Lucks Lane Paddock Wood 28th March 09

When I woke up on this cold and wet Saturday morning I just wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, however this wasn't goin to happen as I had organised this match. I dragged my arse out of bed, packed up the car and drove up to Ade's (wingnut) and we set off for the 40 minute drive upto Paddock Wood.

When we arrived we was greeted by a few of the others that had arrived early. I knew that fishing was going to be hard today due to the weather and it didn't look like it was going to get any better. We had the draw and I got Ade to draw my peg, he drew the one right at the end of the lake for me. Great was the thought as I left my trolly at home hoping for a short walk today.

I lumped the gear down to the peg, I've never fished this end before and Gary (Oggie) told me that this end never fishes well. I decided to try the new pellet waggler rod and also setup the pole, for both a margin swim and around 8 meters out.

For bait I had the usual asortment of soft and hard hook pellets, corn and luncheon meat, which I knew worked as Oggie and his son and myself had a practice session the week before and I'd had over 100lb of fish.

I called all in, feeding to margin swims and also 2 large cups of hemp,corn and 4mm pellets was fed at 8 meters. I waited a couple of minutes for the feed to settle then went for the 8 meter pole line the wind was directly in my face and the pole was quite hard to handle, I soon had a small carp in the net around a 1lb mark.

I continued to feed the pole line and the margins, however the fish was slow to respond to this tactic, I change to the pellet waggler and a had a couple of small carp on this method then back to waiting for bites. I swapped back to the pole and then had a steady stream of small carp, the disaster struck the umbrella pole snapped and I spent the next half hour sorting the mess out.

The wind changed again and more rain streamed down, with 45 minutes to go I hooked into a nice carp and shortly after had a carp of around 6lb in the net.

I'd had enough and decided to pack up early, when the weigh-in arrived at my net my last carp weighed an impressive 9lb, which made my second net made it to 32lb in total.

Due to the weather the lake didn't produce the fish it's capable of.

Results

1st 88lb Peter (Mugger)Morton
2nd 83lb Keith (Disco)
3rd 57lb Greg Andrews
4th 47lb Colin H
5th 36lb Ade (Wingnut)
6th 32lb Paul (Paulvis69)
7th 27lb Gary (Oggie)
7th 27lb Nick
9th 25lb Mick the Chippy
10th 18lb Colin
11th 17lb John
12th 6lb 4oz Alex
13th 5lb 4oz DHL Man

Did Not Weigh in (all below)

14th Omega Mike(Bad day at the office)
14th Andy
14th Josh

Woke up and went back to bed( Wise move)

17th PeterMid

House lake - Wylands 14th March 09

Got up there for around 8.00am met up with some of the same old faces and a few more new ones.

At the draw I managed peg 1 (tree section)favoured by some however I'd never fished this peg in any of the practice sessions I'd have prefered to draw the road section, however not to be.

As the lake fishes much the same I opted to fish double red maggot on the hook and feed 10-20 maggots a time, also introducing corn throughout the match.

I setup with itentions at fishing at 4metres, I'd already made up a sellection of pole rigs from 0.3grams to 1.5 grams just in case the wind did get up.

At the all in, I fed a couple of poaches of red maggots and to my right what looked like a good second swim I baited with some sweetcorn.

Within seconds the float went under and I was into my first fish a small skimmer around 4oz everytime I moved the float I fed some more red maggots.

After around 30 minutes I changed to sweetcorn and the bites just stopped , I changed back to red maggots and again more bites. I had a few pints of bronze maggots so I got them on the hook and was still getting fish.

I carried on catching for around 3 three hours, however when the sun came out this jst killed the fishing and the bites became harder and harder to get.

I changed to sweetcorn however still nothing. I tried my second swim and this was also dead.

For the last few hours of the match I struggled to put 2lb in the net.

It was the first Maggot Drowners match that I weighed in at I managed to finish 11th overall with 21lb 6oz. I was disappointed that I didn't draw the roadside as I'm sure I'd have doubled my weight on that section without a doubt.

House lake - Wylands 7th March 09

I arrived at wylands House lake around 9.30am the only other people that was there was a couple kids on the island looked like they where fishing for carp.

Anyway I set up the new Preston Innovations GXR 3000 pole. I opted to fish at 4-5 meters.

I setup with 0.4 gramm float and plumbed the depth which was rund 5 feet on this peg.

As for bait I had 4 pints of red maggots and tin of corn, some 1mm feed pellets and 4 and 6mm soft hook pellets. I started feeding a few red maggots with every putin and this resulted in a few small roach. Within half an hour I'd had around 30 small roach and a couple of small skimmer bream.

I stepped up the feeding and added some sweetcorn to the loose feed, this started to bring the skimmers and some better roach the biggest being around 12oz. All I was using was double red maggot on the hook.

I changed to corn on the hook and the bites seemed to disappear. However after 10 minutes I got my first bite on corn, the was a better stamp of skimmer. I changed back to double red maggot and the bites where straight back the as before I swapped to corn.

I started to feed around 10 maggots with every put in, and the fish responded with positive bites every few seconds.

I decided to pack up around 3.00pm and I'd say I'd had aound 40lb of silvers in that time. Trevor (M.T. Net) spent some time having a chat.