Rolfslake’s Easter Festival 2010

Well all you eager anglers just waiting for the weekend to come and for a chance to win the Rolfslake festival here is a current lake update to hopefully help you.

Over the last few weeks the carp have started to spread around the lake {in the big lake the fish are around the middle of pegs 14,16,18,22,23,24 and in the small lake around pegs 40, 2,, 6 and 34} and have started to feed confidently as the weather has started to warm up. The current top weight this year is from Simon Mound from peg 22 at 211-12 caught up in the water but last Sunday Maurice Woodley caught a superb 175-12 all caught on paste so John tells me.

As in previous festivals the ideal draw would be sections B,C then A as the small lake usually takes time to warm up and currently the top baits are corn , pellet and maggots if you need to catch silver. The carp are starting to come closer in as Mick Jones who has had a few good results recently has been catching carp closer than 9 metres on the meat, so if it gets warmer don’t neglect the edge swims as there has been a lot of fish in both parts of the lake.

The festival is fished over three days with the winner of each section getting 8 points desending down to 1 point for last place in section ,but you have to weigh-in to get the point. The winner of the festival is the angler with the most points at the end of the three days and in the event of a draw on points it will be decided on section placings count back and if that is the same then it goes down to weight.

Things to remember, the lake provides each angler with three keepnets and a landing net top to use but you will need to provide your own keepnet attachments to fix these onto your seat box as there are none down on the lake to use.

The fishery WILL enforce the no fish over 10lb in the keepnet rule as to be fair to all anglers, and as there are plenty of weigh stations around the lake within a short walk there is no excuse for this rule to be abused. The fish at Rolfslake are in fantastic condition and they have had to endure a really tough winter so John has to ensure that they are well looked after so no pulla bugs or brown hydro are allowed down on the lake. The current rules are on this site so please read them and if you have any questions please ask John before the match starts so there is no confusion.

There will be no bank walkers allowed around the lake except for John, Pauline and their match stewards on the three days so you will not be interupted or have your fish spooked by someone standing up by your swim.

The festivals at Rolfslake are always fished in great spirits and always enjoyed by all the anglers and hopefully everyone has a great time which is the aim for John and Pauline and there will be locals on hand to help our visiting anglers to make the Rolfslake experience a memorable one .

Have a great time from Eddie, Simon ,John and Pauline Bennett.

P.s dont forget to renew your rod license that runs out the end of March !

Neil Riddy’s Little Lake Match.

21st March

Small Lake not match fished for a while

Neil Riddy and a few of his club mates had booked the little lake for a small knock up match. 7 anglers turned up to see how the little lake would fish. It had not been used for a match since the winter league.

Everyone fancied peg 34 as its normally always good for a few fish, who would draw it ? Adam much to his delight. I think he was going for his 4th win in a row, would he do it or not 😀

The weather at the lake was glorious, it looked perfect for everyone to catch a few fish but the lake had other idea’s.

Everyone started off fishing for carp. Adam on peg 34 had 2 in the first 5 minutes but then was biteless for the rest of the match. Elsewhere most people resorted to catching silvers but even they were proving tricky to catch. Everyone caught fish but only 4 people weighed in.

Neil Riddy ready for some action.

Ginge wondering why I was taking a picture of him

Tactics Talk maybe ?

Adam Managed the win in the first 5 minutes of the match and got his 4 in a row, Well done. I put it down to his new lucky luggage 😀

1 Adam Griffith 34 22-4
2 Chris Lovelock 36 14-8
3 Mark Orchard 38 4-12
4 Simon Mound 2 1-3 😀

I would like to thank Neil for the invite and I hope it fishes better for the next one 🙂

Rolfslake Spring league round 5

Report to follow.

A section
1st John Bennett peg 32 67-00 Swindon Mafia 4 points
2nd Brian Jackson peg 10 45-08 Woodentops 3 points
3rd Gary Haisman peg 9 25-04 Pikeys 2 points
4th John Cowling peg 30 8-08 DNW’s 1 point
B section
1st Phil Powell peg 14 118-04 Swindon Mafia 4 points
2nd Fred Parker peg 13 63-04 Woodentops 3 points
3rd Daniel Blackwell peg 26 62-04 Pikeys 2 points
4th Steve Williams peg 28 31-00 DNW’s 1 point
C section
1st Maurice Woodley peg 22 175-12 DNW’s 4 points
2nd Paul Jay peg 18 150-08 Woodentops 3 points
3rd Mick Lane peg 24 117-00 Swindon Mafia 2 points
4th Herbie peg 16 112-00 Pikeys 1 point

Team results on the day.

Swindon Mafia 10 points
Woodentops 9 points
DNW’s 6 points
Pikeys 5 points

Overall team results after 5 rounds

Swindon Mafia 43 points
Woodentops 43 points
Pikeys 33 points
DNW’s 31 points

Swindon Mafia win the league on weight count back 663-00 to Woodentops 621-00.

League winners the Swindon Mafia. { Mick, Phil and John well done guys}.

Rolfslake open Wednesday 24th March 2010

Todays winner Mick Jones.

On the last Wednesday open before the clocks change and as from next week the opens become afternoon opens, saw the 9 anglers attempt to catch another of Rolfslake big match catches. Todays open was to be fished in the big lake as it was black with fish topping all around and the anglers today were hoping that the fish would settle down and have a good feed.

I was making a return to the lake after a long absence due to work commitments and i was going to fish the reverse to all the advice i was given like feed only a few pellet, fish 16 metres, lift and drop all the time as i was not sure when i would be back so i wanted to try something different. The look on John and Paul Jays face as they saw me mixing up my paste was a picture because they thought i must be mad to fish paste in March and they said that i would never catch.

The winner today was an angler on form Mick Jones on peg 24 who was enjoying a good run of results and today was no different. Mick today started on the bomb about 25 metres out fishing corn hookbait and was rewarded with four carp, but it was when he fished the pole at nine metres fishing meat on the deck that his catch rate increased and in the end Mick caught ten carp for 72-08 and a deserved win {well done Mick}.

In second place was another form angler captain Woodentop aka Paul Jay who was also on the car park bank peg 28 and between the pole and the bomb Paul managed to catch four carp and 3 large skimmers fishing corn and pellet and Pauls final weight was 41-14.

In third place was me Eddie T-Green who after starting on the corn fished at ten metres with little success due to me not being able to hit the many bites i had due to the float being dotted down and the breeze interfering with me spotting the bites ,i decided to try my new 2010 version of my X4 paste and would you believe that the float buried first time and a unhappy 19lb carp was in the landing net after two minutes. Next put in i missed a super bite and for the next hour i missed about seven really good bites and then as a mass of bubbles came up the float dissapeared and another carp of about 10lb was joining his friend in the net. I was feeding big cups of pellet which brought lots of bubbles from the fish but also the fish off the bottom so i ended a frustrating match with 3 carp and two small roach for 39-12 but still a victory against John Bennett who blanked.

The fish are starting to move around the lake so things are starting to look up for the Easter Festival but please dont forget to renew you rod license which runs out at the end of March.

Until the next report tight lines Eddie and Simon.

1st Mick Jones        peg 24       72-08      pole 9 metres / bomb   corn and meat

2nd Paul Jay           peg 28       41-14      pole 8 metres / bomb   corn and pellet

3rd Eddy T-Green  peg 13       38-12       pole 11 metres  paste X4 version {2} carp to 19lb.

Spring league round 4 21st March 2010

As the anglers gathered for round 4 of the spring league they were joined on the lake by a visiting party who today would be fishing the small lake pegs 34 to peg 8.

With the league being very close between the Woodentops led by captained by Paul Jay and the Swindon Mafia captained by Mick Lane ,it was going to be very important to ensure that all anglers caught and with the carp now starting to move that you managed to catch a few to boost your weight and with the wind blowing from the south the fish that were hiding down on pegs 19 and 20 had started to move to the middle of the lake infront of pegs 16 and 24.

John tells that during the match carp were caught and lost but the main battle was between he on peg 18 {for John peg 18 is his new peg 9 as he had drawn it a few times recently} and Derek Hammond on peg 22 and at the end of five hours Derek was one fish ahead although John mananged to lose a few during the match. Derek was fishing the pole fished long and on the deck using corn for hook bait but feeding quite cautiously to keep the fish there and in the end Derek caught 95-00 for first place individually and 4 points for his team. John fished pretty similar to Derek but after catching a few carp the fished moved out of pole range and started to come up on the surface much to his annoyance as he tells me he should of caught over 100lb of fish with the amount of fish in his swim but ended up with 80-08.

Elsewhere around the lake most anglers caught a few carp on either pole, waggler or bomb again using corn and pellet as the main hookbait but feeding cautiously as not to spook the fish.

The Woodentops still lead the league but only by one point so round five this weekend should be a good battle between them and the Swindon Mafia and as reporter i am totally unbiased so i hope the Woodentops win for a change. The lake is fishing better as each match goes by so by the time the Easter Festival comes round it should be on top form.

Results

A section.

1st  Steve Williams           Dnw’s                peg 32     47-12         4 points

2nd Phil Powell                Swindon Mafia   peg 9       35-04         3 points

3rd Dave Ball                  Pikeys                peg 10      8-04          2 points

4th Fred Parker               Woodentops     peg 30      7-04           1 points

B section

1st Paul Jay                     Woodentops     peg 13     61-12           4 points

2nd Ryan Rimmer            Dnw’s                peg 26     33-04          3 points

3rd Mick Lane                 Swindon Mafia   peg 14     30-12          2 points

4th Herbie                      Pikeys                peg 13     13-00          1 point

C section

1st Derek Hammond      Woodentops      peg 22      95-00          4 points

2nd John Bennett           Swindon Mafia   peg 18      80-08          3 points

3rd Derek Hazleman      Pikeys                peg 16      43-10          2 points

4th John Cowling           Dnw’s                peg 24      39-04          1 point

Results on the day

Woodentops    9 points

Swindon Mafia 8 points

Dnw’s              8 points

Pikeys             5 points

Results after round  4

Woodentops    34 points

Swindon Mafia 33 points

Pikeys              28 points

Dnw’s              25 points

1 2 3 4 5