Posts

Showing posts from 2013

Gold Valley - Open Match, 20th December 2013

Image
2 months since I was on the bank so I was itching to get out and about, so with no local MFS matches I decided to get my butt to Gold Valley in Aldershot.  The weather has turned very cold, there has been plenty of rain this week and I've heard that Gold Valley has been fishing hard recently so I wonder what today holds? The match today is on Gold Lake, Canal bank and after speaking to a couple of people, Marcus Page and Brian Green I knew that it would be a tough day and luck to drawn on the fish... The Draw Only 11 of us fishing today and the weather was pretty miserable although the car temperature was reading 10 degrees.  I drew peg 24 which was an end peg, but at the unfancied end of the lake, typical! John allowed us to drive to our pegs which was greatly appreciated and made life a lot easier. The Set-Up I decided after looking at the peg and with the wind that today would be a bomb and feeder approach only.  So I set up two identical rods one with a 1oz bomb and t

Sconezone Bespoke Side Tray

Image
Christmas comes early for me this year!  Santa Claus this year came in the form of Ian Toplis, aka Sconey whose fame includes those great Sconezone floats and bespoke side trays. I spoke to Sconey at the Northern Monkees vs Southern Shandees 3 dayer about making me a side tray. Being an all round good egg, Ian agreed and I sent him some drawings of what I was after.  Today, the doorbell went and a large package arrived... here is the result! Big thanks to Ian, the quality is exceptional.  If you want a side tray, get in touch with Ian via his website, http://www.sconezone.co.uk you will not be disappointed! Cheers Lewy

Winter Update... work gets in the way...

Image
Hi all, Well Christmas is on it's way and the weather has taken a turn for the worse... but for me recently I've been on my travels with work covering 30,000 miles in 5 weeks, Australia, London, Dubai, India and then back to London.  This resulted in 2 cancelled matches ;-( I'm itching to get out on the bank again and will be fishing this saturday (21st December) at Gold Valley in their Open Match. Keep an eye out for the blog, in the meantime, tight lines, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all. Cheers Lewy

Morehouse Farm Fishery, 20th October 2013

Image
It's been a month since I'd been on the bank and I was itching to get out.  Pikey organised a match at Morehouse Farm Fishery in East Sussex which proved too tempting to miss out despite the weather!  A 6am wake up call with it raining heavily didn't look fun, but I had to get out. I arrived at the fishery with plenty of time to spare and met up with the lads.  Today would be a mix of MFS members and Morehouse Farm locals.  We would be fishing the Sidewinder lake which is a mix of a snake type lake and open water with a causeway and island to go at. The Draw It was quite a windy day and having never fished here I wasn't too worried about which peg I had.  I draw Peg 42 which had two margin swims and open water in front.  If I wanted to fish over I'd have to break out the bomb or method rod. The Set-Up I decided that I would only set up the pole and my swims were as follows: Margin to my left and right 6 metre line straight ahead at full depth and shall

MFS - Larford Lash Up, 21st September 2013

Image
Saturday saw the final day of the Larford Lash-up and today I would be on the Specimen Lake.  There were a few sore heads from the night before but no notable incidents as with previous Lash-Ups... The Draw I drew on the Chalet Bank of the Specimen lake peg 67.  I've only ever fished the Chalet Bank so I had a pretty good idea of what to set-up.  My neighbours for the day would be Duffman and Bruce but unfortunately it would be a quiet match as we couldn't see each other due to the thick foliage around our pegs. The Set-Up As I was tackling up, Andy Kinder and Sarah came past.  Andy's comments on the peg were nothing but great, in fact pegs 67-65 were his favourite area's on the Specimen lake.  The approach would be as follows: Bomb Rod - Bomb/Pellet Bomb Rod - Method Feeder Top 2 + 3 sections straight ahead Top 2 + 2 margin swim to my left & right under the tree  Again a simple bait list, 8mm Fishery Pellets, micro pellets, Sweetcorn, Expander Pellet a

MFS - Larford Lash Up, 20th September 2013

Image
My third year at the MFS Larford Lash-Up... It's not all about the fishing, but the social aspect which means we are normally at the bar until late at night!  I arrived at Chateau Disney (Impney), quickly unpacked and headed down to the Robin Hood pub to meet the Thursday night crew.  It was great to see Paul (Animal) who has not really fished this year and the usual suspects, Col (BNF), Jase (Jadstar), Paul (NoHope), Jay (Pellethead) and of course Andy Kinder and Sarah. It turned into a late night, topped up with a few beers at the hotel bar just to top us up.  Up early, breakfast and we all headed out to Larford Lakes. There were however two late comers for entirely different reasons... Tonkin Tommy's satnav packed up and he ended up taking, well should we call it a bit of a detour?  A journey that normally takes 20 minutes turned into over an hour for Tonkin.  Then there was Steve May (Poolsfodder) who was stuck on the M6 due to a nasty accident for 3 hours... The Dr

Rookery Waters, Pidley, Cambridgeshire, 15th September 2013

Image
With Mark now 4 points down we return to Rookery Waters, Pidley which could be classed as Mark's home water where he has grabbed some large bags pleasure fishing so the pressure was on me to try and beat him today... We had tried to contact the owners to request permission to use keepnets but could not get through to them in time.  We arrived and found that a match would be on Magpie lake and the peg that Mark wanted to fish was in the match... We took a walk round and decided to fish pegs 31 & 32 which would not interfere with any of the match lads.  The weather was taking a turn for the worse with high winds and rain predicted for the afternoon, so all the wet weather gear came out! We decided to zero our scales with a wet landing net and would weigh each fish, rounding up and down the weight of the fish and clicking away our weights.  It was a good way to figure out who wins at the end of the day. The Set-up I had a method chuck to the reeds, so the method rod was

Wold Farm Fisheries, Northants, 14th September 2013

Image
Getting back to the Mark vs Mark competition, Mark is currently down by 3 matches so this weekend there are a potential 2 points up for grab.  We both last fished at Wold Farm back in July 2011 where a mixed bag of fish was our reward from the Island lake. We arrived at 8am as requested by Dax and were met at the tackle shop by Ron (Dax's dad).  Now Ron is a unique character, very dry and very funny.  We went to pay our peg fee's and he said, "Well, I'm not a mind reader....", sorry Ron, "Island lake with Keepnets"... Wold farm is renowned for its mix of fish, it's like a fairground, you never know what is going to come out next! Mark selected his peg where he had an island to go at within pole range, bunch of lilies to his right and a lovely looking margin swim to his left.  My swim was on the right of Mark, with open water in front, lilies to my left and the point of an island to my right hand side. The Set-up Today would be pole only

MFS - Munkees vs Shandies, The Glebe, 7th September 2013

Image
The final day and the Monkees only need 8 points out of the 20 on offer to secure the bragging rights over the Shandees. Today the match rules allow any method with in the Glebe rules.  We would be fishing one on one and we wouldn't know who until the draw was completed. Phrase of yesterday, "you fringe" was being used to excess mind you! The Draw The Shandee's drew first and put their names down on the boards split across Pools 4, 5, 6 & 7.  Then the Monkees drew.  My draw was Pool 6, peg 88, the exact peg that Sconey was on yesterday, my competition was Rick (Happy Dangler) on Peg 89.  Funnily, Sconey drew my peg from yesterday Peg 86 and he would be fishing against Shogun. The Set-up Based on yesterday experience on Pool 6, I opted for the following: 5 metre line straight ahead Left hand margin at 4 metres Feeder rod set up to exploit the far bank The All-In Learning from yesterday I cupped in two large pots of hemp and corn on the

MFS - Munkees vs Shandies, The Glebe, 6th September 2013

Image
Day 2 which is a float only day and teams of 2 vs 2.  The weather had turned for the worse.  It was raining and overcast, probably an ideal day for the feeder to be honest! Most were suffering from the previous night at the Longshoot! The monkees were 4-1 up on the shandees and today there would be 10 points available for the winning teams. The Draw Hathers drew the envelope that contained our 4 pegs.  I drew peg 86 on Pool 6, Pike peg 87, Sconey peg 88 and Hathers on peg 89. I had been on peg 86 before back in 2012 for the Connor Whip Charity day .  It is known as the "little girls peg" so of course Pike and Hathers were taking the mickey, just a little... The Set-up I was thinking about setting up a pellet waggler but after a chat with Sconey and Roy Marlow it was clear that the 5 metre line would play a big part in today's match.  So I set up the following: 5 metre line straight ahead at full depth and also a shallow rig 13 metre and 5 metre margin

MFS - Munkees vs Shandies, The Glebe, 5th September 2013

Image
3 days of fishing at The Glebe ahead with 39 other Match Fishing Scene members, fishing heaven in my mind!  To top it all some of the MFS Jocks would also be there at the same time, bonus! A 3 day event like this especially at a fishery with a reputation for the amount of tins of corn anglers have fed presented a challenge to ensure I had brought the right baits and plenty of it, better have more than not enough...  the bait list was: 12 pints of 6mm pellets 2 pints of 8mm pellets 6 bags of Marukyu EFG 151 8 Bags of frozen sweetcorn 8 pints of hemp 3 pints of casters 2 pints of dead red maggot For the final day I'll tell you what I used and what I came home with... I arrived the night before at the Bosworth Hall Hotel which is only a 15 minute drive to fishery so it was great to be able to have an easy morning, i.e. a sleep in and a relaxing breakfast. It was great to see plenty of familiar faces from up and down the country, it didn't take long for the micke

MFS - Northern Munkees vs Southern Shandies - The Rules

Image
The Rules as written by Sconey.... Thursday Pools one, six and seven. Foursomes (4 Munkees  v 4 Shandees...all pegs in a line in one of 5 sections) 3 x 8 peg sections on Pool one 1 x 8 peg section on Pool six. 1 x 8 peg section on Pool seven. Both teams have been allocated equal numbers of end pegs. (This applies to all three days) The draw will take place at 10:00am in the marquee at The Glebe. I will call up anglers to draw (there will only be 5 anglers called...simple..!) They will draw one of 5 envelopes...these will contain Munkees  and Shandees pegs. The Foursomes will then "draw for themselves" from these envelopes then record their names with Pikey in the marquee. You will all fish from 11:30am to 5:30pm  (six hours)...rules are as fishery rules for nets (minimum 2 nets...one for silvers and carp under 2 pound, the other for carp over 2 pounds...100 pound strict net limit. If you go over 100 pounds in a net, the total that you go over will be deducted fr