a pretty little ghost/common and things were starting to look up,a steady stream of small carp followed it to the net, and while not setting any records a worthwhile bag was building. Unfortunately though with an hour to go the headache had got so bad that I was forced to stop fishing and lay down (either that or fall off my box).

Come the weigh-in and it soon became apparent just how well the day had gone. Top weight, caught by John Tyler was 136lbs, 2nd was Michael Vincent with 124lbs 4ozs and 3rd was Mike Davis with 103lbs 2ozs. My level 46lbs was only good enough for 11th .
In total 19 of us weighed in a total of 1041lbs 14ozs for an average weight of 54½+lbs per man, Fantastic fishing by any standards.