Oast Farm, Buxted - 28/02/2009

After last weeks struggle at Shannons I was hoping for a better day today as I drove to Oast Farm fishery at Buxted. The weather was fairly good, mild and dry with little wind and it was forecast to warm up as the day went on. Arriving at the lake the usual suspects were there apart from Al who failed to turn up, I'm guessing he had been offered a days work.

There are a few decent pegs on the lake and I fancied either 8 in the corner of the dam or 9, 10 or 11 on the right hand bank, In to the draw bag and peg 9 is nestling in my palm, Spot on. For company on Peg 8, the flyer peg, was Colin.

On my left was Ryan on peg 10.

The peg has a good depth in the margins and doesn't vary too much out to 9 metres so I set up 3 top kits, 1 for the margins, 1 set at dead depth at 8metres for soft hooker or corn and the 3rd for banded pellet on the same 8 metre line. Cupping in half a pot of 4mm skrettings pellet on both the margin and 8m lines I baited with corn and tried down the inside. Things started slowly with just the odd knock coming to nothing so after 1/2 hour I switched to the 8m rig baited with a GOTBaits Catmeat hooker pellet. First put in and I missed the bite as the float buried. Encouraged I shipped out again however this time the float remained stationary. 5 minutes later it still hadn't moved so I shipped back, baited with corn and tried again. Again the float didn'tmove so after about an hour I decided to try the margin line which I'd been feeding since the 'All in'. Bill had told me to fish tight to the bank but the depth was only about a foot so I dropped in about a metre off the bank where there was almost 2 1/2 feet. After not very long the float disappeared and Carp no.1 was soon in the net, only about 1lb but welcome. Next put in and the same happened, Carp no.2 and words of encouragement echoed across the lake from Peter Mortons direction. A few minutes later and Carp no.3 was on and this time Peter was at hand to take some photo's.

He was clearly worried about losing a £1 to me as the catch shot is a bit blurred.

I was beginning to think this might be my day, how wrong could I be, for the remainder of the match all I managed to catch was two small roach.

The top 3 weights were ;

1. Dave 'le frog' Collier 52lb 4oz

2. Bill Gibbins 27lb 0oz

3. Peter Morton 25lb 6oz

Never mind, I'd still enjoyed my day, Dave had a great day with 27 Carp mainly caught shallow whille Bill having struggled for most of the match snared 7 Carp in the last hour agin fishing shallow.

Next up is a 'Silver Fish' only match with the Maggotdrowners at Wylands Farm Fishery on House Lake which I'm really looking forward to.

Thanks to the guys for sorting out the day, oh and I nearly forgot I lost yet another £1 to Peter the first and hopefully the last in 2009.

Shannons, Eridge 22nd February 2009

I had originally planned to fish Hartleylands Farm today to try out my new pole, a Maver 101 Competition and a new feeder rod, a 12ft Shakespeare Mach 3 but at the last minute received an invite from Bill Gibbins to join him and a few others at Shannons at Eridge nr Tunbridge Wells. The day was to be a friendly one with no keepnets allowed, just a good day out with some mates.

Arriving at 8.15am I found the gate locked so went to sit back in the car as Peter and Bill arrived. The gate was unlocked and we made our way to the car park. After a walk round the lake I decided to fish the far bank which would give me a nice easy chuck with the feeder to the island and a nice comfortable 8m line for my new pole.

Peter sat just to my left in a swim that had a comfortable 11m to an island so I expected a bit of banter during the day.

I set the feeder up first baited with corn and sent it flying to the island, with more luck than judgement dropping it tight to the far bank grass.

A few smalls plucks of the tip amounted to nothing so I put the feeder rod away for a while and concentrated on the pole. This too only brought me a small perch with a liking for corn so I went back on the feeder. Again I managed to drop the feeder tight to the island and after a couple of minutes the tip twitched a few times before pulling right round and Carp no.1 was on. After a fairly short fight and a little encouragement/mickey taking from Bill and Peter the Carp was soon netted, a nice looking Common around 6lbs.

Peter even took a picture of me playing the fish as he said he'd never managed to get one before, cheeky sod !!

After this excitement both the pole line and the feeder line failed to produce for an hour or so, so I popped over the fence behind me to see if I could catch any of the Chub or Barbel that live in the river that runs alongside the fishery. I'd already chucked a couple of handfuls of 3mm pellets into the swim an hour before so hopefully there would be something there. Dropping a feeder full of maggots in to the deep hole no sooner had I put the rod on the rest when the tip slammed over and it was fish on. After a short fight a Chub of around 2lbs was safely netted. On closer inspection I noticed it throat was full of the pellets I'd fed earlier so It was obviously a good move. A few minutes later and Chub no.2 was in the net, slightly bigger this time around 2lbs 8ozs. After about 20 minutes with no further cation I went back to the lake. Before doing so I got my camera out and took a couple of action shots of Peter playing one of his few Carp.

Before I'd left for the river I'd fed the pole line with 3 large cups of 3mm pellet so I hoped the fish had turned up. Dropping the rig in at 8metres I sat back and waited. It didn't take too long before the float twitched a bit before sliding away and to be honest I expected it to be a roach so I was quite surprised when a good length of black hydro stretched from the pole. After a short spirited fight the carp was netted a nice looking mirror of around 5lbs. Not too long after it's brother took a fancy to my corn hookbait and that was safely netted too.

Too soon it was time to start packing away as I had to leave early so I left the feeder in while I packed away my pole. Just as I was about to put the feeder rod away the tip flew round and an angry Carp tried to make it's way round the back of the island. It took a little while to get it under control, which proved a good workout for the new rod, and it wasn't long before it was netted. I was surprised to see that it was probably only about 2-3lbs but it fought like a 10 pounder.

I said my goodbyes and left having had a good time at Shannons yet again and made a promise to myself to make sure I visit again soon when weather turns a little warmer and the water level has dropped a bit after it was flooded recently.

My thanks to Bill for the invite and Peter, Dave, Colin and Al for a enjoyable day in good company, I may be out again with these guys at Oast farm next weekend, if so I'll post another blog afterwards.

I'll do a report on the new pole and rod soon once I've had a few more fish on each so I can give a more detailed review.