With round two of the Summer League at Mushroom Farm (aka Falkenville) in Hailsham, Sussex I spent the week preparing rigs. The problem with this venue is that the five sections are on four different lakes. The Main Lake is mainly paste and pellet and this is where I wanted to be as last year I won the round with 174lb.
There is a also a little snake lake and then the wider New Lake which is pellet wag and method feeder. The main lake I didn’t want to draw was the Racetrack. So named due to it being a snake which basically an elongated donut. It averages 13 metres across and is full of catfish. ( Yes that right catfish !) which seem to have eaten most of the other fish. The biggest is around 34lb and there are loads of doubles.
I felt we had two reasonably strong teams although we don’t take it too seriously and I look on it as getting the team back into team fishing after early year festivals and such. I drew for us and I have already sacked myself from this duty as I put myself and Calvin on the Racetrack. Yes I did swear a lot. I did draw John Swann aka Swanny golden peg but that was the only redeeming factor of the draw. As they say you get what you’re given so I tried to sort my head out and get with it.
I drove my gear down to my peg and had a walk round the Racetrack while I decided what I was going to do. I had a good chat with Jake Marshall and then trudged off to my peg which was where all the Catfish had shown the week before. I had trees close on both sides of my peg which basically meant my edge pegs were by my keepnets. Not good. The racetrack is strange in as much as it’s deep all the way across to the far bank and doesn’t graduate at all. Your in 4 feet of water all the way to the far bank with a very small shelf which is covered in reeds and various tree debris. Not somewhere you want to fish. I plumbed up three rigs for over all on 0.18 Trabucco Super Elite T1, a paste rig , a depth rig and a shallow rig.
I think the carp know this and have a quick munch early on and then with a bit of bait and other activity going on the moggys wake up. That’s my theory anyway. Pete decided to fish for them and had one down the edge of about 4lb but he then lost in the region of 20 fish. He fished 20lb braid on his pole and how his pole didn’t snap I do not know. He was nearly pulled in by one which had pulled extra tightened purple lastix into my swim. I got two bites late on in the match and after managing to get them both into open water with a bit of softly softly, one did me in the tree to my right and the hook pulled on the other one for no apparent reason. With the moggys on the hunt the carp buggered off to elsewhere on the lake. Wouldn’t you ? That was that and I finished shall we say low down in the section.
That said Pete next to me got one more point than me and the bloke next to Pete got one less point than me. Back at the results it was good to see Andy Turner from our Trabucco SE Red team win the match overall with 100lb from the Main lake on paste and pellet. Swanny in the Blue team on the golden peg finished fourth overall with 72lb on the same lake. Overall the venue had fished poorly and from a personal point of view catching pussy on a Sunday is not what I want to do! Next Sunday is the second round of the Passies Summer League, and with a good start in the first round the boys are well up for it. I’ll be going to Gold Valley to practice for the third round of the Summer League which is on the 1st June or to Tylers Common in Essex which I am hearing is fishing its nuts off.
Speak to you soon.
Mark
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Tom
