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.

Oast Farm - Buxted 14th Feb 2009

This was the first time I'd met with the MaggotDrowners.com guy's, however when I turned up I was met with a warm welcome, which is always a good start.

I found out that there weas going only be 10 fishing today, we paid our peg fees and drew for the pegs, I drew peg 8.

Which was down a steep bank with a platform for a nice position. To my left was a large over hanging tree, straight out was open water and to the right a small bush in the water.

Having never fished here before I opted for setting up the pole at 6 meters, with one rig on the bottom and set another at about half depth. I'd brought all manner of baits, however I'd recently read an article on white pellets , I had some 4mm white feed pellets and some soft hook pellets, however the 4 mm hook pellets are very soft and when you put the hook into them they just brake up into peices. I used the faithful pellet bander and made up a few 4mm and 8 mm pellets.

At the all in I fed two swims one just to the left and the other 6 meter swim. I started to fish the 6 meter line and had bites from the off. After a few missed bites I managed to hook into a nice carp around 3-4lb. Then next bite I had another one around 2lb and it still wasn't even 9.30am.

The swim completely died so I tried the other swim and after about an hour nothing was producing at all. I tried the right hand side and still nothing, as the time was ticking and fast approaching 12.00, I went back on the 6 meter line. I started to get bites again and soon had another carp of around 2lb in the net. I was getting bites on the pellet however I was missing the fish, I noticed that the float was rocketing underwhich seemed to point out to roach more than carp, I changed to double red maggot and managed to get around 5 small roach. Then again the swim died.
I tried the righthand swim again and managed to get a small carp probably just over a 1lb.

Towards the end of the match BillG came down to see how we where all doing, He then told me I should have fished striaght out in front and fed with micro pellets and used corn on the hook. I told me you have to have confidence in this tactic as the carp will come and it could take a few hours however you must keep feeding. Wonderful I thought why is it these people always give you this information when you have 15 minutes left.

However it was a good days fishing and it didn't rain.

I've been lucky enough to have been picked to fish at Monk Lakes for this quailifer on 13th May 2009.

With the likes of Darren Cox and Bob Wotton also in this quailifer and also another 128 entries

Wise old men well not really.........!

Well this is what happened at the pub last friday night, a couple of the locals have taken up trout fishing and watching them add a loop to the end of the fly line.

House lake - Wylands 5th Feb

I'm off back to Wylands House lake this weekend, for another practice session, not sure wether Ade(wingnut) will be joining me this time.

This time I'm going to try a few different methods:- waggler and also pole at 6 meters. using 4mm pellets

I'm aiming for around 20-30Lb bag for the day, which I think should be about right in this weather.

Well when I woke up saturday morning it had snowed over night, so I knew this was going to be hard fishing today.

I dropped the otherhalf to work, then remmebered I left me pole rollers at home so a quick trip back home to pick them up. I decided to go via Wishing Tree lake a local club water , when I drove past it wasn't frozen so I knew neither would be the house lake.

When I arrived at Wylands, I was amazed at the amount of people that was fishing, there was already 5 or 6 fishing the house lake. I knew where I wanted to fish so I could judge my performance over the last practice session with Ade(wingnut). I unloaded the gear and parked the car upand started to setup. I lake was still as there was little wind. I opted for the pole and set it up to fish at 6 meters. At this depth the lake seems flat at about 5 feet deep. Having already spoken to Trevor (M.T Net) the week earlier I had a good idea of how I should be fishing.

Bait wise I had 4 pints of red maggots, a tin of sweetcorn, some small red worms, and mixed up around 3lb of groundbait.

I treated the session as a match with a planned 15 minute break to get some food.

I fed 6 balls of groundbait at the off , followed with 2 pouches of red maggots, then shipped out with double red maggot on the hook.

Within seconds the float went under and small roach of about 6oz was swung to hand, it was back out again followed with pouch full of maggots again, soon the float disappered again, this time it was a rudd around 10oz mark. I continued to feed at every put in of the pole. With every 10-15 put ins I introduced a small ball of groundbait.

Once I built up enough food the swim I started to catch skimmer bream every cast, these ranged from 6oz to 1.5lb's .

At the break I changed onto a lighter elastic and used the same rig, then out again I had a couple more skimmers on the new tip, I started to feed a few grains of corn every few minutes. I tried sweetcorn on the hook as this normally brings the bigger fish, however this isn't the case I couldn't get a bite at all, however back to double red maggot the flaot disapeared within seconds.

I decided to give up around 3.15pm having used just over 3.5 pints of maggots and all the groundbait.

I would estimate I had a good 40-50lb of fish throughout the day.

The only thing I would say is that last time I fished with the method feeder for part of the session towards the island and did have bigger bream to 3.5lb's