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.

Hartleylands Farm Fishery. The Reservoir. April 14, 2006.

Good Friday, and Maria declares this morning that she’s going over to visit one of her friends, so why don’t I pop out for a days fishing?
Why not indeed, I’ve got plenty of pellets and corn, so fill the flask and load up the car and by 9·30am I’m pulling into the car park at Hartleylands.

Plenty of cars and people gave notice of a busy day, so I drove up to the reservoir to have a look round. Right on cue as I got out of the car the drizzle started, but I had a stroll round anyway, but as I reached peg 8 I spotted a friendly face in the shape of Terry aka Wily Coyote.
After a brief chat I retrieved my gear from the car and settled down on peg 7 next to Terry. It was bit windy from our right to left, but a relatively mild 12 degrees and overcast. Most anglers including Terry were fishing feeders or ledger rigs of various descriptions, but one chap on what looked like peg 13 was catching on a Baggin Wag, showing that some of the fish had to be up in the water.

I set up a waggler to give the pellet a go up in the water, but after an hour without a touch that’s up the bank and it’s time to christen my new Okuma Twin tip Avon rod, pairing it up with my Capricorn 3500 to fish a Baggin Wag with hair rigged corn 2ft deep. Groundbait was simply GOT Baits pure brown crumb with a couple of handfuls of Swimstim Micro’s added.

Within 10 minutes I was into my 1st Carp of the day, a really plump fish that Terry and I thought might scrape 10lbs
Terry on seeing this decided to have some of that, as he’d only managed 4 of 5 skimmers up to that point and he was soon into action.

The resulting fish while not being the largest was at least most welcome

I soon had another mirror of a similar stamp to my 1st

however sport was never fast and furious with gaps between bites, then 2 or 3 fish and another gap, well for me at least, Terry was having one of those days where he couldn’t buy another bite.

About 12·30 the sky became greyer and the wind got up a bit more, brollies were raised and then the rain came.
At this point Terry’s umbrella decided to snap and collapse on him.Such was the change in the weather that I phoned Malc "The Jinx " just to check whether he was in the area??? Having been told it was sunshine and Tee shirt weather in Wales followed by howls of laughter, I bid him a fond farewell just as the rain started to ease.

I seemed to get a run of fish, either mirrors or commons, 2 or 3 at a time, it was if the fish were cruising in small pods.

The commons, while not the largest at the moment, are truly lovely fish, fighting fit and as fat as butter, indeed all the fish appear to have wintered well and bulked up.

As the afternoon went on the wind dropped and the sun tried to poke through the clouds. Terry reverted to the feeder, but alas it wasn’t going to produce anything for him, Meanwhile I managed my 20th carp of the day and tried to look apologetic as Terry did the honours with the camera for me once more.

Back to the Baggin Wag for Terry, but still no joy as I coaxed another couple, and as 4·30 arrived I slid my 25th carp of the session over the net, a nicely marked mirror around the 12lb mark

Terry and I looked at each other and decided to call it quits. A good day for me, but one of almost total frustration for Terry, hard to credit that at times our floats were a matter of feet from each other with such wildly different results, but I suppose that’s the enigma of fishing.

My thanks to Terry for his company on the day, we must do it again, hopefully with a more even result next time.

Elphick’s Fishery. Kettle’s Lake. March 11th, 2006.

So there I was driving down the A21 this morning at about 7·30am with snowflakes mingling with the rain and the car’s thermometer showing just 4°C , I really was starting to question my sanity.  I may not have been fishing since before Christmas, but surely it would have made more sense to turn round and return to a nice warm bed.

At 8·30am in the car park outside the lodge at Elphicks, I met up with 2 familiar faces, Dave the Fish and Colin for this session that we had arranged to knock the cobwebs off of our gear. So day tickets paid for we drove up to Sandwich Lake where a brief look confirmed that it was going to be uncomfortable to say the least with a raw wind blowing from left to right lowering the temperature even more.

A stroll along to Kettles Lake next door revealed a slightly more sheltered area, with some trees offering a modicum of shelter from the wind, so despite none of us having fished it before we decided that Kettles would be todays venue.

As we set up Dave made a beeline for the snack wagon, returning with 3 welcome piping hot cups of tea. Colin to my right elected to fish a maggot feeder to the point of the island at around 25mtrs, While I went for a pole approach at about 11mtrs which offered a depth of around 4feet, and Dave to my left went for the pole at around 9mtrs offering a similar depth to me.
Given that the water still had a good bit of colour and that I knew the stocking levels are high on all the lakes, I kicked off with a large pot of 3mm green swimstim pellets and another of maggots, aiming to fish either 6mm swimstim hookers or double red maggot over it at dead depth, while Dave went for a little and often approach trickling feed in with a kinder pot.

Sport for the 1st hour was non existent for both Dave and I, while Colin managed a couple of small Roach on the feeder. I was convinced that things would pick up and was catapulting alternate pouches of pellet and maggot in an effort to make something happen.

Dave was using his new Platt-Forms box and was at least happy that it wouldn’t be getting muddy as the swims at Elphick’s are all covered in Astroturf (there was an awfull lot of blue in evidence on the day though, including his car, leading me to wonder whether he’s trying to take Matt Nutt’s title of “Little Boy Blue”)

Colin strolled down for a chat and right on cue my float dipped and the 1st fish of 2006 for me in the shape of a net Roach had me off and running, quickly followed by a nice F1, Things were starting to look up.

Dave was having one of those days, bumping a couple of foul-hookers while trying to fine tune his presentation as a constantly changing wind made things awkward.
Colin plugged away on the feeder finally getting among a few small Carp amongst the Roach and Rudd that were coming at regular intervals.

Dave popped along for a chat and on cue my float dipped resulting in a far from seasonal Tench pulling the elastic from my pole and soon gracing my landing net, much to Dave’s delight.

Things seemed to get better and better for me as I kept banging in the feed. 5 Bream around the 2 – 2½lb mark along with a male Tench and another chunky F1

……..mixed in with the Roach and Rudd, there was even a Bleak!!!

All of which kept me busy and warm right up to 3pm when I decided to call it a day as a few flakes of snow started to fall again.

Dave managed to get amongst a few Roach and at least 1 Bream that I saw, and with Colin still sneaking a few out on the feeder decided to stay on for a little while longer.

All in all a rewarding day, with good company in hard conditions, and a nice if somewhat belated start to my fishing year.

Hartleylands Farm Fishery. Nick’s Lake. December 17th, 2005.

Dave the Fish’s 

Fur and Feather Fun Match.

22 hardy souls headed down to Hartleylands in Kent today to take part in a Xmas match organised by Dave the Fish from Maggotdrowning.com.

I met up with a few of the lads at the Knoxbridge Café at around 7·30am to find it a tad busy, a party of shooters had obviously beaten us to it, meaning that the service was about as far removed from “Fast Food” as you could imagine.
By the time that Jess & Szabi and The Welsh Contingent (Dai, Neo, Geoff & Malc) arrived it had slowed even more and as we left for the draw they were still waiting!

With the delays making the draw run late we decided that we would fish from 10·30 to 3·30pm so we all dipped in and made our way to our respective pegs.
I found myself on 22 with The Jinx for company on 23. Not only were our pegs in the shade but we had the wind howling into them and although there was no ice on the lake it was soon obvious that the only people that would be at home on them would be Eskimos. Looking across to the other bank it was bathed in sunlight with barely a ripple on the water!

I set up a pole and a feeder rod with a small maggot feeder, while Malc elected to fish the feeder all day to the island in front of him.

The All-in was called and I went out on the pole, and needless to say with both Malc and Dave standing behind me my first bite, a small very delicate affair (don’t believe Malc when he tells you “it speared the bottom”) resulted in me missing it horribly and wrapping the rig round the tip.

I stuck it out on the pole for an hour for 4 small fish (1 Skimmer, 1 Roach, 1 Perch and a Gudgeon). In the meantime Malc had managed 3 Carp and Neo a few pegs down had managed a few small stockies. I could see Omega Mike (who I regard as something of a venue expert) pegged further round and bathed in sunlight starting to put a few together on the long pole.
Sven on peg8 (The Flyer) and Colin opposite me appeared to be catching regularly,
and with my hands starting to become numb with the cold the pole was replaced with the feeder rod.
Looking round it appeared that a Garden Gnome had turned blue with the cold, but it was only Malc staring at his tip willing it to go round..

Slowly I started to put a few small Carp together by dropping the feeder as close to the island as I dared.

Just after Noon the best part of the day arrived in the shape of Dave & Jean bearing Hot Pies & Pasties along with a bottle of Canadian Club. Truly inspired and most welcome, even if Malc did complain that they weren’t served on Dave's usual Silver Tray.

Into the fading light, and a few misgiving's were being aired about the wisdom of fishing to 3·30pm, it was getting that cold that I had a couple of feeders crack up where they had become so brittle in the cold. With 5 mins to go I’m sure that I heard the ominous sound of breaking carbon from further down the bank followed by a softly muttered Welsh curse, though I could be wrong.

Finally the whistle sounded, and it transpired that Malc and I would have to perform Scales Duty. My 27lbs 2ozs started the ball rolling (and secured £1 from Malc), Omega Mike came up just short with what was still a creditable bag as he’d fished the pole all day. Colin was soon in the box seat however with a 50lb+ bag, a worthy winner on the day. Sven & John on adjacent pegs had obviously had a close match, with Sven just having enough for 2nd on the day pushing John down to 3rd and me to 4th. A very good result for Sven as I’m sure he would admit that match fishing isn’t his thing. Nick Gilbert also managed 27lbs on the day.

Gathering up our kit Malc and I returned to find our nets frozen solid (told you it was cold) so back to the car park for the prizes and farewells.
I have to say that given the conditions the lake fished well on the day, even though the fish were shoaled up in pockets.

A big thank you to Dave for organising the match and to all those that attended from near and far, making the day the success it was. We’ll have to do it again, preferably in warmer conditions though.

The final results were :-

1st	Colin Sharrard	51lbs 12ozs
2nd	Sven Castle	28lbs 11ozs
3rd	John Holdsworth	27lbs 04ozs
4th	Peter(Mugger)Morton	27lbs 02ozs
5th	Nick Gilbert	27lbs 00ozs
6th	Mike Jameson	25lbs 01ozs
7th	Nick Williams	19lbs 10ozs
8th	Tony Roberts	17lbs 01ozs
9th	Chris Withall	11lbs 08ozs
10th	Kevin Loveland	9lbs 11ozs
11th	Jim Boase	8lbs 07ozs
12th	Jess Brind	7lbs 13ozs
13th	Dai Thomas	7lbs 11ozs
14th	Malc(The Jinx)Doyle	6lbs 02ozs
15th	Geoff Palmer	5lbs 07ozs
16th	Rob Page	3lbs 09ozs
17th	Terry Goff	11ozs

+ two blanks and 3 who tipped back.