Sumners Ponds. June 3rd-5th, 2005.

Maggotdrowning.com

 Southern Fish-in.

Well I arrived at Sumners Ponds at around 10·30am on Friday to find a few of the participants already ensconced for the weekend ahead.
Already in situ were Geoff and his grandaughter Amy, Dai and Daniel, Ady (BigLadWigan) , Sven C (with Gemma to follow on Saturday), Alex(Fish-Fingers), Dave(Scouse) with Neil(bluenose), Larry, Terry(Wily Coyote) and Jess & Szabi (Jackcatcher & Tincabelle)

I decided to drop into the swim next to Scouse and Neil so that I could keep an eye on my hubcaps, and as I was setting up my bivvy Dave(theFish) and Colin (thePike) arrived, and the usual round of greetings and abuse ensued.

Strange things these bivvies and bedchairs, No drawers for your tackle and only available in a rather drab green or heaven forbid CAMO!!!!!! You could lose them on the bankside.
I set up my 2 carp rods and baitrunners with method feeders and placed them on my pod, not quite a PUPSS but it would have to do.

So time to start fishing? Well not quite, a quick tour round the pond to meet and great everyone, and try out the new camera consumed another hour before I was settled in, with Sven obliging with a well timed bream as a subject ……

Pineapple & Tutti antbait softee’s on both rigs gently lobbed to midway were greeted after a while by a couple of respectable Bream, both around the 4lb mark, so off the mark and cause for a celebratory beer.

Wind and squally showers were doing their best to put a damper on the day, and Jason (NoFinPhish) arrived late on and managed to slide into a swim between Geoff & Dai.
Neil finally managed a carp on his pole between phone calls and texts as can be seen in the pic below……
Unfortunately, not being fishery members we weren’t allowed to nightfish (apart from Sven who’s a member) so most adjourned to the local hostelry (The Queens Head) to sample a few pints, before the evening soiree round Geoffs bivvy.

Saturday, weather wise brought more of the same, with the odd fish for most and Jason probably winning the numbers game with a good run of fish in the morning and Szabi showing up Jess, who in his defence spent a fair bit of time showing Fish-Fingers the ins and outs of various rigs. The morning only provided a single bream for me almost identical to the pair from Friday.

With the day moving on Jess, Szabi and Wily departed citing other engagements for the Sunday, while a few of the lads were tempted by the lure of the small pond, which appeared to have a higher stocking level than the main lake. Daniel brimming with confidence went for a £1 side bet with Jason on who would have the largest carp of the day.

3pm and I had a screamer on the rod I had cast close to the marginal tree on my right, and I thought I was winning the tug of war till the fish turned 180° and buried itself into the roots.
Having to retie the rig I could resist no longer and set up a waggler to see if I could mug anything in the margins. Sure enough after a few small skimmers and roach an unsuspecting tench obliged, not big at a couple of pounds, but most welcome none the less..
Once more the pub won the battle of the early evening, but after a curry and a couple of pints I sneaked off to return for a last hour before dusk. No action I’m afraid but we ended with a small gathering at my peg over a coffee before decending on Dai for the evening entertainment. Biglad was in his usual superb form, if a tad restrained by the presence of young Amy, while Jason thoughtfully checked out the depth of Dai’s Margin and Dan waved farewell to his £1.
June it may be, but Flaming it certainly wasn’t and with a cold dew forming the party was curtailed earlier than it could have, though probably much to the relief of those in the mobile homes and campers on the other bank.

We had been warned that a real gale was expected overnight, but thankfully it never materialised. First thing Sunday morning a few of us decided to take a quick trip up to look at the new match lake that’s just been opened on the site. It’s still very new with construction still in progress, but plenty of planting has taken place, I can’t say that it inspired me to make a visit, but who knows, maybe in a couple of years when it’s more established.

With it still being grey and overcast and very few fish showing, most were thinking of getting bivvies packed away ready for the trip home.
I was just starting to pull my bivvy pegs when a steady run developed on my rod baited with 4 bits of hair rigged corn and after a short but spirited fight I was rewarded with a plump common weighing in at 14lbs, a lovely end to the weekend.
Having packed all my kit up, it was time for farewells, and is always the case at these sort of meetings that tends to take a couple of hours in itself. Dai had managed to bag a carp as I passed.
Dave and Colin were packing away his bivvy, while the final site as I headed to the car
park was of Geoff and BigLad trying for a final fish before departing as Amy looked on……
The end of another MD’s weekend away in good company, some great laughs and a few fish caught by everyone. Well done to Dave the Fish for organising it all.
The only Mystery? Where was Beebs? Comatose under a Duvet somewhere no doubt.

Hartleylands Farm Fishery. The Reservoir. May 30th, 2005.

Maria had to work today, and wanted a lift as she had to start at 6am,Well if I'm getting up so early I may as well go fishing, so I had arranged with a pal of mine Dave Collier to pop down to Hartleylands today for a session on the Reservoir.

The drive down was wet but uneventful and I arrived at 7am to find there was a small match booked on the Reservoir, but as only pegs 7-17 were being used a phone call was made to Dave who was about half an hour behind me, and we decided to go for it.

I settled for peg 30 and on his arrival Dave settled into peg 28.
As we tackled up the sun was starting to break through and things were looking promising, even though some of the carp still appeared to be spawning.

Bait wise for me it was just what was in my carryall, some 3 & 6mm expanders, corn and meat. Dave had brought some cockles with him as he finds that these are ignored by the silvers that are present.

I fed a margin swim and another at around 8mtrs, and sure enough pellet whether it was 6mm or 3mm produced roach, skimmers and hybrids, while Dave had a swift couple of carp with his first two put ins at around 4mtrs.

A change to corn finally produced a couple of carp for me but the weather was threatening a turn for the worse as the sky was darkening to our left and the wind was getting up.

A better carp from my margin swim on corn gave a good account of itself, and as I was playing it Dave was into one himself that was only marginally smaller.

All to soon thunder was rumbling and lightning flashing in the distance and I shot off to the farm shop to get us a couple of hot beef pasties for lunch.

With the pasties eaten the rain arrived with a vengeance, and it was a question of just sitting it out under the brollies and leaving the poles well alone as lightning flashed across the reservoir and thunder crashed over our heads.
After about half an hour it stopped, the sky cleared and once again the sun was shining.
Dave had made a discovery that his Gortex overtrousers weren’t as waterproof as they once were, probably due to all the fish slime, mud etc that had accumulated over time and decided to dry off in his car.

The fish were still feeding and another couple of carp and yet more silvers came my way, but over to my left I could see grey sky's building again and decided to quit while the going was good.
Dave emerged from his car, dry once more and declared that he was going to fish on for a while.

Thankfully we weren’t far from the car park and as I loaded the last of my tackle, the rain started again.
A quick farewell to Dave with the assurance that I would see him next Friday at Sumners Ponds for a 3 day Fish-In with some people from MD’s and I was on my way.

How did Dave fare? Well he phoned me when he got home to tell me what a wimp I was and that after I left the rain stopped, the sky cleared, the sun came out and it was glorious for a while.
A bit later it got really dark again, chucked it down and then finished off with hailstones. He ended up with 15 carp and a load of silvers for about 80lb in total.

Monk Lakes. Puma Lake. May 21st, 2005.

Maggotdrowning.com

 Fun Match.

Today promised to be a fun day out as Simon the owner of Monk Lakes had invited the members of Maggotdrowning.com to have a light hearted match on Puma Lake. A few members had taken him up on his generous offer allowing them to try out a venue that was new to a lot of them.

Well at 8am I pulled into the car park to be greeted by a sign saying WELCOME MAGGOTDROWNERS that had been posted by the fishery staff, and as I got out of the car I could see Darren strolling towards me across the car park After a brief chat we decided to go and have a stroll so I could show him a few of the lakes on the complex.
On our return we bumped into Ginger and Sven and adjourned for a spot of breakfast as the others arrived. Looking out of the window I could see Malc ”The Jinx” arrive wearing a polo shirt and sunglasses, a sure sign that the weather would deteriorate in the not to distant future.

With half an hour to go before the draw Vince and I set off to peg the Bank that had been reserved for the match accompanied by Ginger and Big Sedge. It was the bank alongside the river and with a wind that was starting to freshen and blow straight into the bank it promised to be a tad exposed. As we walked back just to confirm that “The Jinx“ had arrived in Kent it started to drizzle.

Onto the draw and with 15 actually in attendance and with Simon (the owner) kindly only charging us a £6 peg fee, a £4 optional pool was added to keep the cost to a round £10 for most.

Vince and I drew last and attracted a few comments when it was realised that we had both end pegs between us. Luckily the fishery staff allowed us to drive down to drop our tackle, which was just as well, as by now the rain was lashing down.

With an 11am all-in everyone had time to set up, though I’m sure that it won’t have been long enough for Malc, It never is.The All-In was called on time, but the wind and rain meant that fishing the pole beyond 8mtrs was out of the question for me, and later as the wind increased that would be reduced to 6mtrs. With shallow margins the wind was blowing my Carp net out of the water, and my silvers net was only kept in place by putting a spare landing net handle inside it!!!

The actual fishing was for me at least, pretty simple, feeding a mix of 3mm pellet and red maggot, with a single red on the hook kept a pretty steady flow of small Chub, Skimmers, Barbel, Tench (both Green & Gold) + a couple of small Carp coming throughout the match.
So despite the conditions a nice steady match for me, resulting in a net weighing 41lbs 2ozs and 1st place.

Back to the car park for a welcome cuppa and plenty of banter and we found out that Simon had kindly donated 3 bottles for prizes in his absence, so a handy £24 and a bottle of Champagne came my way. 

All in all a cracking day despite the weather doing it’s best to wreck things, and as usual with these sort of gatherings, plenty of banter before, during and after. Special mention has to be made at this point of young Lee’s performance, who handed out a good battering to his Uncle Malc from the next peg. 

Tanyards Lakes. The Tench Lake. May 1st, 2005.

A very good friend of mine, Dave Collier retired on Friday so I had invited him to join me today for his 1st days fishing as a man of leisure.

The chosen venue was Tanyards Lakes at Furners Green, Danehill (Near Uckfield) with 7 lakes to choose from, and on arrival at 7·30am it was obvious that we weren’t the only ones with the same idea in mind!

Driving down it appeared that virtually every swim on the top three lakes were occupied, but a quick look confirmed that there was some space on the Tench Lake (which is the only one not stocked with Carp apart from a few ornamentals) so it was a case of get the gear out of the cars and bag a couple of pegs quick.

I ended up with the same peg that I had fished when we visited back in early January, with a bay full of stick ups to my left, while Dave set up opposite me with the bay to his right.

Bait wise, I’d brought a pint of reds, sweetcorn and 6mm & 3mm pellet. The pellets were VDE RS Elite marine expanders, which I hadn’t used before and having pumped them I have to say that I was impressed with them, good shape and consistency and just that bit different to the usual pellet that I use.

I had a fairly uniform 3ft of depth all over my peg, so started at 11mtrs in open water having potted in 2 large pots of 3mm pellet, maggot and corn. A 6mm on the hook and 1st put in the float buried and a plump fin perfect Roach was the 1st fish of the day.

Soon Bream and Tench were getting in on the act for both myself and Dave, and while Dave was potting in his feed I was just catapulting a pouch of 3mm’s after every fish. With the day warming up, we decided to adjourn for Breakfast as the on site café was a mere 20yds from where we were. Bacon, egg, sausage, fried slice, hash browns and beans all washed down with a mug of tea filled the void and set us up to get stuck in on our return.

Now I would like to say that we worked very hard for the fish all day, but the reality was that as long as we kept the feed going in, the fish kept coming. Bream up to about 2½lbs and Tench to a maximum of 3½lbs though nearer a pound on average kept coming virtually all day with some nice Roach thrown in for good measure.

All the while I had been loose feeding into the edge of the stick ups and around 1·30pm after a quick break for a cheeseburger I started on that line.
No change though, with more Bream and Tench, but also a nice Crucian (or was it a Brown Goldfish?) and a small Koi that managed to tangle my rig on some discarded line in the stick ups that was extracted with the aid of Dave’s long landing net handle.

With about an hour to go I decided to use up the maggots, so shallowing the rig up and using just the top 2, I started flicking in a pinch of maggot every 30secs. This soon had the fish boiling and resulted in a fish a chuck. The colours of the Rudd were so vivid that they looked almost freshly minted, but mixed in with those Roach and Rudd was the icing on the cake in the shape of the most colourful little fish I’ve ever caught, and for which the venue holds the British Record.

A Pumpkinseed.

Dave finished up on the inside as well and was actually getting Bream up in the water in the margins, and ended with this nice Perch.

So a cracking day from beginning to end, Good weather, plenty of fish caught and the usual banter that is ever present when we fish together. Thanks for joining me Dave, I don’t think it’ll be to long before we do it again.

Kennet & Avon Canal at Devizes. April 16th, 2005.

 Western Intersite Match.

Well I travelled all the way down to Sells Green just outside Devizes today for The Western Intersite Match and arrived at around 7am. First port of call was into the 3 Magpies pub for breakfast and the draw, and I have to say that it was a Top Breakfast and along with Coffee and top ups cost just £4.

As always it was nice to meet up with some old friends again and put a few faces to those that had previously been only names on a computer screen. One of the lads in our team had been kind enough to share his info with me via PM, and as I hadn’t ever seen the venue I really had no option but to go with it.

As a result of the draw Peg C1 saw me faced with a gap between 2 moored narrowboats at 14½ mtrs, and I fancied it for a few fish, despite it feeling like a winters day.

Looking up the towpath from my peg.

5 hard balls cupped in containing chopped worm and caster, and then just loose fed squatt over the top. A small piece of worm, caster or red maggot on the hook, caught me small Skimmers and Roach steadily for the first 2 hours until the occupants of one of the narrowboats opposite decided on a spring clean, killing it stone dead.

Just one small Perch 10 mins from the end was added after that, at which point the chap polishing the brass decided to lean over the end of the boat to watch my float !!

My weight of 3lbs 2ozs at the end of the match gave me 2nd in section, with Slider (Mark), on his home water winning it.
Unfortunately the team didn’t fare so well, finishing 4th on the day, but hey it was still a good day out in good company.