Spring League final round - Nick's Lake Hartleylands

The last round of the spring league was upon us today and with the top 2 probably decided barring a total disaster, the other 3 places from 3 to 5 were still up for grabs, plus of course the individual match payout on the day.

With the weather being warm with clouds and ripple, the fishing promised to be good and there was a distinct buzz at the draw as everyone was hoping for a decent peg. Our welcomed guest Mick the Chippy stepped forward and drew for Nick and myself, I got 26 and I think Nick had 20…………..both worth a few fish although I fancied John Pantry on 32 to take the honours. I have never been drawn up that end of that bank before so it was a bit of an unknown to me but with a reasonable chuck to the right hand island, some open water in front and a decent bush down both margins I felt comfortable for a ton plus. To my left I had last year’s winner Paul Kell with a long chuck to the island but miles of space up the left margin and lots of open water.





My approach was to be 3 fold, the pellet waggler out in front with the wind pushing it towards the point of the island, the shallow pole at around 8m and then a deep margin rig in front of both margin bushes as I had a good 4’ there. No need to go through my rigs as you will know them by now but they consisted of the usual NG Floats in glorious red with the usual line, hooks and shotting style. I set up 2 waggler rods at different depths, 2 shallow pole rigs at different depths and a margin rig plumbed up to suit both sides with the bulk just off bottom. Bait would be 6mm hard pellet out in front and corn down the edge with mussles for the hook.

At the start I fed 5 babies heads on the pole line and proceeded to go out with the waggler and had a fish within a minute………and then a duckling! The ducks soon swarm around you if you are feeding but I put up with them for an hour and had 30lb in the net. I then wanted to try the pole line as there was a lot of fizzing and the ducks were annoying me out by the island. During the next hour I had another 30lb with some nice sized fish.

It wasn’t long before the ducklings arrived again and for the third hour I alternated between pole and waggler to get away from the pesky things but the sport slowed down as I was holding back from feeding to try and allow the ducks to move away while I cast out. I could see that soon I might give up fishing shallow all together so in preparation for this I fed 3 large cups of corn from 4’ off the water down both margin swims.

With about 2 hours left I had 80lb in the net and saw that Paul Kell had started catching well down the edge so out came the margin rig and I proceeded to catch steadily with fish between 3lb and 8lb coming out as well as a few greedy silvers taking a whole mussel!

At the weigh-in I walked with the scales and it seemed that most had struggled to pass the ton mark. I estimated 120lb in my nets and thought it would be tight between myself, Paul Kell and John Pantry. Nick had a reasonable day with around 95lb beating everyone from 9 through to 24. My nets went to 120lb odd but crafty Mr Kell pipped me to the post with his margin fish and put 131lb on the scales.
So, I had to settle for 2nd on the day, £70 in the bank and 6th overall in the league which wasn’t bad after the few rubbish early draws I suffered. So congratulations to the top 5 Mark Smith, John Robinson, John Pantry, Paul Lamb and Nick Gilbert - overall league places are below and I would like to send special thanks to our sponsors GOT Baits who supplied enough prizes for the winners to take a carrier bag of bait home and every other angler getting a freebee. Now it is time for me to focus on the teams of 4 league at Hartleylands and a few opens and qualifying matches for the Fish to Win competition.



1. Mark Smith 87
2. John Robinson 84
3. John Pantry 81
4. Paul Lamb 76
5. Nick Gilbert 74
6. Matt Love 73
7. Paul Taylor 73
8. Ian Carley 71
9. Mark Hathway 68
10. Jeff Driscoll 62
11. Russell Graves 55
12. Colin Wood 55
13. Richard Hall 51
14. Jonny Watt 49
15. Paul Kell 49
16. Kevin Pack 46
17. Mark Nevins 38
18. Stephen Lovell 24

Guest blog by Jeff Driscoll - 2nd from along the spit

Hathers Tri Forum Match

I recently fished a match on lake 2 ,organised by Mark Hathway which he opened to members of MFS,MD and Nick Gilberts forum sites.There were many familiar faces in attendance and a couple of new ones.

I drew peg 71 which I was not too disappointed with. In a recent league match I remembered some good weights coming from this area so was confident of a reasonable day.

Mark had pegged the lake well giving everyone a spare peg apart from the endpegs.
To my right on peg 73 was Squeaky and to my left on peg 70 was Mutley.After an hour of the match Mutley felt unwell due to the very hot sunny conditions and packed up, so I was left with plenty of space.

My general plan for the day was to try and catch shallow at 10m and feed at the bottom of the shelf at 4m regularly for when my shallow swim died and to feed the margins for late on. I also planned to feed the pellet waggler line as there were a lot of fish cruising beyond the pole line.

For my shallow rig I was using a NG Dibber to 0.16 mainline with a 0.14 trace size 16 b911 banded hook.
At the bottom of the shelf I set up a 0.3g NG Decker to 0.16 mainline with a 0.14 trace size 14 b911.
The margin swim was a MW Slim Power with a 0.18 mainline with a 0.18 trace size 12 Drennan wide gape. All my line was silstar.

At the whistle I cupped in a ball of fishmeal groundbait at 10m and threw out 2 more on top of it. I then cupped in a small amount of 6mm pellets at height to make a bit more noise. I did not want to put too much in at the start as there was hardly a ripple on the water and I thought conditions could be tough to start with. I then put in a ball of groundbait and a good couple of handfuls of pellets at the bottom of the shelf. I was less worried about being a bit more aggressive on this line as it would be for later in the match.

Whilst I pinged pellets over my shallow line at the start I had a look down the margin with a bit of meat whilst I let everything settle. The reeds on this peg go out into the lake quite a bit and the depth is about 4ft tight to them. I had no indications and did not give it long before having a look on my shallow line. I was not confident of catching in the margin as it just seemed too deep.

The first hour was very slow and I had under 10lb in my net. The water surface was dead flat , which is a rarity at Monk lakes. I could see fish cruising around in small groups but they did not seem interested in feeding. Quite often when fishing shallow you can flick your rig over these fish and mug a few during a session but they just would not have it.

I was feeding 6mm pellets by hand over my 10m line and was varying the amount and timing to try to get the fish interested, but I could only get the occasional take and would then have to vary my depth or shotting to get another take. I had been feeding the pellet wag line also and managed a couple of fish but again things were slow and I was suffering a few bumped fish and missed bites which was probably silverfish.

Squeeky to my right was struggling and Jonny Watt and Trev Little behind me were not doing any better so I was not too worried about the slow start. I had a look at the bottom of the shelf after an hour but the fish had not settled here either so I kept it topped up with pellet and concentrated on the shallow line.

Over the next couple of hours I started to catch Carp and f1s more regularly over my shallow line by constantly changing my depth and feeding and had about 40lb after 3 hours. At this stage a slight breeze picked up just putting a ripple on the surface and the fish seemed to respond better and my catchrate started to improve. I had been fishing a long line on my shallow rig as I felt the fish would not want the pole over there heads in such calm conditions which I felt got me more bites but also a few missed bites but still an advantage.

With an hour and a half to go I had about 70lb and decided to have a look at the bottom of the shelf and foul hooked one first put in. I had a couple of fish and another foul hooker and then a few missed bites. I was not comfortable with the way things were going here so went back out on the shallow line which I had kept feeding and had a Carp of 4lb first put in. I stayed on this line for the rest of the match as my catch rate improved and the fish were of a slightly bigger size than the rest of the day.

The Monk bait limits are not a major problem during a match as I find 8 pints is enough for most situations providing you keep things simple over a couple of lines. The real challenge is taking the right bait and size of pellet to match the conditions on the day.

At the weigh in I managed to weigh in 109lb for 2nd place just beating Matt (off the endpeg flyer) but not managing to get near Wayne on peg 45.

I was pleased with the result on the day but as ever I was still driving home thinking I could of done better.

Jeff Driscoll

Guest blog by Mark Hathway - A Match of Two Halves

I asked a couple of guys to write a guest blog about recent matches on lake 2 at Monks so we can all see how the new bait limits are being approached with success. Here is the first blog from Mark Hathway:


Matt invited me to write a blog on the latest Medway Trotters match on Monk Lakes 2, so here goes.

Following on from my hard earned 50lbs from p76 on Saturday, I wanted to try a different approach today. I used to fish and do well on matches a few years ago fishing UITW with baits like caster and worm heads but more recently had turned to fishing slop and porridge the ‘Pikey Way’.

I wasn’t fussed what peg I drew and couldn’t believe it when I drew P47, this was the 3rd time in 4 matches on the lake, although P48 was in, P46 was empty which would help. However with Steve ‘Spock‘ Peters on P45 the writing was really on the wall. I won off the peg (47) a month or so earlier catching mainly barbel in the margins, I decided as the lake was calm with the winds promised for later in the match to fish 2 matches. The first 3 hours would be UITW at 6 mtrs and then I was sure I could plunder the Barbel at the end of the match.

I set up 2 x UITW rigs (I’m useless at float names) a short stubby No.3 on a long line and a 4x10 slim float on a short line (0.12), both being set at 2’ deep to a 16 Tubertini 808. I also set a small bulk of No.10 shot about 8” from the hook. This acts as a sort of bolt rig and was something the Raison’s and Gardner’s used to do when they plundered the Willow Park silvers years ago. For the margin two identical NG floats
set to come up the slope on 0.16 and a 16’s 911 hook.

For bait I had 6 pints of maggots and a few 6mm pellets. Starting on the short line at 6mtrs, I fed sparingly with maggot (and odd pellet for noise) and had my first fish an Ide of 1lb after about 10 minutes, the line gradually sprung to life and I started to put F1’s in the net. From what I could see I was keeping up with Spock on the flyer. An hour passed and I reckon I had 20lbs in the net, I saw no reason to up the feed and plodded along nicely, the 2nd hour was similar, more F1’s, odd chub and Ide. At this stage I still hadn’t fed the margin and had used about 2 pints of bait.

In the 3rd hour things drifted way a bit, maybe I hadn’t fed enough, who knows? I did alter things around, using the long line, tapping, splashing etc and still nicked odd fish. At the ½ stage I had 23 F1’s in a net (they weighed 48lbs) and about 15lbs of assortments in the other net. Which included a mirror carp of 4” long that I wanted to show Morgan the fishery manager, he later confirmed it was a survivor of the 2009 spawning.

Into hour 4 and I began to up the feed on both my 6 mtr and margin line, a quick drop in on the margin gave me an early Barbel but then those pesky hand size skimmers got in on the act. I reckon I added a further 20lbs to my nets.

With 2 hours left it was now margin time and to be fair it was solid with barbel (just like when I won off it ) and I caught frantically for the last 2 hours. The Purple Hydro seemed to reduce the playing time, whoever says Barbel don’t thrive in still waters should sit on a nest of barbel at Monks ! A little trick I use is to very, very slowly draw the bait up the slope, as your doing it the fish rip the pole out of your hands, no strike required.

As the match drew to a close I was pleased the way I had fished and really enjoyed the day. I topped things off by beating Spock off P45 with 147lbs to his 138lbs but lost out to Rusty ‘5’ pegs who had 170lbs from the pleasure gardens at P52.

My conclusion is that the bait limit will restrict your feed patterns if targeting different lines and therefore reduce weights, which for fish welfare reasons is ok in my book. Who needs more than 150lbs anyway!

Laters – Hathers

Lake 2, Monks - Hather's forum bash

Today was a forum match organised by super-model Mark Hathway from across the border in Surrey. Mark is well known around the south east, not so much for his fishing but for his spectacularly disgusting shorts and he rounded up a very good group of 23-24 anglers from various angling forums. The venue was Lake 2 at Monks on a very hot and still day and upon arrival there was talk of it not fishing too well due to the lake being like a sheet of glass. I however was buzzing because of the wonderful weather and hopeful of a good days fishing.

Before the fishing though there was time for an egg butty and a bit of banter with some of the guys I haven’t seen for a while. On board was Justin Case (Paul Law for all those that want to know who jumped in head-first at last week’s Fisho), Squeaky Roller, M T Net and far too many more to mention.

At the draw Mark had organised the pegs according to the anglers that had turned up and for once I had the chance of drawing my own peg as I was not helping with the draw. Out popped 77 quickly followed by the obvious heckling that I was bound to win the watch from ‘that flyer’…………I’ve heard THAT one before lol. For company on 76 I had the match organiser himself which was defo worth a good banter session and behind me Orpington Pete and Bill ‘paste-head’ Gibbins. Nick Gilbert had drawn bobbins at 54 and was well out of the way of any banter………..although all of us over our side of the lake distinctly heard the sound of cracking carbon coming from his lonely corner!

Anyway, on with the fishing: I recently posted a blog about fishing lake 2 in a different style but didn’t mention what bait I was using as I wanted to give it another crack first, so today was my chance to try shallow maggot again and I had 6 pints with me along with 2 pints of 4mm pellet and a small tin of corn as back-up. I also took 1kg of pre-mixed groundbait for balling in and another 1kg dry bag just in case I needed it.

Having never drawn an end peg on lake 2 I wondered whether I should fish around the corner towards the bridge where perhaps all the fish were holding out but to be honest I was very keen to test my shallow maggot theory out which would need to be at about 7m out in front. I therefore opted to do this and leave the corner for later on if I needed it, if the fish were there anyway then I doubted that they would bugger off.

Rigs today therefore were as follows:

An NG Dibber set 2’ deep with a group of no.8 shot half way down
An NG Finnesse set at dead depth out in front which would also do for the corner fishing a couple of inches over depth
An NG XT Margin for fishing towards the far bank around the corner

All rigs had Drennan size 16 Wide Gape hooks to 0.13 tied on to 0.16 Fox Micro+ rig line, the wide gape hooks were to easily take 3 maggots.

At the start I flicked out some maggots to identify the balling zone and threw in 4 jaffas making as much noise as possible. I then dropped my rig in, flicked out more maggots and took a 3oz skimmer on the drop. That must have been the quickest time I have ever landed a fish in a match!

Unfortunately after another skimmer and a couple of small chub things didn’t seem to be getting any better so I upped the feed rate to every 5 seconds. After about half an hour I had my first decent fish which was a Chub of around 2lb followed by another and then a nice 2lb Ide. The first Carp then showed up and things started to tick over nicely.

By the start of the second hour I had 25lb on my clicker and the fishing was becoming steadier with mostly Carp turning up, although it was in fits and spurts rather than continual. By the end of the 2nd hour I had started my second net but things were still steady and not exactly hectic.

A quick glance at my bait tray started me thinking, after 2 hours I was over half way through my maggots and would not be able to make them last if I wanted to keep the bigger Carp coming. Anticipating that I would run out by 3 o’clock I started to feed some 4mm pellets round the corner to my right. I kept the Carp coming out in front but had to maintain very frequent feeding to keep them there.

At around 2pm a breeze turned up and it was coming from 10 o’clock and making it very hard to get maggots out by hand. I persevered for 20 minutes hoping it might calm down but it didn’t. With about 90 minutes to go I decided to drop in round the corner with corn but the float didn’t move. There had been a lot of movement in the far side margin all day but I didn’t want to fish tight to it because I was concerned about foul hooking fish that were more interested in spawning than feeding. For this reason I was feeding in the middle but clearly the fish were not too interested in a few pellets and a bit of corn. I therefore made up 4 large balls of grounbait using up all of my wet mix and stuck 2 round the corner and 2 out on the shallow line to keep some fish there. A couple of handfuls of pellets went round the corner as well and the whole idea here was to draw away any fish that were at all interested in feeding and leave the spawning fish in the margins. First put-in and I had a Barbel, second put-in a foul hooked Barbel, third put in a foul hooked Carp and then another foul hooked Barbel. It seemed that I may have drawn too many fish in so I swapped my top kit from the doubled 8 to a single solid 16 to try and hold on to the foul hookers that liked to shoot off under the bridge. As I continued to feed pellet I began to get a lot more properly hooked fish until eventually I was catching steadily and things were looking ok for the rest of the match. The solid 16 helped to deal with those Barbel and also some very chunky Carp that were showing. In fact I hooked a lump just before the whistle and played it out slowly before slipping the net under the 8lb fish.

It was my job to be on the scales and therefore first to weigh in so I got someone else to shout it and 108 lb 8oz was called. Further down there were a couple of good weights from pegs that I always fancy including 82lb odd from Squeaky and a jammy 109lb odd from Jeff ‘chav jacket’ Driscol who must be man of the match for coming 2nd half way down the spit. I have said many times that you can win or frame along the spit and was pleased that good angling had proven the point today. I ended up with 3rd place and the winner came from peg 45 with 135lb 8oz so well done to Wayne.

So, I have been quite sure for a while now that shallow maggot was going to work well but the only problem is potentially running out if you need to feed hard to get the Carp up. I did have a pint or 2 left which I gave to Hathers because he was fishing another match here tomorrow and fancied trying the shallow maggot approach……………….147lb for 2nd place…………….nice!

Spring League round 4 Nick's lake Hartleylands

For this match the weather was mild but with showers forecast later in the day. Usually someone draws pegs for Nick and me as we always do the draw together and today the bailiff offered to stick his hand in the bag for us. First out was Nick’s peg and number 17 stuck to his hand. Nick wasn’t impressed and I wouldn’t have been either with the wind blowing down that end and making the waggler difficult to fish. Next out was mine and a rather sweet number 8 appeared, probably one of the best 6 pegs on the lake. I have to mention good old Jonny Watt hear because he likes to draw late and in the last match he had a choice between a flyer and a duffer…..he got the duffer. So today he was faced with the same dilemma…….one flyer and one duffer left in the bag……he got the duffer. I do feel sorry for Jonny as he is suffering from the same fate as I did last year but after my draw today perhaps I have left Jonny to carry the flame. Sorry Jonny, as you said to me a few weeks back “you are better than that” so chin up and give the bag some positive vibes on the Res!

So moving around to my peg, with the wind coming across right to left, I opted to fish the waggler off the point of the left hand island and allow the wind to carry the rig and feed in towards the island. For back-up I had a bomb rod and a margin rig set up to fish under the small tree to my left. For company I had Colin Wood on peg 9 who is a very easy angler to fish next to as he doesn’t mind a chat and is very easy going. We both agreed that the tree was free-for-all and that we should both fish towards the middle branch dangling in the water.

My waggler rigs today were nothing out of the ordinary, just a pair of 7AAA styro floats set at 8” and 18” deep with the usual hair rigs on 0.16 line. The depth under the tree was around 5’ so I opted for an NG Decker with a bulk of no.8s 8” from the hook and set 2" over depth. Corn would be the bait with 3 pieces mounted on a size 10 tied to 0.18.

I won’t bore you with all the details as this match was nothing different to most of the other blogs I have written about fishing the wag on this venue but I will run through how the day went.

From the start I was catching fish, 10 in the first 30 minutes and 20 by the end of the first hour. The second hour was just as good and at the half way point I counted about 50 fish for about 70lb. The only problem I had was a few foul hookers as the fish were really shallow and at one point I counted 6 pairs of pink lips sticking out around my float. The ducks were also a nuisance as nobody around me was feeding to share the attention. I sorted the foul hooking problem out by altering the feed and everything was going to plan as my target was to do 125-150lb for a frame place. Then something happened that spoiled my plan somewhat……….the weather changed dramatically and the fishing died. It became overcast, cold and windy. The temperature probably dropped 10 degrees and the wind was preventing me from feeding 6mm pellets to the island.

I decided to use this as a chance to fish under the tree where I had been feeding corn by hand all day. First put-in and I hooked a lump but the hook pulled after a while. I re-fed and wasted another half hour looking to make up the loss of that fish. After wasting my time I went back out on the waggler line with my bomb and took a couple of fish but it was too slow and I was now freezing cold. With about 90 minutes left in the match I decided to go back to the car to put another layer of clothing on and then focus on the tree and pick off a few lumps to boost my weight but I could only amass 4 in total for an estimated weight of 75lb overall. It didn’t look like many had a good day but somehow I knew deep down that I had muffed the whole thing up by leaving the island. Even staying on the bomb would have seen me pass the ton mark or feeding 8mm pellets and staying on the waggler could have seen me with more.

The scales came round and I weighed in 88lb 6oz for 4th, 17 points and a section win.
Nothing special but the points were welcome and a lesson learnt the hard way.

1st Mark Smith 155-0 Peg 26
2nd Mark Nevins 94-14 Peg 32
3rd Ian Carly 92-10 Peg 21
4th Matt Love 88-6 Peg 8
5th Paul Taylor 87-15 Peg 6
6th John Robinson 86-4 Peg 4

Spring League round 3 Monks lake 2

The new bait limits enforced at Monk Lakes last year gave me something to think about because the fishing isn’t always about bagging up down there. Sometimes you can do well against the end peg flyers using a lot of pellets (if the fish are having it) but if the fishing is not so good then you really need a back-up plan of smaller baits to catch anything that swims. I understand the desire for bait limits but if you are not allowed to take more than the limit to your peg then you have to either take a gamble as to what to take or find a bait combination that can frame in good conditions or still do ok in poor conditions.

I was talking to Nick Gilbert last year about how poorly the venues were fishing and the new bait limits. We bounced different ideas around and as spring 2010 approached I was convinced that a new approach was worth a shot and with the weather warming this league match was my chance to give it a go.…………… but I’m not going to say what this approach was just yet!

So moving on to the match in hand, the day was overcast with rain forecast and quite cool with a strong wind………..not the best of conditions then. I was also on peg 51 half way down the first bank which is most definitely NOT a noted peg but I am always optimistic if there is a chance of getting them up in the water and the new approach I was going to take should get them up and competing.

I plumbed up in the margins and all the way out to 16m. I chose a depth for a deck rig that would be laying on an inch or two at 8m and tripping bottom at 16m. I also set up an on-the-drop rig with an NG Finesse 0.3g float shotted shirt-button style with a 16 hook to 0.13 line. The preferred shallow rig was an NG Dibber 0.3g set 2’ deep with the same hook and trace. I also set up a margin rig with an NG XT Margin set over depth with a bulk just off bottom and a size 12 Drennan Carp Match for fishing big baits.

On warmer days I would ball in 6 jaffas on the shallow line (around 7m-8m) but today I chose just 3 jaffas to be safe. The distance would be determined by how far I could feed by hand and so with the wind off my back I threw out some bait at the start and plopped the 3 jaffas on top at about 7m. This meant that if the wind changed I could probably still feed by hand.

First drop in with the Finesse rig resulted in a nice 1lb skimmer in the net followed by several of it’s smaller mates. I was feeding about every 20 seconds and kept lifting and dropping the rig. After about 20 minutes I started picking up the odd carp between 1lb and 2lb and an occasional Ide. One of the reasons I started on the deck was that there could well have been Barbel around this area but as it turns out I didn’t have one all day long.

After an hour I had around 15lb in the net and decided that I needed to step up a gear to compete as I had Jonny Watt to my left doing ok and the flyer pegs doing better. I increased the feed amount and frequency to try harder to get them up in the water but was still fishing the Finesse rig to look for indications shallow but not miss out on any fish on the deck.

At the 90 minute mark Jonny admitted to 20lb to my 17lb but I was now getting some indications that the fish were coming shallow and felt that things would start getting better. I then foul hooked a Carp and had a violent take from a 2lb Chub……..so out came the Dibber rig.

My feed rate increased to 15 seconds, with the odd break while I was netting and unhooking fish but basically the takes were rippers in the top 2 feet and I would feed on top of the hooked fish while coaxing it out of the swim and once again after I had broken down. The sport was not consistent nor particularly busy apart from one spell of half an hour when I must have had 10 fish in quick succession. I did feel that my approach was working well though as many anglers were slowing down whereas I was picking up.

At one point I dropped in another jaffa because I wanted to give the swim a rest while I fed another 3 lines in preparation for the shallow line to die off. I fed a jaffa at 14.5m and pellets down each margin and then flicked more bait out on the shallow line before deciding to drop the rig back in. The fish were still there though and I felt that continuing on the shallow line was the best decision.

The sport continued until the all-out when I still had a fish on and my clicker said 73lb. I count pounds at Monks and not fish because of the strict net rules. The scales came round and I weighed in just over 80lb and with the better pegs weighing in between 60lb and 100lb odd, I felt that I had done well beating everyone along my bank apart from Hathers on 47. I think I finished 6th overall for 15 valuable points and perhaps some priceless experience at a potentially good method for bagging and competing with those flyer pegs.

Hathers is running a match on this lake in June so that will be my chance to try this new approach again. Let’s see what happens.