All aboard the 1st night match of the year.

The eagerly awaited night matches finally arrived to Rolffslake this week and the first to try this out was Malc Doyle and his Jinx League anglers with a special invite to both Paul Jay and myself { thanks Malc }.

On my arrival at home i phoned my co web partner Simon to find out what time the draw was, only to be told it was a rolling draw for the anglers that had turned early with a match start time of 7pm great i thought as it was 6.15 and i had only just got home. A quick change and loading of the car saw me drive the 20 miles and arrive at the lake for 6.50 and was greeted by Neil Riddy who gave me the good news that peg 7 had been drawn for me and that i had only 10 minutes to set up { who said fishing was relaxing}.

It was great to see the Jinx League anglers again as they are a great bunch of ladies and gents and there is always plenty of banter and one pound side bets going on all around the lake with a chance to beat the lake regulars to boot. The one person who was suprised to see me was lake owner John Bennett and as soon as he saw me he wanted to fish but sadly all the pegs had gone { how sad  } so he could not add to his 7-2 lead against me. As the start was called i got my regular stick from John on the megafone even though i was not even ready. Within 2 minutes Dave Moore on peg 6 was already in to a fish and after 10 had caught 2 carp so i was already playing catch up. From where i could see the anglers on the car park bank { Paul, Simon, Malc and Mat } were catching fish and also Paul on peg 34 was catching carp even with his catch and release policy as when he went to put a carp in his net missed it and carp went straight back into the lake.

As for me on peg 7 and Nick on peg 8 the blustery wind made it a challenge to present the rigs properly with plenty of hooked and lost carp making for a frustrating first couple of hours where as the rest of the lake looked quite calm by comparison. At about 9.30 John fired up the generators and the lights were turned on which is what makes these matches quite special as when it gets dark the fishing gets better and the noise from the motorway gets quieter which makes for a nice change.

The winner tonight was my web partner Simon Mound who was fishing carpark bank peg 28 and after a slowish start managed to get the carp lined up fishing a short line down the slope fishing on the deck. Simon was using 8mm hard banded pellet feeding pellet to catch his carp which went up to 19lb { his board weight alone went 115lb } which is great fun playing these big fish in the dark, and after 5 hours put an action packed 175-08 for another win {well done Simon}.

Simon with this lovely 19lb mirror.

In second place was Miracle sponsored Mat Edwards who was also on the car park bank this time end peg 22 and by also using Miracle Baits products Mat managed to catch fish to 16-04 in his final weight of 121-00 and continued his good for down the lake. Completing the frame was Terry Goff who also found out how deep peg 4 was as he fell in early but he still managed to catch a mixed bag of bream and carp using pellet hookbait feeding pellet for the third ton of the day with 103-12 and just ahead of Dave Moore by 2-04.

One of the highlights of this match was the 20lb carp caught by Malc Doyle on peg 24.

Malc with his 20-04 common {well done Malc}.

Results.

14 fIshed

Say hello to my little friend

I would like to say thanks to Malc for the invite and i know all the anglers had a great laugh in great company and when they eventually went to sleep at 3am they were still talking about fishing.

Thanks for reading John, Simon and Eddie.