Match Fishing-Scene

I've read a lot about Makins Fishery in Leicestershire and always fancied going to fish there
So when I saw a match posted up for Makins on Match Fishing Scene Forums I added my name to the list

Within a short time the match list was full and by the look of it there were some really good anglers fishing the match
You can read a lot about fisheries on the internet these days and to be honest it's hard to sort the true reviews of the fisheries out form the biased ones so I like to go and visit the fisheries I read about and judge them for myself and then file them in the relevant folder either (A) Looking forward to going back again or (B) would rather wind my testicles through a mangle than go back
So having read so much about Makins over the years I'm really looking forward to today
We are fishing Crater,Reptile,Paddock and Snake lakes on Phase 2 today and from what I can gather Phase 2 and Phase 3 are small pools averaging 3 to 4 feet deep with features to fish to and are mainly pole fishing (my sort of place) and Phase 1 are mainly large lakes and method feeder/pellet wag fishing (not my sort of place)
The draw is at the Axe and Compass pub a mile or so away from the fishery where you can get a breakfast or a cup of coffee
So I was up at the crack of dawn to load the car punched the post code into the tomtom after a bit of deliberating the tomtom decided it would take 2hrs 10mins to get there not as bad as I thought
After an uneventful drive I eventually arrived at the pub in 2hrs 7mins (I cut a few corners just to show the smart arse tomtom who's the boss)
As I pulled up in the car park Pete Archer pulled up next to me I've fished with Pete a few time down at Rolfs so we went into the pub for a coffee and a chat while we waited for everyone to arrive
When the draw time arrived I pulled Reptile 17 out of the bag which ment nothing to me Ian who I also know from Rolfs was on Reptile 20 but he hadn't fished Makins before so had no idea if we had good or bad pegs either
We followed the others down to the fishery unloaded our gear and set off round the lakes to find our pegs
Peg 17 looked ok

it was on a corner and had an island within reach happy days

Then I noticed the guy on peg 16
I'd only gone and drawn next to an angling celebrity , friend and confident to the stars! none other than  Billy No Fish himself

Billy is renowned for handing out T-shirts of shame to people that he beats off the next peg so I could be in a spot of bother today
As I set up my gear I noticed another good angler setting up opposite me the other side of the island Steve May father to an angling great Andy May

looks like I should be in for an interesting day if nothing else
My plan of attack today is to fish across to the island just to my left which is 13m and plumbed up a swim tight to the left hand corner

I also plumbed up a swim out in front at 6m

And a margin swim in front of the empty platform to my right

I also set up my feeder rod to chuck across to the island in front of me in case it was hard today

For bait today I have my usual selection of soft hooker pellets a tin of corn and a tin of meat chopped up into 6mm cubes and for feed pellets you have to use Dynamite Baits green swim stim pellets so I have 2 bags of 3mm feed pellets
On the all in I shipped a pot of pellets out to each swim then went out to the island swim at 13m with a 6mm soft hooker pellet on a size 16 B911 hook tied direct to 0.14mm Silstar line under a Jon Walker 0.3g Diamond float set to fish at dead depth
Instantly the float was dipping and bobbing and soon shot under I lifted but there was nothing there but me pellet was gone so I shipped back in on with another pellet and back out to the island swim and same again with the same result I suspected that it was silvers pecking at the bait so I popped a cube of meat on the hook and shipped it out that cured the problem as now the float sat deathly still
After a couple on minutes the float buried fish on! I shipped it back in and soon had a Carp of around 1.5lb in the net
Looking around the lake a few people were catching fish so it looked like it was going to be a good match in the first hour I had 6 Carp ranging from 1.5lb to 3lb from the island then I had a Tench of about 8ozs followed by a similar size Roach and on the next put in a Perch So I decided to top the swim up with another pot of pellets and give the 6m swim a try
First put in The float stormed off ripping my elastic out and after a pleasing battle I slid the net under a nice Carp of around 7lb
Steve May over on peg 3 was catching well and from the look of it he was catching decent size fish too all on paste Ian on peg 20 was hooking a lot of fish down his right hand margin but was loosing a lot of fish too
Billy was struggling on peg 16 next door and I think only had a couple of fish in the net caught on the feeder fished tight to the big island in front
I caught well from the 6m line but eventually it died so I gave the margin swim a try first put in with a grain of corn on the hook I had a Carp of about 2lb but that was all no other bites
For the rest of the match I swapped between the 6m swim and the 13m island swim and although it wasn't bagging I did get a constant stream of fish coming to the net most of them were around the 2lb mark Steve on peg 3 was still catching a better stamp of fish and now Ian on peg 20 was also getting a lot of larger fish in the last hour they were both in bagging mode but my swims slowed down a bit and although I was still getting the odd fish they were still smaller than both Steve's and Ian's in the last hour Billy had a bit of action in his margin swim and managed 2 or 3 Carp
As the all out was called I hooked my last fish of the day again a Carp of around 2lb
I put my gear away and waited for the scales to come round I reckoned that Steve had won the lake easily but wasn't too sure what Ian had as I was sat with my back to him for most of the time I thought I had around 90lb and Ian was admitting to about the same so it could be close
I walked round to Steve's peg to watch him weigh in and he put a fine 95lb 10ozs on the scales not as much as I thought he had so it could be close all round 
next to weigh was Ian and he weighed 88lb 14ozs my fish moved the scales round to 86lb 02ozs and put me in 3rd place on the lake
Billy weighed in 27lb and didn't managed to hand a T-shirt out today to either next door peg
As we got back to the car park it was starting to sound like it had fished hard today on the other lakes and our 3 weights from Reptile could be good enough for 1st 2nd and 3rd in the match
I loaded the car and headed back to the pub for the results
Steve May won the match with 95lb 10ozs  Ian was 2nd with 88lb 14ozs and my 86lb 02ozs gave me 3rd place in the match and a nice pick up
All in all a fine day out with some great weather for once and a good days fishing in good company
Thanks to Woody999 for running the match
I will certainly be coming back to fish phase 2 again


Results

Position	Peg	Name	Weight
1st	Reptile 3	Poolsfodder	95lb 10ozs
2nd	Reptile 20	Eels	88lb 14ozs
3rd	Reptile 17	Clive	86lb 02ozs
4th	Snake 15	Kingsway allstar	74lb 00ozs
5th	Snake 9	Phil Medhurst	71lb 02ozs
6th	Snake 7	Jadstar 70	59lb 10ozs
7th	Crater 5	Garlicbreath	55lb 02ozs
8th	Reptile 10	Snooty Fox	50lb 00ozs
9th	Snake 5	Woody 999	43lb 04ozs
10th	Paddock 11	Dale Marriot	42lb 12ozs
11th	Crater 14	SBW	42lb 08ozs
12th	Reptile 7	DNW	41lb 14ozs
13th	Reptile 13	Red Army	41lb 08ozs
14th	Reptile 5	Shankly 9	41lb 00ozs
15th	Crater 1	Rob Austin	39lb 08ozs
16th =	Crater 10	MGH	38lb 00ozs
16th =	Snake 1	Glebe 1	38lb 00ozs
18th	Paddock 4	Dendro	33lb 08ozs
19th	Snake 19	Mark777	33lb 00ozs
20th	Crater 12	MPO38	32lb 00ozs
21st	Paddock 25	Crowy	30lb 00ozs
22nd	Paddock 17	Castermaster	29lb 10ozs
23rd	Reptile 16	BNF	27lb 04ozs
24th =	Crater 8	Tackletart	19lb 04ozs
24th =	Paddock 8	No hope	19lb 04ozs
26th	Snake 12	Redpaste	18lb 10ozs
27th	Paddock 20	Tonkin Tommy	17lb 00ozs
28th	Paddock 15	Mark Richo	15lb 00ozs
29th	Paddock 2	Magnetic Pauli	12lb 04ozs
30th	Paddock 22	Disco	11lb 08ozs
31st	Snake 3	Church 007	8lb 08ozs
34th	Crater 3	Silverback	DNW
34th	Snake 22	Leo Perkill	DNW
34th	Crater 15	Mosellajase	DNW