Nick's Fishing World

Medway Trotters Match, Monks Lake Bridges.

2009-11-24T22:06:00.004Z

Today I was fishing with the Medway Trotter club down Monks Lake, we were fishing Bridges which is one of the pleasure lakes and stuffed full of all sorts of fish including masses of skimmers.

It was not pegged down today and we were going to be drawing numbers and walking off to pick a swim. The weather was wet and windy and the prediction was for it getting worse during the day so a swim with the wind off my back so I can set up the umbrella as a wind break was going to be my choice and I didn’t care where it was! As it turned out I pulled out number 2 so had a good choice of swims and decided to walk right down the far end as I heard this can be a good area. Conveniently the bank curved round and the wind was blowing at an angle from behind.

It has been raining for several days so the banks were very wet and muddy. As the water level was a bit low I couldn’t fish from the flat area and I perched my seat box on the muddy slope at the edge of the lake. I didn’t intend to set up the pole today in the bad weather and set up 2 feeder rods, one with a free running method. This had a short hook length with a size 18 Fox Series 7 hook. The other with a cage feeder, the trace was about 18 inches long with a size 16 Kamasan 911 attached to a 0.12 hook length. The waggler rod was also set up, this had one of my homemade peacock inserts, attached to a 0.12 trace and a size 16 Kamasan 611 hook. This was set to fish a couple of inches over depth.

Bait wasn’t too complicated, a couple of pints of 4mm and 6mm expanders, 3 pints of maggots, some corn and 2 kilos of ground bait which was made of ground pellet mixed up the night before to make it inert.

So with everything set up I was thinking of my plan of attack while waiting for the start. I had an island in front of me but decided to fish to the right of it in the open water trying to draw in some bream. The lake is not too deep with around 4ft everywhere in front of me so I just clipped up the feeder at about 30 meters. I didn’t want to fish out too far because of the strong cross wind preferring to cast shorter to be more accurate. I was also intending to feed at around 15-20 meters out for the waggler later in the match if things were slow giving me somewhere else to go allowing me to rest the feeder line.

The whistle went to signal the start and I chucked out a large Drennan cage feeder loaded with ground bait plus plenty of maggots, pellet and a bit of corn mixed in, hook bait was 3 maggots. Casting was difficult due to the wind and I had to throw the feeder out low and hard to get it in more or less the same spot every time! I re cast the feeder about every 2-3 minutes to get some feed down, and it wasn’t long before a few bites materialised. About 10-15 minutes in I was into the first skimmer and then a net sized bream of about 1.5lb. Things where quite slow and the first hour only produced 6 small skimmers and the bream. The second hour was a bit better with about another 10 skimmers and a bonus carp of about 2lb. I had been feeding maggot and pellet over the waggler line so was going to have a quick look, but before that I dumped in 6 big feeder full’s of ground bait before resting it.

The waggler was very slow only producing two small skimmers in about 15 minutes so the rod went up the bank and it was out again with the feeder. The rest did the trick and I was into small skimmers one a bung now, nothing big but fish were going in the net most casts. Maggots were still the most productive hook bait producing bites faster than the other baits. I caught steady for the next 2 hours putting at least 40 fish in the net.

I had continued to feed the waggler line and with an hour to go had a quick look to see if I could pick up a bigger stamp of fish. This time there were plenty of fish to be had but still all small skimmers. I thought I would stick with the waggler as I could catch faster than on the feeder. I did pick up another bream of about 1.5lb and with about 10 minutes to go took a chance and had another look on the feeder to see if anything bigger had moved in. No luck there and it was still the small skimmers and I added a few more before the whistle signalled the end. I lost count of the numbers of fish caught but guessed it was at least 80 possibly more, all skimmers apart from 3 bream and a small carp.

When the scales came round 30lb 2oz was winning, I thought I had around 30lb, and was hoping for more,but it turned out my estimate was spot on for a change and the needle on the scales went round to 30lb exactly, so narrowly missing out on 1st spot and having to settle for 2nd on the day with about 27lb taking 3rd spot.

Finaly don't forget to have a look at my range of hand crafted pole floats, super strong and will not take on water.
www.float-store.co.uk

Float testing for the day down Monk Lakes

2009-11-08T21:57:00.009Z

Today I was off to Monk Lakes, Kent to test out some of my float designs all available from my online shop (link on the right). The intention was to fish one of the match lakes but when I arrived I fancied a change from the featureless holes in the ground and decided to sit down the far end of Bridges Lake.

After paying my day ticket money at the office I had a drive round the lake to decide where to fish, apparently since the lakes were dug the silverfish population has flourished and it was now heaving with all sorts of fish growing fast on bait fed by the carp boys.

I decided on a swim at the far end with the wind blowing into it with a island to my right and lots of open water to fish.

The plan for the day was to give my new Finesse range of a good work out and the swim seemed perfect. This foat is designed with siverfish in mind but still retaining strength. The lake didn’t seem very deep with only about 3.5ft of water at 5- 9 meters, with it getting a few inches deeper out at 11 meters. Seeing as there were not many people about I figured the fish would come in close and decided to start at only 9 meters. If this was unproductive I can always fish out a couple of sections more. The rig for the session was simple with a 0.3g Finesse float.

This was shorted up with a small bulk of no8s 18 in from the hook and a couple of number 10 droppers at 6 inch spacing. The rig trace was a 0.10 Drennan rig line attached to a 16 Drennan Silverfish Hook. This was plumbed up to fish just touching the bottom. . Elastic choice was a doubled up 5 Preston Slip.

The bait for the day was white maggot, a selection of Got and Skrettings expander pellets, plus a very basic cheap ground bait which consisted of a 50/50 mix of fishmeal and brown crumb.

Cos it was cold I didn’t feed a lot to start just a small ball of ground bait with a handful of pellets and maggots. Things were very slow to start with no bites for 10-15 minutes so I decided to feed about 10 maggots every 30 seconds with a few expanders mixed in to try to draw a few fish. This was a good tactic as I soon started to get a few knocks on the float and was catching a few skimmers to about 8oz. After catching a few I stuck on a 6mm expander and the size of skimmers got bigger. With fish up to around the 2lb mark.

Things got slow after a while so I decided to try throwing in a couple of balls of ground bait as the fish seemed to respond well to a bit of noise, This worked well and I was catching the one a bung soon after fishing at about 10 meters just beyond the feed. It seemed maggot produced a selection of fish including skimmers, chub, roach, tench and rudd, where slicking on a expander sorted out the bream in the 1-3lb range.

It was easy fishing really and as long as I kept bait going in about every 30 second I was getting one a bung. I got a bit bored to be honest so set up the waggler to give that a try. Fishing my 2.5AAA homemade peacock insert just beyond the pole line at about 20 meters and again feeding little and often I was into fish one a bung, this time some hard fighting tench around the 1-2lb mark and a few chub to a 1lb.

It was getting a bit late and I decided to call it a day about 4pm after about 5 hours fishing probably catching the best part of 150+ fish! So not a bad days fishing giving the float a thorough workout.

Back Blogging Again

2009-10-19T15:27:00.004+01:00

I have had time to write a blog for some time but entries will be more frequent from now on! I have been busy using my spare time to launch my float shop that will feature float made by myself and a selection of float making materials. Click on the link to the right to check it out.

I have a variety of results lately and a few match wins over the past few months, the most notable being the Southern Intersite at Monks Lake and a couple of Open wins down Hartleylands farm.

The most enjoyable match I have fished though was down the newly re opened Burham Reservoir , catching a few nice roach on the waggler for a 2nd.

I am planning a few trips out soon so keep looking in for the full reports of my ventures.

GOT Baits ISK League 2009 Final Round Result

2009-08-01T19:43:00.004+01:00

The venue was Hartleylands Farm, Nicks Lake.

Paul Kell stormed the last match fishing the method feeder, getting the section win to take the last round and win the league on maximum points.

I managed to sneak the 2nd spot with a weight advantage over Colin Wood in 3rd position. Taking the last money spot in 4th was Ian Carley.

All the top 4 went home with a big bag of assorted GOT bait goodie including Atomic Cloud, Expander Pellets and a selection of Soft Hookers generously donated by our sponsors. All other competitors took away a tub of soft hookers.

I would like to thank Trevor Price from GOT baits for his sponsorship.

1st Paul Kell Peg 26 145-13
2nd Nick Costar Peg 23 132-13
3rd Nick Gilbert Peg 12 99-15
4th Ian Carley Peg 17 97-11
5th Mark Hathway Peg 21 93-9
6th Collin Wood peg 33 89-4

Final League Placing (worst result dropped)

1 Paul Kell, 0-5-5-5-5-5, 524-14 25
2 Nick Gilbert, 5-3-5-3-5-5, 462-7 23
3 Collin Wood, 3-5-5-5-0-5, 396-4 23
4 Ian Carley, 5-4-4-5-4-4, 483-9 22
5 Russell Graves, 0-5-4-5-5-3, 340-5 21
6 Russ Evans, 4-3-4-3-5-4, 362-9 20
7 Mark Hathway 4-4-4-0-3-4, 304-10 19
8 Jonny Watt, 5-3-3-0-5-3, 291-4 19
9 Dennis Price, 4-4-5-3-2-3, 278-1 19
10 Matt Love, 5-4-4-0-3-2, 272-6 18
11 Jeff Driscoll, 4-3-3-4-4-0, 249-2 18
12 Nick Allen, 3-5-3-2-1-3, 259-3 17
13 John Haige 2-2-2-3-4-4, 262-2 15
14 Pete Allen 2-2-1-3-2-5, 288-13 14
15 Paul Slater 3-0-2-4-3-1, 193-2 13
16 Trevor Little 2-1-3-4-0-2, 237-3 12
17 Chris Jones 3-1-2-2-2-2, 163-0 11
18 Al Loader 0-2-3-0-3-1, 176-8 9
19 Brian Pink 2-2-1-2-0-2, 59-15 9

One Good and Bad result at Monk Lakes!

2009-05-06T11:34:00.000+01:00

I haven’t had time to do a blog lately so this is a double.

Although there isn’t much to write about on the first match down Monks Lake 1 and it was a disaster.

I pulled out peg 29 and because the weather was poor I had decided that the maggot waggler was going to be the killer method and catch me enough to win the section. I didn’t even think of a plan B I was so confident it would work although I was going to lose feed a pole line as backup!

So I set up the waggler rig with a 3aaa peacock insert shotted with 3 number 8s down the line set to just drag the bottom, on the end was a size 16 Kamasan 611 to a 0.12 trace. I also set up a shallow and deep rig to fish out in front. The shallow rig can double as a margin rig too cos I was feeling lazy and couldn’t be bothered to set one up.

I guess my lack of preparation, thought and cowboy approach to this match cost me. I blew the whistle to start and kicked off on the waggler, feeding maggots little and often I had 3 carp quite quickly and not a lot was coming out, I was just thinking to myself this will be easy, 50-60lb win the section, then go away with 5 points. At this point the waggler died and I was struggling. Not a good start!

I switched to the pole and that again produced nothing but the odd fish. To cut a long story short I alternated between the pole shallow and waggler for the rest of the match picking up the odd fish and ended up with just 20 carp and some other small stuff. I put 29lb on the scales for a 3rd in section so paid the price.

Lucky for me all the section winners from the week before dropped points too so it left me 3rd overall in the league.

Result below

1 Collin Wood 60-12 Peg 23
2 Nick Allen 59-7 Peg 36
3 Dennis Price 57-14 Peg 22
4 Rusty 57-00 peg 16
5 Russ Evans 53-10 peg 24
6 Squeaky (guest) 51-0 peg 31

League Placing

1 Ian Carley, 5-4, 124-8 9
2 Matt Love, 5-4, 107-1 9
3 Nick Gilbert, 5-3, 133-13 8
4 Collin Wood, 3-5, 110-9 8
5 Dennis Price, 4-4, 105-1 8
6 Nick Allen, 3-5, 103-1 8
7 Jonny Watt, 5-3, 95-5 8
8 Mark Hathway 4-4, 69-15 8
9 Russ Evans, 4-3, 104-3 7
10 Jeff Driscoll, 4-3, 82-14 7
11 Russell Graves, 0-5, 57-0 5
12 Paul Kell, 0-5, 44-4 5
13 Pete Allen 2-2 63-11 4
14 John Haige 2-2 33-1 4
15 Chris Jones 3-1 27-6 4
16 Brian Pink 2-2 19-15 4
17 Trevor Little 2-1 81-6 3
18 Paul Slater 3-0 39-7 3
19 Al Loader 0- 11-10 2

So on to round 3

This round was on Monks lake 2 and I needed a section win or I would have no chance of staying in contention for the title. Looking at the table with Matt Love not fishing this week I needed the leader Ian Carley in my section but more importantly I had to win it with a good weight so I could then move back to the top of the table.

The drawing god was with me today and I ended up on peg 49 and Ian was in my section on peg 51. So now all I need to do was win it with a good weight to move into first place again, easy  !

The weather had been good in the run up to the day with the air pressure high so there was only one tactic I was thinking off, yes you guessed it fishing shallow with pellet. The problem though was the cross wind, it was very strong and fishing beyond 9 meters would be a problem, as it was about 7 foot deep so balling in to draw fish close was out of the question cos I thought it was a little too deep. I was going to have to lose feed them in meaning it may be a bit slow to start.

I set up two shallow rigs for the day both had Drennan Carp 4 dibbers, 0.14mm traces with a 14 Drennan carp hook. One had a short line and the other long so I could use the two to fish anything from 3ft to 1ft deep, one of these could also be used down the margin. I also set up two on the deck rigs one to fish out in front at around 5 meters at the bottom of the shelf the other to fish at about 8 meters where it was slightly deeper. All of these were set up with a doubled Preston 6 Slip elastic.

Bait for the day was plenty of 6mm hard carp pellets with a few 8mm for change bait. I had some maggot and expanders too but didn’t expect to use many.

I blew the whistle to start and fed the 5 meter line with a few pellets and a small ball of groundbait and went straight out on it with a 6mm expander. It wasn’t long before I started to get a few bites and had my first small carp after about 10 minutes. Things were a bit slow and I had nothing else for the next 10 minutes! I was growing inpatient by this time and was feeding at about 8 meters with pellet about 6-8 every 10 seconds. I went out with the 3ft deep rig over the top and a few minutes later was into a decent F1 of about 2lb.

At this point could bore you with a fish by fish account of the action but to be honest all I did for the rest of the match was keep the feed going in and eventually fed the fish up to a foot deep and caught slow but steady the whole match.

I may have oversimplified things with the last sentence because of the savage cross wind hampering feeding and I had to constantly change the frequency and amount fed and the way I worked the bait to keep bites coming. I also had look on the deck if things got slow shallow to pick up the odd fish too.

I ended up with 67 carp and a few small fish at the end and I guessed they would go the best part of 90lb. I doubt it was enough to win the match but it was looking good for the section win.

It turned out my fish went 107lb which was a bit of a surprise; this put me 4th overall and gave me the section win I needed.

Result below.

1 Paul Kell Peg 45 143-10
2 Russ Evans Peg 56 123-5
3 Dennis Price Peg 68 111-9
4 Nick Gilbert Peg 49 107-4
5 Russell Graves Peg 74 96-10
6 Al Loader Peg 46 91-10

Peg Rundown

54 N Costar 68-4
52 C Jones 43-8
51 I Carley 80-6
49 N Gilbert 107-4
48 N Allen 66-3

46 A Loader 91-10
45 Pl Kell 143-10
56 R Evans 123-5
57 K Driscoll 83-13
59 J Haigh 73-14

60 B Pink 20-0
62 P Slater 32-9
63 J Driscoll 48-8
65 M Hathway 74-12
66 C Wood 89-6

68 D Price 111-9
70 J Watt 71-8
72 P Allen 69-15
74 R Graves 96-10
76 T Little 89-11

League Placing

1 Nick Gilbert, 5-3-5, 241-1 13
2 Dennis Price, 4-4-5, 216-10 13
3 Ian Carley, 5-4-4, 204-15 13
4 Collin Wood, 3-5-5, 199-15 13
5 Mark Hathway 4-4-4, 144-11 12
6 Russ Evans, 4-3-4, 227-8 11
7 Nick Allen, 3-5-3, 169-4 11
8 Jonny Watt, 5-3-3 166-13 11
9 Paul Kell, 0-5-5, 187-14 10
10 Jeff Driscoll, 4-3-3 131-6 10
11 Russell Graves, 0-5-4, 153-10 9
12 Matt Love, 5-4-0, 107-1 9
13 Trevor Little 2-1-3, 171-1 6
14 John Haige 2-2-2, 106-15 6
15 Chris Jones 3-1-2, 70-14 6
16 Pete Allen 2-2-1, 133-10 5
19 Al Loader 0-2-3 103-4 5
18 Paul Slater 3-0-2 72-0 5
19 Brian Pink 2-2-1 39-15 5

For a bit of fun the Weight League

1 Nick Gilbert 241-1
2 Russ Evans 227-8
3 Dennis Price 216-10
4 Ian Carley 204-15
5 Collin Wood 199-15
6 Paul Kell 187-14
7 Trevor Little 171-1
8 Nick Allen 169-4
9 Jonny Watt 166-13
10 Russel Graves 153-10
11 Mark Hathway 133-10
12 Pete Allen 133-10
13 Jeff Driscoll 131-6
14 Matt Love 107-1
15 John Haige 106-15
16 Al Loader 103-4
17 Paul Slater 72-0
18 Chris Jones 70-14
19 Brian Pink 39-15

GOT Baits ISK League 2009 Round 1

2009-04-15T21:36:00.000+01:00

Today I am fishing the first round on the league I am running, I haven’t fished a match since last December so had to blow the cobwebs off all my match gear!

The venue for the first round is Hartleylands in Kent and the match was to be split between 2 lakes Bramley and Pear Tree. For those that have never read the blog before the lakes hold a good number of carp most in the 12oz to 3lb range with a few bigger fish mixed in.

At the draw there were a few from last year and a few new faces and it was set to be a good match and although only 20 are fishing each round there will be no easy point to be had and a good start will be essential, as will be a good weights as this may come into play at the end if there is a tie on points.

As always when running a match I got Trevor Little to pull out my peg and I was not disappointed when peg 4 on Pear Tree come out, it was close to the end of the island near to the gap in the middle of the lake. The peg is not the shortest chuck to the island but with the light wind coming from an angle from behind feeding on the waggler was not going to be a problem.

Arriving at the peg I had pretty much made my mind up the waggle shallow was going to work even though the weather was not that warm, so plenty of 6mm pellets were in the carryall, along with some expanders, corn and some mixed maggots as backup in case it was hard and I ended up fishing on the deck! I also had some method goundbait mixed up too but didn’t expect to use it.

Two 11ft Preston waggler rods were set up with my own 6aaa Styro Wags, one set to just over 2ft and the other 1ft. A 10ft Shakey Match 3 feeder rod to fish bomb and pellet, this had a 12 in hook length. The pole was also set up with two shallow dibber rigs set at 1 and 2ft, a on the deck rig using my own Diamond float, and a margin rig again using one of my floats plumed up to fish down each margin at about 6 meters.

So all the gear was set up and I was ready for the off, or I thought it was. I blew the whistle for the start and used a large pot of pellets to feed 4 pole lines, 2 margins and 2 in front in case the wag didn’t work. Just after doing this I realized the landing net wasn’t set up! So a big pouch full of 6mm pellet was sent toward the island while I set up the net. 3-4 more were sent out and I was eventually ready to cast. Out went the 2ft deep rig and I immediately had a bite. A small carp was hooked and bumped. A couple of casts later another was in the landing net.

Feeding frequently I was straight away putting a good run of fish together. They were around the 2ft mark to start but soon I was fishing 12in deep rig as the carp rise up in the water to the feed. With an hour gone I had 19 in the net. All the while I had been feeding at about 11 meters pellets little and often to see if I can get the carp within pole range. So I went out with the 2ft deep shallow rig to have a look and also rest the waggler line as things had slowed up. I stepped up the feeding to every 10-15 seconds while dropping the rig in. on about the 4th go the float dipped and a fish was on. It took a few minutes to land but turned out to be about 4-5lb so a good bonus. Another five minutes on the pole with no other bites and it was out again with the waggler.

The rest on the line worked well and it was solid, I had about 10 fish one after the other. Another 10 followed but not quite so quickly and with about 2 hours and 15 minutes I had 40. Time to rest the waggler again so it was out with the shallow pole. Same thing happened as before and this time I had two carp quickly and then nothing! I continued to pick off the odd fish on the waggler but it had slowed up a little with 1 hour 30 minutes to go I was putting carp 50 in the net. I also had a quick look down the margins both sided that I had been feeding and this produced one carp of about 2lb.

By this time the waggler had died on me, a quick look on the pole shallow also produced nothing so a re thinks of tactic was needed. I figured I had fed it a bit heavy on the waggler and driven the fish to feed on the deck. So the bomb rod was quickly baited up with a 8mm pellet and cast out to where I was feeding. My suspicions were right and the rod banged round with the first of 18 carp to be caught almost one a bung in the remaining hour and a bit left in the match. This saw me with 79 carp at the end and I guessed I had 90-100lb.

It turned out I ended up with 103lb for quite a convincing win and a good start to the season.

Full result and league places below.

1 Nick Gilbert 103-13
2 Matt Love 5 79-9
3 Ian Carley 5 78-14
4 Jonny Watt 5 73-14
5 Jeff Driscoll 4 63-6
6 Russ Evans 4 50-9

League Placing

1 Nick Gilbert 5 103-13
2 Matt Love 5 79-9
3 Ian Carley 5 78-14
4 Jonny Watt 5 73-14
5 Jeff Driscoll 4 63-6
6 Russ Evans 4 50-9
7 Dennis Price 4 47-3
8 Mark Hathway 4 44-8
9 Collin Wood 3 49-13
10 Nick Allen 3 43-10
11 Paul Slater 3 39-7
12 Chris Jones 3 16-14
13 Trevor Little 2 48-8
14 Pete Allen 2 23-3
15 John Haige 2 19-5
16 Brian Pink 2 9-11
17 Rusty (on Holiday) 0
18 Alan Loader (forgot about the match!) 0
19 Pauk Kell (forgot about the match!) 0

Maggotdrowners Fur and Feather Match, Plus Some Small Stream Fishing.

2008-12-16T21:45:00.010Z

Went down the river for a couple of hours last week. Mainly to test the efectivness of the doubled up elastic for mixed nets. Was hoping to hook a variety of sizes of fish. The swim I had in mind was perfect for the pole with a big swirling eddy on the far side that is always stuffed with fish

I arrived at about 1pm and set up the pole with a doubled up number 5 Preston Slip, attached a 1g carbo float and stuck on a 18 Drennan Barbless Silverfish Maggot hook to a 0.10 trace. shotting was 2 number 8 droppers and a bulk about 18 in from the hook.

It wasn't long before I was catching fish one a bung on white maggot, a mixture of dace, chub, roach, skimmers and a lone trout! I gave up at about 3.15pm and ended up feeding about a pint and a half of bait.

The doubled up elastic run very smooth and I hardly lost a fish all day. It quickly tamed a chub of about 2-3lb too.

I got some guy walking his dog to take a quick picture of the catch!

Maggotdrowners Fur and Feather Match.

Last weekend it was the annual fur and feather march of the Maggotdrowners forum. This year it was going to be held at Wylands on the Old Specimen Lake which was stuffed with roach. Due to the lake being frozen all week leading up to the event it was decided to be moved to House Lake near the café. Here the fishing was more mixed with skimmers, roach and hybreeds.

I woke up the morning of the match to find the weather was apauling! Strong wind and freezing rain greeted me. Knowing this was forcast all day I was travling light and used my small plastic seatbox which was loaded with about 10 pole rigs, some peacock wagglers, 1 reel, discorgers, a few plummits, a hook box and some shot, That was it. In the rod bag went the pole and my Milo New Era Powerlite rod, also a unbrela.

I picked up Matt on the way with his usal mountain of gear who told me he was traveling light! As we drove down the rain was still hammering down and the wind blowing. Things were looking quite grim.

We arrived and the usal suspects were at the tea hut which overlooks the lake, sheltering from the rain, Looking at the way the wind was blowing I was praying for a draw with it behind me. I got lucky and was on the bank near the café with the wind behind me. Matt on the other hand ended up on the other side of the lake with the wind in his face.

I had already decided on the tactics for the day which was going to be the pole around the 7-8 meter mark and the waggler out into open water. I was told the whip close in produced most match wins on the lake but due to the cold clear water I didn’t think you could hold the fish in close for the duration of the match so ruled it out. Bait for the day was simple I had 4 pints of mixed maggots, a pint of casters and a few soft pellets and corn.

Here is a picture of my swim from the Tea hut!

I managed to get the umbrella set up as a wind break behind me without it getting too much on the way and set up two pole rigs both with a doubled number 5 Preston slip elastic. One had a 0.6g Drennan Lake with a Olivet about 18 in from the hook and two number 10 droppers, 0.10 trace with a 18 Drennan Silverfish maggot hook. The other had the same hook and trace but a Carpa Chimp set to fish on the drop in about 4-5 foot of water. The waggler rig was pretty standard with a 3AAA peacock insert, three number 8 shot were spaced down the line about a foot apart starting 6in from the hook. This was plumbed up to fish a couple of inches over depth.

I was the allocated time keeper for the match so blew the whistle to start and kicked off on the waggler with maggot, the plan was to feed the pole line for a good hour before having a look to see what was there. The conditions were appalling! Rain and a strong swirling wind which was making feeding on the waggler a nightmare. Being so changeable it was difficult to be as accurate as I would have liked. Also casting the waggler was the same. Despite this I was soon getting a few bites and feeding a pouch full of maggot every minute of so I started to put a good number of small skimmers and roach in the net, letting the rig settle and twitching it through the feed was working well. For the first hour and a quarter I must have put a good 8lb in the net which considering the conditions I was quite pleased with. The only other person I could see catching a few was Mark a couple of pegs along, not as many but I noticed he was netting a few so can assume they are bigger than mine!

It was time to switch to the pole line that I had been feeding with caster and maggot, and have a look to see if I could catch any quicker. But continue to feed the waggler to keep the fish out there and searching for bait. First put in with double maggot on the Carpa Chimp rig produced an instant bite and a small roach was soon in the net. I had another but it didn’t seem that the rig was working as I would have liked so switched to the Drennan Lake with the Olivet as a bulk. This sat a lot better and again feeding about every 60 seconds I was catching steady and a slightly better stamp of fish including some hard fighting hybrids. I found dragging the rig from side to side through the feed was the best way to induce a bite.

Bites did eventually die on the pole and I felt I should really add a section and chase the fish out but by this time the weather was getting worse, the wind was stronger and the rain slightly heavier! My hands felt so cold I though sod it I really don’t want to hold the pole for any longer so it was out with the waggler again. At least I can keep my hands in front of me and out of the wind. As I had still been feeding it I was into fish straight away although a little smaller I was happy to just keep on putting fish in the net.

I did notice at this time there was a crowd gathering behind me at the tea hut, I was thinking they had gathered to watch my superb display of fishing prowess. But in reality they were sheltering from the freezing cold wind and rain!! Not one of them brought me down a cup of tea either!

I alternated between the pole and waggler for the rest of the match and apart from a bit of a dead spell in the 4th hour managed to keep a steady stream of mostly small fish in the net. I did in the last hour really start lashing the bait in on the waggler and the size of fish did increase and I picked up a few skimmers around the pound mark that were very welcome. I was glad when it was 3pm though and blew the whistle for the end.

My gear was drenched and I was glad I didn’t bring my large Milo box with all the gear and quickly packed up and got the scales for the weigh in.

As it turned out Marks bigger stamp of fish on the pole gave him enough to beat me by over 2 lb and the result is.

1st Mark H(moleman) 32-15

2nd Nick G(nick_gilbert)30-3

3rd Mike J(Omega Mike)19-10

4th Jeff D(Jeff_D) 13-4

5th Al L(Al) 11-10

6th Tony 11-5

7th Trevor L(M T Net) 7-8

8th Bill G(Bill G) 6-6

9th Simon E 4-1

All the rest recored DNW, I don't think there were any blanks they just tipped back.
Thinking about it I should have continued on the pole adding a few sections to chase the fish out which were a bigger stamp than I was getting on the waggler. But I took the lazy option to chuck out the waggler that was already set up.

I’m Back Blogging.

2008-12-05T14:10:00.002Z

I haven’t done a blog entry for some time because I haven’t been out since the first week of October. I didn’t have a lot of time before then so didn’t report on the two previous matches I fished either. One resulted in a win with over a ton down Hartleylands, The other was a small knock up down Sams Lake in Kent.

When I hear the Leatherhead Club were short of a few anglers in the Surrey Winter League match down Monks lake I volunteered to fill in. I was quite looking forward to the match cos I know the lakes this time of the year respond well to the maggot waggler one of my favourite ways of fishing and fancied my chances off a good draw.

I arrived and it was very cold, but at least it was not raining. We were on lake 1 and 2 today. I prefer lake 1 at this time of the year as the fish tend to be more evenly spread although they will still shoal up a bit like anywhere in the winter. Mark the team captain drew out the pegs for the day and informed me I was on peg 8, I would have preferred to be up toward the other end of the lake around peg 3 or 4 on the side I was on but it should hold a few fish. Well actually there are so many fish in the lake all pegs hold a few and if I put less than 25-30lbs on the scales I will give up fishing!

I got to the peg and there was a cold north/east cross down blowing down the lake and slightly towards me and a bit of a chop on the water, this could make lose feeding maggots a bit of a problem so the distance I fish out will be dictated by how far I can feed them and be reasonably accurate.

Bait for the day was 4 pints of red and white maggots, some 4mm and 6mm soft expanders, and the same in hard pellet. I couldn’t see any other bait would be needed but I did have a couple of tins of corn in the bag.

As always my tactics for the day will be simple (like me) one waggler rig was set up, 11ft Carbonactive float with 0.16 main line and 0.12 trace, This had a 3.5AAA inserted peacock waggler, set to fish just scraping the bottom, 3 number 8s were set down the line starting about 8in from the hook. I could then, swap to a straight peacock, add depth and drag these on the bottom if I need to slow the rig down. I didn’t see anybody else around me setting up the waggler so hopefully I will have the line all to myself. I did see a few setting up a maggot feeder but doubt it will do any damage or match the waggler as a method on the day. I also set up a pole rig to fish on the deck at 11 meters. This was done more to give me something to do if I wanted to rest the waggler line and hopefully pick off a few extra fish.

At the whistle I fed the waggler line with a pouch full of maggots that land at about 20 meters out and though that will do for distance then dumped a small pot full of pellet on the pole line, this will be topped up with a few every 30 mins. First cast on the wag baited with double maggot and the float settled with no indications, a slight twitch of the bait though produced an instant bite and carp number one was hooked after about 20 second. Another20 went by and it was in the net. 2nd cast was a repeat of the first and carp 2 was in the net both F1s around the pound mark. By the first hour I had 7 in the net and was beating all around me as far as I can see so not bad a start. I found the fish showed a preference for a red and white maggot combination resulting in F1 carp. A change to double white in the 2nd hour started I to find a few mirror carp too. Red maggot on its own produced nothing!

As I got into the 2nd hour I had a quick look on the pole line and didn’t have a sniff on maggot or pellet so just kept on feeding it and carried on with the waggler. I caught slow but steady for the next few hours on the wag, having a few looks on the pole line without a touch. With an hour and a quarter to go I was struggling for a bite and by this time had 20 small carp and some silverfish. I started to feed the pole line with catty, 4-5 pellets every few minutes hoping I can get a few late carp in the last hour. This worked a treat and when I had a look I had another 5 carp over the next half an hour. This died a death and with no more bite in 10 minutes so it was back out on the waggler for the rest of the match. This produced another 5 carp hooking the last one just on the whistle. I ended up the match with 30 carp which I was quite pleased with and was sure I had beaten the guys around me which is the best you can expect to do in the winter.

It turned out I had 41lb and this was enough to get 2nd in the section. The winter of the section had I think 51lb from peg 3 up the other end of the lake.

I didn’t manage to frame but still had a good days fishing considering the cold weather, and would like to thank Mark the team captain for letting me fish.

I have a match on the 13th at Wylands Specimen Lake and am expecting a big net of roach so look back soon to see how I get on

Ton up at Shannons

2008-09-20T20:35:00.004+01:00

One of the Clubs I am member off was running a match there so I thought I would give it a go.

A mate of mine was there watching me fish so instead of writing a blog myself he did one as a observer

Click on the link to read it

http://kent-match-report.blogspot.com/2008/09/shannons-tunbridge-wells-140908.html

Stones Fishery bag up and Hartleylands invitation match.

2008-09-11T19:25:00.005+01:00

I had a trip down Stones, on the Isle of Sheppy cos I am fishing the festival there next month and wanted to have a go on the Old Specimen Lake.

I arrived and had a chat with my mate Dave who is working there now about how it is fishing and decided to fish the top end of the lake near the car park.

It turned out I didn’t learn a great deal in preparation for the match as I caught on most things I tried. One a bung on pellet shallow. One a bung on paste. One a bung down the margins!!! The fishing was excellent and I must have put 150lb of fish in the net that included some nice skimmers caught on 8mm hard pellet 12in deep!

There is a decent tackle shop on site selling food, drink and bait so it is well worth a visit.

Now off to Hartleylands for a serious match.

I was invited to fish a 40 pegger down Hartleylands fished on two of the lakes, the Reservoir and Pear Tree. 10 top rods from the Midlands had been invited to fish including Neil McKinnon and a few others from the SBS sponsored team whom names I was not familiar with. They were all to fish the Res and I was hoping to be on there too and have a crack at beating them. Another reason was to break my jinx on the lake and try to put together a good net of carp.

My luck was in and I pulled out a peg on the Res, a bit too far into the corner for my liking so it restricted how far I could fish out, but there was a nice ripple on the water and the wind was blowing towards my side of the lake.

The bait I had with me for the day was 10 pints of 8mm pellet for the waggler and some 6mm expander pellet and paste to fish on the pole. That was it as I didn’t think I needed anything else apart from my secret weapon, a few chum mixers.

Tactics for the day are simple too, a margin rig with one of my homemade diamond floats attached to a 14 hook and 0.16 trace. A on the deck rig to fish at about 4 meters with the same hook, line and float combination. Two waggler rods were set up too. One to fish shallow at 2ft or less with a 5AAA Styro, the other had a 4g Drennan Crystal pellet waggler float which is longer and slimmer for fishing up to 6ft deep-shallow.

At the start of the match I fed a few 6mm pellets by hand at 4 meters and down the margins, also feeding out at about 20 meters with 8mm pellets to prime the waggler swim. I went straight in with the 4 meter rig on the deck and hooked a carp within a few seconds, and then the hook pulled out! I had a few skimmers on that line and after about half an hour had the first carp of about 4lb. I gave this line another half an hour with no more carp so thought it was time to have a look on the waggler where I had been feeding about every 30 seconds.

I started at about 6ft deep cos there were no carp showing on the surface, upping the feed rate to every 10-15 seconds. 30 minutes on the method and I got no indications of fish in the swim at any depth! I was just thinking of having another look on the pole line when I saw a fish swirl at the feed. Quickly switching to the rod set shallow at about 2ft deep, I fed again and dropped the rig on top and the float buried instantly. The first waggler fish was soon netted with about 3 hours of the match remaining.

The weather started to brighten up by now and the odd carp was now swirling at the feed and things were starting to look up. Upping the frequency of the feed had brought a good number of fish into the swim and I was having good spells of picking up 2-3 in quick succession. I gave up feeding the other lines with 2 hours remaining and just concentrated on the waggler as I felt there were enough fish showing to see me out for the rest of the match and put together a possible winning net.

For the remainder of the match I continued to catch well even picking off a few larger carp off the surface on a floating mixer (noddy style). At the final whistle I had 31 carp in the net so was quite pleased knowing they will go well over a ton. The scales eventually come round and the best weight was Neil McKinnon with 124lb of waggler caught carp. I was very pleased when my 3 nets went 144lb to take first spot after a bit of a lean spell results wise.

This won me a good payout and the biggest trophy I have ever seen!!!!

At last a blog entry!!!

2008-08-23T22:00:00.003+01:00

Sorry for the long delay in writing an entry have been busy and not had time or the inspiration lately.

I have however managed to fish a few matches with some mixed results.

First off I had the Maggotdrowners Southern champs down the Reservoir at Hartleylands. This can be a prolific lake with ton up nets all round. It is a bit of a unlucky venue for me as the few times I have fished it over the years have never managed to win a match at the lake apart from a silverfish only event last year. Although I have been trying to win a match using tares so this could be one of the reasons for my lack of results! This is because one day I sat there and landed 45 carp for over 200lb on the bait.

So I turned up again with several pints of tares for one last try and not surprisingly I failed again. Fished on the deck at about 4 meters I did however manage 49lb of mostly carp on the bait but have now resigned myself that I will never win a carp match with tares and have given up. The match was won by Bill Gibbins with a very good weight of 147lb on paste, Matt love was 2nd using the waggler fished deep shallow with around 100lb.

Next match was the Dave Pankhutst Memorial match down the River Medway at Barming, About 30 turned up to fish this match. Just lately the draw bag has deserted me a bit and I pulled out one of the pegs I didn’t really want. It was just downstream of the bridge and has a big bank of weed that goes out making it difficult to fish. Add to that a howling downstream wind and I was going to struggle to hold the pole or fish the waggler effectively.

I set up a 13 ft feeder rod and decided to chance it and go all out for bream. I wasn’t in the best area for them but the prospects of fighting the pole in the wind for 5 hours didn’t really appeal to me. At the off a medium caged feeder was lobbed out towards the far side baited with worm. Unbelievably within 5 minutes the tip went round and I was into a bream. I landed a fish of about 2lb and it was soon followed by another 2 of its mates. 20 minutes in and I had 3 bream already.

Unfortunately shortly after a large boat went over the top of the swim and must have spooked the shoal as it went dead. For the reminder of the match I just picked up the odd small fish. I did have a short spell on the waggler but it was impossible in the strong wind and I gave up.

At the end the scales eventually come round and I put 7lb odd on the scales which was good enough for the section win picking up £40 and 5th overall in the match. I narrowly missed out on 4th spot by 1oz.

The next weekend I was off to fish the Southern Intersite match at Monk lakes, which is a team event between 4 angling forums.

I pulled out peg 3 on Lake 1 which wasn’t too bad a draw and was expecting a decent weight. I did my usual of balling in some groundbait at the start hoping to draw lots of carp in so I can feed them up shallow but today it just didn’t work! I ended up for the first part of the match fishing an 8mm hard pellet on the deck to pick off the odd carp eventually that died too and I was left with just over a hour of the match left and only roughly 20lb in the net.

Desperate to add to my weight I dug out a pint of maggots I had in the bag and quickly set up the waggler to fish maggots on the drop. Spraying out maggots at 20 meters I started to pick up small chub and the odd carp mixed in. It was a fish a chuck for the last hour and I was cursing myself for being lazy and not setting the rod up sooner.

I ended up with 37lb for a section 2nd beating the guys either side of me. 49 lb won the section. The whole lake fished poor for some reason and 87lb won the lake. Some weighed in less than 10lb!

Full result of the match is.

Section 1

2 Jeff Driscoll TA 21-04
3 Nick Gilbert MD 37-00
5 Andy Gregory TF 15-05
7 Dave Pearson AF 49-01

Section 2

9 M Wright TA 6-08
11 Gary Thorpe MD 7-10
13 Lindsay Scott TF 19-00
15 Mark Hathaway AF 17-10

Section 3

17 Paul Law TA 36-10
19 Matt Love MD 48-08
21 Johnny Beaton TF 28-10
22 Mark Smith AF 63-06

Section 4

23 Ron Byus TA 42-00
24 Matt Nutt MD 48-08
26 Chris Martin TF 86-00
28 T Curd AF 62-08

Section 5

30 Lance Glover TA 21-08
32 Bill Gibbins MD 23-00
34 Tim Suttle TF 26-08
36 R Graves AF 58-04

Section 6

38 Frank Wright TA 8-08
40 Clive Pritchard MD 55-02
42 Colin Forsdyke TF 76-04
44 J Holt AF 66-08

Section 7

92 Fred Parker TA 108-08
94 Vince Gould MD 34-10
96 Russell Grimes TF 77-12
98 J Swann AF 66-00

Section 8

100 R Lucas TA 47-08
104 Paul East MD 50-00
106 Dave A T TF 94-04
108 M Page AF 61-04

Section 9

110 Del Smith TA 45-00
112 Peter Morton MD 85-04
113 Ant Sparrow TF 88-00
115 Dave Churchward AF 147-04

Section 10

117 I Hornby TA 106-12
119 Trevor Little MD 112-00
121 No Angler TF 0-00
123 Stu Wilson AF 117-08

Overall Team Result

Angling Forums....... 34
Total Fishing....... 27
Maggotdrowning.com..... 21
Talk Angling...... 17

Hartleylands Bramley and Pear Tree.

2008-07-06T17:12:00.001+01:00

I was running a small open match today at Hartleylands on Pear Tree and Bramley. I didn’t have many fishing only 15 booked in. Some very good local anglers were fishing today so it should throw up some good weights.

It amazes me that you run a match at such a good fair venue and struggle to get any numbers of anglers fishing. Maybe they prefer venues that are peggy and the peg wins the match rather than angling skill! Anyway back to the days fishing.

As usual at the draw I got Trevor Little to pull out my peg, And I ended up on Pear Tree peg 18. It is about halfway along and in the gap between the islands.

Matt Love pulled out peg 16 next to me and he was well pleased, or maybe not.

The wind was blowing towards the gap in the islands and it would be very difficult to fish the waggler today although not impossible. The problem I had was Matt on peg 16 had a much better peg with the island closer and less wind to contend with and I was certain I couldn’t match him on the waggler as my presentation will be compromised.

That decided my tactics for the day I was going to start on the waggler for the first hour and hopefully catch a few while feeding the shallow pole line going out and emptying it. I was going to feed and have the odd look down the margin too if things were slow.

Bait was simple with plenty of 6mm pellets for feed and on the hook, with a few 8mm for hookers. I had a bit of meat and hemp to feed down the margins. Also some groundbait mixed up on the dry side.

I signalled the start of the match and dumped a pot of feed down each margin, then fed pellet out to the island followed by the waggler. As I thought the float was blowing out of position quickly only giving me a short amount of fishing time per cast. I did however manage to catch a few and with one hour gone I had 9 fish in the net. This was not good enough on the day as I know several anglers on the lake were out catching me so it was time to go out on the pole where I had been feeding for an hour.

I didn’t see any fish showing near the surface so started at about 2ft deep. It wasn’t long before the first carp was in the net; this was working well and matching the catch rate of those around me now. For the next 3 hours I caught in spells with most fish in the 1-2lb range mainly at around the 9 meter mark. As always I had to use all the tricks I know to keep catching.

With an hour of the match left I had 52 carp in the net and guessed I needed a lot more to have any chance of winning. I had come shallower to a foot deep by now and decided to step up the feed to 6-10 pellets every few seconds. This really got the carp moving and I could see several just under the surface darting about picking pellets off. I found I can watch the fish and pick off the bigger ones and I had several fish in the 3-4lb range during the last hour putting another 30 fish in the net before signalling the end!

I ended up with 82 fish for 117lb which was the best weight on my lake but word was Rusty fished a good match on Bramley with 137 carp so I doubt I would beat that. It turned out his fish were small but still managed to beat me by 8lb with 125lb to win the day.

The full result on the day is.

1st Rusty Graves B20 125-1
2nd Nick Gilbert P18 117-1
3rd Trevor Little B7 90-6
4th Matt love P16 88-10
5th Jim McDowell B5 80-14
6th Vince Gould B18 80-10
7th Jeff Driscoll P20 77-7
8th Derek Gladwin P6 71-12
9th John Haigh P4 66-0
10th Andy Silver B16 63-13
11th Jay Lay P24 60-5
12th W Miles P14 48-2
13th W Mitchell B9 38-0
14th Charlie Chawner P8 DNW
14th Mike Jamson P2 DNW

Evening match down the Medway

2008-06-30T18:57:00.003+01:00

I was off to fish the second Maidstone Victory evening match down the river Medway at Barming Bridge. I arrived and the water looked very clear and had little flow so I guessed it was going to fish hard!

There was about 20 fishing this evening and I pulled out a peg about 100 yards downstream of the bridge. The river here is not very deep at around 7-8ft down the middle and my swim had very little weed. Matt had come down tonight to take a few photos so hopefully I will catch something!

The tactics for tonight were simple with a 1g round bodied float with a bulk at about 3rd depth and a couple of number 10 shot as droppers. This was attached to a size 16 Kamasan 611 hook and a 0.08mm hook length. I also had a 3AAA insert peacock waggler set up to just drag the bottom. This was set up to fish on the drop and had the same trace and hook.

Bait was a big tub of tares, hemp and corn mixed together. I had a pint of caster too that I had turned from some leftover maggots as backup bait. Groundbait mixed up too and I was going to feed it at the start on the pole line.

At the off I fed 4 balls of groundbait full of hemp, corn and tares at 9 meters to hopefully get the roach feeding. Out with the rig and half an hour of running it through and feeding little and often produce very little. So time for plan two!!!!

I had been feeding a few casters on the far bank and flipped out the waggler, It drifted down towards a tree hanging over the far side and the float buried, I was attached to something a bit bigger and carefully played it towards the net. It turned out to be a chub of over a pound.

Another few runs through and I had another bite in about the same position as the first and a decent sized hybrid was in the net. I now had about 3lb. As you can see by the end of the rod in this photo I was on fire!!! ;-)

It soon went out though and I had very little for the next half a hour. The waggler line had died so I went back on the pole. Fishing a single caster with the hook buried in it I started to pick up the odd small roach and continued to do that for the rest of the match.

At the weigh in 5lb on the waggler was winning it so far and I managed 4lb 8oz, it looked like the bream had not fed and weights were low all along the length with most only weighing in a pound or two. That was until I got to the end on the match length and Trevor Froud put 5lb 6oz of small fish on the scales to take the match relegating me to 3rd overall taking the last money spot.

Thinking back I it was a mistake to put the groundbait in at the start on the pole line with the water so clear and it probably cost me the match win.

I’m off to Hartleylands next for hopefully a ton plus day!!!

Evening Match at Weirton Res

2008-06-19T21:04:00.003+01:00

I was off the fish the first of the evening series of matches’ run by my local club Maidstone Victory. I was hoping to draw on the island side of the lake; the plan being to lob out a method feeder for bream then feed a few mixers to see if the carp will feed on the surface. The other option here is the fish the pole for a mixed net and this has won me quite a few matches in the past but was felling lazy and I had the carp and feeder rod set up already.

At the draw I pulled out a peg at the far side of the lake with the wind off my back, not where I wanted to be really as I have never known a match to be won from that area. So I walked past the nice coloured water on the windward side of the lake to the crystal clear calm water on the other side! On the plus side I had some deep water close in so it may be possible to draw a few bream in by lying down a bit of ground bait.

I got to the swim to find I had one of the club members John O on the next swim. Unfortunately for me he knows the water well and will be fishing in a similar manner with a feeder so we may end up sharing what few fish that are in front of us.

As bait I had with me some ground pellet type method ground bait, with maggot, corn and soft pellet to use on the hook. Also a bag of mixers for the carp.

The rig was simple too with a small Korum free running method feeder, attached to this was a size 14 Drennen eyed carp hook and 0.16 trace. This may seem heavy but I have found when fishing the method for bream you don’t need to go fine and can get away with relatively crude tackle.

At the off I baited the hook with a double 6mm expander and buried it in the method ball. This was swung out about 16-18 meters. The water here is a good 13-14 foot deep as it shelves down from the bank. This is the distance I have caught here before and the bream patrol, the mistake a lot make here is overcastting the fish. John on the next peg was casting out to 30 meters and fishing the open end feeder so we will see what tactic is best today.

Instead of dumping a lot of feed out at the start i like to build the swim by casting the feeder every 2-4 minute until the fish turn up, it is a tactic that worked well last year. 45 minutes and about 15 casts later I was just thinking I was going to blank and the tip of the rod sprung about line bite fashion. Sitting on my hands I waited and 30 seconds later the rod was pulled over and I was into the first bream. I had changed hookbait by this point to 5 maggots. This was landed and looked about 2.5lb. Unfortunately the action was short lived and for the next half an hour I was bite less. I kept on casting every 5 minutes though to keep some feed going in for when(or if) the fish did arrive. All the while I was also pinging out a few mixers but it was pretty dead carp wise with none showing.

With a hour and ten minutes left of the two and a half hour match the tip again jumped about with a line bite then as before 30 seconds later bent over and bream number two was in the net at about 3lb. Straight back out with the feeder and the tip went over again with bream number 3, things were looking up. At this point John who was blanking so far decided on some drastic shit or bust tactics and balled in ground bait out the same distance I was fishing! I’m not sure if this killed it or not but I sat there for the remaining hour of the match bite less, It may have just been a coincidence though.

So that was the end of a slow evenings fishing with 3 bites and 3 bream. The scales eventually came round and it had fished quite poor but as predicted the windward side had produced the top 3 money spots so far and were 13lb, 10lb and 9lb odd. Unfortunately my 3 bream went 8lb odd (can’t remember the exact amount) so I missed out and ended up 4th, although mine was the best weight from the side of the lake I was on.

So that was the first round of 6 out of the way and the next will be down the river Medway at Barming Bridge. Bream might dominate the frame weights of the next round but I will be fishing for roach on the pole hoping they don’t feed.

Invicta League Final Round Hartleylands Pear Tree & Bramley.

2008-06-11T18:46:00.003+01:00

Today I am fishing the last round of the league I have been organising. With the weather forecast looking good this match should be a true test of fishing skill rather than the draw bag lottery we had at a couple of the earlier rounds due to bad weather.

It will be an interesting day as the two leaders Andy Silver and Kevin Pack are both tied on points. Me and a few others have a slim chance of grabbing the final money spot by winning my section but that is only if Collin Wood Doesn’t win his which is highly unlikely in a pole only match!

The two lakes for the day should produce some good weights all around and I was expecting a few ton plus to be recorded. We were fishing to a pole float only rule which in bad weather can often play into the hands of the pole pot yielding feed 6 pellet every half a hour boys. But today I doubt that will happen and a positive attacking approach should get the best result.

At the draw I ended up with Peg 21 on Pear Tree although I would have been happy with any peg to be honest as I felt they all had the potential to do a big weight. I arrived at the peg and did fancy the look of it there was a nice ripple on the water which is always good when you plan to fish shallow.

There will be no surprises when you discover my bait for the day is plenty of 6mm Skretting pellets, plus some 4 and 6mm expanders and a bit of groundbait. I also had today a small amount of chopped processed meat mixed with hemp that I won’t be revealing exactly what it is cos one day I will take a lake apart using it to fish shallow!

I will be feeding 5 lines today from the off the two margins to drop in later in the match, two at 6 meters left and right to hopefully pick up a few early fish on paste while lose feeding pellets out in front between the two to get the fish feeding shallow.

I set up 5 rigs the short line shallow rig with a 0.3g Drennan Carp 4 set at 2ft deep to start with a 14 Drennan Carp Hook tied to a 0.14 trace, another similar with a 0.4g float to long line if needed. The on the deck paste/pellet rig had a homemade 0.5g float similar to a Mick Wilkinson Diamond but mine had a 2mm hollow plastic bristle. The two margin rigs again was a homemade Diamond shaped bodied float, this one had a shorter thick glass stem to be used in shallow water. One was set at a depth to fish tight to the cover and the other was set at about 2.5ft to fish about a meter out. All top kits had a 10 latex elastic.

At the off it was out with a big cup of pellets and golf ball of groundbait at 6 meters on both sides, down both margins went the meat and hemp. I started off with a small bit of soft paste in the right hand swim on the 6 meter line; the rig was shotted double bulk style. While fishing this line I was lose feeding pellet in front between the two swims at around 7.5 meters. You may think this is a bit short to fish shallow but I always do this when the venue hold large numbers of fish. I will not feed long particularly when you have a lot of room as I believe you end up feeding the fish out unnecessarily and by feeding aggressively they will come to you.

carp of about a pound, this was followed by a couple of its mates, switching between the left and right lines I soon had 10 small carp in the net after about 40 minutes of the match. I fed the two lines again and felt it was time for a look out shallow although I haven’t seen any signs of fish on the surface. I didn’t need to worry though as I had an instant bite fishing 2ft deep with a 6mm pellet. Another small carp was swiftly landed and ended up in the net. I stepped up the frequency of the feed to about 6 pellets every 10 seconds and this produced a good run of fish and as the first hour of the match passed by I had 19 already.

Things got better and after another hour I was putting carp number 40 in the net with a few bigger samples mixed in. I had to employ all the tricks I know to keep the fish coming and continued to catch well. When fishing shallow it is all about working out when to feed and how much to feed and it seemed like I was getting it right today.

After 3 hour and 60 fish it was time to have a quick look down the margins where I had been feeding the meat and hemp for 3 hours. This would give the fish on the shallow line a chance to re gain their confidence. I tried to the left which produced an instant bite to a small cube of meat and I was attached to an angry 3lb fish that was soon in the keep net. Another one followed and it went quiet. So I had a quick look to the right margin which produced nothing apart from a small roach.

Time to go back out in front shallow and the 10 minute rest had the desired effect and it was solid. I spotted a largish ghosty cruising just below the surface so quickly stuck on an 8mm pellet and dropped it in front of its nose, this was taken instantly and the biggest fish of the day at about 6lb as soon in the net. It always amazes me that often the bigger fish come in with the least resistance and the smaller ones under 3lb give you all the trouble! More carp followed on the shallow line and with an hour and 10 minutes left I dropped in the margins again and picked up a few too.

With an hour of the match left and 81 carp in the net with plenty in front of me it was time to really try and force the swim by feeding aggressively and extract as many as I could before the end. I saw fish swirling at the feed just below the surface now so it was just a matter of feeding slapping the rig down and then hooking one. Amazingly the last hour produced another 37 carp! Disappointingly the biggest one hooked at about 6lb I missed with the net making it take off with the hook pulling out so should have been 38. At the end though the total of 118 fish was pretty good going and I guessed was the best part of 150lb.

As I wondered round the lake I got to Matt Loves peg and he had had a good day with 80 odd carp caught shallow but I think seemed a bit surprised when I said how many I had! His fish went a very good 104 lb putting the second ton on the scales in two matches and wining the section. Kevin Pack who was sitting 2nd in the league was in the same section and managed 86lb with a good run of fish towards the end of the match to get a section second. Andy Silver was leading the league needed the section win to beat Kevin but unfortunately he was on the next peg to me and seemed to struggle all day resorting to fishing paste at 13 meters to catch a few so was not looking very confident. I was the last to weigh and put 147lb on the scales to take the section and match win, not far off of the 167lb lake record too. This demoted Andy to 3rd in the section and 2nd overall in the league with Kevin taking the title.

Colin Wood over on Bramley fished a good match to win the section holding on to his 3rd spot in the league with 95lb of shallow caught carp. It wasn’t enough to win the lake though, Paul Kell fishing as a guest for the day won the lake with 112lb of shallow caught carp.

The lakes fished very well and it proved you don’t need to lob a method feeder or waggler to the island to get a big weight. I may have to re think my tactics next time on the lakes and get the pole out instead of the waggler.

The top 3 took away £300, £200, £100, plus some tackle prizes donated by Invicta Angling, Ashford. Collin Wood kindly donated his prize of pole floats to be given to a junior section of a local fishing club.

I will be running the event next year so if anybody is interested please email me to go on the waiting list. I have selected the same venues spreading the 6 matches on Monks and Hartlelands.

Full result here (apologies for not knowing your teams!)

1st Nick Gilbert 147-12
2nd Paul Kell 112-1 (guest)
3rd Matt Love 104-13
4th Collin Wood 95-12
5th Andy Goldthorpe 90-12 (guest)
6th Kevin Pack 86-1

League Places

1 Kevin Pack(Medway Tackle) 333-15 26
2 Andy Silver 332-12 25
3 Collin Wood 290-12 24
4 Nick Gilbert 417-6 23
5 Matt Love 338-9 23
6 Mark Hathway 271-8 21
7 Ian Carley 261-10 21
8 Martin Charnock 156-13 20
9 Trevor Little 205-12 18
10 Tony Clark 216-11 17
11 Jay Lay 198-14 17
12 Mark Holland 186-9 17
13 Russ Evans 229-0 16
14 John Haigh 118-0 15
15 Dennis Price 167-12 14
16 Chris Jones 140-12 14
17 Martin Twine 124-13 14
18 Mark Greenway 53-11 6
19 Jim McDowell 61-13 4
20 Mike Jameson 31-6 3

Invicta Round 5 Hartleylands Nicks Lake

2008-05-30T21:35:00.004+01:00

The weather for the day was predicting rain so it was looking like the match was going to be a nightmare, and when I set off in the morning it was raining very heavy. Luckily by the time I arrived at the lake it has stopped and the skies were clearing. Maybe we where going to get a decent day for fishing at last!

I gathered for the draw with Matt Love assisting me. As I was running the match I don’t draw my own peg so got Trevor Little who was at the front of the queue to pull one out for me. I didn’t really fancy 27 or 29 as it would men I will be fishing the pole all day and fancied a day on the waggler. I got lucky and Trevor pulled out peg 35 which gave me an easy island chuck with a light wind behind me. The downside of this peg is that the fish tend not to live in the area in any numbers so it can quite often be a slow start as you feed them in as the match progresses.

We had a guest fishing for the day Nick Costar who was known on the forums as Bag Up. He is also know for being good on the method feeder and after taking a lot of stick on the forum for talking a good match was out to prove he could fish one.

I arrived at the peg and had Tony Clark to my left on peg 36 who was intending to fish the Map rocket (noddy) feeder!

My tactics for the day were going to be the pellet waggler which is no surprise to anybody that knows me. Two Preston 11ft waggler rods were set up both with 4AAA styro wagglers, one set at a foot and the other two foot. Mainline was 4lb Mr Crappie, attached to a 0.16 Fox trace and a 14 Drennan carp hook with a hair rigged bait band attached. I also had a bomb rod set up.
Bait for the match was plenty of 6mm Skretting pellets. With some 8mm if needed for hookbait .

I blew the whistle for the start and immediately started feeding the far side just short of the island with 6mm pellets, the idea was to feed quite heave at the start to create a lot of noise and draw a good number of carp into the swim. I felt 10-12 pellets every 15-20 seconds were about right to start with. It was a very slow start to the match and by continually feeding and casting I eventually hooked my first carp after about 15 minutes. This came off as fast as it was hooked! I was quite rusty on the method and several of my casts ended up in a small overhanging bush and it put up a good fight and claimed my trace 3 times in the first hour. To add to this a family of ducks had moved in and were intercepting my pellets as they hit the water and refused to move!! I did managed to avoid the bush and duck and land 3 carp though.

Tony on peg 36 and Bag UP on 3 were thrashing me at this point catching one a bung and I could see lots of rods bending into fish all over the lake so some good weighs were on the cards today. I managed to get it together for the next 2 hours of the match and put a run of fish together. Even the ducks were looking a bit full by this time and had retired to the island looking fat to digest all the pellets they have eaten. So with 3 hours of the match gone and I had about 35 carp in the net for maybe 40lb and I only managed to hook the far bank bush once but this time it claimed my whole rig.

With 3 hours gone to be honest I was thinking a ton plus weight was out of the question and took the decision to up the feed rate to force the swim and either empty it or kill it! I shortened my trace to 6 inches and proceeded to feed about every 10 seconds with around 10-12 pellets. This resulted in the fish rising high in the water and almost picking pellet off the surface before they started to sink and hung in the surface film. I had lots of carp in the swim now after about half an hour of doing this and proceeded to put a good run together using an 8mm pellet. It was casting high and letting the rig hit the water like a bomb resulted in an instant bite.

So with an hour to go I was on exactly 50 fish mostly on the small side for I guess around 50-60lb. It seemed the more frequently I fed the faster I could catch, so it went feed, cast, hook fish, feed, get fish under rod, feed, net fish, feed, unhook fish then bait hook, feed again then cast etc. ect. This resulted in my target of 70 fish with 15 minutes of the match left, some were a good size too and the best part of 3lb. It was as if the heavy feeding and filled up the smaller fish and the result was a better stamp. Amazingly I had another 11 in the remaining 15 minutes before it was time to call the all out. So 81 fish were in the net for what I guessed was about 90lb maybe more.

With the weigh in underway, Tony to my left had around 70lb, after having a good start to the match but struggling a bit towards the end. I was next and was surprised at the weight of my second net when I tried to lift it out, it turned out I put 117lb on the scales! I doubt this was enough to win and as I went round the lake there were several good weights in the 80s and 90s but no tons yet but I arrived at peg 15 where Matt had put 109 fish in the net. Surprisingly they only went 111lb! Peg 9 was another one to worry about where Russ Evans had had a good day putting 109lb on the scales.

The last to weigh was Bag Up who had been catching all day on the method feeder. It turned out he fished a good match as well as talking one and put 125lb on the scales knocking me down to 2nd place on the day.

All was not lost though as I ended up with the section win and a few quid for 2nd place. This somehow jumped me up the League table into 4th place and a chance of taking 3rd position overall and going away with a few quid after the last round.

I recon bar a disaster the winner will come from the top 2 and if Colin Wood can manage a section win next time he will hold onto 3rd place.

Full Result below

Ist Nick Costar(Bag Up) 125-8 Peg 3
2nd Nick Gilbert 117-3 Peg 35
3rd Matt Love 111-8 Peg 15
4th Russ Evans 109-13 Peg 9
5th Collin Wood 93-1 Peg 20
6th Kevin Pack 89-8 Peg 8

League Places

1 Andy Silver 264-9 22
2 Kevin Pack 247-14 22
3 Collin Wood 195-0 19
4 Nick Gilbert 269-10 18
5 Matt Love 223-12 18
6 Ian Carley 203-2 18
7 Mark Hathway 196-14 18
8 Jay Lay 198-14 17
9 Mark Holland 186-9 17
10 Martin Charnock 108-11 16
11 Martin Twine 124-13 14
12 Russ Evans 181-10 13
13 Tony Clark 136-3 13
14 Trevor Little 133-13 13
15 Dennis Price 134-12 12
15 Chris Jones 97-9 12
17 John Haigh 118-0 11
18 Mark Greenway 53-11 6
19 Jim McDowell 61-13 4
20 Mike Jameson 31-6 3

Quick trip to Wierton

2008-05-14T15:04:00.004+01:00

I had a couple of hours spare and the sun was out so a quick trip floater fishing was in order.

I arrived and found my favorite swim opposite the central island free with a chuck to the far bank marginal weed of about 30-35 yards. I fed a few mixers to the island and soon had the carp swirling at the feed, some big ones too!

Tackle was my old 12ft North Western carp rod, with a Daiwa Capricorn 3500 reel, the rig was a 4g Drennan controller, with a number 8 hook attached to a 10lb mono trace. I baited it with a single mixer and withing 10 second it was taken and I was into a good sized fish.

You have to hang on to steer them away from the far bank weed!

About 10 minutes later I had the 25lb fish on the bank.

Not bad for about 15 minutes fishing. it goes to show get the conditions right and familiarize yourself with the water you fish and you don't have to sit for hours behind a bank of rods to catch some nice sized carp.
(photos by Deborah Gilbert)

Pads Army Charity match, Monks Lake 1 and 2

2008-05-14T14:49:00.003+01:00

A brief report this week as I don’t have much time.

I wasn’t going to fish a match till the next round of the Invicta but as the weather got warmer when I got back from Holiday I booked myself into this match at the last minute cos I just know it would be a good day for the pole shallow one of my favourite methods.

There was a few good local anglers at the draw so this was not going to be an easy match to win, I expected several ton plus weights to come out. I went in and pulled out peg 36 on Lake 1. Not really a noted draw up the wrong end of the lake, but I was quite pleased cos I have won off of it before.

Tactics for the day were going to be simple as always. I set up two shallow rigs a Drennan carp 4, 0.2g with a short line of about 12in to the pole tip to fish about 12 in deep. The other was a Drennan Carp 4, 0.4g with a longer line of 3-4ft to the pole tip for swinging out; being a clam day I expected the fish to shy off the pole tip. Both of these had a 14 Drennan Carp hook attached to a 0.14mm trace. I also set up a margin rig to drop in down the edge if I wanted to rest the shallow line for a while.

Bait wise I had with me 10 pints of 6mm pellet, a couple pints of 6mm expanders as change bait. A small amount of groundbait to feed at the start. I also knocked up a bit of paste too. I’m so confident these tactics will work today I never had a backup plan so this is all the bait I had with me.
It was a strange start to the match as Paddy the guy running it had a 15 minute baiting up period before the match started similar to the world champs! So the whistle went and I threw in 4 balls of groundbait laced with pellet at 7.5 meters, and the rest went in down the right margin. Now all I had to do was fed about 6 pellets every 30 seconds over the top until the whistle for the start sounded.

When the whistle went I noticed some fish moving down the margin so I dropped in the margin rig with 6mm soft pellet as bait. This produced a quick bit and a carp of about a pound, and a few minutes later it was joined by its mate of the same size. After them two quick fish it was out with the short line shallow rig set 1ft deep. By feeding every few seconds and constantly working or slapping the rig down I had a good start and when the first hour of the match was up there were 20 small f1 carp in the net and well on the way to a ton plus as you need about 80 carp on this lake.

The second hour was much the same but bites slowed a bit as the little bit of ripple I had on the water disappeared and I was faced with flat calm. The solution to this was switching to the long line rig and swinging away from the pole tip. So for the next couple of hours I changed between the two rigs using the long line one when there was no ripple on the water and the other when the wind got up a bit. The carp were very cagey giving only tiny dips in the float but I was connection with a fair few and catching pretty steady. I did have to add another section to the pole going out to around 9 meters as the fish seemed to be hanging on the far side of the feed. By the start of the final hour I had around 65 carp and a few small chub, a skimmer, barbell and tench! I wasn’t taking the place apart but catching quite well.

I couldn’t spot anybody emptying the place so was sure I was ahead on the lake.
For the last hour I again added another section of pole and was now fishing at 11 meters as the fish seemed to back off a bit further. This was a good move as I had a run of 20 more carp in the last hour finishing with 85 carp in the net at the end so it looked like I had over the 100lb mark.

The scales arrived and 75lb was winning the lake so far. I put 112lb on the scales easily taking the lead. Word was that there was a few ton plus weight off of lake 2 so I went to have a look. Matt Love on the wrong side of Lake 2 who has been quizzing me for months about fishing Monks shallow fished a good match putting together a weight of 114lb managing to beat me by 2lb fishing similar tactics. I guess that is what I get for saying he will never win off of that peg. That is what makes Monks such a good summer venue there are so many potentially winning pegs and you can never predict what one will win.

Invicta League Round 3, Hartleylands Bramley and Pear Tree

2008-04-22T11:46:00.007+01:00

I don't have time to write a blog this week cos im off on holiday but it was a disaster of a match for me only scraping 2 points and puting me out of contention to win the league.

It was dry and warm all day for a change but the lakes were very peggy as you can see from the section results.

This match was a bit of a non event for me. I pulled out peg 12 which I quite fancied. I t turned out my end of the lake was devoid of any feeding fish and managed 16lb odd at the end caught on soft pellet at 11 meters. I managed to beat the guys on the next peg but was still only 4th in the section effectively putting me out of contention.

Mark Holland did well to make it two wins in a row and is on top of the table.

Here is the results.

Ist Mark Holland 65-13
2nd Nick Allen 54-4
3rd Jay Lay 51-15
4th Ian Carley 50-4
5th Andy Silver 47-11
6th Kevin Pack 40-7

League Places

1 Mark Holland 156-6 14
2 Andy Silver 150-3 13
3 Kevin Pack 126-5 13
4 Ian Carley 130-10 12
5 Collin Wood 80-7 11
6 Martin Charnock 52-12 11
7 Nick Gilbert 117-6 10
8 Jay Lay 107-12 10
9 Matt Love 78-10 9
10 Martin Twine 65-0 9
11 Trevor Little 62-12 9
12 Dennis Price 93-2 8
13 Mark Hathway 74-2 7
14 John Haigh 45-2 7
15 Chris Jones 42-4 7
16 Tony Clark 35-10 7
17 Russ Evans 46-14 5
18 Jim McDowell 61-13 4
19 Mark Greenway 22-9 4
20 Mike Jameson 31-6 3

Pear Tree

Section 1

Peg 2 Matt Love 25-9 3
Peg 4 Ian Carley 50-4 5
Peg 6 Collin Wood 28-11 4
Peg 8 Russ Evans 19-7 2
Peg 10 Mike Jamson DNW 0

Section 2

Peg 12 Nick Gilbert 16-10 2
Peg 15 John Haigh 0-13 1
Peg 17 Trevor Little 18-1 3
Peg 19 Tony Clark 19-4
Peg 21 Martin Charnock 25-4 5

Bramley

Section 3

Peg 2 Martin Twine 31-8 3
Peg 4 Jim Mc Dowell 23-2 2
Peg 6 Mark Holland 65-13 5
Peg 8 Nick Allen 54-4 guest
Peg 10 Kevin Pack 40-7 4

Section 4

Peg 13 Jay Lay 51-15 5
Peg 16 Dennis Price 27-12 3
Peg 18 Chris Jones 14-9 2
Peg 20 Andy Silver 47-11 4
Peg 22 Pete Allen 33-5 guest

Next round is down Monks Lake one on the 18th May

Invicta League round 2. Monks Lake 1

2008-04-08T15:48:00.002+01:00

The weather running up to this match was getting mild so expectations were high for a good match, but the day before the temperatures took a turn for the worst with north winds and snow forecast!

I arrived just before the draw at 9am and the snow had already started and it was freezing cold. The good thing was we had the whole 44 pegs of the lake between all of us so I decided to split the sections with 5 fishing on each bank. All the usual faces were at the draw and I had this deal with Mike Jameson that I was going to draw his peg as I apparently had a golden arm! So in I went and out came 25 which he was quite happy with as it won the match last weekend. Mike did the honours for me and I ended up with 29. The peg everybody wanted stayed in the bag number 23, in fact it didn’t come out at all and Matt was left to pick it out at the end. Unfortunately for me it was also in my section so if he doesn’t bugger the peg up I was likely to be fishing for 2nd place.

I arrived at the peg and had Mark Hathaway and Dennis Price on the pegs next to me for company. The bait menu for the day was not my normal selection of pellets and more pellets. Because of the freezing conditions I have pinned all my faith in natural baits and had half a kilo of worm, a pint of casters and three pints of maggots with me costing about £20! A bit different to using a few quid’s worth of pellets, although I did have some pellet and corn in the bag but didn’t expect to use it.

Tactics were simple I was going to use two methods, one was the maggot and waggler out at around the 20 meter mark, the other was caster/worm/ground bait on the pole just past bottom of the shelf at about 7 meters. The waggler set up had a 3AAA Drennan insert peacock, four number 8 down the line and was set to fish just touching the bottom at about 4ft, trace was a 0.12mm fox and a 20 Kamasan Animal hook. The pole rig was set up with one of my home made floats, this had a diamond shaped body with a 1.2mm glass stem and hollow 2mm plastic tip. The heavy glass stem makes it very stable. This was set up double bulk style with two number 10s about 3in from the hook and a bulk of number 8s 6in above this. Trace line was again a 0.12mm attached to a size 16 Drennan carp hook. Set at dead depth this rig will result in a very positive bites as the float buries or lifts and you will miss very few bites. I also set up a margin and shallow rig but didn’t expect to use them.

I called the all in and at the off the pole line was fed with a large ball of ground bait full of caster and worm. This will be fed again in half an hour or so in a similar way until I fish it. I kicked off on the waggler and was lose feeding about 10-15 maggots every cast about every minute or so. Hook bait was 3 maggots. This may seem a lot in the sub zero conditions but you need to be positive at Monks with the number of fish present and it is no place for feeding tiny post of maggots if you want to end up in the frame at the end of the day. I was soon catching a run of small fish, a mixture of small tench, ide, chub and the odd carp, with a hour gone I recon I had about 10lb in the net so things were going well, bites slowed so it was time to rest the waggler line and just feed it. I had a look on the pole with a half worm on the hook. There were a few fish there and I had 10 in as many put ins, although most were small tench and ide with the odd small skimmer. I was catching well but was finding it difficult to hold the pole in the conditions as the snow was getting quite heavy by now! After about 10 minutes you couldn’t feel your hands!!

For the next couple of hours I switched between the two methods fishing the pole till my hands went numb then having a spell on the waggler. This worked quite well and I managed a steady stream of small tench, ide, chub, plus the odd barbel and carp. The pole line eventually died with a hour to go so I just fished the rest of the match out on the waggler feeding maggots little and often picking up the odd fish until the end, the biggest of the day come just as I was about to call the all out a F1 of about 2lb.

I guessed I had about 30-40lb and as it turned out I wasn’t far wrong putting 38lb on the scales taking the lead. It wasn’t to lead for long as Matt on 23 put 44lb on the scales to claim first place, but not for long as Mark Holland on un fancied peg 10 managed 49lb of mostly carp on the pole to win the match. This put me in 3rd spot overall winning a few quid but still only with a section 2nd.

The day turned into a feat of endurance rather than a fishing match because of the cold and three did give it in and go home, I would have been tempted to join them if I wasn’t running the match!

Full result below

Ist Mark Holland 49-0 Peg 10
2nd Matt Love 44-0 Peg 23
3rd Nick Gilbert 38-4 Peg 29
4th Kevin Pack 37-0 Peg 6
5th Dennis Price 31-0 Peg 31
6th Trevor Little 30-0 Peg 22

Section1

2 Jay Lay 28-8 3
4 Ian Carley 24-0 2
6 Kevin Pack 37-0 4
8 Jim McDowell 22-0 1
10 Mark Holland 49-0 5

Section 2

14 Chris Jones 12-9 2
16 Russ Evans dnw 0
18 Andy Silver 23-8 4
20 Tony Clark 16-7 3
22 Trevor Little 30-0 5

Section 3

23 Matt Love 44-0 5
25 Mike Jameson dnw 0
27 Mark Hathway 26-12 2
29 Nick Gilbert 38-4 4
31 Dennis Price 31-0 3

Section 4

35 Martin Charnock 19-9 4
37 John Haigh 12-4 2
39 Martin Twine 18-6 3
41 Mark Greenway dnw 0
43 Collin Wood 28-6 5

League Places

1 Andy Silver 102-8 9
2 Mark Holland 90-9 9
3 Kevin Pack 85-14 9
4 Nick Gilbert 100-12 8
5 Ian Carley 80-6 7
6 Mark Hathway 74-2 7
7 Collin Wood 51-12 7
8 Matt Love 53-1 6
9 Trevor Little 44-11 6
10 John Haigh 44-5 6
11 Martin Twine 33-8 6
12 Martin Charnock 27-8 6
13 Jay Lay 55-13 5
14 Dennis Price 45-7 5
15 Chris Jones 27-11 5
16 Mark Greenway 22-9 4
17 Mike Jameson 31-6 3
18 Russ Evans 27-9 3
19 Tony Clark 16-7 3
20 Jim McDowell 38-11 2

Invicta League Round 1, Hartleylands Nick's Lake

2008-03-17T19:48:00.007Z

Last year I decided to start the league of 6 matches on some of my favourite fish filled venues to run this spring. I had a chat with Tim who runs Invicta Angling in Ashford, Kent, who kindly offered to put up some prizes for the overall top 3. Then a quick call to book some lakes and the league was born.

The first round was to be at Hartleyland Farm, Nick’s Lake, and the weather running up to the event was looking grim. The forecast for the day was rain and cold wind from the north.

At the draw the talk was that you needed to pull out peg 8 or 9 to do well and due to the cold I would expect the fish not to be spread well over the lake. At the draw Trevor little was at the front of the queue and as I was running the event I thought I better get someone to pull out a peg for me so asked him? In he went and out came 9! That will do me I thought. The only downside of the draw was peg 8 is in the same section of five.

I got to the peg and the weather wasn’t too bad and the predicted north wind had not arrived yet. The tactics for the match were simple. I did run a practice match the week before and figured out what was needed to score good points. Two feeder rods were set up, one with a small Fox method and the other with a running rig where I can attach a bomb or a feeder. Both had a 0.16 trace and a 14 Drennan Carp hook with a hair rigged bait band attached. I also had a pellet waggler set up ready to go but didn’t expect to use it.

Bait for the day was 2 kilos of BCUK groundbait made up the day before with some dead maggots, corn and pellets mixed in the morning of the match giving me a choice of 3 hook baits.

I was ready for the off and the weather conditions were getting worse, the wind had started to swing round and there was light rain making the condition unpleasant to say the least! I called the all in and had the choice of two islands to fish to. I chose the right hand one for the simple reason less people wound be casting to it and I had a long section from the point to halfway along all to myself. The danger of choosing the one to the right is that peg 12 and 21 will be fishing a similar area if they start on the feeder giving you less of an area to draw fish in from.

I started towards the point of the Island which I was going to realise was a bad choice, casting every few minutes with the method feeder to get a bit of bait down with a 8mm pellet on the hook I had 4 bites in the first 90 minutes and that produced small carp. I tried corn and maggot on the hook too but these came to the pellet.

Things were very slow and for some reason I had a feeling I was fishing the wrong area so dropped the feeder 15 ft to the right on the same island, this resulted in a instant bite and a carp of about 2lb. About another 10 followed in the next hour so things were picking up. But as I got into the 4th hour of the match it was getting really cold and to be honest I just wanted to go home. These are the sort of conditions I try to avoid by not fishing winter matches!

For the final two hours I was just going through the motions although I was still managing to put a few fish in the net, I was pretty sure I had a section second anyway cos 3 of the pegs were really struggling so was happy to settle for that. Andy Silvers on the next peg was now out catching three fish to my one although they did look smaller. I must have had about 30 carp for what I though was around 40lb and was very glad when I called the all out to signal the end!

I was very surprised when my 30 odd fish went 61lb, catapulting me into the lead with 56lb leading the match up until then, I wasn’t in first position for long though as Andy silvers on the next peg managed 79lb to take the lead and the match.

I guess not giving the match 100% because of the weather cost me first place and a section win.

Full result below;

1st Andy Silvers 79-0
2nd Nick Gilbert 62-8
3rd Ian Carley 56-6
4th Kevin Pack 48-14
5th Mark Hathway 48-2
6th Mark Holland 41-9

Peg by peg section points.

Section 1

36 Matt Love 9-0 1
2 Kevin Pack 48-14 5
4 Mark Greenway 22-9 4
6 Dennis Price 14-7 2
7 Chris Jones 15-2 3

Section 2

8 Andy Silvers 79-0 5
9 Nick Gilbert 62-8 4
12 Charlie Chawner 24-3 Guest
13 Martin Charnock 7-15 2
15 Martin Twine 15-2 3

Section 3

17 Russ Evans 27-9 3
20 Mark Holland 41-9 4
21 Jay Lay 27-5 2
23 Ian Carley 56-6 5
24 Trevor Little 14-11 1

Section 4
26 John Haigh 32-1 4
27 Mike Jameson 31-6 3
32 Mark Hathway 48-2 5
33 Jim McDowell 16-11 1
34 Collin Wood 23-6 2

League Table

1 Andy Silvers 79-0 5
2 Ian Carley 56-6 5
3 Kevin Pack 48-14 5
4 Mark Hathway 48-2 5
5 Nick Gilbert 62-8 4
6 Mark Holland 41-9 4
7 John Haigh 32-1 4
8 Mark Greenway 22-9 4
9 Mike Jameson 31-6 3
10 Russ Evans 27-9 3
11 Chris Jones 15-2 3
11 Martin Twine 15-2 3
13 Jay Lay 27-5 2
14 Collin Wood 23-6 2
15 Dennis Price 14-7 2
16 Martin Charnock 7-15 2
17 Jim McDowell 16-11 1
18 Trevor Little 14-11 1
19 Matt Love 9-0 1
20 Tony Clark 0-0 0

New Foum Added

2007-12-21T16:08:00.000Z

Have a look on the right and you will see I have added a forum for any questions you have and general fishing chat.

Maggotdrowners Match at Monks.

2007-12-19T09:57:00.000Z

You have no doubt noticed there have not been many blog entries lately. This is because I rarely venture out and fish a match in the cold. The problem being on most venues you can almost predict where the winner will come from and a few will catch well while the rest struggle, which I find rather frustrating. So against my better judgement I decided to fish this match at Monks Lake.

The venue for the day was going to be Lake 1 which is the best one to choose as the fish tend to be in most swims so at worst everybody should catch something. 25 turned up to fish this match that was being run under the Maggotdrowners Forum banner. It was only open to forum members and there were plenty of familiar faces at the draw and a few new ones. I like fishing these matches as it is never too serious with plenty of banter. The temperature was barely above freezing and there was an east wind so the conditions were unpleasant!

I quite fancied a draw on the far side of the lake with the wind of my back today as I reckoned that where the winner is likely to come from. My drawing arm deserted me today and I pulled out 18, a peg on the wrong side of the lake but thankfully I still had the wind blowing from behind me. I still expected to catch a few fish though.

Tactics for the day were going to be simple. I set up a 13ft Maver Reactolite Number 1 float rod and My TD-Sol reel. The rig was a 3AAA insert peacock waggler, set a few inches over depth. This had a 0.10 trace and an 18 Kamasan 611 hook. All the shot was under the float apart from a number 10 6in from the hook then two equally spaced number 8s. This was to be fished in about 4ft of water. I also set up 1 pole rig! This was a Carpa Chimp 4 x 16, this size of float was needed to combat the tow, this also had a size 18 attached to a 0.10 hook length. Shotting was nothing complicated with a bulk and two number 10 droppers. Elastic was an 8 latex. This will be fished at about 11 meters as a backup to the main waggler line.

Bait for the day was 3 pints of white and red maggots, plus a couple of pints of soft expanders.

I will mention something I see a lot, guys setting up multiple top kits, a waggler, feeder, bomb etc, then have about 6-7 different types of bait on display when a couple of simple rigs and baits would do. This says to me that they have no confidence in what they are doing or haven’t found out what works at the fishery.

Anyway back to the days fishing. At the off it was out with the waggler around 20 meters and feeding a pouch full of maggots about every minute. I was feeding quite a large area so I can cast to the back of the feed and slowly twitch the bait through it to induce a bite. Bait was double maggots. I was also feeding pellets on the pole line at around 10-11 meters every few minutes to try later on. Vince on the next peg had a carp first bung on the waggler and most others fishing the method where soon into fish! Bill next door seemed to be struggling on the pole so I think the waggler was a good choice to start with.

During the next couple of hours I did pick up a few F1s , tench, ide and chub. Bill to my right had switched to the waggler by now and was catching more than me, but on the other side Vince was struggling and I guessed I was ahead of him. A quick look on the pole at 11 meters produced nothing which was surprising as I thought they would be queuing up there by now!

Back out on the waggler again and it was slow going just picking up the odd fish during the next hour. Twitching the bait through the feed area seemed to produce the bites with double white maggot the best bait. I did switch to feeding a few maggots on the pole line and intended to have another look later on. Looking up I spotted those on the far bank turning blue with the freezing east wind in their face, I was so glad I wasn’t with them!!!

The 4th hour of the match I went out again on the pole and this time had a few bites picking up some small chub, this eventually died on me and with 45 minutes remaining I was back on the waggler which I had continued to feed. It was solid out there now after giving it a rest and I put about 15lb in the net in the last part of the match including a surprise perch around the 2lb mark!

The whistle went to signal the end and I doubted I had enough to win with possibly 30lb odd in the net. The scales arrived and so far Matt’s 37lb was the best weight on my side of the lake. Bill on the next peg had 35lb and I was sure he had beaten me. My first net with carp in it went 26lb 12 oz, followed by my silverfish that surprisingly pulled the scales down to 10lb. But only good enough for 2nd place on my side of the lake and 4th overall. As I guessed the area on the far side that I fancied produced the two top weights where Omega Mike did well to land over 50lb on the maggot and waggler.

Here is the full result on the day considering the cold weather the lake fished well with no blanks.

1st Omega Mike 54lbs 12ozs
2nd M.T.Net 44lbs 04ozs
3rd Yalding Bloke 37lbs 00ozs
4th Nick Gilbert 36lbs 12ozs
5th gibbinsbill 35lbs 00ozs
6th Jay L 29lbs 14ozs
7th Steve Clinch 29lbs 04ozs
8th Up-Yah 21lbs 12ozs
9th Kev the Catch 21lbs 08ozs
10th Grouty 20lbs 04ozs
11th Sven C 20lbs 00ozs
12th Jim Boase 19lbs 04ozs
13th Peter 18lbs 10ozs
14th Chris 18lbs 00ozs
15th Vince 17lbs 00ozs
16th nomorelongwalks 14lbs 00ozs
17th spamwham 13lbs 10ozs
18th Clive 13lbs 00ozs
19th Dai 11lbs 08ozs
20th aliwoo 10lbs 04ozs
21st petemid 9lbs 00ozs
21st The Hat 9lbs 00ozs
21st Ron B 9lbs 00ozs
24th Zephyr 4lbs 02ozs
25th Wily Coyote 3lbs 12ozs

I won’t be out much now until the first of my League Matches Down Hartleyland Nicks Lake. Hopefully it will be a bit warmer then!!

Roach Fishing down Wylands

2007-11-20T19:25:00.000Z

Me and Yalding Bloke were invited to have a day down Wylands by M T Net, on the Old Specimen Lakes.

With tales of 50lb nets of roach and plenty of carp we went off to sample a days fishing. The weather was far from ideal with a overnight frost, wind in the north plus a bright clear sky I would be surprised if we caught anything!

Trever(MT Net) was going after roach, Matt(Yalding Bloke) was going to target the carp, and I was fishing for anything that swims! The £1 bet was made and we started to fish.

Heres Trevor ready with his whip in hand

Matt Fishing for carp, not sure where they are though!!

The fishing was hard but we all managed to catch a decent net of roach, unfortunately the 50lb nets were not going to happen due to the weather but even so it fished well considering. Matt did briefly hook a carp but as soon as I picked up the camera it came off

Here are a few pictures of the days haul and it was decided a draw was in order for the £1 side bet as I didn't want to take a pound off of them again The pics are a bit blury cos I had dirt on the lens

Sams, The Medway and Hartleylands.

2007-10-28T21:56:00.000Z

Sams Lake

I haven’t had time to put up a blog entry for a while so here it is.

Earlier in the month I was off to Sams Lake to fish a match with a £500 top prize with £200 and £100 for 2nd and 3rd.

I drew quite a nice looking peg with an island chuck of about 30 meters. Apparently it was the wrong end of the lake! It was going to be an all out carp attack and the methods for the day were going to be the bomb and the pellet waggler.

The event was pretty dire and not a lot was caught on my lake! By the 4th hour of the 6 hour contest I only had one small carp on the bomb. I keep on feeding 8mm pellets in the hope that a few moved in with little reward. There was obviously no feeding fish in the area as all round me were carpless!

I was quite board by now so decided to set up a shallow roach rig just to catch a few fish. Flicking out a few maggots at 8 meters and baiting with a single maggot I was straight into a few nice roach. It was at this point I realised I had got my tactics for the day wrong. Not being familiar with the lake I didn’t know it was solid with all types of silverfish. I recon I could have put at least 30-40lb of these in the net if I had switched tactics after the first hour. In the next hour I put about 12lb in the net that included a nice pound plus roach and a 4lb 2oz chub!

With just 30 minutes to go I noticed a bit of movement by the island so a quick switch to the bomb again baited with a 8mm pellet got me a bite. Unfortunately this fish came adrift after about 5 seconds. Wit just a few minutes left I did hook and land another small carp but it was probably too late.

The word was that Vince Webb had been emptying it from the other lake and he had over 150lb, taking advantage of a good draw. But the rest of us had struggled so I may have still been in with a shout of a frame place. 35lb was second and 20lb odd third, I ended up with 16.5lb for around 5th spot.

I missed out today by making the wrong choice and continuing to fish for carp when they obviously had switched off. Its decisions like these that would have had me going home with £200 instead of leaving with nothing.

The River Medway

I decided to run a small knock up on the river down the free section at Monktons Lane in Maidstone. A few days before the match 20lb nets of roach had been coming out of the river. Unfortunately it coincided with the first few frosts of the year. The colour had drooped out of the water and you could see a good 6ft down! 7 of us turned up and most will wish they hadn’t.

Not a lot happened and I picked up an 11oz perch on the waggler and maggot running it through at about 10 meters out after about 20 minutes. That was it for the rest of the match! Everybody blanked so a decisive win. I would like to think I caught the perch by superior fishing skill but couldn’t convince anybody else of that fact.

Hartleylands Reservoir Silverfish Match

I got an invite to fish a match at the Res. The format was going to be silverfish only and a rod and line had to be used, poles were banned. I did fancy my chances of winning this as these days most suffer from politus (only use a pole) and I use a rod and line for at least 50% of my match fishing so am well practiced. It was going to be a pair’s match decided on weight and the winner takes all.

At the draw I pulled out peg 13, not realising the new platforms had not peg numbers on yet I was really on a peg in the mid 20s.

I don’t think the draw meant a lot today as the roach in the lake are everywhere and I expected to do well from any peg as long as I can avoid the vast numbers of carp.

Tackle wise I set up two 13ft Milo New Era Powerlights, quite possibly the best waggler rods made. The two rigs were simple one was set to fish shallow with a small loaded Drennan Onion which will initially be set at about 3f deep. Just two number 10s were down the line and the hook was a Kamasan 510 size 20 attached to a 0.10mm Drennan rig line trace. This rig will double up to fish just touching the bottom about a rod length out to my right. The other was a 2AAA Drennan insert peacock set the fish just touching the bottom at 7ft, down the line I had two number 10s and a number 8 evenly spaced to fish on the drop with the same hook and trace.

Bait for the day will be 2 pints of casters and 2 of maggots. This will be plenty to feed little and often for the duration of the match of either bait. I don’t plan to put too much in as it may attract the carp.

At the off I fed maggots 6 at a time every 20-30 seconds out at about 10 meters and was soon getting a few bites on the full depth rig. Most came as the rig settled at full depth and after twitching the float a few inches. Quite a few roach in the 2-4oz range ended up in the net on single maggot hook bait during the first hour and I switched to the shallow rig as the fish come up in the water.

Alternating between the two rigs produced a steady stream of bites but the roach were mostly small, a switch to caster didn’t make any difference size wise so I stuck with maggot. I had been feeding casters down the to my right about a rod length out and dropping in here every now and again picked up a few bigger samples in the 8-12oz range.

It was easy fishing for the duration of the match just feeding maggots or casters little and often and alternating between the two lines. Looking around no one seemed to be catching faster than me so I just stuck with what I was doing and ended up with 119 roach and one perch. The surprising thing was I didn’t hook any carp. I put it down to the clear water and recent frosts pushing the fish out onto the middle of the lake.

I was sure I had enough to win the match but wasn’t sure how my pairs partner had done. Walking round I discovered he had only caught 3lb odd and was sitting in last position so not good news. The best weights were around 15lb with plenty 10lb plus so things were looking grim for us. I weighed in nearly 23lb and we then had a combined weight of 26lb odd (I can’t remember the exact amount) surprisingly it put us in the lead. The only challenge was going to be from Matt (Yalding_bloke) and his partner, who had put 11lb on the scales. As it turned out to his disappointment they ended up 8oz behind so we managed to win. I was first in the match on the day and my partner was last but the combined weigh was enough!

Finally have a look on the top right and you will see a link to details of the 1st Invicta Angling Match League. There is a list of the anglers fishing at the end, would you like to pick a winner from that lot, I cant?

Hartleylands Match

2007-09-30T22:41:00.001+01:00

I was off to fish the Maggotdrowners Southern Champs a match organised by Vince Gould a members of the forum.

After stopping of for a breakfast on the way with Mike Jamerson (Omega Mike) I arrived to see some familiar faces at the draw as well as some new ones. As well as the overall match there was also a pairs contest for the sum of £1. This apparently was a random draw but I think this was a bit suspect as I had Mike. I call him the “Floating Feeder Master” or Noddy for short due to the nature of the method he uses which involves a feeder with a strip of rig foam attached to make it float. This is then filled with Vitalin to attract the fish. The results are devastating and it can dominate matches.

We were on two of the fairest match lakes in the south if not the country, that was Bramley and Pear Tree. Most of the pegs are a 25 meter ish chuck to the island and as long as I’m on one of them I will be confident of a top 3 finish fishing the Waggler. The wind does affect your results a little and if you do get it off your back it will always be worth a few extra pounds in the net due to it being easier to feed and present the bait, but even with a strong cross wind it is still possible to frame.

At the draw I pulled out peg 18 which was at the end of one of the islands on Pear Tree. I had for company on peg 17 Matt (Yalding Bloke) on the next peg who was pretty useful on the waggler and I expected him to do well. Directly opposite I had Omega (Vitalin) Mike.

One look at the peg and I knew I would be up against it today, Mike opposite had a lovely breeze from behind him so a nice leisurely chuck to the island was all that was needed. I however had it in my face blowing round the corner of the island so not so easy!

Bait for the day was easy as a 6 pint limit was in force, it was made up of 6 pints of Skrettings 6mm pellets, I had a few different sized hookers a handful of expanders plus a bit of paste. I also had some groundbait mixed up too feed the margins with so I could save the entire pellet quota for the waggler.

As normal for here I set up my two Carbonactive 11ft rod, one with a 4.5g Drennan Puddle Chucker. Not the greatest float for casting but they hold out well in an awkward wind. On the other was a 6AAA Styro waggler for fishing very shallow less then 12in deep. Both had a 0.16 trace and a 14 Drennan Carp hook. The bomb rod was also set up to fish a hair rigged pellet over the feed area, and a top 4 to fish down the margins with a 2g BGT Short, with a 0.16 trace and size 14 hook.

At the off I fired a good 3 pouch fulls of bait out to try to draw in some fish quickly, then is was about 10 every 15-20 seconds to get them interested, it was proving difficult to feed in the wind and had to give some pellets a brief soak in water to add a bit of weight, not ideal as they sink a bit quicker but it is a better option here than to switch to 8mm. I eventually managed to get my first carp after about 10 minutes on the styro rig set at 12in deep. This was followed by a further 14 in the first hour so things were going OK.

I continued to feed quite frequently and switch around with baits and was still picking up a few fish but not a large number, a brief spell on the bomb tight to the island picked up a few too but they were rather small. By the second hour I was on 25 small carp for I recon about 25lb. I had been feeding the margin so a quick look there with paste produced nothing. So back out on the waggler I started to pick up a few more carp.

The conditions were difficult and a trick I use started to get me a few, I set the float at 2ft deep than put on a floating expander. Now what I do now is wrap the pellet in paste. When you cast out the bait will sink very slowly with the weight of the paste and leave a tempting cloud in the water, but the good bit is it will then start to slowly rise again as the paste melts away. Obviously you can only do this if floating baits are allowed because the bait will eventually end up on the surface.

With about one hour to go I had 49 fish in the net for I recon about 50lb odd. But I had a bit of good fortune as I could see a few down the margin and a quick look every now and again produced 2 fish of about 3lb each, plus one of around 5lb. Another 7 0n the waggler saw me with 59 carp at the end for I guessed about 70lb.

Mike weighed first and had 69 fish for 83lb to take the lead. Next best was Matt on 17 with 60lb. lifting my nets out I know it would be close and didn’t quite have enough with 77lb so ended up taking second on the day and handing Mike the pound back I won of him last year .

Full result and peg numbers here

Omega Mike P4 83-02
Nick Gilbert P18 77-01
Yalding Bloke P17 60-11
Clive P15 49-13
Aigy P8 44-05
Sid06 B20 39-04
Nomorelongwalks B5 30-04
Fadd1st B9 27-09
Wily Coyote P20 26-11
Spamwham B19 26-11
Up Yah B16 25-05
M.T.Net P24 24-05
vg1037 B6 24-03
Gibbinsbill P11 23-10
Dai Fish B8 18-07
Croydon Angler P6 16-12
SimonElsey B17 16-09
Kev the Catch P2 9-01

Im off to Sams Lake next weekend to fish the £500 top prize match so look back after Sunday for my report.

And Finally

I am thinking of running a series of 6 matches on some local waters like Hartleylands and Monks next spring/early summer with a payout on the day for the top 3, plus 6 sections not in the main frame and an overall league paying the top 4.

I will be looking for 30 anglers entry fee will be £15 pool plus the peg fee making it £21-22 a match. Send me a mail if you are interested in entering as I’m sure places will go fast.

Sams Lake, Headcorn, Kent

2007-09-17T20:56:00.000+01:00

I was off to a new venue today; it was Sams Lakes near Headcorn, Kent. The club I joined this year the Maidstone Town League were running a small match on the top lake. This would be good practice as I had a match here next month with a £500 first prize on offer.

I arrived and found a very nice looking fishery, the lawns surrounding the lakes looked like a golf course and there were lots of vegetation all around with several islands in the lake. The lake we were on had 30 pegs but we were only fishing 1 to 17 most had plenty of water in front of them to draw fish in from. I pulled out peg 17 that was apparently at the beginning of a section known as the graveyard! A narrow bit of the lake that had the island at about 14-16 meters away that had a reputation as being devoid of fish. Great I thought. I have included an overhead shot of the lake so you can see what I mean

I got to the swim and it looked OK with a big tree on the far bank that was 11 meters away, there was also a couple of gaps in the cover where you could drop the float into at around 13 meters.

Today I was going to experiment to see what worked in preparation for the bigger match next month. I had 3 baits with me to try, hard and expander pellets in several sizes, corn and some maggots. Also a few chum mixers as floating baits are allowed.

I set up a few rigs one shallow with a Drennan Carp 4 to fish pellet. A on the deck pellet/corn rig to fish tight to the far bank cover and one to fish down the middle at about 7 meters both with Carpa Chimp floats. A lighter on the deck rig for maggots also with a Carpa Chimp float. Then finally a margin rig with a BGT short float.

I had a new rod with me to try today too, a 10ft Shakey Match 3 feeder, this would be ideal for fishing a bomb short over the pole line, something I have been doing well with lately. This was set up with a short 6in trace of 0.20mm, attached to a 12 hook to hair rig a pellet.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do so thought I would wing it! At the whistle I cupped in some pellet over by the tree and maggots down the middle. Out went the rig over by the tree with a single 6mm expander as bait. This produced nothing for about half an hour! I started to think no wonder they call this section the graveyard as there was no signs of fish anywhere! So it was down the middle where I had been feeding maggots with the lighter rig, baiting with a double white maggot I started to pick up a few small roach. I continued to feed the far bank with a catty about every 2 mins with about 6-10 6mm pellets in the hope of drawing something in while knocking out the roach.

The wind had been steadily increasing during the next hour and was really blowing strong by now from one side; this was making it difficult to hold the pole steady. I felt it was time to go back over the far side with pellet but holding the pole at the 13 meters needed was difficult to say the least. It bent quite alarmingly so I threw it up the bank as I didn’t fancy my chances of it staying in one piece. I picked up the bomb rod and baited it with an 8mm pellet wrapped in paste. This was swung out into the gap in the far bank tree. I was just tightening the line and the rod was almost pulled off the rest. Without too much trouble a 3lb carp was soon in the net. At least there was something in the graveyard!

Several of its mates joined it in the next hour or so some fish to around 5lb. Sport was slow but steady for the rest of the match as I continued to catch a few by feeding two areas of the far bank with the catty and pellet and swapping between the two. I ended up with about 15 carp by the end of the match.

I was last to weigh and 48lb was the best weight, followed by a 36lb and a 32lb. I ended up with 35lb putting me in third on the day, apparently this was a good weight from the swim I had and most had expected me to struggle to catch any carp. I managed to draw a few in by feeding positively little and often.

Stones Fishery 2 Day Festival

2007-09-09T21:40:00.000+01:00

I was off to fish a 2 day event at the fishery, I’ve only ever been to the place once before so wasn’t that familiar with the best tactics so decide to just fish it how I see it on the day. From my previous trip I know the lake held lots of carp and F1’s plus roach, rudd and skimmers. There were 40 anglers fishing the event on the match lake and pegging was going to be a bit tight as the place is not very big.

Day One

At the draw I pulled out peg 37, this didn’t mean a lot to me but when I arrived it looked OK with a big reed bed out in the middle of the lake at about 9 meters, this was right in front of me so I had a limited amount of water to fish. The two pegs either side of me were quite close and there was no cover down the margin so it didn’t look like it would be worth fishing there!

I didn’t set up many rigs just a on the deck one with a BGT Short float that could be used up against the reed bed, the depth was the same at 4ft all along so this would cover all along it. Also a shallow rig with a Drennan Carp 4 dibber to fish pellet and one to fish the margins but I didn’t expect to catch there.

Bait wise I had with me plenty of 6mm pellets, 6mm and 4mm expanders, corn and a pint of maggots. I also knocked up some groundbait.

At the whistle I fed 3 small balls of ground bait mixed with 4mm expanders at one end of the weed bed to try to attract skimmers, at the other end I started shallow on the pellet rig. The first hour on the shallow rig produced not a sniff of a fish. The whole lake was producing very little! I had been feeding a few 4mm pellets at the other end of the weed bed and dropped the bottom rig in over the top with a 4mm pellet and had a bite almost immediately and an 8oz skimmer was in the net, then nothing for the next half an hour. Another spell on the shallow rig still produced nothing. I had been feeding the margin and had a go there and had not a sniff. Lucky for me the rest of the lake was fishing poor with only the odd carp being caught.

A quick re think and I though I may be able to win the section with small fish, so I quickly got out another top kit with a number 8 latex in it, I attached a small dibber, 0.12mm trace and a size 20 Kamasan Animal hook. You may think the hook and trace bit strong for small rudd and roach but I wanted to land any bonus carp I did hook so it was a bit of a compromise.

With a single white maggot hook bait, feeding little and often I started to pick up a few small rudd and roach, nothing big but as least I was putting a few in the net, the guy to my right in my section had had a couple of carp though so I really needed one to catch him up. Just as I was thinking that the float buried and I was into a carp, playing it very carefully it was only about 1.5lb but the way the lake was fishing desperately needed. A few smaller rudd followed and with a hour left I was running out of maggots!

I did notice a carp nosing the reed island in front of me so I quickly picked up my shallow pellet rig, flicked out a few pellets to the edge of the reed and dropped the rig in, this produced an instant but and another small carp of about 2lb was in the net. As I only had a few maggots left I continued to fish pellet shallow against the reed but didn’t have another touch.

With only 15 mins to go and a handful of maggots left I went out again with the shallow maggot rig and feeding 5 at a time picked up another 10 small rudd before the whistle went.

The lake had fished really poor and sections were being won with low double figures. I didn’t think I had done that well as surely someone had caught a few carp in my section? Unbelievably the top weight in my section was only 8lb 6oz with most just having a couple of carp, and one guy had blanked! My two small carp and rudd went 8lb 11oz taking the section. Setting out to catch small fish was a big risk but it had paid off on an out of sorts lake.

The section win put me 4th on points as 3 of the other section winners had a better weight than me although the top 5 all had one penalty point. I was well in contention for day 2.

Day 2

It a good job I’m not superstitious as I pulled out peg 13, This was good looking peg that juts out into the lake with lots of open water in front of me.

I had 3 pints of maggots with me today just in case it fished poor again but looking at the lake I had a feeling I won’t be needing them today, you could see a few carp moving which they were not doing yesterday so prospects were looking better.

It was quite warm so I decided to go for an all out shallow pellet/pole attack, although I did set up a on the deck rig, a margin rig and the shallow maggot rig just in case. Being a wide part of the lake I also set up a pellet waggler rod.

I had one of the section winners from day one for company on the next peg just to make thing interesting.

At the start I dumped some pellets in the margins and went out with the shallow rig at around 9 meters where I had already seen carp cruising. Feeding pellet little and often things where slow with not one bite in the first 45 minutes. Everybody around me seemed to be picking up the odd carp fishing on the deck with the guy on the next peg caching 6! Where I had been feeding shallow the peg was fizzing so I dropped in with the on the deck rig and had plenty of indication on the float. Unfortunately none of these were bites; you could feel the fish rubbing against the line if you lifted the float but the seemed to be shying away from the line. They were obviously in the swim and feeding but I couldn’t hook one.

Two hours into the match I suddenly had a brainwave, quickly setting up a bomb rod, I attached a small bomb and on the end was a size 14 hook with an 8mm hair rigged pellet, I wrapped the pellet in a big lump of paste and swung it out 9 meters over the pole line. Tightening the line the rod got pulled round and I was into my first carp, this was followed by another one quite quickly.

I continued to feed little and often to try to get the fish shallow and did spot a few swirls so quickly went out with the shallow rig and picked up 2 F1 carp. And that is how the rest of the match went, fishing shallow feeding little and often then if I spotted a bit of fizzing in the peg just drop in with the bomb rod and more often than not I would pick up a carp. I can’t remember the exact number of fish I had but it was around 15 by the time the whistle went picking up 7 on the bomb and the rest shallow.

The lake had fished a lot better today with over 60lb winning the match but luckily not my section! 25lb was top in my section and the word was none of the previous day’s section winners had won today. With just me and two others left to weigh my carp went 29lb and the other two couldn’t better it.

So with a 2 point score over the two days this was enough to take the title, a big trophy and collect £510 for the two section wins and overall. So I was well pleased.

Looking back swapping to the shallow maggot rig and catching rudd on day 1 while other sat it out for carp, and switching to the bomb on day 2 were crucial. It was a difficult but challenging 2 days fishing.

Next week I’m fishing a small club match at Sams lake, Headcorn. Somewhere I’ve never seen before. If anybody has any info on the place send is a mail!

Hartleylands Nick Puncher Memorial Match

2007-08-26T22:47:00.000+01:00

I make it no secret that this is in my opinion is the best match venue I have fished, so was looking forward the match. It is always well supported with all the peg fees being donated to charity. 100 plus were booked in today with most of the top rod from the south east fishing. The 3 match lakes and the res are all being used. I would expect a ton plus will be needed to win today and that would more than likely come from the Res or Nicks lake, but you cant rule out Bramley or Pear Tree to throw up 100lb but I don’t think any will be in the top 3. The payout for the day will be top 3 in the lake so it doesn’t matter what one you are on. There is also a £5 super pool for the overall top 5.

I arrived at the lake to discover Mark the match organiser and Paul Ward the fishery owner had an interesting £5 side bet going on. Paul had bet that I would finish in the top 3 on the day from wherever I draw!

At the draw was some rules put in place for the day and one had me worried for a bit, a 3AAA limit on waggler! Luckily towards the bottom of the board was another saying max pellet waggler size 4g, which happened to be 5AAA, the biggest float you will ever need on the lakes.

A big queue was at the draw and I eventually got to the front and pulled out peg 14 on Nicks Lake. I couldn’t remember exactly where it was but was told I was halfway along the back island with no form whatsoever. I wasn’t too bothered where I was to be honest as I have said many times before you can frame from virtually any peg on the match lake in the summer so had my chance to prove it today.

I arrive at my peg and was not disappointed at all, there was a slight cross wind but I couldn’t see it being a problem today. It was a nice easy 20-25 meter chuck to the island so obviously it was going to be a waggler attack (what a surprise you are thinking!).

As always I set up two 11ft waggler rods with 4.5AAA Styrofoam float. One set at 12inches and the other at 8 inches. They both had 0.16mm hook lengths with size 14 Drennan carp hooks and a hair rigged bait band. I also set up a top 4 in case a few fish moved in down the margins and a bomb rod with a rig I have been experimenting with that I will have to keep to myself for now as it was not my idea.

I will bore you with the bait I had today in case you are new to the blob but most will know what I will be using. I had with me plenty of 6mm coarse pellets which are the best size at the lakes, some paste, plus some 8mm hookers and a few of pints of expanders to feed the margins.

The hooter went to signal the start and I fed 4 big pouch fulls of bait quite quickly to the island, the thinking behind this is to draw some carp in quickly, the reason being the two blokes to the right were also fishing to the island so I didn’t want to lose fish to them and maybe I will pinch a few. I continued to feed about 10 pellets every 15-30 second and casting over it. 15 minutes into the match I had my first small carp, things started slow but steady and an hour in I had 10 carp on the 8 inch deep rig. I had a lot of fish in the swim but they were not really “having it” they would come to the noise of the pellet and were proving difficult to tempt. I tried various ways of feeding, different hook pellets, wrapping the pellet in paste and nothing seemed to work well. I wasn’t too worried because you can build the swim and the last two hours of the match are always the best. Paul the fishery owner came round to see how I was getting on and told me the lakes were fishing quite hard with no one emptying it yet which was good news.

By the end of the third hour I only had 30 carp averaging about a pound in the net, five that were caught on the bomb so not so good. I was still struggling to put a decent run of fish together but still felt I was in with a shout. The next hour was more of the same with another 10 fish although some were a better stamp around the 2lb mark. With an hour of the match left I recon I had about 50lb in the net made up of 40 small carp.

I still think I had a lot of fish in the swim so maybe could still have a good last hour, so I took a gamble on feeding quite heavy and very frequently(cant tell you why just had a feeling it would work), my suspicions were confirmed as carp started to show on the surface every time I fed. Shallowing up to 6in deep, feeding a big pouch full of bait then landing the float on top resulted in an instant bite. I had 15 carp in the next half an hour (one every 2 minutes), the biggest around the 3lb mark. The final half an hour resulted in another 10 so when the whistle went I ended up with 65 carp, 25 that were caught in the final hour.

The scales came round and the best weight on my lake was 84lb 9oz which was lying third overall in the main frame, I guessed I had around 80lb so it was going to be close for third spot, Mark who was doing the weigh in was worried he had lost his £5 side bet. My first net on the scales went 44lb; the second was 40lb 2oz, giving me 84lb 2oz putting me second on the lake and forth overall picking up £150 and only 7oz away from a few quid more! A decent result from a peg that was apparently not too good!

The top two on the day came from the Reservoir, I can’t remember the exact weights but they were around 140lb and second place just over a ton.

Not out fishing next weekend but will be fishing a 2 day event at Stones fishery on the 8the and 9th of September so look out for my report on how I get on.

Hartleyland Match

2007-08-19T22:19:00.000+01:00

I was off to my favourite match venue today to fish with the Maidstone Town league a local club I joined this year. There are a number of reasons I rate Hartleyalnds so much as a match venue. For a start it looks nice with plenty of bankside cover. You can potentially win from anywhere in the summer on Nicks, Bramley, or Pear Tree lake. Added to this there are no silly rules and you will encounter the best conditioned carp you are likely to catch. Today I was on Pear Tree the lake I used for my Pellet Waggler write up for Southern Angler. The lake is roughly rectangular in shape with two islands running down the middle giving you roughly a 25 meter chuck to them.

I arrived and discovered there will be quite a few fishing with nearly every peg in. At the draw I pulled out peg 13 that put me about halfway along one of the two islands that run down the middle of the lake. There was a light cross wind and there was only one method I was going to use here today and that will be the pellet waggler. In my opinion this method is unbeatable here during the warmer months if you have an island to chuck to. Today I was going to try out some Styrofoam waggler I had knocked up, only 3 inches long and taking 4-5AAA they were a perfect size.

I set up my two 11ft Carbonactive rods, one set to 8in deep, and the other 12in. both had Mr Crappie 4lb main line, with a 0.16 trace. Attached to this were a size 16 Fox carp hook and a hair rigged bait band. I also set up a bomb rod with a new set up on the end to try that I will tell you what it is another time and a top kit and number 4 section to drop in the margins.

Today I had 6mm pellets for bait as they will easily reach the island and I prefer this size here if I can get away with it. Also some 6mm expanders to feed the margins and a bit of paste.

The all in was called and I put a good handful of pellet in each margin and fed a dozen pellets just short of the island, starting on the 12in deep rig it wasn’t long before I got my first bite and a small carp of about a pound was in the keepnet, the carp seemed to respond to very frequent feeding today, about 10 pellets every 10-15 second, I had a very good first hour putting 20 small carp in the keepnet! Things slowed up during the next hour and I found an 8mm hook pellet seemed to get a bite quicker than using the 6mm that I was feeding. I could see a lot of carp in my swim waiting for the feed and the shallower rig produced more bites.

I needed to constantly change bait size and cast around the feed to keep the fish coming. You would only get a bite if the bait was moving and once it had hit full depth it was ignored. I had to feed then drop the float on top, if I didn’t get a bite after about 5 seconds feed again and slowly twitch the bait through the lose offerings. This way most cast came back with a fish on the end.

About half way into the match I hooked a bigger fish, at about the same time Yalding Bloke from the Maggotdrowner Forum turned up, I think he came round to see how I fished the waggler but I gave a good demo of how not to land a big fish. Keeping the rod low I slowly got it in netting range without too much trouble. I missed it with the net and the fish promptly went berserk and it took me another 5 minute to get it in the net!

I continued to feed the margins and had a quick look every now and again if the waggler swim went quiet, this didn’t produce any fish, but if you do this and continue to feed without fishing when you go back over with the waggler you will often get a several fish quickly.

I was counting the carp today and 15 minutes before the end I had 102! I decided on one last look down the margin before the end for a lump. I hooked on two 6mm expanders and wrapped them in a big lump of paste and dropped it in to my right. The float jumped about a bit so I know there was something down there, the float suddenly went under and I was into a good carp. This time I demonstrated how to land them properly and holding the pole low the fish came back to me and a quick lift and one about 4lb was in the net. I had another couple of bites and bumped one down the edge and that whistle went to signal the end. I had 103 carp, 1 rudd and a barbel!

I guessed I had about 120lb and I wasn’t too far out for a change and put 145lb on the scales. It turned out to be easily enough to win as 79lb was second so a good result for the waggler at Hartleylands.

The Styrofoam floats worked well too, although I think I would have still caught as much on a balsa one. I could always jump on the bandwagon start selling them at £2 a go!!

Im back here next week fishing a big open match with all the lakes in, i quite fancy peg 9, 23, 25 or 32 on Nicks lake.

Stones Fishery Sherness

2007-08-12T22:08:00.000+01:00

I was going to visit Stones today for the first time; I thought I better fish a match there before the 2 day festival in September.

The lakes are on the side of Stones Garden Centre that conveniently has a café that opens in the morning for breakfast, the draw was carried out in the café and I pulled out peg 31 which meant nothing to me but I was told you can do well from anywhere on the lake. It is a strange looking lake as there are pots in the water with reeds growing out of them!

This was a day for experimenting being my first visit so I was going to try a few different things, I was limited to only fishing the pole as there is no way I would get any carp in fishing beyond the pots on a rod and line.

I set up a couple of shallow rigs made up from Drennan Carp 4 Dibbers, one with a long line for swinging away from the pole. These had a 0.14 trace and a Drennan eyed size 14 carp hook attached. A on the deck rig with a Carpa Chimp float, these all had a number 10 latex in the top kits. One for each margin with a BGT Short float with 0.16, and a size 14 Fox Carp hook. These had yellow Drennan hollow in them, the main reason I use this down the margins is with the extra stretch if I hook a big fish I can just hang on keeping the tip low, and then don’t have to follow the fish out and add extra sections.

The plan for the day was to feed a long and short lines down the left margin, and one to the right. But the main attack was going to be shallow between the two pots in front of me where there were quite a few carp cruising around. Bait as always was lots of Skretting 6mm pellets, 4 and 6mm expanders and some paste. I have the utmost confidence in this bait when commercial carp are the target even on unfamiliar water.

At the off I fed the margins, then went straight out with the shallow rig, I did however stick out a couple of balls of groundbait out where I was fishing shallow to hopefully draw some fish in. Feeding 6-8 pellets every few second I was soon into my first carp a fish of about 2lb, soon followed by its mate another one about the same size. Half an hour in I hooked a bigger one about 5lb, when it surfaced I missed it with the landing net and it went crazy! Unfortunately the hook then pulled out.

Things were very slow and two hours into the match I only had 5 carp in the net, word was the lake was not fishing too well. I did drop in where I was feeding the margins but there was little sign of anything down there. So back out with the shallow rig and adding a section took me to beyond the two pots full of reeds. I started to pick up a few more small carp and f1’s here, I was warned not to use a light elastic by the reed pots but they came in with not too much trouble, you just lift slightly into a fish then instead of shipping back pushing the pole forward slightly seemed to confuse the fish then you can easily lead it between the reed.

I keep on dropping down the margins but had no response, so carried on picking up the odd fish shallow. I did try a maggot hookbait for a short while and had a few roach and rudd.

30 minutes from the end I spotted a carp down the left margin, dropped in a bit of paste and immediately had a bite and hooked one, another 2 came out from here before the whistle went to signal the end.

When the scales came round 90lb was winning and I knew I had nowhere near that, I stuck 37lb on the scales, the half of the lake I was on didn’t fish as well as the top end where the winner came from. I had an enjoyable days fishing though and would recommend a visit to the lakes, I will certainly be back.

I did fish on after the end of the match down the margin and had one a bung! The margin was solid, I’m sure the carp know!

Willow Park Battering

2007-08-06T22:55:00.000+01:00

Today I was off the Willow Park for the first time. I was representing the www.maggotdowners.com team; there are 3 other forum teams in attendance, Total-fishing, Talk-angling and Angling forums. The team orders were I had to be last in my section to keep with the tradition of Maggotdrowners finishing last. I was on the middle lake that apparently held plenty of carp, f1s, and silverfish and would be perfect for the pole shallow, or even the pellet waggler.

I was a bit worried in the run up to the event when I noticed a club match was won on the lake with only 27lb. Surely a lake that demands a £10 a day peg fee offers better fishing than the result reflected? Further alarm bells rang when I read on the forum that the carp had all escaped from the lake in a recent flood. Added to this one of our team was down there the day before for a look around and reported not a lot was being caught on the middle lake! Things were starting to look grim.

I arrived the morning of the match and I must admit the lake looked good although the pegging was tight. After a tea and chat with the other members of the team the draw was made and I was on peg 20, this meant nothing to me not having seen the lake before but I was informed it was a decent draw. Arriving at the peg it did look good, a large willow to the left overhung the water, and a corner to the right with plenty of cover in the margin was the 2 obvious places to fish. Disappointingly I was limited the distance I could fish out in front of me without “crossing swords” because my peg faced a line of anglers on the other banks.

With the enforced bait limit of 3 small bags of pellet my tactics were going to be fishing shallow with the limited amount of pellet I had, also I was going to target the margins with paste and corn, I would have rather used pellet but didn’t have enough to use for both, an all out carp attack. I also had a few maggots with me to avoid a blank if things went wrong!

I won’t bore you with the rig details but I set up one for the margins, a couple shallow and one for on the deck. Also a pellet waggler rod.

At the off I fed a few ball of groundbait on the pole line straight out in front, and some corn and hemp in the margins both sides. I started with the on the deck rig but flicked out a few pellets every 30 seconds to try and catch shallow. During the next hour I went through several hook baits, corn, pellet, paste, eventually catching a small roach on maggot! The swim was devoid of fish as I was getting very few indications on the float.

During this time I also was flicking half a dozen pellets out to my right at about 25 meters as I noticed the odd carp cruising, I had a few cast with this rod to try and mug one of these cruising fish but again caught nothing. I wasn’t keeping track of time but at about the 2 hour mark with only a few small roach to show for my efforts I dropped a lump of paste in my right margin where I had been feeding, the float settled and started moving about then went under, lifting the pole I was into a carp, then 10 second later it came off. I won’t repeat what I said next!

The next hours were a not event fishing wise as I had a few more small roach by switching between the lines I have fed. It was now time to really attack the swim to try and make something happen, out of desperation I took the decision to concentrate on the pellet waggler and I had 2 pints of 6mm pellet left, so stepping up the feed to a dozen pellet every 15 second where I had spotted the odd cruising carp out to my right. All this achieved was to push the carp out of range!

40 minute were left and I quickly set up a shallow maggot rig to put a few more fish in the net, flicking a few maggots out at about 6 meters I managed about 10 small roach then hooked something a little bigger, playing it carefully it was a F1 of about 3lb. No more followed and I was relived when the whistle went to signal the end.

This scratching about sort of fishing that was required on the day is not really my style and to be honest I didn’t get the best from the peg. 2 hours in I had lost interest really!

The scales came around and I put a pitiful 4lb on them, putting me about 14th out of the 20 anglers on the lake and 4th in the 4 man section. 18lb won the lake!!!

Thankfully I did my bit and our team came in last on the day as expected.

The result being.
Angling Forums 40 pts Total Fishing 1 38 pts Talk Angling 33 pts Maggot Drowners 29 pts

I was tempted to ask for a refund of my peg fee as the fishing was poor, personally I expect to catch a few if I am paying £10 and quite frankly the place is not up to standard, There was plenty of talent fishing the lake and most struggled. I do think the 3 pint pellet limit is in place to stop you overfeeding the few fish present! The rumoured lack of carp in the lake seemed true as I saw little evidence of large numbers of fish present, it was a hot sunny day and you would have expected to see plenty of fish cruising in the surface layers.

Hartleylands and Wierton Res

2007-07-27T22:07:00.000+01:00

Hartleylands Match

I was covering a match for Southern Angler that local angler John Keatly had organised, he had invited down a few guys from the Middlands to fish at Hartleland Farms Nicks Lake.

I called him up to get the details and he suggested I may as well have a days fishing while I was there, there was a catch though. I was not able to enter in the main cash pool. So the plan for the day was to fish for about 4 hours and take some pictures for the mag during the last hour.

I didn’t draw my peg just waiting for what was left so as not to affect the match too much, unbelievably peg 9 was left, this is a excellent draw as you have a choice of the end of two islands to fish to .I got to the peg and the wind was quite strong but from behind so fishing the waggler to the island was the perfect choice of methods for the day. It was one of them day when you just know you are going to empty the place even though Paul the bailiff told me the peg had not won a match for a long time, everything was spot on

I set up my 11ft Preston waggler rods, one with a 4.5AAA home made balsa pellet waggler set to 12in deep, the other with my ultra shallow short waggler that also takes 4.5AAA set 6in deep. Both had a size 16 fox carp hook attached to a 0.16mm Fox trace attached to a hair rigged bait band.

Feed and hook bait was my favourite Skretting 6mm pellets, and a small amount of paste was mixed up too.

The start was called and I fed about a dozen pellets just short of the island and went straight out with the foot deep rig. It was quite a slow start but eventually I had my first bite after about 20 minutes, this resulted in a small carp, feeding about every 15 seconds had them feeding well picking up some more fish during the first hour and putting about 20lb in the net. Into the second hour the carp really started to have it and were a large number swirling on the surface when I fed just sitting there waiting!

Switching to the shallower rig and stumpy float as I got into the third hour of the match was resulting in one a bung. It was just a matter of feeding, casting, hook a fish, feed again, net it, and then start again. The average size was quite small but it didn’t matter as I landed around 80 carp in the next two hours so with well over a ton in the net I unfortunately had to stop and take a few photos for the article I was writing. I got back at my peg with about 5 minutes to go and managed another couple before the end though.

The scales come round for the match proper and I thought I would weigh in and stuck 140lb on the scales, which was not bad for 4 hours fishing.

Top 3 in the match proper were
1st 109lb Alan Corby (Hartleylands Farm) peg 8 on the feeder
2nd 103lb Dean Sheldon (SBS Baits) peg 32 on the pole down the margins
3rd 100lb Pete Wellington, (Team Mosella) peg 7 on the pole at 3meters and the margins.

Real fishing down Wierton Reservoir

I was off to fish the last of the 2.5 hour evening matches down my local club water, where bream are on the menu. I have had a good run here in the past winning the last 3 matches I have fished.

Tactics were easy if I drew out of the wind it would be the pole if it was too windy I would fish the method feeder close in as in the summer the fish tend to patrol quite close in during the summer and many fish too far out.

I was hoping for a draw on the island side of the lake where the wind was blowing and the water well coloured, but was a bit disappointed to end up right round the other side of the lake with the wind off my back and the water very clear.

I got to the peg and just set up the one rig. A 1g Drennan lake, with a 1g olivet, and a couple of number 10 droppers. I did have the method feeder rod set up in the bag just in case!

I had some fishmeal groundbait mixed up ready to throw in at the start full of 6mm expanders and some corn. At the start 8 balls of this mix went in at 11 meters. Things where very slow for the first hour, I went through corn, expander and maggot hookbait, and only managed a few small roach. I don’t know why but I had a feeling there were bream in the swim but for some reason didn’t like the way the bait was being presented to them. So I thought sod it and with an hour to go chucked the pole rig up the bank and quickly set up the method feeder rod.

This had a small Korum in line feeder, attached to this was a size 16 Kamasan animal hook attached to a 0.16mm trace of about 5 inches. This was fished semi fixed with a swivel wedged into the feeder. Bait was double 6mm expander. The plan was to cast this just beyond the pole line every 3-4 minutes to try and draw some fish in.

I swung it out and stuck the rod on the rest and waited for it to sink, I know there were fish present as I got line bites straight away. I’ve seen people strike at these before but it is important to sit on your hand and wait for a proper pull round as the method is a self hooking rig after all.

Looking at my watch to time 3 minutes as it got into the second minute the rod went round and I was into a bream at last, a nice fish of about 2lb plus, in the last half an hour of the match I had 8 more, it was solid down there.

The scales came around and 22lb was wining so far and wasn’t sure if I had enough, I ended up just scraping the victory with 23lb. it just goes to show the delicate presentation the pole offers is not always the best way with the crude by comparison method feeder rig doing the damage in the end.

Great Cheap Line

Ive been using a great line lately, 6lb for the feeder and 4lb for the pellet waggler, its called Mr Crappy (no im not taking the piss) from the States. you get it from http://www.basspro.com/ for $6.99 a spool for 3000 meters of the stuff. Postage for 2 spools is only $3.95. Get some now you wont be dissapionted.

Maver Pairs, Monk Lakes.

2007-07-16T21:04:00.001+01:00

Today I was at Monks with my partner Dave to have another go at the Maver match, We have swapped sections today and I was on A that was all of lake one and the good side of lake two, so was well up for this match and confident of putting a good weight together.

We lined up to draw and were first in the queue. Dave nominated me to draw out the pegs, I pulled out 93 from the B section bucket for Dave, not a great draw but better than most. Then in I went for my peg from the A section bucket and out came……. Now wait for it……… 23 on Lake one!!!!! The peg most would sell there soul to the devil for. Now I consider lake one to be the fairest and you can win from anywhere but when you put in every peg on the lake the four end pegs (23 is one of them) are difficult to beat.

I got to the peg and as per usual at Monks the wind was blowing, and a cross wind at that. When setting up the pole it bent alarmingly even at 9 meters, so I had a dilemma. Do I still fish shallow like I normally do but at only around 6-7 meters, or opt for the most popular tactic on the lakes pellet/paste on the deck. After weighing it up with a good chop on the water I decided the fish will still feed close in shallow so will go with that.

So I knocked up a bit of groundbait to ball in at the start like I normally do, and set up 3 shallow rigs, all Drennan Carp 4 dibbers, attached to 0.14 trace and a size 14 Drennan carp eyed hook. I set up a on the deck and margin rig too just in case. 3 keepnets were put in today as we had a maximum weight of 60lb in each net, putting a fish in each net in turn so as to spread the weight

At the off the groundbait went in at 6 meters, and started feeding 6mm pellet over the top, I gave it 15 minutes down the edge while the main swim settled, this only produced one bite which I missed. So out with the shallow rig it was set about a foot deep, I after about another 15 minutes I had my first carp of about a pound, a few more followed and after a hour I had 17. Things got even better by the second hour and I was up to 45! What worked best was feeding about 10 pellets then immediately slapping the rig down on the water until I got a bite, tapping the pole got me a few too but didn’t work as well. By the third hour I was on about 60 fish for I recon about 80lb so was doing very well indeed.

Then disaster struck, I just stopped catching! Half a hour went by without a bite, I stuck on pole sections to go out further, and various other tricks but only had a few more by the forth hour. I had to decide on a change of tactics for the last hour as the wind had picked up and conditions were very difficult, so it was out with the on the deck rig and a 6mm expander was put on the hook, I continued to feed it as if I was fishing shallow but less frequently, With the on the deck rig I started to pick up a few fish, a mixture of barbel and small carp, this was working OK and I caught slow but steady for the rest of the match hooking a good sized F1 of about 3lb on the whistle, ending up with about 70 carp and about 15 barbel.

The scales turned up and 79lb was the best weight so far, I was sure I had over a ton and was not disappointed with my 112lb. the rest of the lake was weighed in and next best was 96lb, giving me the lake and section win. Strange as it seems the last four matches I have fished on lake one I have won with, 113lb, 112lb, 113lb, and today with 112lb!

Dave on lake 3 had not had such a good day as me but still caught a few and had 46lb for a section 3rd so we didn’t qualify for the final, but I had a few quid to collect but wasn’t sure where I was overall, word was the best weight off of lake 3 was 106lb, but the bad new was lake 2 had thrown up a few good weight and I ended up forth overall on the day picking up £90 (now time for a moan).

This isn’t a lot really when you consider it cost £20 plus £10 on the day to enter each round and if you don’t go into the £10 pool you go away with nothing. With 100 fishing deducting the £7 peg fee that is £1300 from each match going to Maver/AT, I’m not sure of the number of qualifiers but work it out, are they really paying out the amount they should be?

On a positive note get yourself a copy of Southern Angler to see a certain handsome chap fishing the pellet waggler on page 6-7.

River Medway and Mote Park

2007-07-13T21:11:00.000+01:00

I was down the Medway again Wednesday evening for the Maidstone Victory match, the river looked spot on with a bit of colour and flow. I was hoping for a draw on the high bank so I could catch a few bream but it wasn’t to be and the golden arm failed me for the second week running! I ended up on one of the weedy swims downstream of the bridge. Good for roach and a couple of seasons ago I would have been confident of winning off, but times have changed and bream seem to dominate the results lately with 12-20lb+ winning all the matches. If you target roach you are looking at 8-10lb so you will probably frame but not win.

So faced with a peg that may or may not produce a few bream the tactics were chosen with this in mind, I selected a 1g float to fish a bulked rig nailed near the bottom so I can just edge it through. Hook bait will be corn as I know this will pick up roach and bream,but not as many roach if you fished hemp and tares but maybe around the 5lb mark. Add to this 3-4 bream and I will be looking at around 12-15lb to hopefully win the match.

The whistle went and I threw in 5 balls of groundbait laced with corn and hemp, the plan was to lose feed corn over this for the duration of the match, this was working quite well at the start and I was picking up the odd roach, a hour and a half into the two and a half hour match I had about 4lb of roach in the net so things were going to plan, as the light faded it was now or never for the bonus bream so I deepened up a bit and just edged the bait through slowly in the hope a few moved in for the last hour, and they did, in fact I caught 10.

Now for the flaw in my tactics, they were only about three ounces each!!!!

The scales come along and I weighed in 5lb 1oz. 10lb consisting of 3 bream was winning so not surprisingly I was well out of it and in second place, by the end I was bumped down a few more places into forth. Not a bad result but still pools fodder for the second week running. Three evening matches and I haven’t managed to win yet, the fishing at Barming has changed and I just can’t seem to beat the feeder guys but I don’t like to sit there all evening for 4-6 fish I like to keep busy and catch a few.

Mote Park Monsters!

With the week off work I decided to take a trip down the park lake for a few hours Thursday. My wife decide to come down and be photographer for the day.

I selected a swim on the wall and had the whole 30 acre lake to myself.

I brought a feeder and float rod and was going to do a bit of both. I started on the waggler with a simple rig, 2.5AAA insert peacock, lightly shotted to fish on the drop in about 8ft of water, I attached a 0.08 trace and a size 20, 511 hook. Feeding maggots little and often I started to pick up a few roach to around the 12oz mark on single maggot. After a hour or so I thought I would have a spell on the feeder to try and catch a few bream.

The rig again was simple, a free running plastic Drennan cage feeder, attached to a 0.12 trace and a size 16 hook. Bait again was maggots and a groundbait mix that I have been using for years that never fails me on natural water when bream are about. It consisted of a third each of Sensas Lake, Roach and brown crumb, added to this is a good helping of ground hemp quite possibly the best bream attractor around. This is always mixed up well before use so it is not too active and rises in the water.

Lobbing this out about 50-60 metres into the lake and clipping up, I then put out a few feeders full to get a bit of bait down. I then cast out, stuck the rod on a rest and sat on my hands! Easy this bream fishing lark!

It wasn’t too long and the tip started jumping about, now you know why I sit on my hands. Eventually the tip pulled round and the rod jumped of the rest and I was into one, it eventual come in and turned out to be a big skimmer. A few more of these arrived all un-missable pull rounds on the tip after a lot of line bites, but then it went quiet.

The tip suddenly went round a slight bit and just stayed there without moving, springing back it all went slack and I had hooked another one, not a skimmer though this time a proper one. After a short scrap I slid the net under one of the big old fish that live in the lake.

This one went straight back as I think they are a bit big to retain in a net, casting out again I had another and again this went straight back.

I had another two of the monster bream before calling it a day, a good few hours fishing with the 4 big bream and these roach and skimmers to go with it.

Not bad for about four hours fishing.

What a great lake that is only a few minutes down the road from me.

Back down the Medway.

2007-07-08T21:25:00.000+01:00

I was back down the Medway at Barming Bridge for the second of 4 evening matches on the river, when I arrived and had a look at the river I knew I should have left the hemp and tares at home. There had been some heavy rain early in the day and the river was brown, rising and motoring through. Luckily on the way to the river I picked up a pint of maggots as bait from the local tackle shop and had a few casters I had turned from last weeks maggots.

To be honest I didn’t think it would be flowing so fast and coloured so wasn’t really prepared, I had only packed ten pole rigs in my small box I use for the evening matches and the biggest were only 2g so not big enough! I had a feeder rod with me but didn’t really fancy it as I thought the bream wouldn’t feed well with the river rising.

At the draw I pulled out a peg on the high bank and under normal condition would be a decent draw for a few bream plus the ever present roach. Today it looked grim and I didn’t fancy it at all, there was a lot of marginal weed so I had no slack water down the edge to run a float through, and the flow just didn’t look right further out but I decided to give it a go anyway.

I kicked off the match on the 2g rig to nail the bait near the bottom and edge it through at about 7 meters. 5 hard balls of groundbait went in at the off, and maggots was the bait. I just edged the bait over the feed for the first hour or so. All this produced was 1 small roach and a few bleak. I did have a feeder set up so switched to this for another half an hour and caught nothing. By this time I started to lose interest as it started to rain again.

With a hour to go I thought I better pull myself together and try to put a few fish in the net so I ripped of the 2g rig and stuck on the smallest float I had with me which was a 0.5g Drennan Carbo, set it about 2ft deep, using a top 4 to hand preceded to go bleak bashing! Feeding small amounts of maggots and with a single as bait I started to catch one a bung, I was quite glad when the whistle went and probably ended up with about 100-150 of the tiny fish.

When the scales arrived amazingly 14lb of bream was winning (did I say the bream would not feed, Ops!), I managed to put 3lb 8oz on the scales putting me third, I didn’t stay there long as John Overton on the next peg a very good feeder angler had, you guessed it, 6 bream all caught in the last hour for over 15lb to win the match. There was another bleak weight that was amazingly 1 oz behind me so I stayed in 4th place on the day.

The lesson learned today is not to be so impatient on a out of sorts river and chop and change methods too much, who knows if I had stuck it out on the 2g rig I may have put a few bream in the net too.

On a bright note

Get yourself a copy of the August edition of Southern Angler (or buy it every month as its a great read), my pellet waggler write up will be featured in there.

Also I have been asked to do a few of the venue guides for Kent every month so if you have had a decent day anywhere in the area particularly on the rivers, or know a good venue to feature send us an email.

I have a busy week fishing wise planned, down the Medway again for the Wednesday evening match, down Moat Park for a bit of roach fishing, then a Saturday and Sunday matches down Monk Lakes

Maidstone Victory evening match, on the Medway

2007-06-29T23:37:00.000+01:00

My local club run a series of 6 evening matches every summer starting in June, I have managed to win the overall trophy for the last 2 years doing very well managing to frame in every match, This year after missing the first match while I was down in Devon I will have to get a first or second in every match to retain the trophy.

I arrived early at the draw so I could have a chat with the guys fishing; tonight it was to be fished on the Barming section of the river. We haven’t had as much rain down here in the South East and the river looked spot on with a bit of colour and flow. In these conditions the bream normally feed well so I expected them to win, the down side of this is that they are only around in numbers in a couple of swims on the high bank although it is possible to pick up two or three from any swim.

I pulled out peg 11 that put me on the first swim to the right of Barming bridge, not a bad draw for roach but not really noted for bream, it also holds a few chub down the far side but I didn’t expect them to feed well in the coloured water.

My normal tactics here are very simple, ball in groundbait at the start on the edge of the nearside flow, then start lose feeding hemp, tares and corn over the top giving you a choice of hook baits, the fish will often show a preference for one of these then you can switch to just feeding what they prefer on the day. This tactic has won me lots of matches on this section of river getting me a bit of a reputation as a Medway expert!!!

For a change though I had set up a feeder even though I was not on a good bream peg, not sure why though? I still had the pole set up just in case the feeder didn’t work; this was a 1g Drennan Carbo, with a bulk and 3 number 10 droppers evenly spaced down the last 3 ft of line. This was attached to a 0.08 trace and a size 16 Kamasan 511 hook.

At the start of the match 5 balls of groundbait laced with hemp went in, the mix consisted on a third Sensas Lake, Roach and brown crumb. Added to this was a generous helping of ground hemp. I will losefeed the hemp, tares and corn combo over the top of this while starting on the feeder.

The feeder was a bit of a non event just catching a few small roach and a bleak in the first hour of the match. I had to do something to put a few fish in the net so a quick switch to the pole and tares hook bait was in order. With 90 minutes left I though I had blown my chances of a decent result as I expected a few bream to be caught, the next half a hour saw me putting about a dozen roach in the net but I wasn’t too worried as the last hour as the light start to fade can be one a bung. The swim got stronger as the match went on and by the time the all out was called I recon I had around 60 roach.

The scales turned up and surprisingly the top weight so far was only 4lb odd, it had not fished well! My 60 roach went 5lb 14oz which surprisingly enough was good enough for 2nd place, as I predicted the winner was on the high bank and managed only 3 bream on the feeder, but they went just over 10lb so easily winning.

There was talk after the match about leaving the high bank pegs out to even out the results as they always win, but I’m not sure if it is a good or bad idea to do that. Having said that we always used to leave them out until I won about 6 matches in a row on the river, someone suggested they were put in last year and since it is difficult to win a match without drawing one of them!

Trip to Stafford Moor

2007-06-27T10:37:00.000+01:00

I was off to Devon on holiday to visit my father in law, who happens to live 10 miles up the road from Stafford Moor. So a couple of waggler and a feeder rod complete with tackle found there way into the car! Also 16 pints of 8mm coarse pellets, 8 pints of 6mm, and some ground pellet to make up some paste.

I planned to have a days fishing so thought I may as well fish the Sunday open, so turned up at the lake just as the draw was starting. I handed over my money and pulled out peg 36 on Woodpeckers and was promptly told by some of the locals it was one of the best pegs on the complex!

It was right round the far side of the lake and didn’t know what to expect as I have never seen the lake before, when I eventually got there I must admit it did look spot on for the waggler with about a 30 yard chuck to a point of an island and there were several carp moving about. As you can see it it was raining!

I discovered by having a quick chat with one of the locals a couple of pegs along that the straight lead had been doing well on the lake using a 8mm dark high oil pellet as bait and feeding the same. I noted his advice but had my own ideas of what I was going to do.

I set up 2 waggler rods to fish shallow one set to a foot deep the other set at two foot. These both had one of my 4AAA home made wagglers attached to a 0.18 trace and a size 16 Fox hook with a hair rigged bait band attached. I also put up a lead rod to fish hair rigged pellet that had a 0.20 trace and a 14 Fox hook. I was fishing quite heavy compared to my local waters as the fish run big here apparently.

The start was signalled and I was going to kick off with the waggler, out went a pouch full of 6mm pellets followed by my float with a 6mm hook bait, the float settled and immediately went under!!! A quick strike resulted in hooking my first carp; I had been fishing for about 10 second! Another minute later a 5 pound carp was in my net. Unfortunately after this fish the swim seemed devoid of any life apart from small skimmers that were grabbing my pellet. Stepping up to 8mm pellets cured the skimmer problems but I had no carp for over an hour. I continued feeding pellets every 15-30 seconds in the hope of eventually drawing a few fish in, this sort of worked and I had another one. But that was it for another hour.

Over two and a half hours into the match with only a couple of fish a change was in order, so it was out with the lead rod, I stuck on a 8mm pellet then wrapped it in a big lump of paste, fired out about 20, 8mm pellets then cast on top. I went to put the rod on a rest and it was nearly torn out of my hands with a very savage bite, I got this fish under the rod end and the hook pulled out so I was not pleased. Doing the same thing again I immediately hooked another one, this time it made it into the net with another 4 of its mates in the next 20 minutes. Things were beginning to look up as even the rain had stopped and the sun was out.

4 hours into the 6 hour match and a good spell of catching for an hour I was on 15 carp. But the sky started to darken and it was raining again, or should I say monsoon! It was hammering down and it seemed to kill the fishing. I struggled for the last couple of hours and only managed another 5 carp. At the end I had the feeling I had not really fished the peg to its full potential and should have had a big weight, but on the other hand it may not have held the numbers of fish the locals seemed to think it did on the day I was there, who knows?

The scales eventually came round and my 20 fish went 79lb, so not a bad weight really for a first visit and an enjoyable days fishing, this put me third in the section on the day.

I was impressed by the lakes at the fishery as they all looked superb and will be back next time I am down that way hopefully with a better result.

Back to Wierton

2007-06-14T23:21:00.000+01:00

I had a couple of hours to spare so had another go for a carp, after trying to get a take for a couple of hours feeding mixers I eventualy hooked this nice fish.

Scaling down to 8lb line to get a take it took over half a hour to land!

A nice 24lb fish

A bit of carping

2007-06-07T18:32:00.000+01:00

I had a few hours spare today so decided to visit one of my local Maidstone Victory club waters, Wierton Reservoir is a excellent water full of carp to well over 30lb, plus stacks of bream, perch, roach and rudd.

I brought a new Drennan medium feeder rod last year and haven’t used it yet so thought this was the chance to give it a try! I mixed up a bit of BCUK groundbait and was going to have a go with a method feeder for the bream. I also brought my carp rod and was going to have a go at catching a carp off the surface.

I selected a swim with about a 40 yard chuck to the island and planned to feed mixers here while having a go with the feeder.

On the method feeder rod the bait was going to be double 6mm expander, I loaded it up with groundbait and lobbed it out about 30 yards and within 30 seconds the rod went round and a decent size skimmer was in the net, I stayed on this method for a hour or so and caught several bream.

By this time I had the carp taking mixers out by the island so gave up fishing the feeder. I had my old carp rod set up ready to go. This rod is a museums piece; it’s an old North Western 2lb TC rod dating back to the 1980. I like it for floater fishing cos it is quite soft in comparison to today’s modern rods and you very rarely lose a fish, I matched this with a 12lb mainline, a 5g Drennan controller, 10lb mono trace to a size 10 Drennan barbel hook.

Pinging out about 6 mixers at a time I recon I had about a dozen fish out by the island taking them. Ranging in size from 5lb to getting on for 30! I spent the next 2 hours trying to single out one of the bigger fish but could not get one take. I tried double and single hair rigged mixer, double and single soaked with the hook buried in them. Eventually I got round to trying a weighted fake mixer on the hook, these are slightly weighted so they sit with the hook on the top. I gave up trying to target the bigger fish and just lobbed this into the middle of the feeding fish. The mixer landed just at the edge of the island weed bed and I had a take imidiatly!

I want sure the size of the fish as it kept deep and the rod was bent double as I tried to hold it out of the far bank weed.

It felt like a good size fish but as it come towards me I realise it was one of the ghost carp that live in the lake and these seem to fight harder than most, so wasn’t as big as I first thought. After a few minutes I managed to get the fish in the net.

Here it is a nicely marked fish. I would think around the 15lb mark, I dont really bother weighing anything if it dosent look over 20lb and forgot to bring my scales anyway!

It started raining so I gave up fishing after catching the carp, but I did get a quick photo of the bream I caught in the first hours fishing. Would have had a big net of them if I didn't get distracted by the carp!

All photos taken by Deborah Gilbert

Battered!!!

2007-06-04T18:42:00.000+01:00

Today I was off to fish the Maver Pairs match at Monk lakes, after meeting Dave who I was fishing with today for a superb breakfast at the Stilebridge Inn we drove down to the lakes.

I wasn’t sure of the format and what lakes were in but when we arrived it was all marked up on a board near where the draw was going to be held. A section had all of lake one and the best bit of lake two, B section consisted of mostly poor pegs. We decided to flip a coin for the sections and I ended up with B. From that moment on I know it wasn’t going to be my lucky day!!

We joined the draw queue and I figured out in the B side of the draw I had a 3 to 1 chance of picking out a decent peg so needed to put the golden arm into action. Unfortunately it was not to be as the fishery owner had decided to draw the pegs out of the bucket himself and hand them to everybody. It was not looking good for me! He handed me both pegs and Dave ended up on 45, now this peg is the one I have dreams about drawing one day and putting 200lb of F1s in the net. Me, on the other hand had 81 on the wrong side of lake two, on the positive side I was fishing a 10 peg section against everybody on the same bank.

It was sunny with no wind as I walked to the peg and was thinking at least I would get a tan today. When I arrived I saw a lot of carp moving out in the middle of the lake so I thought the waggler would be a good tactic, the plus point was everybody bar one had only set up poles so I would have the line to myself. I set up two rods, one to fish the pellet waggler, the other with a bodied waggler to fish on the drop but set at full depth, I had convinced myself this would be the winning tactics in this section. I also set up the pole as backup with two shallow rigs and two on the deck rigs.

Bait for the day was my usual mix of 6mm hard pellets, 6 & 4mm expanders. Also the corn and maggots I always bring with me but never use! I mixed up some groundbait to feed the pole line at the start to hopefully draw in a few.

I sat on the box waiting for the start gazing up at a bloke in one of them microlite planes when I heard an almighty bang, I almost expected the bloke to come plunging out of the sky but it was just the signal to start the match. I fed the pole line at the start with groundbait and the two margins, then it was straight out with the pellet waggler, feeding 6-10 pellets and dropping the float on top was not working too well, half a hour in and I was fishless. A switch to the deeper on the drop rig still produced nothing. Meanwhile the guys fishing the pole either side of me were picking up a few fish.

Eventually I had a bite and hooked a carp; I played it carefully and managed to get the first fish of the day in the net, but by this point I was well behind. I could see a lot of fish still moving out on the waggler line so took the decision to carry on, thinking eventually they would turn on to the feed and I would put a decent weight together. Many times I have fished the waggler and had virtually nothing for the first half of the match then gone on to win so I wasn’t too worried.

Two hours in and I still had very little to show just picking up the odd fish, I was getting a bit worried now. I switched to the pole to rest the waggler line for a while and just feed it. I had been feeding the pole line for 2 hours now without fishing it so it could be solid? First 2 put in produced 2 small carp, third time out and I hooked something bigger, 20 seconds later a fish of about 7lb was in the net (who says you cant land bigger fish quick on a 10 elastic!!) probably doubling my weight for the day. This was the highlight on the pole as it was slow going just producing the odd fish for the next hour.

So it was back out with the waggler again for the remaining 2 hours of the match, and what a frustrating 2 hours it was, I had plenty of fish in front of me but I just could not put a run of them together, they came to the splash of the feed but didn’t seem to be really having it. I tried everything I could think of to entice bites but nothing worked well, the fish just wanted to cruise around in the sun! The best results came with my ultra short float set about 6in deep, feeding then immediately dropping the float on top. When the gun went off again to end the match I feared the worst and a last in section.

The scales came around and the peg to the right of me had over 60lb, I stuck 40lb odd on the scales, the guy to my right had 45lb, so I got a right battering from both sided, the first time in about 12 months!! I finished about 5th in the 10 peg section I think my problem is that I try to win the match from any peg I draw and attack it, where a steady more controlled approach on the pole would have got me the section win I needed and been more suitable today.

So I was nowhere but how did Dave do, I had a walk over to his peg and he had his best match weight ever with over 85lb of mostly barbel on pellet, so he had a good day, but didn’t win the section so we came nowhere in the overall standings.

Now I’m not one to complain but there was a bit of controversy over the allowed weight in each net, I hear from another angler at the weigh in that the allowance was 50lb with over 58lb resulting in disqualification. Now I was one of the first to draw and this was never mentioned at any time to anybody. Lots fishing the match didn’t know about this rule and some had over the allowed weight in the net!! I’m not sure if any disqualifications took place because I didn’t stay for the result, I hope not!!! I fish the lakes often and always believed the 50lb rule was a rough guide and as long as you split your weight over 3 nets it would be OK. Having these rules is a good thing but they need to be clearly displayed at the lakes.

Off to the river soon

On a different subject it is getting close to the start of the season, and I for one will be down my local river Medway at Barming bridge fishing a few evening matches, they are over 2.5 hours and you have to make your mind up what tactics you use and see it out for the match.

The tactics that have served me well over the past couple of years is fishing a top 6 to hand for roach, balling in at the start, then lose feeding tares and corn over the top. This has resulted in many wins and not once being out of the top 3 and hopefully it will be working again this year.

I’ve been toying with the idea of running a few afternoon knock ups on the Monkton Lane section of the river, its free fishing so no peg fees, it doesn’t get a lot of anglers on it nowadays, and the banks are relatively flat so comfy pegging. Added to this the fishing is better than ever, so who’s interested let me know?

Ton Up at Monks

2007-05-30T22:55:00.000+01:00

With the Maver Pairs match at Monks lake on Saturday I thought I would have the day off work and fish the Wednesday Open and get a bit of practice. Today it was going to be held on lake 1 which is the fairest lake on the complex so was confident of a decent weight wherever I drew. These mid week matches are never easy to win as it attracts some good anglers.

At the draw I pulled out peg 39 which is in the middle of the far side, I was quite pleased cos I had the wind blowing from behind making it more comfortable when the forecast rain starts!

Bait wise I had with me my usual Monks lake menu, lots of 6mm Skretting pellets, 2 pints of 6mm and 4mm expanders, and some paste made from ground pellets. I had some corn too but I probably won’t use it! I also knocked up a bit of fishmeal groundbait to feed at the start.

The rigs again were much the same that I always use at Monks, two shallow with Drennan carp 4 dibbers, with a size 14 Drennan carp hook attached to 0.14 hook length. One on the deck rig with a Carpa Chimp float set up hook in the loop style, also a BGT Short for fishing on a top 4 at about 3 meters out.

The intention today was to fish a main line out at 7-9 meters shallow, and a top 4 when I wanted to rest the this line, I had 7 balls of groundbait laced with 6mm pellet to feed at the start, 5 in front to draw in a good number of fish then lose feed over the top to bring the fish shallow, and a couple either side of me for fishing a top 4.

At the whistle the groundbait went in and I started off on the top 4 rig with 6mm pellet as bait, flicking a few pellets out over the float, I was soon catching a few small tench. While catching these I was feeding out at around 8 meters over the groundbait. After about half an hour into the match it was about time I went out on the shallow rig, about the same time it started raining.

I shipped out this rig and flicked in a few pellets and was straight into a small F1 carp! I caught a few in the next hour trying to suss out the best way to feed, today wrapping the pellet in soft paste got me a bite quicker, feeding about 10 pellets then dropping the paste on top, also throwing is a small ball of soft groundbait and dropping the rig down the “same hole” caught me a few. Every now and again having a look with the on the deck rig when it went quiet shallow also picked up a few fish. I recon by the end of the third hour I had about 50-60lb in the net, with two hours to go I needed to catch quicker to have a chance of framing.

I stepped up the feed to about a dozen pellets every 15 seconds to try to up the catch rate, this started to work well, shipping out then throwing out a dozen pellets followed by the rig started to produce one a bung. I also fed a small ball of soft groundbait every few minutes to keep a cloud hanging in the water. I had a good last 90 minutes catching well up to the whistle which strangely coincided with the rain stopping.

I guessed I had between 80-100lb in the net, and when the scales arrived 99 was winning so far. I had 112lb of mostly F1s and took the lead, following the scales round the rest of the lake one other ton catch was recorded, lucky for me it was 106lb, so that gave me yet another win at Monks, that is 3 so far out of 4 matches this year at the venue.

I will report back soon with how I do in the Maver pairs, hopefully avoid a draw on lake 3!

BCUK League Round 6, Monks Lake 2

2007-05-14T20:57:00.001+01:00

I was off back down Monks today, on Lake 2 this time. It was the last round today and even after missing a match and a potential 4 points I was 4th in the league.

To be sure of getting a cash payout I needed to finish in the top 8 of the League so another section win was needed, can I do it?

At the draw I pulled out peg 85 right over the back of the lake in a poor area, so that was it for a potential match win today the best I could do was win the section. Added to this the weather forecast for the day was looking grim with rain. Looks like I am stuck on a crap peg today and am going to get wet!

I unloaded my gear out of the car and the sky was getting darker all the time, just as I got to the peg the rain started. Anyway enough about complaining about the weather on to the subject of bait for the day, I had my usual shedload of 6mm pellet, a couple of pints of 6mm and 4mm expanders, a bit of corn, and because of the rough forecast a pint of mixed maggots. I mixed up a small amount of groundbait to feed at the start, this would either kick start the pole line or kill it, Shit or bust tactics!

I had been told this area of the lake is quite shallow, so I guessed the waggler would be a good tactic today with every peg in the fish may be pushed out of pole range. I set up 2 rods one to fish shallow on the pellet with my home made float, the other to fish a bait on the drop set at full depth which was around 4ft at 25 meters, this rig had a small dumpy bodied waggler, both had 018 main line and a 0.14 trace. I also set up a few pole rigs one deep, 2 shallow, and a margin.

At the start I fed the groundbait and then went out with the full depth waggler at about 20-25 meters, bait was a 6mm banded pellet, feeding 6mm pellet with a catty over the top, I did not have a touch for half a hour, a switch to corn still produced nothing, 45 minutes in and I was fishless! Out of desperation I stuck on a 12mm pellet, cast out and had a bite as the rig settled, 30 second later I had a 2lb mirror in the net.

The big pellet didn’t produce any more fish so after an hour I decided it was time to have a look on the pole line while continuing to feed out on the waggler where hopefully the carp would eventually turn up in numbers. First put in on the pole and I had an instant bite on a lump of paste, this was a F1 of about a pound, I went back out then had one about two pound, then nothing, two hours in and I had 3 fish, things were looking grim.

A change of tactics were in order so I took off the deep waggler rigs trace and switched it to a size 16 Kamasan 611 attached to a 0.12 trace. Maggot was going to be the bait, the only problem was I didn’t have enough to feed the swim for the rest of the match so decided to feed pellet with the odd pouch full of maggot to make them last the duration of the match. Not ideal as I like to feed what I have on the hook but I was getting desperate by now.

This at last started to produce a few fish a mixture of, small carp, chub, ide and the odd barbel. I desperately needed some carp as I was being battered in the section so as I got into the 4th hour of the match I fed just maggot and this done the trick and I had a run of carp and as I get to the last hour of the match I recon I had about 25lb, unfortunately I was running out of maggots so had to switch to feeding pellet, hook bait wise pellet or corn produced no bites, so I had to stick with maggot hook bait and feeding pellet, I still caught a few more carp adding the biggest fish of the day in the last hour, one about 4lb.

It rained for most of the match so I was glad it was all over, amazingly when it ended the rain stopped. So the question is how well had I done in the section?

The scales came round and the first guy in my section put 16 lb on the scales so he must have struggled. Next weight went 44lb not so good as I don’t recon I had that much, 30lb odd was next, and eventually I weighed in 37lb for 2nd in the section. 98lb won the match. A quick mental calculation was worked out and I reckoned I was going to just going to snatch 8th place the last money spot in the league.

The result had been worked out and a few had dropped some points and I ended up in 6th place and picking up a few quid.

I will say well done to Paul Kell who was the eventual winner and an excellent angler particularly when fishing the pole shallow for carp.

Individually in the matches I did quite well 2 ton up match wins at Monks, 72lb for second at Framfield and a lake win with 63lb at Hartleylands. Only fishing poorly in the last one, tactically and bait wise getting things wrong.

Realistically 6th was the best I could have done, the winner had 22 points made up from 4 section wins and 2 section seconds fished over 6 matches and I was on 19 from 4 section wins and 1 section second from 5 matches. I was a little disappointed as I feel I could have won it if I didn’t miss a match, but there is always next time and I can’t complain really picking up a average of £80 a match!

The full results of the BCUK League can be found here, the website should be updated in a day or two.

RESULTS

BCUK League Round 5, Monks Lake 1

2007-05-06T21:36:00.000+01:00

Today I was off too Monks the day after the fishery hosted the Fishomania qualifier, which I didn’t get a ticket for! I was worried how it was going to fish after 130 angler were at the lakes yesterday. 36 are fishing today so nearly every peg on the lake will be in.

I arrived at the draw and was chatting to the guys in the queue saying that all the times I have fished Monks I have never drawn one of the favoured end pegs, I stuck my hand in the bag and pulled out peg 24, with peg 23 not in today I had at last drawn an end peg! This is exactly where I wanted to be as I needed another section win to keep in contention; the down side is I will be fishing against peg 21 that was also on the end and a very good draw.

I got to the peg and there was a brisk crosswind blowing from right too left, anybody who fishes Monks will know that the wind always blows here as it is so exposed. Tactics today will be the pole as short as I can get away with because of the wind, I set up 2 shallow rigs, 0.3g & 0.4g Drennan carp 4 dibbers, a deep rig with a 4x14 Carpa Chimp to fish hook in the loop style, and a margin rig with a 0.3g BGT Short also hook in the loop style, all rigs had a 0.14 trace.

Bait for the day was simple I had with me 10 pints of 6mm Skrettings coarse pellets, 2.5 pints of 6mm expanders. I also had some 4mm expanders and corn with me but didn’t expect to use it. To kick start the swim I had 6 balls of BCUK groundbait, this was all going in at the start and I intended to lose feed over the top to bring the carp up shallow. This tactic has worked well here in the past.

The whistle went and in the groundbait was thrown in at about 7-8 meters, also a ball went in each margin, I dropped the margin rig in to start with, while the groundbait settled for a while, I fed 6-10, 6mm pellet over the top about every 15 seconds, after about 10 minutes and no bites in the margins it was out with the deep HITL rig where I was feeding. I had a bite after another10 minutes that resulted in a small carp. After a couple of missed bites I figured the fish were up shallow already so out with the shallow rig, I was picking up the odd fish on this rig and in the first hour I had 10 small carp in the net for about 10lb.

Steady feeding produced more carp shallow and by the second hour I had added another 20, some of these were a bit bigger and I guessed I was on about 40lb now, things were going well and I added another 10 in the next half an hour, then something strange happened. Bites virtually dried up catching just 1 carp in the next half an hour!

I was puzzled a bit as to why I was not catching, the only explanation is that I had over fed a little and the fish had gone deeper, this seemed to be the case and a switch to the deep rig produced a carp first put in, feeding 10, 6mm expanders then dropping the rig in over the top produced a run of carp and I was catching well again for about half a hour, again bites stopped and a switch to the shallow rig produced another few fish.

By changing between the deep and shallow rigs for the rest of the match I caught steady until the whistle at the end. Ending up with about 70 fish.

I was sure I has done quite well as I didn’t notice anybody really emptying it, and that seemed to be the case when the scales got round to my section, top weight was in the 60s and I was sure I had over 80lb? I was a bit worried when the 2nd guy to weigh in my section put 92lb on the scales and took the lead, it was my turn did I have enough? 3 weighs later and I had 101lb, getting the section win and taking first place in the match.

I was quite pleased today as I managed to get a good result on the pole which makes a change from having to fish the pellet waggler in the previous 3 matches.

Unbelievably I think I have moved up to 4th place in the league, which is some going as I missed one of the matches, with just one match to go I can’t win it but may jump up another place or two and get a decent payout at the end, on top of match payouts I have won already.

BCUK League Round 4. Hartleylands

2007-04-29T22:36:00.000+01:00

I was off today to my favourite Commercial fishery to fish the next round of the BCUK League, today the match was to be fished over 2 lakes, Nicks and Bramley.
I wasn’t too fussed what lake I drew on as the payout today was going to be for the top 4 on each lake. I thought this was a good idea as I expected Nicks lake to produce the top 3 weights.

At the draw I pulled out peg 13 on Bramley (good job I’m not superstitious). I wouldn’t have been disappointed with any draw on this lake as I believe it can be won from anywhere, it wasn’t the easiest peg on the lake to fish either as it was opposite the point of the island with gusting wind blowing right to left.

As I walked round to the peg a lot had discounted the waggler as the best method to use in the wind, and I notice a lot of feeder and poles being set up, this wasn’t going to be my tactics for the day, as far as I’m concerned pellet waggler is the way to go here, and my 3 previous visits to the lake last summer had produced two firsts and a second place using these tactics.

I set up 2 rods one being the 11ft Carbonactive float, being gusty I had to use a 3SSG float, normally you can get away with a 4AAA here, the business end had a 0.16 trace attached to a 14 Drennan carp hook. The other rod was a 12ft Maver Reactolite float, the only reason being that I brought it some time ago and wanted to just catch a few fish on it to try it out! I also had a power 2 and a no4 section of my pole set up just to drop in the margin if I wanted to rest the pole line for a while.

6mm pellets was going to be the feed and hook bait for the day, with a bit of paste to wrap round the pellet if needed, I also had some 8mm pellets in my bag just in case the wind made it difficult to feed the 6mm.

I was going to attack the swim from the off today as the pegging was a bit tight at the end of the island and I wanted to try to draw fish in quickly before the other realised what was happening! So at the off 3 large pouch fulls of pellet went in by the island, or they were supposed to go there, with the wind they were dropping slightly short. The float followed and I was straight into a small carp while others on the lake were still messing about feeding on the pole. This promptly came of at the net though so it was out with the feed and float again, third chuck I managed to hook another small carp and this time it ended up in my net, conditions were difficult in the wind but not impossible and the first hour produced about 10 small carp, as the match want on I was catching steady but not as I expected, but glancing around the lake I didn’t see anybody really doing too well. I couldn’t seem to get a run of fish together just getting 2-3 then nothing for a while, I was also experiencing a high number of missed bites I suspect where liners even though I was only fishing a foot deep.

A quick change of float was done to one of my short stumpy balsa inserts being only 3 inches long, then shortening the trace to 6 inches finished the new rig.

Although I didn’t empty it with this rig the catch rate improved a bit and the missed bites ended, after an hour bites seemed to tail off again and I was struggling, the fish became reluctant to go near my float, so lengthening the trace and casting more frequently got me picking up a few carp again, I had to chop and change to the end of the match to catch, it was one of them days when the fish just didn’t see to want to feed and you had to work for ever bite. A switch to 8mm pellets toward the end got me catching again and it was soon the all out netting my last fish just as the whistle blew.

When the scales arrived 40 lb odd was winning my section and the lake, I was sure I had more than that. I stuck 63 lb on the scales to take the lead, but I heard a shout some guy over the other side of the lake was catching well on the feeder and had about 90lb! As it turned out 90lb was really 50lb and I was the top weight on the lake.

One thing I noticed today is a lot of people set up waggler, pole with a multitude of top kits set deep and shallow, and feeder rods. On a venue like Hartleylands you are never going to do any good chopping and changing methods during the match, you need time to build and feed the swim, I find its best to pick one on the day that you are good at and commit to it fully.

Picking up maximum points again, and a few quid for wining the lake I was well pleased, I might even end up placed quite high in the overall standing at the end but need another 2 sections wins so quite a task.

As I predicted the top weight come off of Nicks lake and it was won by Mike Jamerson with just over a ton, off of peg 29 down the margin.

BCUK League Round 3. Monk Match Lake 2

2007-04-15T20:21:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately due to family illness I missed round 2 which effectively ruined my chances of winning the league, but I still had a chance of a placing in the top 6 and picking up a few quid at the end. But it would be a tall order as I would have to win my section on all of the remaining matches!

After a 2nd in the first round at Framfield I was looking to go one better this time, all I needed was a draw on the near side of the lake as I thought the far side would not produce a frame weight. I was first to draw and pulled out 53, this was 1 in from the end peg and not really a favoured draw but I fancied it for a few and was not to too disappointed.

The talk at the draw was about lots of ton up weight, but as nearly every peg was in I thought anybody would to well to put that sort of weigh together although it wouldn’t stop me trying!

When I arrived at my peg I noticed quite a few larger carp moving out in the middle of the lake, so immediately I thought it could be a day for the shallow waggler, but I didn’t want to go straight out at the start with the method and decided on a two pronged attack, I was going to start shallow on the pole and feed the waggler line for at least a hour or two before dropping in on it. Obviously if the pole produced well I would stick with it for the whole match.

I set up a couple of shallow pole rigs, a 4AAA home made pellet waggler rig to fish about 2 foot. I also set up a hook in the loop rig to fish on a top 4 as the lakes skimmers seem to patrol at this distance and it is a good way to keep catching a few fish if you want to rest the shallow lines.

Bait was my favourite Skretting 6mm pellets with a couple of pints of 6 and 4mm expanders; I also mixed up a bit of paste, and about half a kilo of fishmeal based groundbait to kick start the shallow swim.

At the off 4 balls of groundbait laced with pellet went in at 8 meters, and a couple of balls went in at the distance of the top 4 for the skimmers.

I started feeding 6mm pellet over the groundbait and kicked off with the shallow pole rig, it was a good 20 minutes before I picked up the first fish a small ide, some small f1 carp followed over the next hour but I wasn’t really catching too well, probably only putting about 10lb in the net, the second hour wasn't much better maybe putting another 15 lb if assorted fish in the net on the shallow rig, and also picking up a few decent skimmers on the top 4 rig . At this stage I was quite happy with what I had in the net as I hadn’t seen anybody really emptying it!

All the while I was on the pole I had been feeding 6mm pellet out on the waggler line around 25 meters out, after a couple more small f1s on the shallow pole and as it got into the third hour of the match I could wait no longer, I picked up the waggler rod, and a pouch full of pellets was followed by the float, it hit the water settled and went under, a carp was on first cast, then promptly came off. This happened on the 2nd cast too!!! Luckily the third drop in I managed to get a small f1 in the net this time, and that’s how it went for the next two hours, it was solid and I recon I put 40 odd f1s in the net and a few ide, strangely I had no proper carp. During this time I decide to not bother feeding the pole lines any more and fish the match out on the waggler.

As I got into the last hour the wind seemed to changed direction slightly, the expected last hour hauling just didn’t happen, only catching about another 10 fish, the good new was two of these were proper carp probably over the 6lb mark so made up for it, I had a lot of fish in front of me but just couldn’t put a run of them together and I tried all the tricks I know.

The whistle went to signal the end and I was sure I had enough to take the section but did I have enough for a frame place? I was one from last to weigh and 96lb was winning from the favoured corner flyer peg 46(or was it 45) and 80 odd second, after 3 weighs I put 103 lb on the scales to snatch first place, just breaking the ton and was well pleased.

In summary I think it paid off to not fish the waggler at the start and let the fish gain confidence. Roll on next round at Hartleylands in two weeks, I cant wait.

Two Quid For A Float, You're Having A Laugh!!

2007-04-04T21:17:00.000+01:00

I just can't see how the float company's have the nerve to charge £2 for a pellet waggler, all it consists of is a straight bit of balsa dowel.

This prompted me to make my own, I had some old plastic float eyes left from the days when I used to make all my own wagglers, a trip to the local model shop for some fluro paint, cellulose dope to seal the wood, some meter lengths of balsa, and I was ready.

Here are my mk1 NJG wagglers, cost was a few pence each.

This prompted a trip out to try them, as Vince from the Maggotdrowners Forum was off to Hartleylands today I was going to join him.

I decided to fish peg 23 on Nicks Lake, there was a stiff breeze blowing which would make things interesting. I had my usual Carbonactive 11ft float and TD-Sol reel. I used one of my pellet wagglers that took 4.5 AAA, this was a nice size to chuck to the island.

It was quite cold in the morning and it took a hour to get the carp feeding well, but a steady stream of 6mm pellets eventually got them going. I deepened up bit by bit until I started to get bites at around 2.5 feet. once a good number of fish had arrived in the swim I stepped up the feed rate and was soon catching plenty of small 1-2lb carp at around a foot deep.

I fancied a change after a while so stopped fishing the waggler and set up the pole, I plummed up at about 7 meters at the bottom of the shelf and used a Carpa Chimp float hook in the loop style, and also a smaller float for the margins.

Vince turned up as I was just about to start fishing the pole and had a go on my float rod, he was soon catching one a bung! After a while he handed me back the rod and I started on the pole, I was busy explaining to Vince why I use a number 10 elastic even for bigger sized carp and how you can land them no problem, I tried for quite a while to hook a carp to demonstrate but all I could catch was small skimmers!

Vince eventually left and just as he got into his car I hooked a big lump! I had the fish in the net after 30 seconds and here it is about 8lb ish.

I managed a few more carp and nice sized skimmers on the pole at 7 meters and down the margin over the neext few hours.

I had one more thing to try, it was a float I made for when the fish were feeding very shallow, it is just over 3 inches long but takes 4.5AAA so casts well, I caught well on it too, remeber you saw it here first!

BCUK League, Match 1 Framfield Brookhouse Lake

2007-03-18T19:10:00.000Z

I was looking forward to the first match of the year until I looked out the window at 6.30am, the weather had turned cold and it was raining. The forecast was saying that the rain would dry up but it was going to be windy so not too bad. Today I was fishing the first of a series of 6 matches on a few of my local commercials, there will be 36 anglers entered with sections of 4 to keep the points tight, you need to be 1st or 2nd in your section to stay in contention for the overall payout. There are some very good local guys (and a girl) fishing so it won't be easy to win.

My lift for the day was late so by the time I got to the draw there was only 2 pegs left. The venue is a 36 peg long lake with a central island running down the middle, this can be anything from 11-20 meters away, with every peg in I reckoned the wider sections would be the place to be, I ended up on peg 7 which I wasn't disappointed with as it is on one of the wide part of the lake.

I arrived at the peg and the wind was howling from left to right so the long pole was out. I set up 3 rigs for the pole to fish 9 and 7 metres, also a margin rig, they all had different sized Carpa Chimp float set up hook in the loop style. This wasn't going to be my main method of attack today, for that it will be the shallow pellet waggler! Yes that is right, I was convinced it would work on what was a pole dominated venue and very much doubted it has been tried here before.

The rod and reel was my favorite combination of the Daiwa TD-Sol and 11ft Carbonactive, the balsa pellet waggler float was not going to be any use in this weather, so I opted for a 3.5g+ Drennan Puddle Chucker as I find these will stay in position longer in a strong cross wind. Trace wise I had a 0.14 attached to a size 14 Drennan carp hook with a hair rigged bait band. I was going to start at full depth which was about 4ft by the island.

At the all in as usual there was the normal waving of pole pots along the bank as most fed the pole lines. I kicked off with hair rigged corn cast to the island margin and fed 8, 6mm pellets, 2nd cast this produced a small carp, at least I wasn't going to blank! I was obvious I wasn,t going anywhere fishing on the bottom and a few line bites told me the fish were already shallow, I wasn't going crazy with the feed just 6-8 pellets every 15-30 seconds, shallowing up to 18 inches, then eventually 12, with steady feeding I managed to put 12 carp in the net in the first 2 hours. Things were going slow for everybody so I was pleased with what I had so far, well apart from a low double figured carp slipping off the hook under the rod tip!

Things were difficult though because of the strong cross wind, I was only able to hold the float in position for about 10 seconds so lots of casting was required, and I could only catch close to the island the fish refused to come out into open water, but I plugged away feeding and casting stepping up the feed a bit to try and draw more fish in, this worked well and the catch rate uncreased and I caught steady for the rest of the match, every one around me still seemed to be catching the odd fish on the bomb and pole but nowhere near as many as me.

The whistle to mark the end came a bit to quickly as I got into a run of fish in the last 20 minutes as they really started to have it and the wind started dropping.

When the scales came round 88lb was winning and 44lb was top in my section, I put 72lb on the scales easily wining my section and putting me 2nd overall. I was well pleased with my result as the league is all about winning your section and getting maximum points, the 2nd overall payout was a real bonus on top.

So a good days fishing and a excelent start of my match fishing year. I didn't pick up the pole all day, not sure why I set it up!!!!

Real test for new reel.

2007-03-07T20:06:00.000Z

Yesterday two new reels arrived in the post from the States, they are Daiwa TD-Sol 2500, similar looking to the UK TD-R but better spec.

I decided to visit a local club lake that is full of carp and roach, There is a sunken island in the middle full of tree roots that holds a lot of carp and this would be perfect to give the reel a good workout.

I set up a very simple rig a small 2.5AAA stumpy bodied waggler, attached to this was a size 18 Kamasan Animal hook to 0.14 line, this was set to fish just touching the bottom, bait and feed was 6mm expanders, I also had some 6mm hard pellets and maggots. The rod was my favorite Carbonactive 11ft float.

I started by catapulting a few expanders out by the trees and the float was cast over the top, it was slow going at first but by feeding a few pellet little and often I could see a few carp fizzing arounds the float, I was soon into a fish this small common.

I was soon picking up a few small carp and the odd bigger sample of a couple of pounds with 6mm expander hookbait, after about a hour or so I notice I was getting lots of liners after feeding and the fish had come up in the water, shallowing up to 18 inches deep I was now picking up a bigger stamp of fish with some running to about 5lb, I changed the hooklength to a hair rigged bait band, attached to a small pellet waggler and stuck on a 6mm hard pellet, feeding 5-6 hard pellet at a time, I was able to cast and feed 2-3 times twitching the float causing the bait to rise and fall with the feed, now every cast was producing a fish! The swim was alive with fish now swirling at the feed and it was more like fishing on a hot summer days.
A little trick that works in the summer and sort out the bigger fish is to wrap the pellet with paste, so out when a pouchfull of pellets followed by the paste and it hit the water and the rod was almost draged out of my hands! The culprit was this nice looking common the biggest fish of the day. I will let you guess the weight as I dont carry scales.

Fishing for the rest of the afternoon was easy really just feed cast and hook a fish! they were in a real frenzy, who says you can't catch shallow in the cold? I didn't have a keepnet with me but I would guess I had well over 200lb of fish!! This was a massive weight as it is not a stocked commercial im fishing.

The few trips I have had out this winter the carp have always been willing to feed shallow on the waggler, even in the coldest of weather, you just have to be confident and give it a try.

The reel got a good test and was excelent, smoother and lighter than the Daiwa Capricorns I have been using, a perfect match with the 11ft rod.

Hook in loop thingy & the shallow wag.

2007-03-01T19:16:00.000Z

I decided to get out today and try a few new rigs I have knocked up. To try things out you need to pick a venue where you will get lots of bites and fish as there is no point trying things out on a hard venue. So I headed for Monk lakes peg 57, this is at the top end of match lake 2 and is always solid in the colder weather.

Ive been reading a lot about this hook in the loop recently on the forums and in the mags, I have been using a similar rig with a bulk close to the hook but without the loop for a while now but adding the loop is supposed to make it easier for fish like F1s & skimmers to suck in the bait and I can see the thinking behind it. The rig was tied up with a 4 x 18 Carpa Chimp float with a bulk set about 2ft from the hook and 2 number 8s just about the loop, trace line was 0.12 attached to a Drennan Carp hook like in the picture below.

I also had a selection of different sized Carpa Chimp float set up in a similar way for different depths.

You dont need to fish out to far here so I plumbed up at dead depth at about 7 meters on a top 6 with the 4 x 18 float and had about 9ft of water here, also I had a top 4 rig set up with a smaller 4 x 12 float into about 3.5ft of water, I had a few bait with me to try, corn, maggot, 4 & 6 mm expander pellets, I fed both swims little and often with a few pellets and caught one a bung for a couple of hours switching between the two swims, a selection of F1s, small carp, tench, barbel & skimmers were netted.

Also a huge bleak!

I found with the loop rig I was missing very few bites, each was either a slight lift, or the float vanished out if sight, a lift of the pole resulted in a hooked fish virtualy every time, in conclusion the loop rig would without doubt out fish the standard bulk and 2 droppers sort of presentation, it worked particularly well for the skimmers where some times bites can be hard to hit. I can draw this opinion from fishing the lake many times before with a more standard rig.

Now for a change of tactics and to try out my new rod a 3 piece 11ft carbonactive float, I liked to 2 piece rod so much I brought it slightly softer brother, this was set up with a 3g Drennan puddle chucker, set to fish 3ft deep in 12ft of water, 0.12 trace attached to a 18 hook, white maggot was the feed/hookbait and steady feeding at about 25 yards had the chub and ide biting well and I was soon catching a few to about a pound, after a while I started to pick up some of the bigger F1s. These seem to feed in the coldest of weather and are always willing to come up shallow, you pick up a bigger stamp of fish compared to fishing on the deck with the pole too.

So a good days fishing probably catching the best part of a ton or more (one of my highly acurate estimates!!), Im ready for the first match of the year now at Framfield.

Looking Back over the Summer

2006-10-17T20:42:00.000+01:00

I have hung up my match gear till next March as I have decided just to pleasure fish during the colder months.

I thought I would reflect on my results over the Summer.

Starting in June with the local clubs evening series of 6 matches.

Wierton 1st

River Beult 2nd

The next 4 were on the River Medway and all the matches were won of of the same peg with bream (I never drew it), but i did manage a 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, & 2nd. This ended my unbeaten run on the river that lasted 6 matches over 2 years!

This resulted in retaining the trophy for the year.

Moving into July I fished the Hartleylands festival winning it with 2 section wins and top weight, over the 2 day I was 2nd & 4th overall.

I fished another 2 in July at Hartleylands having a 1st and a 3rd.

Moving into August I concentrated on fishing Monks Lake, out of 3 matches fished I had some good results catching shallow, winning 2 of them with weights of 88lb 170lb! The 3rd match I fished I came nowhere with 50lb odd. I also fished on on the Medway and was out of the frame with a 8th place.

I started off September with a good result winning at Monks again with 170lb 1oz, then off to Moat Park Lake where I managed a 2nd with 30lb of roach. I fished the Surrrey Mirror match at Hartlelands it was pole only and I was 2nd. The last 2 weekends of the month were taken up with a 2 day match at Monks lake, winning my section on the first day with 113lb put me in contention, but a section 3rd on day 2 put me well out of it.

I also fished a Pellet Waggler vs Floating Feeder match that I managed to win with 135lb against 93lb. Watch out for the article in Southern Angler.

Pellet Waggler vs Floating Feeder

2006-10-15T16:20:00.000+01:00

People seem to think I am some sort of venue expert at Hartleylands and spend a lot of time at the venue but I am far from a regular, I have only fished 4 matches at the venue since May and rarely pleasure fish the lakes, though it dosent matter really as carp are carp wherever you fish and once you have a method sussed you can adapt it for any venue.

The first match I fished the pellet waggler was the two day festival getting 1 section win and a lake win to take the title, the 2nd a Bromley club match which I won with 88lb. Then a third place in an open weighing in 107lb from what I consider a poor area, on that day Mike Jamerson won the match with 127lb on the floating feeder, I felt that day if I had drawn in the middle of the lake with a bigger area to draw fish from a net of 150-200lb was on the cards with the pellet waggler. That is what prompted the challenge as I reckoned on any day and with a fairish draw the waggler can beat the floating feeder every time.

The plan was to fish Nicks lake pegs 23 and 25 but we decided to change lakes on the day as the wind was blowing awkwardly and there didnt seem any point in making thing difficult, so peg 17 & 20 on Bramley lake were picked, I won the toss and picked peg 17 to fish, the only reason is it was closer to the car! I expected the weights to be slightly less on this lake as the fish are a smaller stamp and you dont seem to get many lumps to boost your weight, but I was still expecting to get around 150lb

I had 2 rods with me one set up with a 4g puddle chucker to a 0.14 trace, attached was a size 14 hook with a hair rigged bait band set the fish 24-12in deep, the other had a 3.5aaa short pellet waggler for fishing less that 12in,, this had a 0.16 trace and a 12 hook, bait and feed was 6mm hard carp pellets as I always like to feed what I am using on the hook, I also had some 8 & 11mm pellets for hook bait although I didnt expect to use them. Initially I clip up at a distance to just drop short of the island margins but after about half an hour I will remove this after getting a feel for the distance cast then it allows me to give line if needed if I hook a bigger fish.

I kicked of with the 4g rig feeding about 10-12 pellets every 10-20 seconds, and after the about the 5th cast 2-3 minutes into the match I had the first small carp, I reckoned in the first hour I had around 30 fish, things were going quite well with around another 30 added in the second hour although most were on the small side, by casting around the feed area a bit in the next couple of hours I was picking up a few bigger fish but most remained on the small side, the last hour the fish come right up in the water and were boiling on the surface every time I fed, a switch to the shallow 3.5aaa rig and cutting the feed back a little had me catching one a bung in the last hour putting around 50 fish in the net.I wasnt sure how Mike was doing as I was busy fishing myself but I did notice he stopped fishing about 5 minutes from the all out so guessed it hadnt gone as well as expected, or maybe he had caught so many he didnt need to fish for the last 5 minutes!

As it turned out Mike put 93lb odd on the scales a very good weight that would win nearly every match that had been held on the lake, but I had 135lb a little less than expected as I failed to pick up many of the bigger fish but still over 30lb above the lakes match record which I think is 104lb.

In conclusion I dont think the match really proved what was the best method only what worked on the day, then again I still think the waggler will beat the floating feeder every time until Mike can convince me otherwise!!!!!

Monks Lake Festival

2006-10-15T13:22:00.000+01:00

Day 1

I heard about this match a few weeks back, the fishery owner Simon was putting up £500 prize money for the top 3 and charging no peg fee, so it was well worth entering as at worst you would get 2 days free fishing and catch a good net of fish.

I was surprised when arriving to find out only 24 fishing the event! I thought it would be a sell out!! It was to be fished on lake 1 & 2, whatever lake you drew on day 1 you would swap day 2, there was quite a few local top rods at the draw so it wasn’t going to be easy even to win the section, I pulled out peg 6 on lake 1, not a particularly noted draw as I expected the winner to come from the pegs near the aerator but it looked OK with the wind blowing towards me giving the water a nice ripple, I had Omega Mike in the same section as me on the opposite bank so at least I could keep a eye on him!

Bait for the day was 10 pints (yes 10 pints!!!) or 6mm carp pellets, about a third of a kilo of groundbait, and a bit of paste, the pellets are so cheap I always carry plenty cos I don’t want to run out do I? It was a bright sunny day so there was only one method to fish that is shallow on the pole, I set up 2 rigs one short line and another with a long line to the float in case they were shy of the pole tip which quite often happens at Monks.

At the whistle in went 2 big balls of groundbait laced with pellet! The idea of this is to initially draw a lot of fish into the swim then lose feed to bring the carp up shallow, it has worked for me big time here winning 3 out of the 4 matches I have fished at the venue this summer. I started down the edge to try to pick off a few early fish while I fed the shallow line for a while, after 10 minutes without a bite down the edge I gave up on that and went straight out over the shallow line at around 7 meters, almost straight away I was picking up the odd carp on the shallow rig catching steady for the first 2 hours probably around 30 fish, the next two hours things picked up a bit and I recon I had another 40 odd, keeping them coming by constantly changing depth & the way I fed, every time I changed things a little it resulted in a fish or two. The last hour turned out to be the best putting at least another 30 fish in the net. At the all out I guessed I had getting on for my target weight of 100lb.

I wasn’t that far out this time putting 113lb on the scales to win the section, pick up £75 and I think second or third overall, I was so pleased with the section win I forgot to check my finishing position overall! This put me in contention to do well in the festival as it is all about winning the section to score maximum points. Roll on the second match; I will be on lake 2 and all going well catching a big weight.

Day 2

Today I was fishing lake 2, I had been in two minds today if the fish will be “having it” shallow as the air pressure had dropped, my instinct was telling me they wouldn’t, but the weather was telling me they would! Its decisions like these that can make the difference between being a winner or pools fodder.

Looking at the lake there was only two pegs I didn’t want to draw they were in the corner with the wind coming from behind, number 64 and 65, I thought these two wouldn’t hold enough fish to win the section, I pulled out 64, just where all the other 3 section winners from day one wanted me to be!!

I though regardless of the draw I would go for it, and still wasn’t sure if shallow was the way to go, so set up a positive bottom rigs shotted double bulk style, a margin rig with a single bulk 6in from the hook, and two shallow rigs one light with a short line and a heavier 0.4g one for swinging out beyond the pole tip. Bait was the usual 6mm carp pellets, 6mm expanders, paste and some corn.

The tactics was the same as the week before, 3 balls of groundbait at the off then feeding the fish up shallow, things started off ok as while I fed the shallow line I picked up a few small tench down the edge on paste, after 20 minutes it was out with the shallow rig and straight away I was into a small carp, from there things were very slow during the next hour and I only picked up the odd fish although I wasn’t too worried as you can soon catch up as quite often the fish don’t really start to have a go till the you get into the third hour, but by the halfway point I was thinking I should have gone with my instinct and started off deep.

At the halfway point a change was in order and it was out with the deep rig and pellet, things picked up a bit and I was into fish straight away, one a bung in fact, unfortunately they were mainly small tench and certainly not big enough to do any damage, a hour of this and I had had enough of the small tench and with only 20-25lb in the net it was out shallow again as I had still been feeding half a dozen pellet about every 30 seconds, this time amazingly it was solid! I had to swing the rig out beyond the pole tip but was picking up fish virtually every cast, I must have put 40 fish in the net in the last hour or so but was thinking it was a bit too late to trouble the leaders, and that’s how it turned out, the 75lb I put on the scales was not enough to do any damage, 130lb winning the section and 89lb being second. I’m not sure of the overall winner as I had to shoot of to a wedding reception so missed the presentation.

Thinking about how I fished the second day I was possibly on to a hiding for nothing off of the peg I was on. But maybe I wasn’t and got the tactics wrong, because fishing shallow got me 3 wins in a row on the lake I didn’t go with my instinct to target the fish on the bottom. I will know better next time.

Here it is

2006-10-15T11:41:00.000+01:00

Hi all.

I thought I would write down an account of the matches I fish, with the hope it entertains a few of you.

First off all a quick account of how I ended up match fishing, apart from entering the odd match I had been mainly a pleasure angler since I was a kid (I am now 43!), I grew up fishing in and around London.

It wasn’t until I moved To Maidstone in Kent and joined the local Maidstone Victory club that I decided to have a go at some matches, First one I fished was on the River Beult, everybody was fishing the pole, I set up a light waggler and fished for roach and came 2nd to the amazement of the rest fishing. That was 3 seasons ago and I have been fishing them ever since, I ended the season just one point off the club champion that year which I didn’t think was bad for a first attempt. The next year I won it with an unbeaten run of 5 match wins in a row, also I had a good run in the evening series of matches the club wining 4 out of the 6.

More recently I have turned to fishing more open matches on commercial pools, and trying to get to grips with pole fishing for carp, after getting quite a few battering last year (and winning a few quid sometimes), I have adapted my style of fishing and to suite these venues.

It was fishing the well run Beastmaster league this spring where things started to come together, I didn’t win any matches in the series with my best result being a 2nd place on Monks lake, but I picked up lots of top info fishing against the very good opposition, and spent a lot of time watching those around me fish especially the ones doing the winning!

It was July and I had I decided to have a go at the Hartleylands Festival run over 2 days, it was the £80 entry fee that prompted me to take this match seriously and I have wrote a account of the match and how it went.

Day One

I drew peg 5 on Bramley, which put me on the end of the island so I was quite pleased
and fancied catching a few, the target is mainly carp from 8oz to 1.5lb with the odd bigger fish, being a big event I set up quite a lot of gear, 2 waggler rods (one deep and one shallow) this was the main plan of attack, and also the pole as plan B, I didn’t have a plan C!! I had plenty of 6mm had pellet with me as these were a perfect size to catapult to the island, and I had planned to fish 6mm pellet on the hook.

Looking at the peg I was going to kick off with the waggler feeding pellet and corn, on the hook hair rigged hard pellet and corn was the bait. Starting on the deep waggler rig and corn I didn’t get much action in the first 5 minutes while the guy next to me had already had 3 fish! They were attacking his feeder as it hit the water, in a big swirling mass. I decided a couple more chucks with the deep waggler and I was going shallow, the next cast with the rod would be the last as it broke in two while swinging it back behind me .So sooner than planned it was out with the shallow rig with a short 3g float, and hair rigged 6mm pellet as bait, feeding about 10 pellets every 15 second soon had the fish swirling in the peg, after about half a hour I had my first fish a small carp, and feeding and casting I had about another 12 in the next hour, but as the match continued I caught more fish and by the halfway point I guessed I had a good 30lb+ in the net, carrying on feeding about every 15-20 second and dropping the float on top was producing almost a fish a chuck as I got into the 4th hour, I didnt need to watch the float as it was better to just wait for the rod to go round as I was getting a lot of liner with a huge number of small carp in the swim, in the last hour of the match I must have had 25-30 fish.

I was the first to weigh and put 90lb 14oz on the scales, a new lake record, and a section win, next best was around 75 lb on the feeder, unfortunately I only held the lake record for about 15 minutes as a guy in the other section on the lake had 106lb, it didn’t matter as I had won the section I was in, was second on the day picking up £80 and getting my entry fee back, and had only 1 penalty point going into day 2.

Day 2

I was pretty relaxed about day 2 as I had already picked up £80 on day 1 so the worst I could do was break even!

I couldn’t believe my luck when I stuck my hand in and pulled out peg 7 on Bramley just 2 off of where I was yesterday although I was confident of dong well anywhere, Colin Wood had peg 7 on day 1 and commented to me after the match that he had a lot of fish in front of him but was having trouble catching them, I had my theory why he struggled and was sure I wouldn’t have the same problem. I was right in the middle of 5 anglers, pegged next to Derek Gladwin(also on 1 point) and Vince Webb 2 good anglers it was going to be a hard section to win.

I fished it exactly the same as day 1 but this time catching from the start, the fish were slightly smaller that the previous day but I still had plenty of the 1lb+ one that you need, I must have had 90 fish during the match and had an arm ache at the whistle!! I didn’t know what anybody else in the section had as I was to busy fishing to take notice but did fancy my chances for another section win, the scales turned up and peg 7 weight in 85lb, did I have enough I wasn’t sure, I couldn’t believe it when I put 96lb in the scales enough to win the section again and top weight on the lake.

I decided not to follow the scales around and see how the other section winners had done and had a cup of tea. Near the end of the weigh in I walked round and discovered that two of us were tied on 2 points but I had a 6lb weight advantage making me the festival champ.