Maver Larford Lakes. Larford, Worcestershire. June 20th, 2009.

Maggotdrowning.com

 

Individual Championship 2009.

 

Well today is the day of the Maggotdrowning.com Individual Championship, and this year’s venue is the Match Lake at Larford Lakes. It meant an early start for me as it’s about 150 miles for me to drive. So with the car loaded up by 5am I was off, and a nice smooth trip with just a stop for coffee on the way found me pulling into the fishery car park just after 8am. It’s a small world, as I parked next to Andy(andy222)Feltham an MD’s member who hadn’t posted for a while, and was there to fish a club match on the Specimen Lake.

Soon after people started to arrive in force, Vince who had organised today’s match was soon joined by Clive and after dipping our nets we decided to get in quick for breakfast. A Full English for £5 was soon dispatched and fishery pellets purchased. I have to say that I find it strange that you can only feed a maximum of 4 bags of fishery pellets(2 pints of Skrettings in a bag costing £2·50p), but you can feed unlimited amounts of meat or corn, which can’t be good for water quality. Waiting for the draw it was good to catch up with faces, both old and new, The customary side bet of a Golden Nugget was struck with Vince and Gemma(The Minx), while John’s good lady Lynn parted us from our cash in exchange for raffle tickets, the proceeds of which will be going to The British Heart Foundation, and by the time that Vince called the draw at 9am, 38 of us were ready to go, meaning that we could leave out the even pegs giving everyone a bit of space. Into the hat and I’m rewarded with peg 37, while Vince asks me to draw for him and receives peg 51 as a present from me.

At least peg 37 being on the clubhouse bank means I could drive up and almost park behind it. It didn’t look to bad to be honest with a chuck to the island on the feeder and a nice bed of lilies in front of the bush to my left that should be good for a few.

Looking around I’d got my fellow Marsh AC member, Tony(spamwham)Roberts to my left, so there should be a good bit of banter during the day……

To my right I'd got Andrew(Marginman)Willet and next up fellow blogger and Jinx Series partner Clive, who appeared to be knocking up some groundbait, though he might have had the prayer mat out and be offering up a plea to the fishing gods………

Looking across Vince was over on peg 51, so at least I’d be able to keep tabs on the likely destination of the Golden Nugget.

The set up today was 2 4X12 Malman Adam’s to 0·16 with a size 18 Drennan Carp Match hooks to fish 6mm banded pellet and meat on the deck at 7mtrs straight out and on the edge of the lilies to my left where there was about 3feet of water and a Malman MTD2 dibber, again on 0·16 with a 18 Drennan Carp Match hook for up in the water. I also set up a Malman SC paste to 0·22 Power Match with a size 12 Drennan Carp Feeder hook for paste, just in case any lumps put in an appearance and the feeder rod.
Bait for the day was a mix of pellets, meat and paste, with feed taken care of by dampened 4mm fishery pellets.

So 11am and Vince called the All-In. A handful of pellet straight out to 7mtrs and another to the edge of the lilies and before I could ship out a banded pellet to 7mtrs a shout rang out signifying The Minx had her 1st fish in the net, sending a shudder down the spines of more than a few blokes.
Out to 7mtrs and after lifting and dropping the rig a couple of times the black hydro ripped out of the top kit and soon a plump F1 of around 1½lbs was safely in the net.

This was swiftly followed by a small stockie of around 8ozs and than a bit of frustration started to set in , I had a spate of very finicky bites, but I managed to hit them, only to have them shed the hook as they came to the net for no apparent reason, the hook certainly hadn’t blunted. Indeed I wasn’t the only one to suffer like this, as I found out talking to others after the match. I was still managing to put a few in the net, though there were a few to many small stockies rather than the better stamp of F1′s……

To clear my head I took a quick stroll along with the camera to see how others were fairing. Dai was getting a few, but it was proving to be a bit of a struggle………

Dirk seemed to be happy enough with his lot, and while not pulling up any trees appeared to be catching with a degree of regularity.

While tucked away on the other side of the lake I could see Malc(The Jinx) on peg 55, and judging by the way he was concentrating, he was obviously catching……

Tony was looking as if he was in for a good day with a nice lily pad at a comfy 8mtrs he was catching a decent stamp of fish fishing shallow, though he had been seen off a couple of times by lumps that had found the sanctuary of the pads……

Clive meanwhile was having a bit of a mare, he was another suffering from lost fish, though he did manage to successfully land one as I looked on……

Back at my peg I continued to put a few in the net, but yet again they were mostly small skimmers and stockies though as Clive strolled past I was into something a little better………

Which proved to be one of the better F1′s that gave a pretty good account of itself, I did ask Clive to stay for a while as he seemed to bring me a bit of luck, but for some reason he didn’t think much of my offer……

As the match wore on Vince had managed to bag a couple of what seemed to be reasonable fish on the feeder, but still needed to find something to up his catch rate and avoid the loss of yet another Golden Nugget………

Weather wise we seemed to have just about everything during the course of the match and with half an hour to go it started to rain, and while my bites had become few and far between, Tony was still catching steadily and continued to put fish regularly in the net right up to the All-out being called at 4pm.

As we packed away at least the rain eased off and chatting to Tony I felt he must be in with a chance of at least a section as I thought he had something approaching the ‘Ton’. The scales soon arrived and Tony’s fish weighed in at an ounce shy of 97lbs to place him into the lead, while my net went 50lbs 5ozs. Clive had indeed suffered with a mere 19lbs 3ozs to show for his 5 hours. Poor Vince having slipped on the wet bank and pulled his thigh as he was packing his kit away suffered the loss of yet another Golden Nugget with just 17lbs 11ozs. I followed the scales round as far as Malc’s peg where he put an excellent 89¾lbs on the scales before I returned to make my way back to the club house.

Back at the club house I was pleased to find I’d avoided a Minxing as Gem had struggled today so I managed to retrieve the Golden Nugget she’d taken from me on the previous Saturday at Rolf’s. A buffet was laid on for us, with plenty to go round for all, despite Steve(Steak) doing his best to decimate it single handedly. Vince soon had the results sorted and the presentation underway……

The section winners on the day being………

Alan(Genus9)West
Lee(Hicko1)Hicking
Malc(The Jinx)Doyle
Wayne(Baggingman)Panting

The main honours going to ……….
3rd place……….Tony(spamwham)Roberts.

2nd place……….Mark(Bungee)Collinson.

and the winner on the day and MD’s Individual Champion 2009……………
Steve(Fordy1)Ford.

The day was rounded off with the Raffle

Which thanks to Lynn’s efforts selling tickets
raised £200 for The British Heart Foundation.

A few Thank You’s are in order at this point, Firstly to Vince for organising the match, and doing his usual Excellent Job. To Lynn for a great job flogging the raffle tickets. To Phil Briscoe and all his staff at Maver Larford for their efforts during the day. Finally to all those members of Maggotdrowning.com that supported and took part in the match, making it the success that it was, it couldn’t be done without you. Looks like we’ll have to do it all over again next year.

Position	Peg	Angler	Weight
1st	Peg 65	Steve (Fordy1) Ford	116lbs 07ozs
2nd	Peg 59	Mark(Bungee)Collinson	98lbs 13ozs
3rd	Peg 35	Tony(spamwham)Roberts	96lbs 15ozs
4th	Peg 55	Malc(The Jinx)Doyle	89lbs 12ozs
5th	Peg 7	Wayne(Baggingman)Panting	89lbs 03ozs
6th	Peg 71	Lee(Hicko1)Hicking	82lbs 02ozs
7th	Peg 13	Alan(Genus9)West	73lbs 00ozs
8th	Peg 23	Eddie(Ed10)Gutheridge	72lbs 05ozs
9th	Peg 63	John(Aigy)Haigh	66lbs 03ozs
10th	Peg 27	Mike Globe	64lbs 03ozs
11th	Peg 5	Simon(Simple)Mound	63lbs 15ozs
12th	Peg 11	Fred(Milo)Parker	55lbs 08ozs
13th	Peg 61	Mark(MarkC)Causer	54lbs 04ozs
14th	Peg 25	Dirk(The Dangler)Williams	53lbs 12ozs
15th	Peg 33	Paul(Floatfisher Jnr)Killip	53lbs 04ozs
16th	Peg 37	Peter(Mugger)Morton	50lbs 05ozs
17th	Peg 69	Chris(Looney)Kendall	50lbs 02ozs
18th	Peg 73	Tony(JR Hartley)Clark	47lbs 05ozs
19th	Peg 9	Ian(Sprucey)Spruce	46lbs 01ozs
20th	Peg 31	Alex(BaggerJ)Clark	40lbs 13ozs
21st	Peg 21	Paul(Scatty)Scatt	37lbs 10ozs
22nd	Peg 77	Steve(Steak)Akal	36lbs 02ozs
23rd	Peg 67	Luke(Ulladubulla)Downing	34lbs 15ozs
24th	Peg 45	Roy(Royst)Ravenhill	34lbs 10ozs
25th	Peg 39	Andrew(Marginman)Willet	34lbs 06ozs
26th	Peg 75	Marcus(Budgie65)Burgess	31lbs 13ozs
27th	Peg 29	Dai(Dai Fish)Thomas	28lbs 02ozs
28th	Peg 19	Simon(Me)Rowley	23lbs 15ozs
29th	Peg 41	Clive(BlackHydro)Pritchard	19lbs 03ozs
30th	Peg 57	Ian(Fish4alarf)Venn	18lbs 13ozs
31st	Peg 46	Midge(Midge99)Milnes	18lbs 02ozs
32nd	Peg 51	Vince(Vince G)Gould	17lbs 11ozs
33rd	Peg 43	Steven(Drynets)Parker	16lbs 10ozs
34th	Peg 15	Gemma(The Minx)Doyle	15lbs 11ozs
35th	Peg 2	John(Bucko)Buxton	14lbs 01ozs
36th=	Peg 47	Brian(Croydon Angler)Grey	D.N.W.
36th=	Peg 53	Simon Elsey	D.N.W.
36th=	Peg 81	Justin(Smasher)Laundon	D.N.W.