Well, It was off to Willow Park Fishery for me to fish in the TalkAngling/ForceBaits southern qualifier, which was a match within a match, organised by Dave (Pikey) Pearson from the Total Fishing site, and another chance to catch up with, and put some names to faces from the Intersite series. After a leisurely trip down and a full English in the on site café, a dip into the draw bag saw me wandering round to peg 25 on the Little Lake.
Peg 25
A brief chat with Kenny Collings told me that there would be a few to be caught, but not to expect too much from the area.
An 11am start meant that there was plenty of time to set up and get comfy and with peg 24 on my left empty, I fancied that I may be able to tempt a couple of lumps into the margins later on. An almost constant depth of 4½ft from 5 to 14mtrs meant that I opted for a main swim at a comfortable 9mtrs with another at 13, and rigs covering both depth and shallow were set up. The margins would be covered with a heavy meat rig set up on my margin pole.
There is a limit of just one kilo of groundbait and this was Sillybait® and crumb in the hope that the fishmeal would hold both the Skimmers and Carp. I also brought 1kg of micro pellets for loose feeding from the shop as there is a rule that only allows 1kg of the fisheries own pellets to be fed though any pellet can be used as hookbait. Hookbaits were various flavours of both 6 & 4mm expanders, meat both plain and flavoured, paste and some worms.
At the off I wanted to be positive so cupped 2 large pots of micros and loose Sillybait® in on both the 9 & 13 mtr lines and 2 pots into both margins along with some meat.
After about 30 minutes of alternating between 9 & 13mtrs, the first bite came at 9 and I was greeted by the site of a “Flying” Skimmer doing a fair impression of a Trout. Around 1pm Beebs put in a appearance for a bit of a chat which was appreciated, even though I did my best to smack him round the ear with both the pole and landing net as I landed a couple of fish.
Despite spraying plenty of micros to attract the larger Carp that were cruising around all day, the up in the water rigs produced virtually nothing for me on the day, in common with the majority of anglers who reported a similarly frustrating experience of watching large Carp cruising through their swims and showing no interest.
The margin swims? another disappointment. Going into the final hour 1st put in with meat and the float buried resulting in a suicidal Perch determined to choke itself to death on a piece of meat only marginally smaller than itself. Each following attempt resulting in another of its siblings taking up the challenge.
At the all out 16lbs 10ozs of Skimmers & F1′s meant that I had beaten the 5 anglers to my left, but had lost out to the anglers to my right. Still a good day out and nice to catch up with some of the lads from other sites.
Next Saturday it’s back down that way to Gold Valley for the J Sainsbury National Championship, can I beat my 4th place from last season? I’ll let you know.
Well today was one of those “Just got to go fishing” days. No real forward planning, no Saturday trip to the tackle shop, I didn’t even set the alarm, just woke up and looked out of the window, loaded up the car and set off.
Destination for the day was Hartleylands Farm, There were bound to be matches booked on the main lakes, but you always seem to be able to find a swim on one of the smaller ponds on the complex, unlike neighbouring Elphicks which is normally full with the gates shut by 7·30am at the weekends.
I got there at just after 8am to find all the main lakes booked as I thought, but was pleasantly surprised to find a newly installed Burger Van so that was breakfast taken care of and I have to say that it hit the mark.
With that out of the way I had a wander and found peg 22 on Finches was free, which would do for me. A comfortable 13mtrs to the far side and with the odd patch of fizzing bubbles, I was soon set up and ready to go. Bait wise I only had some corn and some 4 & 6mm expander pellets, so that would have to do.
Peg 22
Ideally I would have liked some meat, as I find that it works well here once the weather starts to warm up, but I didn’t have any with me. Anyway a couple of large pots of 4mm pellets with some corn were deposited along the front of the Irises on the far bank and a 6mm was impaled on the hook and offered up.
After about 30 minutes of the float dipping and dancing around as the silvers nibbled away at the pellets it stopped. Back out with a fresh pellet and a couple of minutes later it buried and the 1st Carp of the day was on its way to the net
1st of the day
A fin perfect fully scaled mirror of about 4lbs. Sport was never fast and furious, but by sticking at it sport was at least regular. One of the delights of Hartleylands is the condition of the fish, No ripped mouths and every one fin perfect and such is the stock mix that you’re never sure what the next fish will be. Common, Mirror, Ghost, Koi? they are all there to be caught.
As the afternoon became more overcast with rain threatening, the obligatory “One Last Cast” produced this lovely Linear Ghost carp of around 3lbs.
A nice end to the session which produced a total of 15 carp for a weight of around 50lbs. Definitely worth the 90 mile round trip.
Hawthorne AC club match.
Well, the 1st match of the season for Hawthorne AC saw me driving down the M2 on the way to Lavender Farm on a bright warm sunny morning.
In the car-park all the usual suspects and a few new members were assembled for the draw, and with 25 members taking part peg 18 stuck to my hand.
Now the match lake has what you might term a profusion of reeds, not just in the margins, but also on a number of sunken islands giving nearly every peg a feature to fish to.
Peg 18
The problem today however was that the recent spell of warm weather had encouraged the Carp to play Mums & Dads. They were soon thrashing the water to foam all over the fishery and those that weren’t were cruising aimlessly in the upper layers sunning themselves.
The pegging on the match lake also leaves a little to be desired, as it is more than a little tight in places as the photo below demonstrates.
There are 10 pegs in that photo and if you aren’t careful, it’s easy to find a length of carbon hitting you in the earhole if the person behind ships back to enthusiastically.
With the match half way through I hadn’t had so much as a bite despite ringing the changes with pellet, corn & maggot in both the margins and the island at 11mtrs in front of me. Then at 1pm a small group of Carp started to cruise the reeds by the island so on went a foot of line with a 16 hook and 3 maggots and out came the catapult to spray a steady stream of maggots in their direction.
Reeds Everywhere
Now the fact that the islands are sunk means that if you’re not quick, any Carp that are hooked can swim straight through the reeds and out the other side, and 4 managed to do just that, however 11 didn’t manage it and when the scales arrived they totalled 23lbs exactly.
This gave me 7th place overall, which given the outlook half way through the match was I felt a fairly decent result.
I had arranged to meet Dave the Fish at Hartleylands today, with a view to having a practice for the forthcoming Intersite match. To say that it was a dull, grey, wet, windy, and thoroughly miserable day would be an understatement!
Some of the Total-Fishing lads had come down for a practice and after a brief chat they set off to fish Peartree while Dave and I set up on Nicks.
Vince appeared to give us a pep talk, but things at the start were a shade slow, so Vince was dispatched to the Bakery at the farm shop for the pies. With these consumed Vince bid us farewell as he had to collect some people from Gatwick.
Dave and I redoubled our efforts ringing the changes to get an idea of what would and wouldn’t work. At times the drizzle seemed to be falling horizontally instead of vertically, but we ploughed on for the good of the team, putting together bags including Tench, Skimmers, Carp and Barbel until about 3·30pm when Dave's joints decided they had had enough of the cold and wet. As a taster these are a few pictures of some of the stock in Nick's………
GHOSTIES
KOI
BARBEL
All in all a worthwhile day, with some methods sorted and filed away for use on the day, and the promise of more to come before the big day.
Well Maria told me that she would be working today, so I decided that I’d grab the chance to pop down to Elphicks and have a session on Sandwich Lake and see if I could get a few species for the Maggotdrowning.com Fishing Race. Vince had arranged to join me for the day to try out his new pole, so a bit of banter was bound to be on the cards.
I arrived at the lake at about 9am and although it was dull and overcast it felt quite mild. I have to say that I was happy to see pegs 10 & 11 were empty and plumped for peg 11 as it allows you to fish 11mtrs to the overflow stack which is the only real feature on the whole lake apart from 1 small island.
PEG11….
I know this swim pretty well, so the set up was pretty simple, Just the 1 top kit with white hydro with the rig consisting of a Drennan Lake carrying 3 no6′s and a no10 and a size 20 PR24 all mounted on 0·12 Silk Shock Ultegra to fish at dead depth (about 4½ft).
Bait was to be 6mm expanda’s with micro Halibut pellets for feed. I also had some sweetcorn for a change bait.
3 good pouches of pellet and about a dozen expanda’s set the table, and 1st put in the float buried and a Bream of about 2½lb was safely banked.
1st Bream…
By the time that Vince arrived at about 10·30am I’d managed about a dozen Bream, a small Common Carp and 4 Tench one of which was the reason for me choosing Elphicks for the days fishing.
A Golden Tench….
A lovely looking fish, not huge at just over a couple of pounds, but very welcome all the same.
Vince set up on peg 12 to my left eager to christen his new pole, as I found a few nice Roach that took a fancy to the expanda’s.
It was easy fishing for me, just a question of loose feeding a pouch of micros after every fish. The Roach eventually vanished but not before I’d managed to get about a dozen of them, with the largest weighing just over a pound.
Largest Roach….
The disappearance of the Roach however, only meant that the Tench and Bream had returned……… Well they had for me, Vince was having one of those nightmare sessions where no matter what he tried all he could do was watch me land fish after fish and pray that his own float would finally vanish.
A typical peg 11 Tench…
Vince finally got a Bream to christen his new pole, but I’m afraid this only proved to be a stray that had somehow mistaken peg 12 for peg 11.
Meanwhile Mr Pheasant had come down to have a feed on my redundant sweetcorn.
The only real fly in the ointment was the fact that as the day progressed it was getting colder and colder. Still the regular pouches of micros kept the fish coming for me, among them 1 small Mirror and a Crucian Carp.
By 3·30 however even my fish were reluctant to feed as it had got colder still, and poor Vince despite trying some of my corn and expanda’s and different rigs couldn’t buy a decent bite, so we decided to call it a day.
I finished up with 25 Bream to 4lbs, 11 Tench to 3lbs including 1 Goldie, a dozen Roach to 1¼lbs and a Common, a Mirror and a Crucian Carp.
As we were pulling out of the car park Vince told me “Your boys (CHELSEA) are losing 2-1 to Wolves” with a large grin on his face.
Well by the time I got home the final score was CHELSEA 5-2 WOLVES.
Kind of sums up mine and Vince’s day.
