Rolf’s Lake. Holton. Oxfordshire. June 7, 2008

The JINX Series 2008

Match 2.

Sunshine greeted me as I loaded the car up for the trip to Rolf’s for the second match in the JINX SERIES. With plenty of time I was able to make my usual stop for Breakfast in Battersea. While I was there I phoned Malc to find out the state of the fishery as I knew he’d been there since the previous day with Dai, Mitch & Gemma helping John after the flash floods that had hit the area on Wednesday. Telling me that the lake was high but fishable, he then passed on some information that Nick Williams was threatening to fish in his underpants if the lake was too flooded, suffice to say that it nearly put me off my breakfast. However wiping the image from my mind that Malc had described I managed to polish off breakfast and carry on.

Pulling into the fishery car park at around 10·30am people were already arriving for the 11am draw. A chat with John revealed that at it’s height the lake had been within 2 inches of overflowing into the car park. With 2 pumps running the effort that John & Pauline had put in along with his helpers had once again got it to a fishable state even if it was still at least 3 feet above normal.

Mind you just how the lake would fish on the day was open to debate though John felt that the huge influx of water into the lake and the fact that some of the fish were still spawning would lead to a hard match.

Inevitably the draw was delayed as Malc sorted out which pegs were fishable, but it wouldn’t be a JINX match if it ran smoothly would it!!!!!

Into the draw-bag and peg 14 stuck to my hand, quite a shock as I always seem to draw on the little lake. Loading up my barrow I set off round the lake and seeing everyone setting up so far up the bank was a bit strange……

Anyway after lugging all my gear round I found that I had got Mitch to my right on 13 and Neo to my left on 15…

along with Clive on 16 for company today. A quick chat with Clive who spends a fair bit of time at Rolf’s reveals I’d got the end of the bar at around 20yds straight out, so I set up the pellet wag and feeder and plumb up a pole line at around 6mtrs where I could feed by hand to fish pellet and paste, though I also had sweetcorn and meat as change baits. Feed was the fisheries 6mm pellets and hemp.
So 1·30 and the all in, 2 big handfuls of pellet and hemp onto the 6mtr line and a pouch of pellet out to the bar followed by the pellet wag, and straight away it buries, softly softly into the net, a nice Common Carp around 6lbs, into the keepnet with the fish, another dozen pellets followed by the wag which buries again and another Common joins its pal in the net.

Well it slowed a bit after that, it seemed that there were a ton of silvers pecking at the pellet and I did connect with a couple of Skimmers, I tried upping the feed but that just turned it into a Jacuzzi. I kept altering the depth and managed another 3 Carp, but in all honesty I wasted far to much time trying to make it work.

With the swim still fizzing I went out with the feeder onto the bar, but had only had a couple of half hearted taps after about 20 minutes when the rod was ripped off the rest!!!!! This was a big old lump and it just plodded around stubbornly refusing to get its head up. Slowly I gained ground on it and it finally popped to the top, a bleedin great Common, it was certainly the largest fish I’ve ever hooked at Rolf’s, but just as I reached for the net it rolled on the line which parted like cotton.

Now at that point I should have changed my approach as the lads on the car park bank had all started to catch, but I re-tackled and went back out on the feeder and wasted another 40 biteless minutes.

Out onto the 6mtr line that I’d been feeding regularly and 1st put in the float buried resulting in Carp number 6 in the net, then a couple of foul hookers that I parted company with followed.

Roy over on peg 28 was starting to motor taking decent fish regularly…
Paul on 24 also seemed to be over his Rolf’s block, and having got his Ton in the previous match was motoring on towards another……
While Dave Collier on peg 30 was also romping along after a slow start to the match.
I’d blown it after letting my frustration get the better of me and chopping and changing rather than sticking at one approach. With an hour to go I picked up the shallow rig with a banded pellet, shipped out to 13mtrs and just kept firing hemp & pellet at it and had my best hour of the match with another 7 Carp including a weigher that I mugged as the all out was called.
It was to little to late though as I knew in my heart of hearts that I didn’t have enough in the net to compete on the day.
The scales told the tale of the day however with their slow progress round the lake. Kevin Loveland had drawn the same peg as his previous match where he’d had a mare, however today he’d managed 136½lbs, to record his 1st ever match TON. Paul had broken the 150lb barrier and Roy put 177lbs on the scales which would only be good enough for 3rd on the day!!!

Meanwhile down on peg 40 Ade Williams (Slim Shady) following up from his DOUBLE TON on the 1st match had managed a 2nd successive DOUBLE TON…

 but had still been beaten by Simon, fishing his 1st JINX match of the year he had a battle with Ade throughout the whole match…

Finally coming out on top with an excellent 221¾lb, a great performance on the day.

My weight? 92½lb only good enough for 15th on the day, though I did have one small consolation in that at least I managed to get my £1 back from Gemma and avoid a Minxing.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 2	Simon Mound	221lbs 12ozs
2nd	Peg 40	Ade Williams	206lbs 04ozs
3rd	Peg 28	Roy Ravenhill	177lbs 00ozs
4th	Peg 32	Malc Doyle	154lbs 12ozs
5th	Peg 24	Paul Roberts	150lbs 04ozs
6th	Peg 22	Kevin Loveland	136lbs 08ozs
7th	Peg 30	Dave Collier	128lbs 04ozs
8th	Peg 35	Mark Causer	126lbs 00ozs
9th	Peg 34	Keith Fellows	122lbs 08ozs
10th	Peg 16	Clive Prithard	121lbs 12ozs
11th	Peg 9	Colin Sharrard	118lbs 12ozs
12th	Peg 6	Tony Roberts	112lbs 12ozs
13th	Peg 7	Jon Hatch	110lbs 00ozs
14th	Peg 15	Nick Williams	100lbs 12ozs
15th	Peg 14	Peter Morton	92lbs 08ozs
16th	Peg 4	Dai Thomas	69lbs 08ozs
17th	Peg 13	Mitch Auger	69lbs 04ozs
18th	Peg 23	Ant Haywood	68lbs 04ozs
19th	Peg 37	Dave Moore	61lbs 00ozs
20th	Peg 8	Tim Westmoreland       (Guest)	48lbs 04ozs
21st	Peg 38	Gemma Doyle	23lbs 00ozs

Rayne Lodge Fishery. The Top Lake. May 30th, 2008.

Marsh AC club match.

Well today’s the 2nd match of Marsh AC’s season on the Top Lake at Rayne Lodge Fishery, just outside Braintree in Essex.
I met Dave at his house at 7am and followed him and Colin up to the fishery. Pulling into the car park just after 8am there were 17 of the usual suspects in attendance and with the weather apparently set fair for once everyone soon had their gear unloaded and down the hill to the lakeside.

I took a stroll round with Dave as he decided which pegs would be going into the draw, and in all honesty there didn’t appear to be a bad one, but Dave having fished there on more than a few occasions had a pretty good handle on it anyway, so decisions made it was draw time.

Kevin’s partner Jean, after accompanying him on all his trips had decided to fish today for the 1st time, so they drew 1st so that they could have adjacent swims, I came away with peg 16 while Dave could be heard bemoaning the fact that his favorite swim (14a) had remained in the bag undrawn.  

Settling into peg 16 it was “make your mind up time” for me. Now the nice part of Marsh matches is that they are just socials really, not even any money for winning, just the section winners get paid out, and that is only just enough to cover your ticket, so that the matches have a lovely relaxed atmosphere. Sure there are some personal rivalries, but essentially it’s just a pleasant day out fishing with friends.

I’d already mentioned to Colin that I was going to go with one of 2 methods today, either paste on the pole or pellet waggler. Well the pellet waggler won, purely because I fancied doing something different today. Setting up took no time at all as my Shakespeare 11ft Micro was already set up in it’s ready sleeve. I’d teamed the rod up with a Daiwa Capricorn 2000. The float was a 2ssg Malman Styro. Hooks are the Drennan eyed Carp Match barbless with a hair rigged Gardner 3·2mm latex pellet band. these will take anything from a 4mm to a 11mm pellet and are the best on the market IMO. For actually banding I use a Mossella Band’a’Bait tool, again IMO an unbeatable tool for the job.( Dave was certainly impressed when he saw me using it.)

             

Bait and feed was nothing more than 12 pints of Skrettings 6mm pellets with some 8mm’s for an alternative hookbait. I also got the feeder rod out as it was all set up in a ready sleeve, but I was only planning to use it if things went wrong.

Looking around most were going with the pole, though a couple of others were going with rod set-ups. So 10am and the all-in and a couple of large pouches of pellet were catapulted to the edge of the overhanging tree about 20yds away to ring the dinner bell. Normally I would clip up if I was casting to an island or feature, but with plenty of water under the overhanging tree and some large fish present in the lake I decided against it preferring to rely on the accuracy of my casting. (I only lost 1 float all day, so can’t have been to rusty) I soon got into a decent rhythm and a small Mirror of around ½lb got me off the mark. There were plenty of fish moving, but they were just mooching around and although I was putting a few together they weren’t really having it.
I also lost a few fish, but after talking it over with a few of the others I’ve come to the conclusion that it was probably down to the fact that a large percentage of the fish have dodgy mouths making it awkward to get a decent hook hold.

A splash from round the lake signalled Kevin trying to join the fish as he transferred one to his net, though Dave refused to disqualify him for wading and Jean had caught her 1st fish, but was under strict orders from Kevin not to beat him, and reports filtered round that one poor unfortunate had missed the net with a good double figure Carp, a fish that he was hoping to weigh and photograph as it was definitely his biggest ever.

Frustrated at not being able to put a run of fish together and with the beginnings of a headache, I took a break and went for a stroll. Dave and Colin appeared to be neck and neck, both owning up to 20+ fish, but I had to fancy Colin having the edge as the Carp appeared to be queuing up under the bush to his left waiting for him to drop a pellet on their noses…

Eddie on Peg 1 was into a decent fish…

while further round Jim appeared to be getting bitted out by Roach. John was having a similar problem, but he proved to be a real lifesaver when he produced a couple of paracetamol from his box, that did the business on my headache, Cheers John.

Tony was looking pretty happy with himself, but claimed to be struggling having lost a number of fish, however his peg looked like it was solid to me…

Kevin was doing OK and was happy that barring a total calamity he had the beating of Jean, though she was still nicking the odd one here and there.

Terry as usual was just keeping his head down and putting a few fish quietly into the net, that’s why they call him “Wily Coyote”…

Back at my peg and 1st cast I stuck it straight into the tree and cracked off (Told you I lost 1 float) so chucked out the feeder with a banded 8mm pellet on it while I re rigged the pellet waggler but didn’t get as much as a tap on it.
Back out on the waggler and I was soon back into the rhythm which is all important when fishing this method, and although they still weren’t really having it I managed to keep up a reasonably decent catch rate right up till 4pm when Dave called the all out. The frustrating part was that I hadn’t had a single bonus fish, my best being a Ghostie of around 4lb with the majority around the 1½ -2lb range and although I’d had what most would class as a decent day ( I thought I’d got 50lbs+), couldn’t help feeling that the peg was worth more, but hey, that’s fishing.

By the time Terry and I caught up with the weigh in, it was coming round to Tony who was admitting to around 40lbs, he must be related to Pinocchio, because he put 85¼lbs on the scales (he’ll have someone’s eye out with that nose one day). Jean had managed a very creditable 23½lbs, not enough to beat Kevin but a great 1st effort, while Terry put a very decent 64lbs on the scales. Round to my peg and the tale of the scales gave me 79½lbs which pleasantly surprised me. Dave’s fish mustered 67¾lbs including a bonus 10lb Mirror, which just left Colin with 39 fish, only small ones according to him and probably about 70lbs. Well he must be another of Pinocchio’s relatives because they gave him a dead level 114lbs for the win on the day.

So that was it for another day with Marsh AC, well apart from the suicidal climb back up the hill to the car park, Thanks for the hand  Tony, I might well still be there otherwise. A real fun day as usual and as a bonus I won my section and only needed a tee shirt all day. Roll on the next one. 

Position	Angler	Weight
1st	Colin Sharrard	114lbs 00ozs
2nd	Tony Roberts	85lbs 04ozs
3rd	Peter Morton	79lbs 08ozs
4th	Dave Collier	67lbs 12ozs
5th	Terry Goff	64lbs 00ozs
6th	Roger Noakes	48lbs 08ozs
7th	Kevin Loveland	45lbs 00ozs
8th	Simon Watkins	44lbs 08ozs
9th	Bob Hucker	32lbs 00ozs
10th	Eddie Dobson	30lbs 00ozs
11th	John Holdsworth	29lbs 12ozs
12th	Jim Boase	29lbs 08ozs
13th	Jean Algar	23lbs 08ozs
14th	Martin Hucker	17lbs 04ozs
15th	Rod Turner	13lbs 12ozs
16th	Ken Walker	12lbs 12ozs
17th	Zack Johnson	2lbs 04ozs

Monk Lakes. Match Lake 2. May 17th, 2008.

A Charity Match in support of

with support from

Well today was the day for a Charity match organised by Vince Gould with a little bit of help from myself, taking place at Monk Lakes at Marden in Kent supporting the fund raising efforts of Disabled-Angler.co.uk for Macmillan Cancer Support & Rainbows the East Midlands Children’s Hospice, and hopefully with nearly 40 anglers booked in we would raise a few quid for the charities.

Loading up the car didn’t bode well. A solid grey sky was already dropping rain and with 4 large boxes of Braham & Murray Pure Hemp products to load up along with my gear, the car was a little full to say the least.

A phone call from Dirk as I drove down to the venue informing me that he was held up on the M25 and might be late, wasn’t good either. Arriving about 8am I met up with Vince and it was soon obvious that despite the weather most had made it. Simon Edwards had endured the TomTom trip from hell on the way down from Northampton as it warned him about the M25 hold up and diverted him through Central London!!!!!

9 am and Dirk arrived just in time for the draw, which saw a few £1 side bets placed, with Vince and Paul East joining in with Dirk and myself, for a four-way battle of the £1 coins and bragging rights. Peg 75 on the causeway was to be my peg for the match.

with Vince and Dirk in the 60′s on the other side of the causeway while Paul, Clive and Alan were opposite me on the far bank. To my right I had Simon and to my left young Nick Allen.

With plenty of time to set up prior to the 11am start I set up 3 pole rigs, a 4X14 KC Carpa Tricky on 0·14 Antares Silk Shock with size 18 Drennan Carp Match hook to fish at dead depth which would cover from 5mtrs to 13 mtrs due to the even bottom, a 4X12 KC Carpa dibber on 0·16 Antares Silk Shock with size 18 Drennan Carp Match hook for up in the water, and a 4X12 KC Carpa Shelf on 0·16 Antares Silk Shock with size 16 Drennan Carp Match hook for the margins. I also set up the pellet waggler (though I felt the conditions would rule it out today) and a feeder rod as a get out of jail option, however I’d forgotten my cage feeders, but fortunately I managed to borrow one from Vince. Bait wise for me, with it being the middle of May it was pellet, pellet and more pellet, with some meat as a change bait. Simon however was committing mass murder on a bait box full of worm & caster with some Atomic and hemp added for good measure!!!!!!

11am and with Vince blowing the whistle for the start I fed a pot of mixed pellet on the 11mtr and 5mtr lines and fed the margins by hand. Meanwhile young Nick had already landed his 1st fish and was into a second. Simon lost the 1st fish he hooked as a Skimmer did a passable impression of a Trout and shed the hook as it took off however he was soon into a few fish.

I was really struggling to buy a bite but finally got off the mark with a F1 of about a pound. However I couldn’t put a run of fish together unlike Nick and Simon who were catching regularly and a combination of a cold NE wind and the rain made conditions unpleasant to say the least (Strange how it never bothers you if you’re catching) but at least I had the wind off my back.

After about 2 hours of going nowhere fast I re-fed my pole lines and got up for a leg stretch and popped down to see how others were doing.

 Vince was huddled under his brolly trying to escape the wind and rain that was blowing straight into his bank and was fishing the feeder………

but although he was admitting to around 15lbs in the net, was having trouble as his bites seemed to be very finicky.

Dirk was a couple of pegs further down, and was starting to wonder why he’d made the trip down from Rugby? He’s enjoyed his previous visits to Monks and had won his section the last couple of times, but sitting there with the wind blowing straight into him and his hands starting to lose all feeling, it was turning into a struggle as he had to go out to 14½ mtrs just to find a bite.

Meanwhile Matt Love, just behind Dirk was suffering as well, despite having won a match on the lake the previous Saturday with a fine bag of 114lbs fishing the pellet up in the water, it wasn’t working for him today however and he’d reverted to a method feeder to see if it would bring him a few fish.

Back at my peg, there was still no action on any of my pole lines and I decided that the feeder was the way to go with soaked 4mm pellet in the feeder and a hair rigged banded 8mm hard pellet for bait…………

After about 10 minutes I was rewarded as the tip wrapped round and after a short fight, a nice Mirror of around 3lb was welcomed to the net.

Looking across I could see that the far bank was struggling with nobody getting anything other than the occasional fish. Paul was sticking at it and seemed to be concentrating on his margin swim in an effort to put a few together…….

While Clive appeared to be alternating his approach between the margin and his line straight out in front, though apparently for little reward……

Meanwhile a few more Carp and F1′s along with a couple of Barbel kept things ticking over for me, though I won’t pretend that I wasn’t pleased to hear Vince blowing the whistle to signal the end of the match at 4pm.

The weigh in soon confirmed that I was about as close to a bit of Cod as I could be (Battered both sides) with Nick to my left weighing 73¾lbs for the match win and Simon to my right putting 52½lbs on the scales to eclipse my 34¼lbs and take my £1. However every cloud they say has a silver lining, and on this occasion I had the pleasure of relieving Vince, Dirk and Paul of their £1 coins.

Back to the car park for the presentations it was generally agreed that the fishing had been as hard as most could remember given the time of year, However the aim of the match had been achieved with £540 in total being raised for the Charities and all the anglers taking away some Braham & Murray Hemp Products for their efforts, so a big vote of Thanks to all those that attended.

Chatting in the car park as we all set off for home, I remembered something in my pocket that I handed back to Vince with my thanks, Yes the cage feeder that he’d lent me and enabled me to take his £1. His face was a picture and I can’t repeat what he actually said to me. 

	TOP 20
Position	Angler	Weight
1st	Nick Allen	73lbs 12ozs
2nd	Phil Brice	66lbs 08ozs
3rd	Peter Allen	63lbs 12ozs
4th	Graham Flynn	62lbs 00ozs
5th	Ian Carley	61lbs 00ozs
6th	John Haigh	58lbs 00ozs
7th	James North	52lbs 12ozs
8th	Simon Edwards	52lbs 08ozs
9th	Dennis Price	50lbs 12ozs
10th	Trevor Little	46lbs 00ozs
11th	Dave Barr	36lbs 08ozs
12th	Peter Morton	34lbs 04ozs
13th	Gary Cross	34lbs 02ozs
14th	S Holden	33lbs 12ozs
15th	Simon Elsey	32lbs 08ozs
16th	Jeff Driscoll	32lbs 00ozs
17th	Alan Loader	30lbs 08ozs
18th	Mike Jameson	28lbs 04ozs
19th	Vince Gould	27lbs 06ozs
20th	Matt Love	27lbs 04ozs

Section 1	Phil Brice	66lbs 08ozs
	John Haigh	58lbs 00ozs
Section 2	Peter Allen	63lbs 12ozs
	Graham Flynn	62lbs 00ozs
Section 3	Nick Allen	73lbs 12ozs
	Simon Edwards	52lbs 08ozs
Section 4	Alan Loader	30lbs 08ozs
	Clive Pritchard	21lbs 08ozs

ROLF WOBBEKING.

It was with sadness that I received news that Rolf sadly passed away today.

One of life’s true characters that I feel privileged to have met, Rolf was one of the most successful Specimen Anglers on the Middle Thames and surrounding rivers back in the late 1970′s and through the 80′s. His record with big chub was outstanding, he even held the record for a time, and he also captured a lot of very big pike from the river. However it’s his fishery – Rolf’s Lake at Holton in Oxfordshire that will stand as his legacy and a tribute to his energy and his abilities as a fishery owner. All the fish there are immaculate, with some truly impressive specimens of various species, due to the fact that the welfare of his fish was always his no.1 priority.

Farewell Rolf, Rest in Peace Chap.