Oast Farm Fishery, Buxted

Brrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I awoke this morning to a very heavy frost and wondered at my sanity as I packed the car for the drive to Buxted. The day didn't start well as I noticed a front wheel puncture which I duly sorted and after de-icing the car I was on my way.

Arriving at the fishery the usual suspects were there, Peter, Bill, Mick the Chippy, Ryan and Kevin to name a few and all were looking worried as the lake was half frozen and it looked like the fishing would be hard to say the least. The draw was made and Bill complained that he'd drawn the peg next to the flyer which was the worst place to be as there are never any fish in these pegs.

I'd drawn on the middle of dam wall with an outfall in front of me at about 4 metres which looked like it may hold a few fish. first job was to break the ice which proved harder than I first thought as it was quite thick Soon I'd got a good clear area in front of me and I set up 2 top kits for the pole, one to fish against the outfall and the other to fish in open water at 6 metres. Plumbing up I found the depth was pretty consistent with about 4 foot in front of me. bait today was to be maggots, worms and corn although I had a few soft hooker pellets if the carp showed.

I started at 6 metres an cupped in asome 4mm pellet and fished with double red maggot over top. After that I was pestered with tiny plucks which came to nothing. Straight away the float buried and a small roach came to hand. I decided to change to corn to see if things would improve as Bill hhad already landed a Carp on it. the outfall line had also failed to produce. peter over on the sunny bank was also struggling depsite sitting in what looked to be a cracking peg with a large reed bed to fish to. After an hour I was still waiting for action and popped round to Bill to have a chat. He'd had a couple of more carp by now and it transpired he was feeding micro pellets and kindly gave me a good couple of handfuls to use.

Back at my peg I fed a pinch of micro pellet and dropped thea corn baited rig back in. Unfortuantely nothing happened and I sat bitelees for another couple of hours. It was proving hard for most, Ryan to my left had snared a carp early on but was now targetting roach, Peter too was struggling although Mick seemed to be doing Ok catching plenty of raoch.

Despite changing to maggot hookbiat things didn't get much better although at least I was catching a few fish now even if they were tiny roach. By the time the all out was called I knew I hadn't got much and so it rpoved with just 1lb 10zs to show for my efforts. I'd hoped that maybe I'd finish 2008 taking a £1 off Peter but it didn't happen as he'd decided with 2 hours to go to target roach and had caught well putting 4lbs odd on the scales. Bill slaughtered us all taking 37lbs 8ozs of Carp from that unfacied peg, the rest of us (7 anglers) managed 38lb 4ozs between us !!

All in all it wasn't a bad day and I'll definately go back when the weather improves as Bill told me it fishes really well with loads of carp to go at and bags to 100lbs regularly taken.

So thats it 2008 has been an enjoyable year even though at times I didn't do too well. 2009 will hopefully be better and I've set myself 2 targets,

No. 1) Win a few £1 coins back from Peter and

No. 2) Catch 100lbs of fish from Rolfs Lake in a match.

Both are realistic targets so with any luck by mid year I'll be setting myself some new ones.