Lucks Lane Fishery, Paddock Wood, Kent. March 28th, 2009.

Back in mid-February Paul(paulvis69)Slater put the following post up on the Maggotdrowning forum “I’m trying to arrange a match on Saturday 28th March at Luck’s Lane Paddock Wood.”

Which is how despite some misgivings due to the weather forecast and previous experience of the venue in the winter months, I found myself loading up the car and heading down there today to give it a go. Keith (Disco) Driscoll had remarked that he would be stopping at the Oakdene Café, and I met him and Greg Andrews there at around 7·15am for breakfast before we made our way down to the fishery. As soon as I got out of the car in the fishery car park it was obvious just how cold and windy it was, and this was reinforced when I had a walk round for a look at the pegs. I hadn’t fished there since 2004 and thankfully the platforms have been improved since then. I fancied either peg 11 or 12 as they are either side of the only tree that overhangs the water.

Chatting to a few of the lads prior to the draw, hopes were high as some good weights had come out recently. Paul called the draw and after handing over my money I dipped my hand in and was rewarded with peg 12 with Mick for company next door on peg 13.

Settling in it was obvious that the tree wasn’t going to be providing any shelter so decided to keep things relatively simple setting up just a couple of top kits. Both of these were rigged with KC 4×14 Carpa 2′s on 0·16 to 0·14 bottoms with size 16 Drennan Match Carp hooks. The 1st to fish on the deck at around 8mtrs where I had around 3½ft and a distance I felt would be comfortable to fish at given the wind, while the second was set at around 2½ ft to fish to the edge of overhanging tree branches. Bait wise it was pellet all the way with hard 6mm’s for feed and GOT 6mm expanders for hookers along with some hard 8mm’s to fish banded as a change bait.

It was soon obvious that everyone had set up pretty quickly as nearly everyone was walking around and having a chat with half an hour to go, either that or they were just trying to keep warm.

Anyway Paul called the All-in early giving us an extra 15 minutes. I potted out a large pot of 6mm pellet at 8 mtrs (the wind was to strong to throw them) and fed a big handfull by the tree branches. 1st put in at 8 mtrs and after a couple of lift and drops of the rig, the float dipped and I connected with a small Carp of around 8ozs that was swiftly netted to get me off the mark. Really it was a case of steady away from there. The bites were pretty shy though meaning I had to dot the tip as far down as the conditions allowed and hit every dip. It didn’t help matters that the rain soon arrived to heap more misery on us and the wind seemed to keep changing direction.


 After around 1½hrs I had 30 fish in the net but the bites started to dry up on the 8mtr line so I had a 1st look down by the tree, and there were fish there. Colin arrived to see how I was getting on, he’d had half a dozen Carp on paste pretty quickly at the start……………

……… but his bites had dried up and he was starting to feel the cold and was going back to the car park to get some warmer kit and I joined him as I’d left my fleece in the car.

Just up from Colin, was Keith who was catching steadily…………

……… but was going to endure yet more bad luck with his pole, the wind blowing it off the roller and breaking his no 6 section.
Mike (not a lover of having to scratch around for a few bites) was obviously not enjoying himself with very little in the way of fish coming his way………

……… and had also suffered the bad luck to have his no6 section break on the strike which meant that with no spare section he was having to fish short,  and would soon decide to call it quits and depart to the comfort of a warm fire and a glass of wine at home.

The fish that I was getting by the tree were a bit bigger than those from the open water swim, still silly little bites and I had to keep the feed going in to keep those coming and when I received a phone call from Dave the Fish at around 12·30pm I’d just netted my 52nd fish. The amount I’d had to feed to keep the bites coming had caught me out though and I quickly had to pop back to the car once more to get some more pellets. While I knew Keith, Gary and a couple of others were catching steadily I was feeling pretty good about framing as I was sure that I was ahead of those anglers that I could see.

Around 1·30 pm the rain stopped and sun finally appeared, and around 2pm Matt put in an appearance and you couldn’t miss him, red Milo jacket and boots topped off with a red baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses!!!
A very rare site as you seldom see Matt until the average temperature reaches 60°F. Living close by though, he’d ventured down to see how we were getting on and take a few photos……

………. but with dark grey sky’s threatening again he bade us farewell and departed.

Well the rain and wind returned, this time with added hail as a bonus. My bites had slowed but I was still getting the odd better fish from down by the overhanging branches……..

……… with a couple of 5lb’ers being the last of my 92 fish. Thankfully the sun came out oncemore and the wind dropped for the final 15 minutes of the match and allowed us to at least pack up and weigh in in the dry.

Greg set the early pace with a hard earned 57lbs but was soon overtaken by Keith putting 83lbs on the scales, including a 10lber and at that point I though that bonus fish might make the difference. However my 2 nets weighed a total of 88lbs to give me the win on the day and a nice few beer tokens. Thanks to Paul for organising the match and the rest of the lads for their company, it turned out to be quite enjoyable for me on the day.

As an aside, today was the 1st outing for my new PROTAK gear and I have to say that it coped superbly with everything that the elements threw at it keeping me warm and dry all day. Doubtless it will get another good test next Saturday when I’m at Monk Lakes for the 1st Marsh AC club match of the year. I’ll keep you posted.

Position	Angler	Weight
1st	Peter(Mugger)Morton	88lbs 00ozs
2nd	Keith(Disco)Driscoll	83lbs 00ozs
3rd	Greg(splitshot1)Andrews	57lbs 00ozs
4th	Colin H	47lbs 00ozs
5th	Ade(Wingnut)Morgan	36lbs 00ozs
6th	Paul(Paulvis69)Slater	32lbs 00ozs
7th=	Gary(oggie)Ogden	27lbs 00ozs
7th=	Nick	27lbs 00ozs
9th	Mick(The Chippy)Pearson	25lbs 00ozs
10th	Colin(The Pike)Sharrard	18lbs 00ozs
11th	John	17lbs 00ozs
12th	Alex	6lbs 04ozs
13th	Richard(DHL man)Pearson	5lbs 04ozs
14th=	Andy	DNW
14th=	Josh	DNW
14th=	Mike(Omega Mike)Jameson	DNW