Simple Match Fishing Forum

I was down at Harleylands Farm on Nick's Lake on Saturday.
It was a bit of a grueller, had to keep looking over my shoulder to check that TK wasn't present  

All that was missing were a few Brummie accents.  

Read about it HERE.

I like the way you put your name at the top of the "5="

Amazing the drop in weights
Good report and pics as usual

I like the way you put your name at the top of the "5="  

Authors priviledge.

I thought that Si. Shouldnt it be in alpabetical order in the event of a tie.

Dave Collier
Peter Morton
Tony Roberts.

Dave, it's always youngest first.

had to keep looking over my shoulder to check that TK wasn't present

Must have been grim Mugger - did weights drop below the ton?

Cuss I still cant read the link at the mo

Here you go then TK, just for you.

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Hartleylands Farm Fishery. Nick's Lake.
Ryan's Winter Knock Up.



It was definitely a day for the thermals today as I loaded the car ready for the trip down To Harleylands Farm for a friendly little Knock Up on Nick's Lake that Ryan (Zephyr) has organised through the MD's forum  :). By the time I arrived at the car park it was around 8am and it appeared that I was the last of 17 lunatics to arrive. Fortunately Mick had managed to arrange for the catering wagon that had been at Broad Oak to turn up, so breakfast was taken care of courtesy of a cuppa from Andy and half of one of the monster breakfast rolls from Trevor Thanks lads  .
Nick unfortunately had a black out and cracked his head  :(, but after we had got him into the back of a van and Kevin had administered a spot of first aid he thankfully recovered enough to fish, especially once he realised that peg 9 was left in the hat for him  :P.

My draw had yielded peg 36, not a great area in winter, but with a nice short walk from the car and a bit of shelter looked like being a bonus today , and as only sections were being payed out today instead of the top 3 I still had something to fish for. For company today I had Andy(The Hat) to my right on peg 36, and to my left 3 of my fellow Marsh club members, in Kevin, Terry and Dave on pegs 2,4 and 6.



The peg was comfy enough with just a short chuck to the corner of the island, and with it being so cold I only set the feeder up. Bait was simply a couple of pints of reds and some groundbait. The one doubt in the back of my mind was the colour or rather lack of it in the water. The recent frosts appeared to have knocked the colour right out of it which is unusual on Nick's regardless of how cold it gets.

So 10am and the All-In is called, feeder to the point, tighten up and wait for the action to start ................and wait .............and wait ..................and wait  :o. Thankfully Kevin's partner Jean broke the monotony by providing me with a hot cup of coffee , but apart from Dave getting a small Carp and receiving all our hearty congratulations......NOT  there didn't seem to be much happening, In fact the only person that appeared to be doing anything was Steve Allen on peg 8. Now Steve normally fishes with his two sons Pete and Nick, but it was obviously a little to cold for the poor things  so he'd brought his mate, Terry with him for company. A quick chat with Andy revealed that at least he'd had 3 small fish, better than me at that point with his more "speccie" orientated approach........



Well with 1½ hours gone without as much as a nibbled maggot to show for it, I decided I should get the pole out, at least shipping in and out would keep me warm. The rig was a Malman 4x10 Snake1 to ·12 finished with an 18 Drennan maggot hook. I set this up to fish at around 6mtrs where I had around 3½ ft of water with soft set white hydro in the top kit. A pinch of maggot followed by the rig soon rewarded me with a small roach, at least I hadn't blanked  :).

Terry was alternating between the feeder and a pole approach but was struggling like the majority of us, nothing really seemed to bring him a run of fish...............



Dave meanwhile had managed to nick another small carp on the feeder, but was also sorting out a pole rig in an attempt to find a bit of action...........



Indeed regardless of where I looked it was hard to find anyone who was getting amongst the fish apart from Steve whose could be seen with a bend in his rod on a regular basis.

I managed to keep the small roach coming, not quickly enough to build any real weight, but fast enough to pass the time and keep me focused .



With about 10 minutes to go Kevin finally had a bite on the feeder and was rewarded with a small carp , however in his enthusiasm to get back out there his next cast ended on the island and the resulting break ended his day with 5 minutes to go  >:( . I chucked the feeder out just in case there was another in the area, but the tip remained stationary till the All-Out was called at 3pm.

At least it didn't take to long to pack up and get the gear back to the car, and a stroll round with the scales showed just how hard it had fished today . Steve had walked the match today putting 42lbs 12ozs on the scales for a comfortable win, in fact everyone else only managed single figures apart from Trevor whose 10lbs 4ozs of silvers won him his section. Steve's mate Terry Goulding realised he had tipped back a weight that would have won his section  but Hey Ho........ Thats fishing, and of course we were all very sympathetic..........NOT .

Thanks to Ryan for organising the day (his 1st attempt at organising a match)  . Next up is the Maggotdrowning Southern Fur & Feather match at Wylands next Saturday. How will that turn out? You can read about it here next weekend .

1st    Peg 8    Steve(Rookery54)Allen           42lbs 12ozs
2nd   Peg 32  Trevor(MT Net)Little             10lbs 04ozs
3rd    Peg 13  Jeff(Jeff D)Driscol l              7lbs 04ozs
4th    Peg 21  Alan(Al)Loader                        7lbs 00ozs
5th=  Peg 36 Peter(Mugger)Morton               6lbs 12ozs  
5th=  Peg 6   Dave(The Fish)Collier               6lbs 12ozs
5th=  Peg 23 Tony(spamwham)Roberts           6lbs 12ozs
8th    Peg 17  Pete(petemid)Midgley              5lbs 12ozs
9th    Peg 34  Andy(The Hat)Spreadbury      5lbs 08ozs
10th  Peg 24  Lewis(Super ted)Keen              4lbs 00ozs
11th  Peg 12  Ryan(Zephyr)Wells                  3lbs 06ozs
12th  Peg 15  Mick(The Chippy)Pearson         3lbs 00ozs
13th  Peg 4    Terry(Wily Coyote)Goff         2lbs 12ozs
14th  Peg 2    Kevin(The Catch)Loveland        2lbs 04ozs
15th  Peg 20  Keith(Chief)Wells                    1lbs 01ozs
16th  Peg 9    Nick(Bag Up)Costar                   DNW
17th  Peg 26  Terry Golding                            DNW

Cheers Mugger  

42lb  

Those weights and back ups look like ours in summer  


Ok.....................







I was telling porkies.....................





Exclude the the 42lb  ;)

Told you it was a grueller.