Today was the day a few hardy souls ventured out to Mote Park, a 30 acre park lake in the centre of Maidstone, for a friendly match hopefully sacking up on the resident roach stocks.Arriving in the car park numbers were somewhat low with only Trevor and Hemphead (Andy) in attendance. Shortly after Mick the chippy arrived so that made just 4 of us which was shame when we were hoping for 10-12. After paying the bailiff he opened the gate to let us drive along to our chosen pegs on the jetty. Unfortunately there were already a few anglers there so we squeezed in between them. Trevor sat to the right with Mick next to him then Andy and finally me 3 pegs to the left under a low willow tree.(yet another end peg)
I called the all in at 9.30 and all apart from Andy started on the waggler. After balling in 3 babies heads of original Swimstim, first put in and Roach no.1, about 6ozs was safely in the net. A minute later and Roach no.2 followed this time slightly bigger around 10ozs.The others were all catching too so things looked good for a decent days fishing. The bright sun wasn't helping things though as for a while the fish seemed a little finicky not wanting to take the bait properly but after a change of hook size to an 18 things improved. After about an hour I hooked something somewhat larger but unfortunately didn't get chance to see it as it charged off to my left under the jetty and just continued on it's way to the other side of the lake. It was probably one of the lakes Carp that had taken a liking to my maggot hookbait, however I shall never know. Not long after Andy suffered a similar fate. Trevor seemed to be catching a few and had his own fan club watching him, probably the only bird he's likely to pull.
Andy hooked into what he thought was another Carp so I quickly grabbed the camera for some action shots. However it seems he was just playing to the crowds as it turned out to a roach hooked squarely in the dorsal fin.
Mick in the meantime had been catching a few but for now seemed more interested in his sandwiches.
Try as I might I couldn't seem to get in a rhythm, I don't think fishing under the willow helped as it was difficult to cast any distance, the Roach just didn't want to feed close in.A few casts on the feeder produced nothing.Nick turned up around 2pm and proceeded to bag up, catching Roach every put in. It was interesting watching him, one thing I noticed was just how inaccurate his casting was, one left, one right one straight. I'm sure Matt's mentioned this before. Perhaps it's a ploy to lead everyone in to a false sense of security.
The all out was called at 3pm and Mick was first to weigh. His net went, 9lbs 7ozs, Andy followed and it was clear he'd got more than Mick and this showed when the scales settled on 17lbs 8ozs.
My net was next. I lifted out and couldn't help but think I caught a lot more than was in the net, maybe I'd over estimated but I didn't think so as I reckoned I'd had at least 12 to 13lbs. Putting the fish on the scales it was clear I hadn't got that and a measly 6lbs was recorded.
Finally it was Trevors turn. Another decent bag of fish came to the scales and after some light hearted banter the weight was agreed at 17lbs 8ozs, the same as Andy.All in all it was an enjoyable day out but I went home puzzled about how I could have got my weight so wrong. The answer however came when I hung my net up to dry in the garden when I got home, there next to the ring just up from the bottom was a split about 4 inches long. I don't feel quite so bad now apart from the fact I'll probably have to buy a new net as I'm not sure this one can be repaired.
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