Saturday 28 April 2018

Marsh AC Arrans Lake 28.04.2018

Certain waters respond better when the water warms up a little, Arran's Lake is certainly one of those. It is a prolific water capable of throwing up huge summer weights. As a club, we have decided amongst us that this is not what we want, however, during the early or late parts of our season, April and October the fishing can still be good and you need to work at what you are doing.
Mick was driving this week so it was my turn to fork out for breakfasts at Rosie's Cafe just outside Chelmsford . Already enjoying the food were Gino, Simon, Tom and guests Kyle and Bernie.It is ideally suited for Arran's as it is only 10 minutes away.
We had 17 fishing today including a few guests. With both Dave and Tony missing from the assembled group of anglers, Simon stepped in and covered proceedings amicably. Quickly running through the rules, taking the money and getting the draw underway. As has been the norm of late, Mick drew before me and peg 14 was to be his home, My hand was drawn towards peg 4 on the opposite bank. I had never fished this bank before so was going into it blind. Mick was telling me for the last fortnight that he was going to fish a rod and line as an experiment in the cooler, wet weather. I did tell him not to but well Mick is Mick.
My plan was to fish pellet wherever I was pegged so peg 4 was as good as any peg. My aim was to fish up in the water feeding 6mm Alders Farm pellets with either a 6mm or 8mm on the hook banded.
In total I set up 6 top kits for this( mad) I had two rigs with different hooklengths, one I would place a banded pellet on the hook, the other was hairrigged band. The other difference was elastic, either red or black hydro.Beauty was that if one got trashed I could be back out fishing quicker.I also set up two deep rigs around 2 1/2ft, again with the different hooklengths.
At the all in I started off feeding a line on a top three and fishing a 6mm hard pellet, after five minutes I had snared a couple of rudd, so started upping the feed to around a dozen pellets every twenty seconds, this had the desired effect and I was now starting to connect to carp. After an hour I  estimated I had around 10 fish for about 25lb. I looked around me and apart from Simon on peg 5 no one else seemed to be catching on our bank. Troy was doing alright on the opposite bank as was Gino and Kris. Malc had arrived and dropped into peg 10, the flyer next to the bridge, it would suit his style of fishing. Fill it in and sit over it.
I soon realised that I was getting four or five fish in a run and then they would back off a little, so to keep in touch I would add a section and then push it out to fish between 3 or 4 sections. This got me a couple more fish each time. Eventually the fish would come back and by varying the feed and shotting the fish would respond. I was catching well again, although the fish were on the small side. Simon was matching my catch rate now and had a few fish pushing 10lb.
Hours three and four saw me pull away though, adding probably 80lb in those two hours. I could see Mick across the pond and he did not seem to be doing well but looks could be deceiving. He was setting up the pole to fish in the margins and if it kicked in could do well in the last few hours.
My last couple of hours were a replica of the first couple, a few fish before having to swap things around and change something, I tried shallow a couple of times throughout the match and apart from a couple of fish, it was really a non starter. Just goes to show that plans can change and you need to adapt.
At the all out I felt I had done enough for the MK Nugget, but did not know about the match as I could not see all the anglers by the bottom car park. I estimated I had around 150lb and with Simon admitting to 120lb I thought I may have got it all wrong. However,
Overall
1st Keith Ashby 185-12
2nd John Holdsworth 183-12 ( 2lb deducted for breaking net limit)
3rd Malc Doyle 137-08 Guest
4th Simon Watkins 135-0
5th Terry Goff 96-04
6th Troy Hillyer 91-06
All in all another great day for the Marsh AC. Special mention should go to John, he had a lot less fish than me but put 33 fish on the scales for 179lb. An average of nearly 6lb per fish. A lot of close weights followed the above to show that even in the cooler months Arran's can still produce good, fair matches.
Next week see's a few of us travel to Weston Pools for a week's fishing. Something we have been looking forward to for nearly a year. As usual I will let you know how we get on, warts and all.

Keith 2
Mick 2

Monday 23 April 2018

Pleasure Day Tunnel Barn Farm 23.04.2018

With nothing booked or planned for my shift off days, I accepted an invitation from Vic for a pleasure day at Tunnel Barn Farm. I have not been here for what seems like 10 years, back in the days of the Jinx series. He even offered to pick me up.
Leaving just after 6am and going across country, the journey did not take long and I managed my first ever look at Warwick Castle, what an impressive building that is.
We were soon pulling into the fishery and looking slightly puzzled as to where we needed to go to get tickets etc. Still a rather nice gentleman( later found out he was the owner) on a quad sorted us out and pointed us in the right direction. We purchased our day tickets and fishery pellets and were shown the lakes on a map. We decided to fish the High Pool pegs 2 and 3 due to the wind. Vic was on 2 myself 3. I must say at this point that the whole complex looked brilliant, well laid out, plenty of pegs with room, cut grass all round, no pot holes on the drives and most of the pegs you could park behind.
With no prior knowledge of High Pool I decided to fish at 2+1 working my way outwards as the fish backed off. I opted to fish shallow as all the videos I had seen dictated this, I set up three rigs covering anything from 2ft to 6inches. All were .2g Gandhi's tied to .15 NGuage to .13 off the same material. Hooks were size 18 B911 F1's . I also set up a deep rig for 2+1 line just in case the colder weather had put them down. Bait wise I had 2 bags of fishery 4mms for feeding, a selection of different 6mm Hookers and a pint of dead red maggots in case I really struggle.
Peg 3 High Pool
I started off by fishing 2+1 feeding 4 or 5 pellets every 20 seconds or so, I was fishing the deeper 2ft rig and after 5 minutes I started missing bites, so switched to the 1ft rig, slightly shorter in length and still keeping a short line between float and elastic.That seemed to work better and I started connecting with a few F1's, this went well for around an hour, feeding four or five pellets regularly and fishing the tight line, the elastic was coming out on its own as the fish hooked themselves. Vic had started at 11m and had a couple of roach before coming in a lot closer and fishing shallow saw him amongst the fish as well. The other two anglers on the lake were not catching.
After 90 minutes I reckoned started getting liners on the 1ft rig and switched again to a rig set at 8 inches. It was dotted right down to a dimple and every movement of the float was struck at. Still fish were coming, but I think this is where I started going wrong, I was now feeding 10 to 12 pellets every put in and I think the fish went back down again. I had to keep swapping rigs around to keep the fish coming.
At around the 3 hour mark we both stopped fishing and looked at the results of our labour. Both Vic and I had over 100lb in our nets. No wonder TBF has got such a good reputation.
Over 100lb of F1's for Me
A Happy Vic, Bagging over a ton

We decided to fish on longer, Vic deciding on either 50 fish or 1400hrs, whichever came sooner. It was strange for me, as I could not get the fish lined up. We had only stopped fishing for around 15 minutes and I needed to start again from scratch, whereas Vic was back in straight away. He was soon powering away from me and although I was nicking odd fish of a decent stamp, I could not keep up with his catch rate.
Another 90 minutes passed and Vic had had enough. The 50 mark had been reached. I had another 24 to add to my total.
We have averaged the fish at 1 1/2lb and know that the majority of fish were 2lb plus so were extremely happy with the way the day went, good company, good fishing,what more could anyone ask for?.

Saturday 14 April 2018

Marsh AC Monk Lakes 1 14.04.2018

One of the main reasons and pleasures with the Marsh Angling Club is that they enjoy fishing new lakes (to us). Although we have been to Monks Lakes many times we have never fished Lake 1. We have been on Lake 4 and 2 many times.
It was my time to drive the 220 mile round trip to the other side of Maidstone, so an early pick up was required for Mick. We also had my new barrow in attendance so packing the car with two lots of kit would require a change to the norm. Still it all went in and we made good time to Monks lakes arriving nice and early for breakfasts and teas.
We really did not have a clue on lake and how to approach it. I had a message from Mike M who pointed out that 6mm feeding 6mm would get a few fish. I also took some 4mm for feeding on a different line and some 8mms that have worked well on the complex in the past. I also had some expanders and cubed a couple of tins of meat. The dead reds were forgotten and were still sat in the freezer.
We had 3 banks on the lake, both sides of the spit that runs through the lake and pegs 1 -10 on the near bank. At the draw I checked to make sure Mick had drawn and in goes my hand, peg 12. OK so where is the map. It seems I was bottom peg on the spit, the wrong end looking where the wind was blowing. Still it was an end peg and had features down both edges. Mick had drawn peg 14 and with no one on 13 I would be able to see his every move. The barrow was loaded up and made light work of the relatively short trip to the far corner of the lake.

I had been told the lake was around 4ft deep so decided on fishing 5 lines and a shallow rig. I pulled out a 4ft rig and promptly chopped 2ft from it. Oh dear. Changing my plans I settled on a rig to my right at top 6 in the deepest part of the peg. Two rigs for fishing the left hand edge at 9m and 12m. A shallow rig set at a foot and a deep 2ft rig for 14m straight out in front of me. Mick had another foot on all of his deeper rigs.
I started the match fishing and feeding 6mm hard pellet via a toss-pot at 14m, nothing. A look down the edge with a piece of meat hoping to mug a fish before I started feeding produced nothing. Mick had secured a carp on the tip and also saw mud churning up on his inside line and had 2 fish in the first half hour. Clive was setting the pace though on peg 31 fishing down to the platform.It took nearly 2 hours for my first bite from the 9m right hand line on 6mm pellet. A good fish though at around 10lb. Nothing else followed for the next hour, despite changing baits regularly. I felt as if I had lost the plot. Trying to make things happen and forcing the peg when the fish were not there. I was now feeding meat on lines I had been fishing 6mms, fishing  6mms on my meat line and expanders all over the place.
I decided to concentrate on the two left hand margins going in to the last couple of hours. I would feed only via a small toss pot and see what happened. Lo and behold the float dipped and carp number 2 and 3 were in the net from the 12m line. Resting it, I re-fed and went to the 9m line and tried the same thing. Carp 4 and 5 graced the landing net. Back out to 12m and a small skimmer. Mick was now catching well at around 8m fishing meat on the deck. Clive had slowed down but Tony on the next peg was getting a few lumps down the edge late on.



I managed another 4 fish from the left hand side and in hindsight spent too long chasing another double from the right hand swim.
At the all out I felt that I did not do the peg justice, despite the depth. There were just too many options for the angler and unfortunately I tried most of them to no avail. What I should have done was to concentrate on three lines all down the edges and feed it negatively to start with feeling my way. But that's why we go fishing.
Overall
1st Mick Wright 84-04
2nd Clive Pritchard 79-00
3rd Tony Roberts 69-00
4th Troy Hillyer 60-08
5th Keith Ashby 51-00
6th Gino Exell 41-04

Mick 2
Keith 1