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