Got Baits ISK League Round 5

With this being the second to last match of the league I know I had to still get a good result in order to maintain my mid table standing and avoid the drop zone like Newcastle this season.

At the draw I pulled out B13 which resolved to Bramley peg 13, I do enjoy the long walks to these pegs.

When I arrived at the peg I had a clear path to the island and 2 margin swims, however the biggest obsticalewas the wind blowing across the peg from right to left at around 15mph and gusting upto 25mph. With the wind this made it more difficult to get the method feeder over to the island and impossible to get the pellet waggler in the right position.

I choose 2 margim swims one to the left around 7 meters and the other to the right. At the whistle I fed both margin swims and cast the method feeder out to the island. Within a few seconds I was noticing a few liners then the tip swung round and I soon had the first carp in the net of the day. Back out to the island and the tip swung round again this resulted in a missed fish, the wind seemed to pick up and this didn't help as I seemed to be loosing around 50% of the fish on the way in. I should have used the longer 12' feeder rod which may have given myself a bit more of the edge.

I changed to the margin line however with the wind being so bad and having changed direction also this made my margin swims very difficult to fish, I managed to get 3 small carp out of these before I had to try the method feeder again.

At the end of the day I managed just over 31 lb at the scales and managed 3rd in the section which was a fair result for the day. This has left me 13th overall, not bad seen as I had settled for 20th this year.

League Placing

1 Ian Carley, 5-4-4-5-4, 385-14 22
2 Nick Gilbert, 5-3-5-3-5, 362-9 21
3 Paul Kell, 0-5-5-5-5, 379-1 20
4 Russ Evans, 4-3-4-3-5, 303-13 19
5 Collin Wood, 3-5-5-5-0, 307-10 18
6 Russell Graves, 0-5-4-5-4 286-7 18
7 Dennis Price, 4-4-5-3-2, 269-8 18
8 Jeff Driscoll, 4-3-3-4-4, 249-2 18
9 Jonny Watt, 5-3-3-0-5, 250-11 16
10 Matt Love, 5-4-4-0-3, 219-0 16
11 Mark Hathway 4-4-4-0-3, 211-1 15
12 Nick Allen, 3-5-3-2-1, 218-15
13 John Haige 2-2-2-3-4, 204-6 13
14 Paul Slater 3-0-2-4-3, 184-11 12
15 Trevor Little 2-1-3-4-0, 217-9 10
16 Pete Allen 2-2-1-3-2, 217-6 10
17 Chris Jones 3-1-2-2-2, 124-10 10
18 Al Loader 0-2-3-0-3, 127-4 8
19 Brian Pink 2-2-1-2-0, 52-3 7

Got Baits ISK League Round 4

With the match on Nick's Lake at Hartleylands, again a venue I'd never fished , I decided to do a bit of reading of other people's blogs. After a bit of investigation it looks to be a carp mainly lake.

Having met up with Trevor (M.T.Net) in Hastings for breakfast we then set off to the lake, at the draw I managed to pull out peg 33, which was a nicely sheltered part of the lake which was good as the wind was blowing at around 20mph.

At the swim I decided on 2 swims one the left hand margin and the the other was the island straight out in front. I set up 2 feeder rods and a short pole for the marging swim. The first feeder rod was setup with a flat method feeder and a 4" hook length with a korum quick stop attached, the other feeder rod and 1/2oz boom and a 8" hook length and a korum quick stop.

The margin swim was only around 2 - 3 feet deep and this was a 4x12 float.

As 10.30am arrived the whisle went I started to feed the margin swim and then cast the method feeder out to the island. Within a few seconds the tip went round and I soon had the first carp of the day in the net. I rebaited and cast back to the island and a few minutes later another carp around 3lb. I continued to catch over the next few hours however I noticed my catch rate was not as quick as Colin Wood's who was on peg 32. I had a few more carp, then next cast the tip bounced round and I hit into it this felt like a better fish, I managed to get this towards the net, and finally saw it, it looked like a fish of around 10-12lb then disaster the hook length snapped. I quickly added another hook length and was back over to the island.

Then things started to go wrong the old Map reel seemed to be having problems twisting the line and tangling up, I change to the other rod the 10' Map STi Bomb rod and was soon back out to the island and catching fish. I started to loose a few fish, and managed to snap another couple of hook lengths.

With an hour to go in the match the tip titched round and I hit it this was a bigger fish after a few minutes fight it was in the net and was around 8lb. I lost around 40'b of fish during the day which would have bumped up my placing however that's fishing.

At the weigh in I managed to put together 80lb 5oz and finished second in the section and was fourth overall on the day, picking up a £20 note for my troubles, but also more important £1 from Trevor on a side bet.

1st Ian Carley 117-1
2nd Paul Kell 110-12
3rd Collin Wood 107-11
4th Paul Slater 80-5
5th Alan Joplin(guest) 67-0
6th Jeff Driscoll 59-8

League Placing
1 Ian Carley, 5-4-4-5, 322-0 18
2 Collin Wood, 3-5-5-5, 307-10 18
3 Nick Gilbert, 5-3-5-3, 288-9 16
4 Dennis Price, 4-4-5-3, 243-6 16
5 Paul Kell, 0-5-5-5, 298-10 15
6 Russ Evans, 4-3-4-3, 254-8 14
7 Russell Graves, 0-5-4-5, 205-12 14
8 Jeff Driscoll, 4-3-3-4, 190-14 14
9 Nick Allen, 3-5-3-2, 205-7 13
10 Matt Love, 5-4-4, 156-5 13
11 Mark Hathway 4-4-4-0, 144-11 12
12 Jonny Watt, 5-3-3-0, 166-13 11
13 Trevor Little 2-1-3-4, 217-9 10
14 John Haige 2-2-2-3, 158-15 9
15 Paul Slater 3-0-2-4, 152-5 9
16 Pete Allen 2-2-1-3, 185-10 8
17 Chris Jones 3-1-2-2, 92-6 8
18 Brian Pink 2-2-1-2, 52-3
19 Al Loader 0-2-3-0 103-4 5

Fish O Mainia - Monks Lake

I was lucky enoughg to get a ticket for the Fish O Mainia quailifer at Monk Lakes in Kent. I seen from the list theere was so good anglers down.

I somehow knew that I would end up near Darren Cox, after being in the car park 10 minutes I noticed he'd parked behind me , that's a bit spooky to say the least. Well at draw time my hand went into the box and I pulled out peg 68 on match lake 2, this is not the best half of the lake. I humped all the gear round and over the bridge to the peg.

As I started to setup I looked up only to see Darren Cox setting up on peg 69. Jay came round and we had a chat about how he'd attack the peg , with his ideas in mind I setup a few rigs 2 margin swims and a 6-7m swim straight out in front. I'd really wanted to setup a feeder rig just in case.

At all in I fed all three swims and started to fish the 7m line I had immediate results and by the first hour managed to get a few carp in the net, however I managed to loose as many as I have landed. Over the next couple of hours the swims just seemed to die on me.

This resulted in me moving out on the pole to 9-10 meters, I managed a few more small carp, then time came to go out to 14.5 meters this resulted in a few more bites and only another 2 carp in the net.

I'd not come anywhere close to winning the section however I'd totally enjoyed the day, I'll be applying again next year.

Got Baits ISK League Round 3

Back to Monk's lake for another day, the weather never seems to be great down there, however with a cross wind blowing, at the draw I got peg 62 on the island in the middle. I'd never fished this lake however I decided on the 2 margin swims and setup the feeder rod incase things didn't work out.

At the all in I fed both margin swims and started to fish the left hand swim, the float bobbed under and a small bram was soon in the net. Next cast under again this was certainly bigger this thing was like a torpedothe elastic came out the pole to around 25 feet, I finally managed to net the fish it's was a barbel of around 2lb, this was a first for me as I'd never caught one before. I managed to catch a few more fish down that margin, I decided to give it a rest and and try the other side, this resulted in a few small carp of around a pound mark, then a run of small skimmer bream to 4oz.

I swaped back onto the other margin and continued to caught barbel and the odd small carp, I noticed that Jeff D was catching some better carp on the feeder, with only an hour to got I swapped on this , I managed a run of around 10 carp in the hour however I should have changed to this alot sooner and would have had a bigger weight.

I also managed to catch a golden tench which was another first for me.


60 B Pink 20-0
62 P Slater 32-9
63 J Driscoll 48-8
65 M Hathway 74-12
66 C Wood 89-6 68


League Placing
1 Nick Gilbert, 5-3-5, 241-1 13
2 Dennis Price, 4-4-5, 216-10 13
3 Ian Carley, 5-4-4, 204-15 13
4 Collin Wood, 3-5-5, 199-15 13
5 Mark Hathway 4-4-4, 144-11 12
6 Russ Evans, 4-3-4, 227-8 11
7 Nick Allen, 3-5-3, 169-4 11
8 Jonny Watt, 5-3-3 166-13 11
9 Paul Kell, 0-5-5, 187-14 10
10 Jeff Driscoll, 4-3-3 131-6 10
11 Russell Graves, 0-5-4, 153-10 9
12 Matt Love, 5-4-0, 107-1 9
13 Trevor Little 2-1-3, 171-1 6
14 John Haige 2-2-2, 106-15 6
15 Chris Jones 3-1-2, 70-14 6
16 Pete Allen 2-2-1, 133-10 5
17 Al Loader 0-2-3 103-4 5
18 Paul Slater 3-0-2 72-0 5
19 Brian Pink 2-2-1 39-15 5