Marsh AC Orchard Farm Lake 6 18.08.2018

With the week days fully booked up until October, I have really started to enjoy getting out on the bank at weekends. I know they are club matches but the craic and banter is well worth a 200 mile round trip.Today would see both Mick and I travelling back to Kent, we were there a fortnight ago plundering the Monks Lake 2 carp. This time another venue that I had only fished once before, Lake 6 at Orchard Farm fishery.
My turn to drive and with no idea where I was going it was down to the trusted Garmin to take us there, and to be fair it did, although I must question what it constitutes as a road. Still, arriving nice and early we were greeted by Gino, Terry and Simon at the on site cafe. Tony and Clive joined us fairly soon after and once breakfast was out of the way it was a short drive to the lake.
Dave was already orchestrating proceedings only becoming of the Chairman. Monies, pegging and draw went smoothly with me nearly sneaking in front of Mick only for my hand to suddenly retract at the last minute. Mick draws first, what was I thinking? With a scolding look on his face, he goes into the hat and draws end peg 1, something do not change. For my misdemeanour, I was going to make peg 9 my home for the day.
Walking around everyone seemed happy with their draws, so the match should be a good one on paper.
Last time I was here was over a year ago, on that day I caught steadily throughout, using pellet hook-baits and feeding 4mm sinking pellets.  With plenty of room in front of me I planned to fish up and down on a top kit plus one and two. Setting up kits with various depths from 8 inches to 2 ft all with orange vespe elastics as I was expecting it to be fast and furious. No messing around with rigs, .3g MW Margin floats .22 line and a size 14 B911x.  6 pints of 4mms would suffice as I would be fishing a banded 6mm over the top.
I had Rod to my right and he would be fishing either a float or tip match but Clive, Terry and Gino would take some beating from the better pegs towards the point of the spit. I could see Mick on peg 1 from where I was and could keep an eye on him throughout the day. Simon was pleased with his peg, nice open water to fish up in the water, a method he excels at.
I would start the match feeding 10 pellets every 30 seconds trying to tempt the fish up in the water. After a few false starts and liners on my 2ft rig I switched to a rig around 12 inches and this seemed to work better with my feeding regime. I was getting a fish every couple of minutes, still feeding around 10 pellets every put in. I would place the rig in and if no bite within 10 seconds start again, However, the feeding never changed. I was going well, not big fish like Monks Lake 2 but regular fish around the 2lb mark and after an hour I had 25 fish with Simon admitting to 30, so I was a little behind. Terry and Clive were both catching up in the water whilst Mick was getting stuck into the edge fish.
Surprisingly, I managed to keep fish coming throughout the match from the same line, whereas normally when I fish for f1's I need to rotate lines regularly, nicking a couple of fish from one line before going onto the next, continually rotating the lines.However the fish were moving up and down in the water column.
At the all out I thought I had around 150 fish. Clive was admitting to 137 and Simon a mammoth 182. Mick had a sneaky grin on his face and that meant he had caught well throughout the match.

Mick was first to place his catch onto the scales and after multiple weighs settled on 244-04, a tough target for the MK Nugget challenge. Simon was next from peg 2 and after what seemed an eternity, net after net came to the scales and 385-08. Chris managed 79-08 before Chairman Dave placed 108-08. The Reverend Tony Roberts got among the double tonners with 241-12 and only 3rd in section. Amazing set of weights.
Into the second section and Gino, from the peg I fished the previous year, 202lb and another happy angler, unfortunately it will only be good enough for 4th in a 5 peg section. Terry and Clive had been going hammer and tong with each other throughout the match and it was too tight to call. Terry weighing first and 259lb dead.

Clive followed this weight with 257lb dead. One fish in it at the end.

Onto myself and I had a good day 150 fish and a total of 326lb despite going over in my nets. Rod was last to weigh in and had secured another enjoyable day where the tip went round and the float buried. His weight of 41lb was not going to win the match but his enjoyment certainly helped ease his pain.

Overall

1st Simon Watkins   385-08

2nd Keith Ashby     326-00

3rd Terry Goff         259-00

4th Clive Pritchard   257-00

5th Mick Wright      244-04

6th Tony Roberts    241-12

7th Gino Exell         202-00

8th Dave Collier     108-08

9th Chris Withall      79-08

10th Rod Turner      41-00

Between the 10 of us we managed over 2 tonnes of fish, 2 triple tons, 5 double tons, 1 ton and 2 others.

A good day out amongst friends, good banter and a few fish for all of us.

I won the MK Nugget to wipe the grin off Mick's face and take the lead to 3.

Keith 8 Mick 5.

Next club match is Puddledock Road Lake in September. 

Marsh AC Monks Lake 2 04.08.2018

I got to thinking about this match around a week ago when an angler put an amazing 525lb of Lake 2 fish onto the scales. The culmination of a very good angler on a very good peg. People will say it was a one off and it possibly was, but then I started noticing the back up weights and it was clear to see that not only are there some very good anglers fishing the league but also the fishery was fishing its nuts off.
Not to worry lads, Marsh AC will give the fish a rest. We had pegs 45 to 77 and plenty of room enabling 5 anglers on each side of the spit and 5 on the road bank. I had done quite well over the years with help from Mike McMillan, Mark Hathaway and Pete Upperton all giving sound advice over this time. Today was different I did not want to be swayed one way or another and went with gut instinct and the knowledge it was fishing well.
Mick had arranged to collect me at 0545 and with the S Max loaded we were soon on our trasvels to deepest Kent. Arriving at the fishery we were greeted by Gino and Simon, fresh from their grovelling at Alders Farm. Still it was good to see them both smiling and informing me of any tittle tattle they could muster. Breakfast were a couple of bacon and egg sticks between us and was down with a couple of mugs of tea from the van.
Mick and I had both been speaking of the power of Positive Mental Attitude during the drive and agreeing there is never a bad peg and that fish swim. I must admit though I thought Mick would take some stopping today when he drew peg 47.

Troy had drawn on the old barbel peg 45 and I knew my nugget was not very safe.

Still when peg 75 stuck to my hand I was relatively pleased. I had done well from 77 before they filled it in, so knew a little about the area.

I was going for a pellet and meat approach with a bit of corn and maggot in reserve in case it switched off completely.Top three and fours were assembled along with a couple of rigs to cover both margins at top two and three lengths.A shallow rig was also set up in the event I saw any cruising fish.
I started off feeding the margins as I expected to fish them earlier than normal and the top three line. I opted also to fish shallow for the first half hour and with only a couple of roach and a solitary carp of 3lb I soon sacked this off and spent the next 30 minutes down the RH edge. A few good skimmers and odd carp came to the onion sack.With an hour gone I had around 8lb of skimmers and roach and 6 carp for about 24lb. Clive on the next peg was catching well and even had to go back to his car to get a larger landing net head as his was not big enough. I could hear Terry catching well but could not see him on 73 but he was admitting to "just odd small carp and skimmers". I was going alright and was now ready to have a go at the deep line at 2+2. I had been feeding a top three line and my plan was to fish past the feed and eventually bringing the fish closer where it shallows up a touch at 2 plus one. After a couple of minutes I started getting odd bites and fizzing in the peg. I picked up a margin rig and tried this over the top with a banded 6mm pellet and nicked one fish but soon realised the bait needed to be on the deck.
I would get a couple of skimmers followed by a carp or an F1 then I needed to re-feed and sit on it lifting and dropping the rig regularly.By moving in and out of the catch zone I managed to keep fish coming but all the time they looked smaller than Clive's.

The Reverend Tony Roberts was behaving himself today, must of been catching, with only the odd curse word being muttered from his breath. Chairman Dave was nicking odd fish throughout the session and proving the adage of a good angler on a good peg.
Both Troy and Mick were into fish but it was John doing the damage on the road bank, catching high up in the water column with floating baits and no float, just letting the hook sink the baits. Simon was just being Simon and after last week's episode where Trevor Price needed to get togged up in his wet gear and retrieved Simon's top three and four, he was throwing his number four into the lake this time around.

I felt that with a good finish I could muster around 200lb of fish at the end and push Clive all the way. I was still catching but the quantity was getting slower, they were still good fish and all throughout skimmers were still coming to the net.At the all out I had borrowed another net from Dave and felt I had a good 200lb net.

Overall

1st John Holdsworth 342 -12

2nd Keith Ashby   278-08

3rd Clive Pritchard 161 - 04

4th Troy Hillyer   149-00

5th Gino Exell 141-08

6th Tony Roberts 140-00

7th Simon Watkins 139-08

8th Mick Wright 119-08

8th Terry Goff 119-08

10th Gary Guest 115-00 PB

11th Chris Withall 102- 00

12th Jim Boase  85-08

13th Dave Collier 83-08

14th Tony Watkins 72-08

15th Rod Turner 25-00

So the lake has continued to give up its fish, 11 weights over a ton is not to be sniffed at. Mick had to give up another of his treasured nuggets.

Next match is Orchard Place in a fortnight night, so tight lines all.

Keith 7 

Mick 5