Marsh AC Monks Lake 4 30 04 16

Two matches to report on this week, part 1 today and part 2 tomorrow after the match. Today's episode begins with a trip to Monks Lakes in Kent. We were on Lake 4 and with only 14 anglers turning up we had plenty of room. Mick had offered to drive with my still ongoing car issues (hopefully now sorted). The weather looked nice with a few clouds about but plenty of blue in the sky.
After a breakfast stick we were soon drawing, in I go and out comes 164 on the road bank. Mick has a go and out comes 161. Yet again we are in the same section, this time only separated by John on 163.
My peg looked inviting, I could reach the island with 14m and that would main point of attack. I also set up a rig for 11m in cases the wind got up,as it has a habit of doing on this lake. I also made up a margin rig and a 2+2 rig as back up lines.
Bait was simply 6 or 8mm hard pellets with 4mm as feed, a tin of meat and a few expanders. Rigs were .2 NG Diamonds for both far and near banks. A .4 DT Diamond for 11m in the deeper water and a .3 MW Diamond for the 2+2 line. Elastics were soft black hydro on all rigs which were tied to .14 Colmic Stream and B911 F1 hooks.
At the all in I cupped in some 4mm feed onto the 14m line and started off at 11m expecting the fish to back off throughout the session. After a small skimmer on expander first put in, I had to wait 10 minutes for my second bite, a nice 3lb carp. No more bites followed so I had a look right across to the reeds on the island. After 5 minutes I was into my first carp of around 1lb on 6mm hard pellet. A few more skimmers, odd tench and ide graced the net but I was not catching any more carp.Terry across from me was getting carp close in and was 2 fish in front of me but I did have the silver fish to take one of them away. John was starting off on the method and was getting a few skimmers. Tony was catching some silvers before going over to the island on the tip. This resulted in my peg slowing right down. The feed from either side of the island was in my mind stopping the fish coming round.
I decided to come closer and give the 11m line another go and although I was getting bites I started foul hooking a few fish and losing them. I re-fed and tried the inside margin. No bites for 10 minutes so back out to 14m and I started to get a few bites and carp, although only around 1.5lb I was catching a slowly building a weight. I would catch 2 or 3 then switch to 11m for 10 minutes and nick another one before going back and getting another couple. This seemed to work well up to the last hour where I got trashed by a lump. I put on another rig but it did not seem the same. Still I thought I would do alright considering it was fishing hard.
At the weigh in I was first to weigh in and I reckoned on 50lb, 25 carp and a few silvers. The scales said 47-12 and I was fairly happy with that. Terry was admitting to 45lb so knew that it would be close between us. Simon had caught well early on but seemed to slow later on. AND Mick was keeping very quiet.

Overall

1st Simon Watkins 48-04

2nd Keith Ashby 47-12

3rd Terry Goff   42-08

4th Dave Collier 42-04

5th Mick Wright 37-08

6th Tony Roberts 32-00

As said earlier the lake fished harder than expected, although there were plenty of bites to be had and some nice silver weights coming out today. I managed to pull a MK Nugget back from Mick, shame Troy and Kris were not there to see it, but they had to work. Mick 2 Keith 1.

Tomorrow's instalment should be about the last round of the Alders Farm Spring League.Lets hope its a good one.