Monk Lakes 1 & 2 - Pad's Army charity open

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These matches seem to be quite popular and are drawing anglers from further afield. In the car park I was approached by a guy that sounded Scandinavian, (sorry mate I didn’t ask your name but thanks for coming over). He recognised me from my blog and told me how interesting he finds it and also Nick’s blog. We had a good chat and then went up to the draw. Out came peg 61 for me and I was relatively pleased to be on the left side of lake 2 and half way up the spit. It could have been better but at least I was in with a chance if the fish were in the mood.
Arriving at my peg I found a youngster to my right called Ross who helps out at Monks and has recently been selected for the England Juniors squad (or something impressive like that). We had a chat once we were all tackled up and he is going to do well for himself.
Now at this point the weather was looking a bit suspect, chilly, cloudy and not many gaps in the cloud cover but there was a good breeze (as usual) and I hoped it would push the clouds over quickly. My hopes were met and by the time the match started it was turning in to another sunny June day.
I decided on 4 rigs, 2 of which would be based around my usual shallow approach at this venue. Both rigs had “Matt’s Slappers” made by Nick Gilbert, one was a long-line rig for slapping hard (about 4’ from float to pole) and the other was a short line “hang ‘em” rig for the self-hooking method. Next was a margin rig, I had a good depth and lots of reeds so a short Gilbert diamond went onto this one. Finally, as I had a spare 20 minutes I decided to stick on a deck rig for out in front (just in case) and this had a long Gilbert diamond on it. Hopefully neither of these rigs would get wet but sometimes the margins can work well if you need to rest the main line or it dies all together.
I took some hemp for down the edge, cheaper than my favoured caster approach and I wanted to see if it would work just as well. The main bait though would be 6mm hard pellets although I did take a box of different pellets with me to try as a change bait. They seemed to work well but I will keep these pellets secret for the time being just in case it was a fluke that they worked better than the usual ones. Something I did notice today was the size of my main feed pellets. They seemed a lot smaller than the “secret” pellets I took. The feed pellets this year seem darker than last year and I am also wondering if they are a bit smaller for some reason or maybe the “secret” pellets were just a bit bigger, maybe 6.5mm.
On with the match then and as the horn sounded I balled in 8 jaffas of method mix with a packet of yellow pineapple Atomic Cloud mixed in at around 8m. After flicking a few pellets over the top I shipped the pole out and connected with a 2lb carp immediately. You know that feeling when you start catching straight away? Well in the first 5 minutes I had 5 carp in the net, rock n roll!
Things didn’t remain at this speed for long though and within the first hour I had around 20 fish which was still ok given their size. Now something I have noticed this spring is that every match I have fished the sport has taken a dive around mid-day and sure enough as I was beginning to suspect that I could do the double ton, the bites dropped off. I spent the next 2 hours altering depth, changing the pellet type, changing my feeding pattern and going a bit longer. This was not wasted effort though as I was still putting fish in the net, just not quite as quickly. I continued with this but had to fish at 10m for bites and needed to chop and change which hand I was feeding with in order to get the bait out to the right distance. With the breeze today it was hard to reach 10m with my left hand so often I was holding the pole in my wrong hand in order to feed with my right hand. I have done this before and it works fine but just takes a bit more energy and can get quite tiring.
After a lot of chopping and changing I settled on one specific depth and feed rate that seemed to work best and this entailed throwing quite a few pellets out every few seconds. The fish seemed to respond better to a more positive approach.

During the 4th hour the fishing seemed to pick up again and I had a good spell but the bites still dropped off after a while. I decided to put on one of my alternative pellets and this seemed to work well. I maintained my feed rate and worked hard until the final hour when I had the fish swirling and boiling in front of me. In fact, they were responding so well I managed to get them back to 8m which was great because I could lose a section and go back to the easier fishing and feeding with my left hand.
I stuck a third net in now as I didn’t want to risk having too much in them and now the fish were coming one a bung and I was rocking. My thoughts of a frame place had disappeared when the bites tailed off at mid-day but I was now putting about 1lb of fish in the net every minute! Then disaster struck and 15 minutes before the end a decent carp managed to get under my nets and I had to remove them all from my spray bar in order to save the fish and get my rig back. The fish had shed the hook on to one of the nets and I lost a good 10 or 12 minutes fishing time when the bites were coming fast. I managed another few fish before the end of the match and estimated around 110lb which I felt would only be any good if the lakes had fished hard. That dry spell at mid-day seemed to mess my chances up and maybe I should have gone down the edge but I was reluctant to do this when I was still catching out in front.
There was something else that I felt spoiled my chances today and that was lack of preparation. My new job consumes so much time that a Saturday match means I have limited time to prepare on Friday evening. One thing I forgot to do last night was check my hook length boxes and I realised that I only had a couple of 14’s tied to 0.18 and a few 12’s tied to .18 as well. I would normally use a 14 to 0.16 or 0.18 if the fishing is frantic and I like to change my hook length when the hair becomes twisted or kinked. I therefore had to fish the second half of the match with 12’s tied to 0.18 which was far from ideal.
I wandered over to the far bank of my lake and there was a weight of 115lb on the board already and I was convinced that had beaten me. Word on the street was lake 1 had fished bad and 102lb had won it but I thought I had more than that in my net. As the scales came along my bank a bloke weighed in 124lb and I knew that I was now stuffed and was regretting my lack of preparation and that mid-day dry spell.
As I took out the third net that I put in it seemed quite heavy and went about 40lb. I was now worried that I may have put too much in my other nets but they were close to 50lb each and my total was 136lb which surprised me. A few blokes were chatting to me along the bank and a couple of them belong to Total Fishing. They were nice blokes probably from Surrey I would think as they mentioned waters from over that way.
Young Ross next to me pulled out his nets and put a very respectable weight together, I think he had around 50 or 60lb which is good going among the field of experienced adults on the pond!
As we walked along the bank a few blokes were asking me how I fished the match and it was apparent that nobody had caught down the edge. Maybe I made the right choice by staying on the shallow line? Then at the end of the spit there were some heavy nets but fortunately they only went 125lb keeping me in the lead. I heard a few blokes moaning that they hadn’t caught well on the back of the spit and people began to assume I had won it.
I decided to take my gear back to the car at this point and as I returned there were only 4 left to weigh in towards the bridge. One bloke had 200lb on meat down the edge and another had 150lb. Bugger!
So I was knocked down to 3rd place and went home with only a small trophy and £50. Never mind, at least my run of bad draws seems to have evolved into average draws now!
There are few things that I was pondering on today and I need to investigate these during this summer.

Firstly, when I ran out of size 14 hook lengths and used 12’s instead, I was still getting plenty of fish, these are the hooks I use for bigger fish and the hair is about 10-15mm long. I was under the impression that this was too long for small carp but it didn’t seem to affect the bites-to-fish ratio. Perhaps a longer hair is better or at least not worse than a 5mm hair!
I was also using doubled 8 slip today but when netting the fish I still had to stand for the 2lb and 3lb carp. Even though I have reduced the amount of slip in my kits by adding Dacron, I think I might have to bite the bullet and cut my top kits down and use much less in them. Doubled 8 should be able to handle anything really and doubled 6 should be fine for the smaller carp. Now where is my hack saw?
Another point to note was that the “secret” pellets sunk quicker than the usual ones but nearly all my bites came when the rig slapped the surface so maybe the sink rate did not matter much. In fact, I think it is entirely possible that because I feed and then slap, the pellet was catching up with the feed instead of falling on top of it. Maybe I am just imagining it though but I will pursue this thought further. Also, the fish seemed to like the “secret” pellet more, perhaps it made no difference but the fishing just got better and there is a rather unique feature about these pellets that may have something to do with increasing bites. Again I will have to dabble more with this before I send you all off on a mission to waste your cash on a lost cause!
I have to say that although my hopes of a win were trashed at the last hurdle, the best thing about today was the number of blokes that approached me for a chat. And good luck to Ross pegged next to me, you had me worried half way through the match! I’m not sure if you need any help with your fishing but if you want some advice on fishing shallow then just ask me next time and I will help you as much as I can.
Let’s hope this weather holds up and gets better, there are some good matches and festivals coming up and I don’t want another summer of fishing spoiled by the weather!

The rivers and streams of Yalding

When I was just over 2 years old my parents moved from middle Kent to suburban London and that is where I spent the next 37 years of my life. My Dad would bring me ‘back home’ for a bit of river fishing now and then but as I grew into my teen years I became more interested in the local lakes where Roach, Bream, Tench and Crucian Carp offered better sport. More recently, I moved out of suburban London and back to the heart of Kent and started to explore the rivers that surround the village. It's a bit like having a holiday every weekend as all of these rivers and streams are between a few yards and 1 mile of my cottage. The Beult in fact is just a few yards away and this photo was taken last winter from my front door. The river is just out of sight at the bottom of the pathway.



And this is the Beult at the end of the path but this time in summer:



There are Roach, Chub, Carp, Dace, Perch.........and some nice Bream too:



Walking out of the village is a gravel stream on the way to the Medway and Teise about ½ mile down the road...........I haven't seen any fish in it as it's only a few inches deep but I bet there's a few Trout or Grayling around somewhere!



And this is the Teise just before it meets the Medway. I fished this stream a bit further up last winter with a mate and we had some nice Roach and Chub around the 10-14oz mark, all in about 18" of water.



And this is a nice lumpy Perch in the Teise.............the stripey thing just under the bank, probably a couple of pound in weight. I've seen some nice Chub taking food off the surface here but it's not easy to fish this stretch unless you pick a week day when the families with kids and dogs won't be playing in the stream.



And this is the Medway itself. Quite deep and slow. I've not fished it for over a year but there are some nice Roach and skimmers plus Chub and Carp around. The banks are nicely cut and you can fish the moorings after October.



I've not fished these rivers much, just a handfull of times but this winter I think I will keep some maggots in the fridge for those frosty weekend mornings!

Fishomania 2009 qualifier Monk Lakes

Having only returned to angling recently, this was the first time I had entered a Fisho qualifier and out of the 2 venues I went for I was lucky enough to receive a ticket to Monk Lakes on my doorstep. With probably 6 pegs that could possibly win, I went with little hope of framing but the day would be fun as a lot of anglers I know were fishing this as well.

At the draw I waited for a few mates to dip their hands into the bucket but very few good pegs were coming out. Nick Gilbert drew 34 which isn’t worth diddly and then my hand went into the bucket. Now the chances of drawing a flyer are about 1 in 20 and the chances of drawing next to your mate are about 1 in 60. Yep, I drew peg 33 on lake 1 which is worth even less than 34 as it is only half a peg being tucked up in the wrong corner with the side bank halving the amount of water you can fish in. To top it off, another mate Jeff drew 36 so we were all on the worst lake, on the worst bank and up the worst end………….oh joy!

Arriving at my peg I found that things were even worse than expected, the fishery had closed the inlet to the lake for precautionary reasons and the water level was down by several inches thus I have now named that peg ‘The Beach’ due to the fact that you could see the lake bed sloping up to the left hand bank a metre or two out. This also gave me no margin depth therefore limiting my options even further. To cap it all off, the weather was cold, overcast and there was no prospect of it warming up during the day…………oh joy!

Luckily Nick had got me 4 pints of maggot the day before just in case the weather turned and so all the pellets, paste and groundbait stayed in the carryall. Well mine did anyway but ‘Big Guns Gilbert’ balled in 6 babies heads at the start which I am sure entertained some of the blokes sitting around the lake carefully placing 4 micro pellets into their pole pots!

My approach was going to be a little more subtle than balling it in and to Nick’s amusement I attached a Fox sprinkle pot to my ‘out in front’ top kit and then proceeded to set up 2 margin rigs just in case any fish decided it would be a good idea to feed in 8 inches of water!

Now for anyone else reading, the rest of this blog could sound very dull however, the day was actually fun with lots of banter, various mates coming along for a chat and the occasional offer of a cuppa. So there is not much to say other than I focused on a maggot line at 10m, going longer later in the day and used the sprinkle pot and catty to feed. I used a Gilbert diamond pole float which is extremely stable, 0.16 Fox Micro with a 16 B611 tied to 0.12 and double maggot (red and white).

At the weigh-in, Nick had a quick look inside his net and after close inspection found some fish in the bottom.




Fortunately my maggot approach earned me a few more fish to put 37lb on the scales which was 3rd in section from the duff end of the bank. At least I had won a quid off Nick and had a good day!