Time for the annual Maggotdrowning Southern Fur & Feather match and we're back down at Wylands on House Lake today. Pressure of work has meant that I haven't been out fishing for nearly 2 months so it was good just to be going fishing today
. I was hoping that the weather would be a little kinder than last year, but looking through the curtains it was looking pretty cold and that was confirmed as I loaded the car. I rolled into the car park around 7·50am in tandem with Mark (MoleMan) and found Bill, Simon, Trevor and Wayne already in residence at the tea hut. The bad news however was that there was no food on the go , and the bailiff had only opened it so we could get a cuppa before we started 
.Looking across the lake it was obvious that some drastic gardening had gone on since last year with the island that's reached by the footbridge cut in half to form two, a lot of the trees cut back and a number of bivvy friendly swims installed on the woodside bank and the bank to the left of the bridge.
Mark soon had the draw underway for the 14 of us in attendance and put in 3 more pegs for absentees who hadn't cancelled
. I ended up with peg 16, one of 4 new pegs to the left of the bridge. For company today I had Tony to my left on 17, while to my right was Wayne on 15 and Trevor on 14 next to the bridge. Positioning my box I couldn't help noticing the icy easterly that was blowing from right to left into our pegs, and then for good measure it started raining 
.
Now with a good head of silvers present and the cold snap probably slowing the carp down, I'd picked a couple of top kits with soft white Hydro and made up a couple of silvers rigs, 4X12 carpa tricky's on 0·12 to 0·10 with size 20 Red Drennan Barbless Carp Maggot hooks. Now the main body of house lake offers depths of around 4-6 ft on the pole line, so I was a little taken aback to find no more than 2½ft regardless of where I plumbed up :(. Bait for today was red & white maggot, 4mm expanders and some micro pellet.
10am and Mark blew for the All-in, I potted some maggot and pellet straight out at 8mtrs and a similar amount about 10ft to the left of it.
Out with the rig baited with a single red maggot and 30 seconds later a small roach made sure that I wouldn't be facing a DNW
. Further small roach followed in the next 2 hours, but Tony and I were really struggling, Wayne appeared to be doing a bit better, while Trevor fishing the whip was definitely doing the best of the four of us......
Feeling a little disheartened I grabbed the camera and took a stroll. Jeff had once again drawn on the island and was getting regular action with some skimmers helping him build a decent net. Looking across I could see Mark on the 1st peg and rumour had it that he already had a bonus Carp in the net.......
Indeed it appeared that all those on the wood bank had got off to a decent start, especially Simon and Andy......
and I could see that Vince over on the dam was getting a few meaning that he was looking odds on for another Golden Nugget off me today
......
I could see Bill sitting in splendid isolation with the tea hut bank all to himself, and as I made my way over he was into a fish that was taking just a bit to much elastic for it to be anything other than a Carp. A couple of anxious minutes followed, but soon it was safely in the net, a nice bonus fish
......
Mick looked to be lost in concentration and getting amongst a few silvers himself ......
Indeed the whole of the main part of the lake seemed to be fishing quite well as I made my way back to my peg. I stopped off for a chat with Trev to try and pick his brains as it's his local fishery and he suggested that I needed to up my feeding despite the bitter cold as that's what the fish normally responded to. So back to my peg and off with the kinder pot and out with the catapult
.Well it worked to a degree, in that the roach started to come a bit more frequently, but they were still just 1-2oz fish with the occasional 4oz bonus fish. With around half an hour to go Terry (Wily Coyote) Goff appeared having come down to see how we were getting on, and it was as I chatted to Tony that I struck into another roach bite only to see quite a lot of White Hydro
, and a nervous couple of minutes followed before I slid the net under a Carp of around 5lbs. However that was the end of the excitement for me and Mark blew the All-out at 3pm just as the rain returned for us to pack up in. Thankfully we were using fishery keepnets so were able to pack up in double quick time and get the gear back to the car before the weigh in .Mark kicked off with 20¾lbs and was rapidly overtaken by Simon with 24¼lbs, Stuart managed 15½lbs before Andy brought 37lbs to the scales including 3 Carp. Vince's 16lbs+ secured the Golden Nugget from yours truly while Jay put a match winning 38¼lbs on the scales
. Mick recorded 12¾lbs while Bills level 34lbs left him ruing 3 lost carp, anyone of which would have given him the win. Next up Jeff and Trevor both put 25½lbs on the scales for joint 5th place. Wayne had 14½lbs, my meagre total was 11lbs 6ozs leaving poor Tony last to weigh and last on the day with just 4¼lbs to show for his efforts .At least everyone took home a prize on the day , one day hopefully we'll catch it on a day when the weather gods are smiling on us.
A Big Thank You to Mark for organising the match , and to all that turned up on the day
. Position Angler Weight
1st Jay Lay 38lbs 04ozs
2nd Andy (CU) Cummings 37lbs 00ozs
3rd Bill Gibbins 34lbs 00ozs
4th Nick Gilbert 26lbs 06ozs
5th= Jeff Driscoll 25lbs 08ozs
5th= Trevor (M.T.Net) Little 25lbs 08ozs
7th Simon Elsey 24lbs 04ozs
8th Mark (MoleMan) Hathaway 20lbs 12ozs
9th Vince Gould 16lbs 06ozs
10th Stuart (squeaky roller) Wilson 15lbs 08ozs
11th Wayne (map) Taylor 14lbs 08ozs
12th Mick (The Chippy) Pearson 12lbs 10ozs
13th Peter (Mugger) Morton 11lbs 06ozs
14th Tony (spamwham) Roberts 4lbs 04ozs
