For the 2nd year running I had volunteered to captain the Maggotdrowning.com team for the Southern Intersite match at Willow Park. We had assembled a motley crew of anglers all keen to do well, although the usual way to do things with the Maggotdrowners is to come last in section and finish last overall.
The match was held over Small, Middle and Big lakes meaning there were a number of options to tackling the fish. I had opted for Big lake as this involved a lot of feeder flinging which suited me. Drawing peg 59 I was quite pleased as the area had been throwing up some decent catches of bream in the weeks previous. For company on peg 57 I had something of a venue expert, Perry Stone, although he wasn't admitting to being very happy about his peg as he said it was just out the the area he wanted to be.
There was a light breeze blowing across the lake so feeder rods were set up for a thirty yard chuck to a gravel bar and a margin pole for any lumps that may be hiding under the bush to my right later in the match.
The all in sounded and everything went well with a bream of around 2lbs coming to the net first cast. 2nd cast and another fish was on it's way in , a little smaller this around 1lb. Then it went dead, no bites, no liners nothing. I fired out a a few balls of groundbait and fished under the bush with the margin pole for 3o minutes to let the feeder line settle. A few 4 oz perch took my maggot hookbait before I went back on the feeder. Unfortuantely it still seemed dead on this line but I decided to stick at it. After about an hour I had managed another couple of reasonable bream but not much else. Things continued like this till the end apart from the huge carp I hooked and lost under the bush with 10 minutes to go. It just didn't want to stop. At the weigh in I put 6lbs on the scales only just beaten by Perry on peg 57 with 87lbs !!!!!! No wonder I coudn't catch anything he'd got them all in front of him. (so much for a peg he didn't fancy)
Back at the clubhouse things were looking like they normally do with most team members finishing low down in their sections, a couple managing less than a pound. The results were announced and at least we'd kept up the tradition of coming last in these events.
Thanks to Dave Pearson for organising the day, can we go somewhere else next year ?
Saturday, 11 August 2007
Friday, 10 August 2007
MD Pairs Weekend - Rolfs Lake 28th/29th July 2007
This was a fishing outing I'd been looking forward since last year and it proved to be another fabulous weekend in wonderful company. The fishing Saturday was a little difficult to say the least but if it was always easy we wouldn't enjoy it would we. 6 bites and 5 fish from peg 28 was not much of a return for 5 hours fishing but I still enjoyed the day. The evening proved to be even better with a superb BBQ and copius amounts of alcohol consumed by some, well mainly by Simon (me) who kept us all amused by falling over his chair, staggering around and generally making a complete arse of himself. It was good to see Rolf turn up to watch the proceedings and also great that he felt up to staying around into the evening. I finally clambered into the car to sleep around 1am, tired but reasonably sober.
Sunday morning came and I drew peg 25, just along from where I was the day before. this time I was deternmined to do better so set up 3 rigs, 1 margin rig, 1 for 7 metres and a shallow rig for fishing long. I also decided to put a feeder rod together for the first hour. As with Saturday things started slowly although I did manage 1 carp of around 3lbs from the 7 metre line. Next peg along was Gemma who was clearly not happy and just couldn't seem to get in the mood for fishing. (too tired from the day before catching all those fish I guess ) Bites were slow to come by but I did catch a few more small carp on the feeder before even that line dried up. Desperate times called for desperate measures and with an hout to go I threw the pole up the bank and set up a pellet waggler. With 11 mm banded hard pellet on the hook out went the float and almost immediately I was into something substantially bigger. At the scales it went 15lbs 8ozs, a lovely common in fabulous condition. Back to my peg and out went the waggler again, 10 seconds later and I was in again. This was another common which took the scales around to 10lbs. Third cast and another carp was on, this time 12lbs 8ozs. I started to wonder what was going on. Then everyting went quiet. The fish had disappeared. 30 minutes later and carp no.s 5 and 6 finally arived which took my total on the board to 50lb+. Soon the all out sounded and I was left wondering what might I have caught if I'd fished the pellet wag all day.The weigh in went with it's usual precision and Dave finally announced that Peter and Tony had won the pairs trophy. Well done guys. A bigger shock was to come though when he said Chin and I were runners up !!!!!!!!!! I really thought my day 1 performance had confined us to mid table mediocrity.
A few final thank you's, Dave for all his hard work organising the whole thing, John and John at the fishery for looking after us so well,Gemma for letting me win my pound back on day two, Simon (Me) for making me laugh so much Saturday evening, and finally to everyone who came along and made the weekend what it was, thanks guys, it would be difficult to find a nicer bunch of people to spend time with.
Sunday morning came and I drew peg 25, just along from where I was the day before. this time I was deternmined to do better so set up 3 rigs, 1 margin rig, 1 for 7 metres and a shallow rig for fishing long. I also decided to put a feeder rod together for the first hour. As with Saturday things started slowly although I did manage 1 carp of around 3lbs from the 7 metre line. Next peg along was Gemma who was clearly not happy and just couldn't seem to get in the mood for fishing. (too tired from the day before catching all those fish I guess ) Bites were slow to come by but I did catch a few more small carp on the feeder before even that line dried up. Desperate times called for desperate measures and with an hout to go I threw the pole up the bank and set up a pellet waggler. With 11 mm banded hard pellet on the hook out went the float and almost immediately I was into something substantially bigger. At the scales it went 15lbs 8ozs, a lovely common in fabulous condition. Back to my peg and out went the waggler again, 10 seconds later and I was in again. This was another common which took the scales around to 10lbs. Third cast and another carp was on, this time 12lbs 8ozs. I started to wonder what was going on. Then everyting went quiet. The fish had disappeared. 30 minutes later and carp no.s 5 and 6 finally arived which took my total on the board to 50lb+. Soon the all out sounded and I was left wondering what might I have caught if I'd fished the pellet wag all day.The weigh in went with it's usual precision and Dave finally announced that Peter and Tony had won the pairs trophy. Well done guys. A bigger shock was to come though when he said Chin and I were runners up !!!!!!!!!! I really thought my day 1 performance had confined us to mid table mediocrity.
A few final thank you's, Dave for all his hard work organising the whole thing, John and John at the fishery for looking after us so well,Gemma for letting me win my pound back on day two, Simon (Me) for making me laugh so much Saturday evening, and finally to everyone who came along and made the weekend what it was, thanks guys, it would be difficult to find a nicer bunch of people to spend time with.
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