mfs

May 2025 – a Mish-Mash

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Sunday 11th sees me back at Boddington for the first leg of the North Wessex Summer League with 10 teams taking part. I drew A section, permanent peg 12 on the dam wall which I was not unhappy with.

Setting up a 5m whip, pole and waggler the plan was to start on the whip move further out on the pole and use the waggler if struggling. It was hard! The wind was blowing off the dam wall down to sections C and D and despite ringing the changes I ended up with my worst ever weight at Boddington 3-01 comprising of 18 roach and 2 perch , 5 on the whip, 6 came to the pole and 9 the waggler. The section was tight but I ended up with 9 points, beating the angler on the right by 12oz but losing by 11oz to my left. The team bombed out and were 10th.

Rolling on to the 20th I find myself getting up at silly o’clock to get to Monkhall near Bridgnorth for the MFS three day festival which once again I was charged with running. We had been allocated Lark and Owl on the Tuesday, followed by Buzzard and Hawk, then Swallow and Hawk, with the proviso that if you fished Hawk on Wednesday then Swallow was for you on Thursday. Money taken in, pegging sorted the draw takes place with fishing from 11:30 to 4:30. Last peg in the bag places me on Lark 7, the one lake I have not fished before and the peg that is furthest from the car park, added to which once again the wind was blowing to the other end of the lake which had a nice ripple while peg 7 was like a mirror!

The peg did look nice with inviting margins and I set up a shallow rig (for the hell of it!), a paste rig for 2+2, a pellet/corn rig for 10m and a margin rig. It has to be said that I did not intend to fish the shallow rig as I know I cannot compete now in a fish race and my line of attack was to target the carp on paste and then the margins. Well things did not go to plan, firstly the fish were not really feeding properly due to getting ready to spawn again, so it was a frustrating time with tails visible in the margins but only weighing in 36-13 while losing at least three times that with foul hookers both on the 2+2 and margin line. Needless to say last in section, I know my place! To rub salt into the wound the heavens opened with half an hour to go!

Day 2 sees me on Hawk peg 3, a peg I have drawn before. Set up as before, paste on 2+2 line, corn and micros in margins and micros long. First put in a carp of about 4lb on paste before anyone else had caught, then a series of missed bites and foul hooked fish. I managed to land a couple more before looking in the margins but had to fish very short (next to platform almost) to get proper bites, again lost 10+ carp and weighed in 56-11 which amazingly was not last (last but one!)

Final day and Swallow 8 called but again the weather gods had a joke and the wind was going down the far end of the lake so it was another case of fishing in a mirror!

Similar approach with the addition that the pellet rig now became a far bank rig as I was on the corner of the island. Again I was off to a flier on paste but it was a case of rotating around the swims, taking a couple of fish then moving on. The right margin produced nothing but the left margin seemed to be favoured by the carp. Far bank I fed with maggots via a toss pot with double maggot as hookbait that produced a fair amount of action but was difficult with the corner and snags. I managed to weigh in 56-06 despite losing more than 10 carp again. Colin Mercer on peg 6 said I had beaten him but I knew he had beaten me as was the case. Last again.

On to Sunday (25th) and round 2 of the Summer League at Walters lake South Cerney. Talk beforehand was that it would be hard as it was not fishing at all well pleasure fishing so a match was bound to be difficult and so it turned out.I was drawn on B1 (scales) which was permanent peg 16.

I set up a hybrid feeder, a margin rig, one for the 2+2 line and one for 10m. Bait was to be maggot/caster/worm/pellet/corn – anything I could get a bite on! Three balls of F! Sweet groundbait mixed dry were deposited on the 10m line laced with casters, a single ball was cupped in on the 2+2 with a pinch of casters fed every couple of minutes. Red and white maggot seemed to attract some attention and 4 fish in the first hour meant at least I avoided a blank! Things went downhill, next hour saw no bites on any of the areas. Re-feeding the long swim saw a couple of small skimmers but I was struggling. I then decided to put in a toss-pot of chopped worm with a few casters and began repeating it every 10 minutes with half a small dendrabena on the hook – finally some response – a small perch but then a bite that pulled the elastic out – a bream. The match ended with that bream, 4 small skimmers, 3 roach and the perch for 4-06 and 6th in the 10 man section. The team improved coming 4th on the day.

Last action this month sees me return to Rowde on Tuesday, same pound and swim, partly because although it is wide it is a short pound and realistically only two could fish it and I picked the flattest area that gave a stable sitting position for the seat-bag. Feeding the remnants of the groundbait and casters from Sunday on the 5m Chinese whip and rig I was soon into fish. Fishing 9:18 to 10:59 I had 20 roach, 16 skimmers, 9 rudd and 6 perch for between 4 and 5lb (I don’t bother taking the keepnet) before the boats and the CRT workers cutting the grass around the locks made it an easy decision to pack up.

Next up round 3 on the canal at Hungerford.

June 2024 part 2b- Struggles and successes

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I had the opportunity to get to Bowood a couple of times before the Pellet Guys Pairs at Makins, so Monday 24th sees me trudge down the field, now occupied by sheep, to Peg 1. The colour had dropped considerably but there was still sufficient for me to give it a go. Shadows moving through the water gave a big hint that the colour would soon be gone but I set up as previously and introduced two cups of loose groundbait with some wheat and about 5-6 pieces of corn. Starting at 8:45 I fished through until 11:45 and things did not look good at small rudd were attacking the corn and their slightly bigger brethren were taking it. Eventually I had a bream of 3-08 followed by further ones of 3-10, 3-02, 3-06, 4-01, 3-06 and 3-02 together with 9 rudd, a small skimmer and a roach this gave me a 25-07 total.

I had brought the rake with me and intended to prepare some swims as Peg 1 would no longer produce with the colour dropping out. To my horror Peg 3 was gone, the posts were there but the platform boards had gone and the access was blocked by reeds! Moving up to peg 4 I was pleased to see it had a good colour and after putting the rake through a couple of times for minimal weed I decided raking would not be necessary for the other swims.

Next day I was back at Bowood, this time at peg 4 and fished 8:50 to 11:20 by which time it was getting very hot and I called it a day. The session was another that you dream about, apart from16 bream I also had a tench of 4-15 and a pike of 5-01 that took a fancy to the corn, combined with 8 rudd a roach and two small skimmers I surpassed the 50lb mark again with 56-06. Groundbait was cupped in loose again but this time I used a 0.5g Chianti style homemade float. Over the five sessions in June I have averaged over 49lb but only used half a tin of corn and a litre of wheat.

So Friday sees me travel up to Makins Fishery, just outside Nuneaton for the Pellet Guys Pairs two dayer. The format is simple in that the pairs are drawn so that there is a Makins regular teamed up with an MFS angler, the Makins anglers are on three lakes and the MFS on a separate three lakes with each lake treated as a section so the pair with the lowest points win after two days. Day one and I draw peg 30 on Lizard which is a nice short walk from the car!

From left to right – left margin, front of peg and right margin. The margin on the left was deep over 3 feet and sloping out sharply, the right margin was a lot shallower but still with a slope. I planned on two areas in front the first at 10m and the second at 2+2 plus the margins, I also set up a shallow rig which went unused! Starting on the short line in 5-6ft of water on 4mm meat feeding meat and 4mm pellets I could only get a couple of roach and one solitary carp when I tried corn over it there was no joy either. The 10m line produced a roach so I ended up looking at the margins, apart from one carp from the right, all my fish came from the left one. Unfortunately the only area I could get interest was very close to the tree which had roots into the water I ended up being snapped 4 times by fish going into the roots despite being on 0.20mm and lost a further two to hook pulls. I did manage to extract eight carp including a koi close to double figures and weighed in 36-10 for joint 5th on the lake, beating the anglers near me.

Day two sees me draw peg 10 on Severn.

The margins looked featureless and on plumbing up were very sharply sloping with no flat spots and about three feet deep. The weather was very sunny and hot and although the point of the island was crying out for me to put a method feeder there I didn’t feel as it would be that productive in the hot weather as the fish were high in the water and were looking as if they may be getting ready to spawn again. Same set ups as previously and the 2+2 line only produce a few twitches before a two pound carp came to the net and that is how it stayed until the last hour of the six hour match. Despite making changes and trying the margins plus straight lead there was no joy apart from two hook pulls and being snapped on the paste by a good fish when I think the lane caught on the jagged dorsal fin. Fish were coming in to the left hand margin but were spooked if they touched the line or each other! Straight lead down the margin with a longish tail produced one liner and that was it. I was now in desperation mode so I cupped in 3 cups of loose groundbait and a cup of micros and began to put 10 4mm pellets in every few minutes. This began to get the fish wait longer and by the weigh in I had somehow managed to get 24-10 which put me 8th on the lake. To put it in context, the angler on my right who had tried the island tipped back as he reckoned he had just over 20lb and the one on my left weighed in 26-08, so I felt I had not done as badly as I feared, just that area was the worst on the lake on that day. Needless to say we came nowhere as a pair!

July beckons with the arrival of Gareth et al for a couple of weeks, so Bowood will be on the agenda.

May 2024 – Part 2

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Well it has been a strange end of month but we will get to that later. First the trip up to Yorkshire was okay until we hit traffic on the A1 and the car started to play up in that it was refusing to get into gear. We managed to get to the hotel, park up and RAC attended and managed to fix the problem – low brake fluid. On return without mishap managed to call in garage and arranged for them to check it over when in for MOT at end of June.

So Tuesday 21st sees me head of back to Monkhall to run the MFS festival. What you don’t get a notion of from the aerial photo is that the lakes are on a steep hillside with Lark at the top and Owl at the base. Day 1 we were on Owl and Swallow – so I was left with peg 6 Swallow, this meant on day 3 I would be on Owl as we always do a swap around if we have the same lake twice. Anyway with all the organising and setting up I forgot to take any photos! I set up similar to Owl with an 8m line a top2+1 line and the margins all on 0.16mm line and 14 hooks but with one rig on 0.18mm.From my previous experience I decided not to pot in micros, instead opting to toss pot along with my paste on the 8m line to start and drip feed some micros and corn into the margins and short line.

Third put in and I had my first carp and after an hour I had clicked 17lb but then it slowed! The 2+1 line produced a solitary F1 so it was the margins I turned to as unlike other venues the margins at Monkhall can be productive throughout. Corn on the hook was the answer and when bites slowed 6mm expander, by swapping between the two margins and baits I clicked 48lb in the first net before starting on the second and reckoned I had about 11lb in that at the end. I tend to stop once I get past 45lb in a net as although the net limit is 60lb, I have to lift it out! The landing nets and keepnets are supplied by the fishery so it makes life a lot easier. At the weigh in my first net went 48-10 and the second 12lb for a 60-10 total and last in section of 5 (5pts).

Day 2 and I am left with Hawk peg 8 rather than being on the preferred Buzzard lake. The previous night the weather had changed and we had a heavy downpour all night and all through the match so everything was soaked and the phone stayed tucked away so again no photos. Setting up in similar fashion it was again the margins that produced the most bites on corn. The weather was so bad with an our to go I was shivering so much it took me two minutes to put a piece of corn on the hook! I was glad when I called the all out with net 1 weighing 38-01 and net 2 18-03 for a 56-04 total and 4pts. I had started the second net early as I was feeling that rough!

Day 3 and I am on Owl 5, a fine breezy day so things were spread out to dry! Same approach starting on paste but this time a carp on first put in, then an F1,then a run of 10 missed bites before a tench came to the net. I decided that the fizzing and missed bites were probably tench so looked at the margins and by alternating corn and expander in both margins managed to put 51-14 in the first net and 12-09 in second for a 64-07 total and 4pts. Unfortunately in my haste to get packed up and sort the results, photos got missed again! I ended up with 13points and 16/20.

Since returning I have not been able to get out with me either being hampered by heavy rain or with a stomach bug! Still 16 days to Bowood.