Simple Match Fishing Forum

Just thoght Id start this off now to save Si the trouble tomorrow

Well I saw you come on and leave. Hope you didn't blank Dave

no si he's just relying on Peter to post a report as Dave cant write them as good as Peter

Dave cant write them as good as Peter

No one can. Peter's reports are legendary

Hope you all had a good day

Saturday saw the eagerly anticipated first Marsh match of the year at Monk Lakes. The weather forecast had been for cold north winds and as the match lakes are very exposed it looked like full thermal gear would be the order of the day.

I arrived at the fishery at 8am just in time for a bacon buttie and cup of tea before collecting the monies and doing the draw the draw. As the lake is only pegged on two sides any of the 4 end pegs are favoured though peg 45 is the one to draw as it is not only barbel city it is also the shortest walk from the car park and with the wind direction today will also have the wind off your back. With 5 numbers left 45 was still in the bag along with 66 the end peg on the causeway but Colin with his usual drawbag skills soon put paid to my plans for the day when he snaffled 45, leaving me to get 66 at the end , the longest walk for the second match running.

Arriving at my peg I must admit I really fancied it as it is at the end of the causeway you can fish the channel between the two parts of the lake and I could also turn sideways on the platform and have the wind off my back. SimpleSimons comments about him hoping I would blank were running through my head  as I blew the whistle for the start and appeared to be coming true, as I went a whole 10 minutes without a bite. But never fear I was off and running with a number of  Ide which along with 3 1lb plus skimmers in the first hour and a half soon put paid to his evil thoughts. I was switching between pellet and maggot but couldn’t build up a quick enough catch rate as I expected it would need 50lb plus to frame. A few carp to 2lb helped but it was still not enough.

I had been feeding across the reed into the chanel and half way through I decided that it was time to see if the resident carp would play ball especially as Terry on the next peg was starting to get carp regular including several of the bigger 4lb fish. It didn’t take long before I was playing my first carp and they came fairly regular for a while. Bites began to tail off and the carp were replaced by ide around the 6oz average so a big pot of mixed 4mm pellet and maggot dumped on top of them soon brought the carp back. I did lose several fish with the hook pulling and suspected it was due to using a finer than usual B611 hook. One of them I’d played for several minutes and must have been around the 7 or 8lb mark… Bugger .

A quick change of rig to a Mick Wilkinson Margin float and a B911 hook seemed to partly solve the problem and with just over an hour to go I had my first barbel and it was one of the better ones at over 2lb. From then on it was barbel all the way.

At the weigh in it looked as it was going to be close as nobody would admit to more than 40lb and there were at least 6 who said that’s all they had (including me, although I was hoping for 50 ). Peter took an early lead with 51lb which was soon surpassed by Judy with 54lb a new personal best match weight. But as expected Colin, after swearing that he didn’t have as much as Judy , took the lead with 87lb of mostly barbel from his flat calm peg ( the rest of us had big waves to contend with).

Over to the other side of the lake and Jim had winkled out 55 lb to put him in second place and then to Bill Gibbins on peg 64 who had been quietly accumulating fish all day who ounced Terry . Finally it was my turn and I was very pleased to see 33lb on my first weigh and then a total of 62lb to nick 2nd place.  

All in all a good days fishing for everyone, the barbel continue to pile on the weight and its going to be great fun when they get to add another lb or so. The weights are good and the fish varied, Tony said that he had had 10 species in all.


  Peg No
1st     Colin Sharrard 45 87lb 0oz
2nd Dave Collier 66 62  8
3rd Jim Boase 56 55 12
4th Judy Hermite 46 54 12
5th Peter Morton 53 51  4
6th Tony Roberts 50 48  8
7th Bill Gibbins 64 42  8
8th Terry Goff 65 42  4
9th Ken Walker 47 39  4
10th Roger Noakes 49 36  4
11th Alan 51 34  8
12th John Holdsworth 57 33  0
13th Kevin Loveland 54 24 12
14th Zac Hucker 58 17  8
15th Arthur Thompson 61 15  4
16th Martin Hucker 55 10  4
17th Graham Manning 60  7  0


Total weight 672 lb   4oz

Well done Davec   nice write up and looks like plenty of tugs for most  

Just a little observation.........

it was due to using a finer than usual B611 hook

Thats classed as one of my 'beastie' hooks  

1st Colin Sharrard 45 87lb 0oz
2nd Dave Collier 66 62 8
3rd Jim Boase 56 55 12
4th Judy Hermite 46 54 12
5th Peter Morton 53 51 4
6th Tony Roberts 50 48 8
7th Bill Gibbins 64 42 8
8th Terry Goff 65 42 4
9th Ken Walker 47 39 4
10th Roger Noakes 49 36 4
11th Alan 51 34 8
12th John Holdsworth 57 33 0
13th Kevin Loveland 54 24 12
14th Zac Hucker 58 17 8
15th Arthur Thompson 61 15 4
16th Martin Hucker 55 10 4
17th Graham Manning 60 7 0


Total weight 672 lb 4oz

If Peter had done the report he'd of got the figures in nice straight lines so that the peg numbers were under the word peg, the pounds were under pound and the ounces were all under Oz not all over the place


Not a bad report over all tho so i will give you 3 out of 10 for making the effort to get a report up in less time than it takes TK (well that aint realy hard to do ) but remember on the next report more effort is needed

Great weights and good report mate  

there you go Dave , simple as shown you that even he can get everything in nice straight lines . Now even you got to admit that, it looks better. Remember that presentation is very important

Nice rite-up Dave, enjoyed reading it

Well done

Well an early wake up call so that I could drop Maria off at work saw me with plenty of time to get back home and cook myself a bit of breakfast before donning the thermals and waterproofs and loading the car up in the pouring rain and setting off to Monk Lakes to meet up with the members of Marsh AC for our 1st match of the year on Match Lake 2.

Pulling into the car park at around 8am it was good to see that the vast majority of the usual suspects were in attendance, along with a couple of guests (Bill G and Alan from the Maggotdrowning Forum). At least it had stopped raining, though the grey skies and brisk wind promised to make it a challenge.

Anyway to the draw, and anyone of 3 corner pegs would have been nice, 45 because it's an out and out flyer with a resident shoal of Barbel, or 56 and 66 at opposite ends of the causeway as these have aerators at their sides and unlike the other match lakes they aren't roped off allowing you to fish tight to them. No such luck though, 53 sticking to my fingers providing my home for the day.



One thing about the match lakes at Monk's is that there are plenty of fish, so that whatever the draw you're guaranteed to have a few fish in front of you to provide a decent days fishing. A stranger feature to this particular lake however is the fact that the depth shelves from around 5 feet in front of peg 55 to around 10 feet in front of 45, and when the wind blows straight down the lake as it was today it sets up a terrific tow!!

I set up 2 pole rigs to fish a couple of lines, the 1st at around 10mtrs where I had just over 6ft of water was a 4X18 KC Carpa2 on 0·16 straight through to a size 18 Drennan Carp Match hook and the 2nd for the margins where I had a couple of feet of water against the reeds was a 4X12 Carpa shelf with similar line and hook that I could also use up in the water on the main line if need be.
I also set up a pellet waggler, though I suspected that it wouldn't be a realistic option due to the wind and tow. :(
Bait for the day was red maggot, corn and pellet, and I also made up some groundbait to get some feed down through the tow. This was Special G with some corn and a good helping of micro pellet added.

10am and the all in, and straight away i fed 5 good balls of groundbait on the 10mtr line, with a good helping of pellet, corn and maggot down the right hand margin which I would continue to top up through the match as there was a vacant peg between me and the next angler.



Out to 10 mtrs with a single grain of corn, I just let the rig edge through the groundbaited area with the tow and was rewarded with a confident bite that produced the 1st fish of the day, a nice chunky FI of around 1½lbs  . The wind and waves on the water meant that presentation wasn't ideal but by sticking at it i managed to put another 8 in the net along with around a dozen small Tench in the next 2 hours  . Alan to my right was having a grim time and was struggling to buy a bite with only a couple of fish in the net  and Tony next to him was having trouble coming to terms with the tow that the lake was generating, but putting a few together holding a heavy rig back against the tow.
It seemed that every time I looked up towards Colin on peg 45 he was either playing or netting a fish and it was obvious he would take all the catching.

Looking across to the lads opposite fishing on the causeway, I could see Dave had turned his back on the wind and was fishing short to the channel where the aerator is and appeared to be putting a steady run of fish together, while Terry next door to him was also catching close in to the margin, Bill was fishing a longer line and sorting a few out  .





With a lull in my fish, I fed 4 more balls of groundbait in a bid to kickstart things and had a quick stroll with the camera. Colin as I suspected was catching well despite trying to deny it and it was a pleasure to see that Judy on peg 46 next to him was putting a couple of tips I'd given her to good use and was enjoying some good sport too  .



Back at the peg and a quick look at the margins revealed just a solitary small chub so back out and I was soon into a run of small Tench and Skimmers with a couple of decent Ide for good measure .

Kevin to my left had resorted to a Polaris set up with a groundbait feeder to beat the tow and was starting to find a few fish, while Martin was really struggling to get a bite  :(.



With a couple of hours to go Alan finally managed to find some Barbel down his margin line  , while Tony having changed to a feeder to combat the tow was steadily starting to put fish in the net, Despite several looks my margin just never came to life  :(, forcing me to stick it out at 10mtrs, and while i caught steadily to the end it was mainly small Chub and Tench with just a couple of bonus Barbel around the 2lb mark  .

With 15 minutes to go the skies grew darker and the temperature dropped noticeably and just to top it off it started to rain  . 4pm and the all out saw everyone hurriedly packing away followed by the weigh-in.

3rd to weigh, my 51¼lbs put me briefly into 1st which I knew wouldn't last. Alan's 34½lbs was a decent return given that he had nearly the whole of that in the last 2 hours, while Tony's 48½lbs meant that I had at least won my section  .

Judy put a very creditable 54¾lbs on the scales (Her best ever match weight) to briefly lead till Colin weighed his level 87lbs for the match win. Jim round on 56 managed  55¾lbs that would prove to be good enough for 3rd while Dave put a very decent 62½lbs on the scales for 2nd and might have run Colin even closer if it hadn't been for a few lost fish during the day  .

Still despite the weather trying it's hardest, overall it proved to be a decent day with no dry nets and an average of around 39lb per angler between the 17 of us. A decent days fishing by any standards. Roll on the next one  .

You can find my Blog report HERE 

Great write up and pickies Mugger which add to give a 'feel' for the day

Bloody hell, its well choppy
Camo Colin was hard to spot on the pictures though
It always rains at the end doesn't it
Great write up and pictures Peter

Really enjoyed that fellas,great write ups and info sounds and looks a really decent venue

Top Bommie

Glad you enjoyed the reports.
If they've wetted any of your appetites to have a trip down south to try the venue Vince Gould and I are running a Charity Open Match for Disabled Angler.co.uk at Monk Lakes on Lake 2 on Saturday 17th May 2008.

The charities to benefit are Macmillan Nurses and Rainbows (the East Midlands childrens hospice).

Entry fee will be £10 to cover £5 peg fee and £5 to charity. An optional £10 pool will be run on the day.

As in previous years there will be a guess the winning weight competition on the day.

Anyone that's interested should drop me a PM in the 1st instance as pegs are going well.

Very glad you liked the reports and I hope they have given you a feel for the fishing down here. I hope the rest of our venues fish as well as Monks did this week though I dont think any off them can compare with the variety of fish.

sorry i couldn't make it on the day but..........................

1. Guess who forgot to buy a license  

2. Guess who didn't realise you could phone the EA on the day and could pay by credit card so could of fished anyway .

3. Guess who should have spoken to DTF on Friday and would have been told this,instead of speaking to him on Sunday . 

No idea Paul. Give us all a clue.

I wish we had commercial venues up here in the north west as good as the ones you seem to have down in the southern counties... :( the pics give a good insight to a venue especially with the mapped out pegging, quality read fellas nice one




would love to fish Monks......but as a much travelled match angler kent is sadly for me out of " Radar " (about 6 hours one way by van via auto pilot ) would be a cracking day out tho....maybe two with all the travelling lol.

Look forward to reading your next reports and pics