Rayne Lodge Top Lake. May 31st 2008.

#1

Well after a nice warm fiarly windless day when noone seemed to be able to settle the fish down to catch consistantly, its was surprising that 17 of us managed to weigh in a total of 740lb for an average of 43lb each.

Top placings were

1st Colin Sharrard 114 lb
2nd Tony Roberts 85 lb 4 oz
3rd Peter Morton 79 lb 8 oz
4th Dave Collier 67 lb 12oz
5th Terry Goff 64 lb
6th Roger Noakes 48 lb 8oz
7th Kev Loveland 45 lb
8th Simon Watkins 44 lb 4oz
9th Bob Hucker 32 lb
10th Ed Dobson 30 lb
11th John Holdsworth 29 lb 12oz
12th Jim Boase 29 lb 8oz
13th Jean Algar 23 lb 8oz
14th Martin Hucker 17 lb 4oz
15th Rod Turner 13 lb 12oz
16th Ken Walker 12 lb 12oz
17th Zac Hucker 2 lb 4oz

A special mention must go to Jean Algar who on her very first days fishing managed to weigh in 23lb 8 oz. Well done Jean

Full results and report tomorrow plus Im sure Mugger will have some good photos of the place.

#2

Well today's the 2nd match of Marsh AC's season on the Top Lake at Rayne Lodge Fishery, just outside Braintree in Essex.
I met Dave at his house at 7am and followed him and Colin up to the fishery. Pulling into the car park just after 8am there were 17 of the usual suspects in attendance and with the weather apparently set fair for once everyone soon had their gear unloaded and down the hill to the lakeside.

I took a stroll round with Dave as he decided which pegs would be going into the draw, and in all honesty there didn't appear to be a bad one, but Dave having fished there on more than a few occasions had a pretty good handle on it anyway, so decisions made it was draw time.

Kevin's partner Jean, after accompanying him on all his trips had decided to fish today for the 1st time, so they drew 1st so that they could have adjacent swims, I came away with peg 16 while Dave could be heard bemoaning the fact that his favorite swim (14a) had remained in the bag undrawn.

Settling into peg 16 it was "make your mind up time" for me. Now the nice part of Marsh matches is that they are just socials really, not even any money for winning, just the section winners get payed out, and that is only just enough to cover your ticket, so that the matches have a lovely relaxed atmosphere. Sure there are some personal rivalries, but essentially it's just a pleasant day out fishing with friends.

I'd already mentioned to Colin that I was going to go with one of 2 methods today, either paste on the pole or pellet waggler. Well the pellet waggler won, purely because I fancied doing something different today. Setting up took no time at all as my Shakespeare 11ft Micro was already set up in it's ready sleeve. I've teamed the rod up with a Daiwa Capricorn 2000. The float was a 2ssg Malman Styro. Hooks are the Drennan eyed Carp Match barbless with a hair rigged Gardner 3·2mm latex pellet band. these will take anything from a 4mm to a 11mm pellet and are the best on the market IMO. For actually banding I use a Mossella Band’a’Bait tool, again IMO an unbeatable tool for the job.( Dave was certainly impressed when he saw me using it.

)

Bait and feed was nothing more than 12 pints of Skrettings 6mm pellets with some 8mm's for an alternative hookbait. I also got the feeder rod out as it was all set up in a ready sleeve, but I was only planning to use it if things went wrong.

Looking around most were going with the pole, though a couple of others were going with rod set-ups. So 10am and the all-in and a couple of large pouches of pellet were catapulted to the edge of the overhanging tree about 20yds away to ring the dinner bell. Normally I would clip up if I was casting to an island or feature, but with plenty of water under the overhanging tree and some large fish present in the lake I decided against it preferring to rely on the accuracy of my casting. (I only lost 1 float all day, so can't have been to rusty

) I soon got into a decent rhythm and a small Mirror of around ½lb got me of the mark. There were plenty of fish moving, but they were just mooching around and although I was putting a few together they weren't really having it. :(
I also lost a few fish, but after talking it over with a few of the others I've come to the conclusion that it was probably down to the fact that a large percentage of the fish have dodgy mouths making it awkward to get a decent hook hold.

A splash from round the lake signaled Kevin trying to join the fish as he transfered one to his net, though Dave refused to disqualify him for wading

and Jean had caught her 1st fish, but was under strict orders from Kevin not to beat him, and reports filtered round that one poor unfortunate had missed the net with a good double figure carp, a fish that he was hoping to weigh and photograph as it was definitely his biggest ever.

Frustrated at not being able to put a run of fish together and with the beginnings of a headache, I took a break and went for a stroll. Dave and Colin appeared to be neck and neck, both owning up to 20+ fish, but I had to fancy Colin having the edge as the fish appeared to be queuing up under the bush to his left waiting for him to drop a pellet on their noses........

Peg 1 was into a decent fish.....

...... while further round Jim appeared to be getting bitted out by roach. John was having a similar problem, but he proved to be a real lifesaver when he produced a couple of paracetamol from his box, that did the business on my headache, Cheers John.

Tony was looking pretty happy with himself, but claimed to be struggling having lost a number of fish, however his peg looked like it was solid to me...........

Kevin was doing OK and was happy that barring a total calamity he had the beating of Jean, though she was still knicking the odd one here and there.

Terry as usual was just keeping his his head down and putting a few fish quietly into the net, that's why they call him "Wily Coyote"

........

Back at my peg and 1st cast I stuck it straight into the tree and cracked off (Told you I lost 1 float) so chucked out the feeder with a banded 8mm pellet on it while I re rigged the pellet waggler but didn't get as much as a tap on it.

Back out on the waggler and I was soon back into the rhythm which is all important when fishing this method, and although they still weren't really having it I managed to keep up a reasonably decent catch rate right up till 4pm when Dave called the all out. The frustrating part was that I hadn't had a single bonus fish, my best being a Ghostie of around 4lb with the majority around the 1½ -2 lb range and although I'd had what most would class as a decent day ( I thought I'd got 50lbs+), couldn't help feeling that the peg was worth more, but hey, that's fishing.

By the time Terry and I caught up with the weigh in, it was coming round to Tony who was admitting to around 40lbs, he must be related to Pinocchio, because he put 85¼lbs on the scales (he'll have someone's eye out with that nose one day

). Jean had managed a very creditable 23½lbs, not enough to beat Kevin but a great 1st effort

, while Terry put a very decent 64lbs on the scales. Round to my peg and the tale of the scales gave me 79½lbs which pleasantly surprised me

. Dave's fish mustered 67¾lbs including a bonus 10lb Mirror, which just left Colin with 39 fish, only small ones according to him and probably about 70lbs. Well he must be another of Pinocchio's relatives because they gave him a dead level 114lbs for the win on the day.

So that was it for another day with Marsh AC, well apart from the suicidal climb back up the hill to the car park, Thanks for the hand Tony

, I might well still be there otherwise. A real fun day as usual and as a bonus I won my section and only needed a tee shirt all day. Roll on the next one.

You can find my Blog report HERE

#3

Superb reading Mugger and great photos

Gem · #4

A* quality report as normal Pete

Well done to all

#5

Brilliant write up Mugger - enjoyed that

That looks like Dave Coster on peg 1

#6

Cheers all.

I'm sure that in due course we'll get Dave's version of events and the full results.

#7

Nice report as usual peter

Unfortunately i had to miss yet another Marsh get together,this time due to losing one of my best friends.

Its ok he didn't die,he got married

#8

Its ok he didn't die,he got married

Condolences Mate. :(

#9

Dave, yet another great day out with the boys.

Mugger and yet another great report and some great photos.

Oh and before I foget well done Mrs great result for your first time out.

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