Jinx Series. Match 1. 15th May 2010.

The day had finally arrived. 25 eager people arrived at Rolfs Lake with big expectations. With big weights coming from the open matches at the lake everyone was keen to get on the peg kings board.

Me and Gem left the house at 9am for the hour and a half drive down to the lake. Gem had positioned the new MINX HAT in the back window of the car so if we passed any JINXSTERS on the motorway they would have a glimpse of the feared HAT! Low and behold the first person the get his peepers on it was Marcus Burgess (Budgie) 😀

Arriving at the lake we was greeted by glorious sunshine and a growing number of excited JINXSTERS.  After saying the hello’s Steve (Steak) turned up and that could mean only one thing….. The handing over of the new addition to the JINX Series, Gems PINK hat. Anyone getting MINXED will be open to wearing the hat for the next match. Steve had been MINXED by Gem at Lindholme lakes and had kindly agreed to wear the HAT for the first Jinx Match. What  a gentleman 😀

After the last match in the series Malc is holding a BBQ at the lake. In order to get some funds for all the food he was running a Guess the winning weight competition. You pay £1 to have a go. 50p goes towards the food funds and the other 50p goes towards whoever guesses nearest. Gem and Liam went round and collected everyone’s guesses.

On to the draw. Malc is running the series a little different this year, he is using the normal sections but you will move round the lake this time. So people like Mugger and Clive cannot draw the same pegs all the time 😀

I drew peg 26 which is in C section. I drew this peg for the last JINX match last year and won my section off it, also there had been some big weights coming off it in the open matches so I was quite hopeful. For company I had Jon Hatch on my left and Clive Pritchard on my right. Also I was only 2 pegs away from the MINX herself so I could keep a keen eye on her.

On to the match. I set up a shallow rig and a Paste line on the bush to my left. Dead simple 😀 I also had a 7 meter line as backup. On the all in I fed the bush and fired out some pellets on the 11m shallow line and shipped out. First plop in I missed a bite and second plop in resulted in my first fish. What happened next was HIGHLY embarrassing, The new elastic I was trying out was not up to much to say the least. A fish about 6lb led me on a merry dance around the lake, round the back of my keep nets, in the bush and finally snapping me round the platform leg 🙁

With everyone laughing at me and shaking with excitement I mended my rig and wrapped some more elastic on the winder and went out again. Bloody hell the same thing happened again but this time I managed to land the fish which was only about 5lb but it still took over 5 minutes to get in. This topkit was chucked up the bank and I switched to the old trusted Red Hydro. Lesson learnt here… if it ain’t broke don’t fix it AND Stick to what you know.

Shipping out again with a red hydro topkit and the story was very different. Fish hooked and in the net at a less embarrassing manor 😀 The shallow line was producing a steady run of fish and I was ahead in the section as far as I could see. I had a go on the paste down by the bush which resulted in a nice 14lb+ carp. I kept swapping from the shallow line to the bush and was slowly building a good bag of fish.

Jon to my left was not having a good day until he switched to the pellet waggler and started picking a few fish up, Clive was switching lines regularly and getting some fish also but the rest of the section were really struggling. In the final 2 hours both Dave Moore and Paul Jay had started picking up some fish too.

Elsewhere on the big lake this is what I could see…

• Budgie Struggling on peg 19 trying to avoid a MINXING
• Dave Webbo on peg 14 hooking and loosing fish willy nilly
• Paul ‘ringer’ Jay getting abuse from Eddie
• Paul Roberts getting pee’d off with witnessing my weigher’s. Sorry Paul 😀
• Mugger hanging from a tree after having a right Grueller
• Malc breaking more kit than soft Mick
• Gem getting her tuition off Eddie
• Dave the frog having a grueller.

On to the weigh in and it soon became clear just how hard it had fished. Rolfs Lake had done its normal trick on the JINXSTERS.

Results. PINK names were MINXED! (12 in all) Well done Gem 😀

A Section

Name	Peg	Weight
Ant Haywood	7	126-8
Slim Shady	2	100-12
Geoff Palmer	37	87-0
Mitch Auger	6	44-8
Nick W-P	8	21-0
Paul Dolby	38	20-0
Terry	40	16-0
Mick Lenton	4	12-4

B Section

Name	Peg	Weight
Dai Thomas	32	99-4
Dave Moore	13	65-4
Malc Doyle	9	51-0
Tony Roberts	10	45-8
Gemma Doyle	29	33-4
Al Loader	11	31-4
Steve Steak	30	17-0

C Section

Name	Peg	Weight
Simon Mound	26	156-0
Paul ‘ringer’ Jay	15	55-0
John Hatch	27	51-12
Clive Pritchard	24	51-0
Dave Webster	14	31-8
Steve Wilson	18	31-4
Peter Morton	21	20-0
Paul Roberts	23	18-4
Dave Collier	17	8-4
Marcus Burgess	19	2-4

Sorry about the pictures, Gem ain’t to good on the camera 😀

A few JINXSTERS had managed to get on the exclusive PEG KINGS board today too. Gem on peg 29, Geoff on peg 37, Paul on peg 38 and Jon on peg 27. Well done guys and girls.

You can’t ask for a better start to the series but normal service for me will be resumed next match. I normally do well in one match in the JINX series and do crap in the rest of the matches, So I have got my good one out the way early 😀

It was Superb to meet up with everyone again. Looking forward to the next match.

One final thing that sticks in my head is a phone conversation with Budgie along the lines of….

me “Gems going to Minx you”

Budgie “It will NEVER happen mate”

😀 Watch out there a MINX about 😀

Eddie’s report on the day.. Click Here

A preview of who is wearing THE HAT for the next match…