Monday, 29 June 2009

• Rockells Farm 28th June 09

  Today saw me teaming up with the lads from Marsh AC. I had a mare at Coleman's Cottage with the lads last time out and knew a good performance would be needed at Rockells Farm. Travelling with me today was Vic Nugent, a fellow GOT angler and a dedicated pastehead. As familiar guests we knew most of the lads and find their company a great laugh and the banter can fly from any direction. The pegs were placed allowing all the top end of the lakes to be utilised. Previous visits to the venue suggest that you needed to be at the top end of the lake to be in with any chance. The Marsh Lads had a great day out there last time round with plenty of personal bests being broken along the way. Could the same be achieved or had they already peaked?

  My day started with Vic driving over to mine and loading the gear into one car for the 60 mile trip to Saffron Walden. The trip itself was uneventful with early morning fog that kept you on your toes across the country roads. The only mishap was seeing a car miss the roundabout and plough straight over, but with only damage to the car and both occupants alright we proceeded on our way.

  Arriving at Rockells was a delight, the fog rising and fish in the margins on every peg we stopped at. Gradually the Marsh AC lads turning up and with myself and Pete "Mugger" Morton being nominated with the pegging we quickly got on with it and pegged 9 down one side and 11 down the other. The better pegs being 1,2,3,16,17,18 and 19. A lot of other pegs could throw up a weight if the fished showed in any numbers but you needed to get them there in the first place and would require regular and a lot of feed to draw them in.

  I had planned to fish pellet for the first part of the match followed by paste in the second match. These were 2 x 3 hour matches and a total weight deciding the winner.

  Vic was into the hat quite early for him and pulled out peg 2, Mugger had drawn peg 17 and Al Loader on peg 18. My hand dipped in a small lump of wood with peg 1 stuck to it. A right result for the effort we put in pegging. Dave Collier, our host and dangerman Colin Sharrad had drawn just off the flyers and were more than capable of drawing fish from other pegs. Martin Hucker finally turned up on peg 3, much to our despair as we were hoping no one would fish it. Martin had a big weight last time he fished here, so we knew he would be the man to beat with his floater tactics.

  As said earlier my plan was to fish pellet then paste, dependant on how i got on after the first match so I set up 2 pole rigs for the pellet to fish dead depth on top twos either side. I was surprised to find 2 1/2ft close in and thought this was ideal. A paste rig for a top three straight out in front was also set up. Floats on the pellet rigs were MW margin taking 2 number 8s onto .16 Colmic Stream to a size 16 B911. The paste rig was a MW self cocker and set to fish on the deck in 3ft of water. Red hydro through my Garbolino Margin Manager would suffice.

  Feed was 4mm GOT sinkers with 6mm GOT expanders and 6mm GOT Liver soft hookers as hookbaits. I had brought 16 pints of feed pellets with me and expected to use the lot during the following 6 hours.

  At the all in I tried to fish the left hand margin and although I was getting bites I could only connect with odd fish, mainly roach and I knew that they would not win me anything so re-fed after 15 minutes and gave the right hand swim a go. Feeding by hand saw a steady stream of carp coming to the net. I did not a lot of carp coming up for the feed as it dropped through the water so shortened my rig to fish 18inches deep in the 2 1/2 foot swim. This brought with a lot of fish and also a lot of problems with foul hookers and with my elaastic set too tight I was pulling out of a few fish. Vic was catching steadily as was Martin, I could see Mugger netting a few lumps and knew he would be there or thereabout, that is his class. Al was cursing his luck and blaming his elastic for lost fish.

  Now 3 hours flies by, but with regular slight changes in depth I managed to keep in touch with the fish and knew I had done a ton by the all out. Martin had blitzed the field and both Vic and Mugger had  performed well. With pegs being weighed from peg 19 first 120lb was leading the field and Mugger was out in front. A lot of decent 3 hour weights came out around the lake and a few disappointed anglers could not understand why they were not catching. Martin had fine floater caught 180lb with his peg getting better as he went on. Vic had put a good paste caught 133lb from peg 2 and as I was last to weigh in was surprised to see my "ton" weight go 148lb and second after match one.

  10 minutes before the all out on match one I had deposited 3 good handfulls of 4mm sinkers into the swim and hoped that would enough to keep the fish interested with all the commotion of emptying the nets, repositioning them especially as i was fishing so close. I had, by now made a decision to keep with the pellet and fish to my strength's. I swopped the topkits over and allowed a softer red on the pellet rigs as the paste rig would now be redundant. I also moved both pellet rigs to fish shallow and shortened the line from poe tip to float to allow more positive bites.

  Armed and read for the all in again it was 10 minutes before I had my first fish. Vic had had 3 and Martin was catching again. But with the bites coming as it dropped through the water, they were soon coming thick and fast. Feeding 2 or 3 times kept the fish coming and with the softened elastic meaning less hookpulls I was managing to land nearly everything I hooked. I still got foul hookers but think that was enevitable. There were a few bigger lumps in my second match and thought I had done enough to equal my first weight. The same old faces were still catching well and I was confident that it would be close at the end between Martin, Vic, Mugger and myself.

  After 6 hours of fishing, the final shout goes out across the lake and I was relieved to finish. I was knackered. My back was aching. I was first to weigh in this time around with the weighing in reversed. My weight was an astonishing 234lb, a total surprise and a new personal best for a 3 hour match and a total of 382lb, which in itself is a PB for a 6 hour match. Vic was next and with his 173-04 (PB for 3 hours) added to this 133lb from match one giving him a total of 306-04. Martin had thought he had the same as before and with 180-12 banked he put a very good 202-08 to pip me for first overall by 1lb 4oz. A lot of PBs were broken around the lake with Dave Collier increasing his to 254lb, Colin Sharrad also breaking the double ton mark. It would be down to see what Pete "Mugger" Morton could do. I had seen him catching regularly throughout and knew he had a big weight. 210lb later saw him just miss out on a 3 hour match win. However with his combined weights hitting 330lb he had set 2 more PBs along the way.

  Position	Peg	Angler	Morning	Afternoon	Total Weight
  1st	Peg 3	Martin Hucker	180lbs 12ozs	202lbs 08ozs	383lbs 04ozs
  2nd	Peg 1	Keith Ashby	148lbs 00ozs	234lbs 00ozs	382lbs 00ozs
  3rd	Peg 17	Peter Morton	120lbs 00ozs	210lbs 00ozs	330lbs 00ozs
  4th	Peg 2	Vic Nugent	133lbs 04ozs	173lbs 04ozs	306lbs 08ozs
  5th	Peg 6	Dave Collier	86lbs 12ozs	167lbs 08ozs	254lbs 04ozs
  6th	Peg 15	Colin Sharrard	83lbs 08ozs	127lbs 08ozs	201lbs 00ozs
  7th	Peg 18	Alan Loader	70lbs 04ozs	101lbs 08ozs	171lbs 12ozs
  8th	Peg 8	Tony Roberts	48lbs 00ozs	94lbs 08ozs	142lbs 08ozs
  9th	Peg 16	Terry Goff	51lbs 04ozs	89lbs 08ozs	140lbs 12ozs
  10th	Peg 19	Graham Manning	63lbs 12ozs	50lbs 04ozs	114lbs 00ozs
  11th	Peg 13	Bob Hucker	29lbs 00ozs	62lbs 00ozs	91lbs 00ozs
  12th	Peg 4	Judy Hermite	47lbs 00ozs	35lbs 12ozs	82lbs 12ozs
  13th	Peg 10	Clive Pritchard	22lbs 00ozs	52lbs 12ozs	74lbs 12ozs
  14th	Peg 7	Roger Noakes	23lbs 08ozs	31lbs 00ozs	54lbs 08ozs
  15th	Peg 5	Eddie Dobson	19lbs 00ozs	28lbs 08ozs	47lbs 08ozs
  16th	Peg 12	Ken Walker	14lbs 00ozs	27lbs 12ozs	41lbs 12ozs
  17th	Peg 9	Jim Boase	15lbs 00ozs	25lbs 12ozs	40lbs 12ozs
  18th	Peg 11	Rod Turner	9lbs 00ozs	14lbs 00ozs	23lbs 00ozs
  19th	Peg 14	Zack Johnson	6lbs 02ozs	13lbs 12ozs	19lbs 14ozs

   

   

  A cracking day out with loads of Personal bests enjoyed with good friends and in good spirits. Now I have been very good throughout this blog entry and did not mention Al's 3 hour match record which stood at 130lb.          Still the same Al.

   

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