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) πŸ˜€

Arriving at the lake we was greeted by glorious sunshine and a growing number of excited JINXSTERS.Β  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. WhatΒ  a gentleman πŸ˜€

Steve donning the MINX Hat

Gem showing Steve her new MINX T-Shirt

Webbo and Hatcheye

The JINX arrives…

The Lake looking lovely

Budgie confident in avoiding a MINXING

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 Β£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.

Gem forcing Eddie to part with a quid

People gathering for the Draw

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 πŸ˜€

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.

My home for the day. Peg 26

Clive on my right

Jon on my left looking excited

Gem on peg 29 with Steve on the next peg wearing the HAT!

Gem looking the business with her new T-Shirt

Steve. What a Gentleman πŸ˜€

On to the match. I set up a shallow rig and a Paste line on the bush to my left. Dead simple πŸ˜€ 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 πŸ™

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 πŸ˜€ 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 πŸ˜€
  • 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.

The weigh in team

Liam having a go on what was left of Malcs kit πŸ˜€

Eddie having a go on Gems gear

Our new T-Shirts. How pretty πŸ˜€

Results. PINK names were MINXED! (12 in all) Well done Gem πŸ˜€

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

A section winner Ant Haywood

B section winner, Dai Thomas

C section winner, Me

Sorry about the pictures, Gem ain’t to good on the camera πŸ˜€

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 πŸ˜€

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”

πŸ˜€ Watch out there a MINX about πŸ˜€

Eddie’s report on the day.. Click Here

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

Peter ‘Mugger’ Morton. The chosen one

Karma in Full Force πŸ˜€

Paste Pot

With a lot of the matches at Rolfs being won on the paste recently I decided to have a go. I have fished the paste before on a few venues but the paste had been quite stiff. I had been using Paste wings the get my paste out.

Paste Wings

Paste Wings

Only one problem, at Rolfs you need to have a sloppy paste. Paste wings are useless for this. Now Friday night I decided to have a go on the Saturday of the MD’s Pairs weekend but I had nothing to ship the paste out with.

I went round to see John Bennett to ask him if he had anything to use as a pastepot, “No, but I can soon make you something” was the reply. Bear in mind this was about 2am on the Saturday morning. John looked around for something and then spotted a 500ml coke bottle in the bin. “ahhh that’ll do” he says.

Out came the tools. A cordless drill and rather large kitchen knife. After a few minutes he had cut the bottle about 60mm’s from the neck and drilled and cut a groove in to the neck of the bottle. To looks something like this. Click to enlarge…


John Bennetts Paste Pot

John Bennetts Paste Pot


He made me go and get my topkit to make sure it fitted ok and after about another 10 minutes of finely tuning the rounded part to fit my topkit he was finished.

John Bennetts Paste Pot

John Bennetts Paste Pot

John Bennetts Paste Pot

John Bennetts Paste Pot

You sit it on your topkit and slide it down so it fits snugly (not too tight) You then screw the lid on, again not too tight. Nice and simple. I have seen other pots that have holes in them and you actually thread them on to your topkit. With this one you can change it to another top kit easily without taking your rig off.

I used it the on the Saturday match and found it very very good and easy to use. Top marks John Bennett for your creation. I have since made 3 more, another one for me and 2 for Gem. Eddie Taylor-Green has got her in to paste fishing and although she hated it at the start she is loving it now.