Hartleylands Farm. Nick's Lake.
Saturday 10th April 2004.
I had arranged to meet Dave the Fish at Hartleylands today,with a view to having a practice for the forthcoming Intersite match.
To say that it was a dull, grey, wet, windy, and thoroughly miserable day would be an understatement!
Some of the Total-Fishing lads had come down for a practice and after a brief chat they set off to fish Peartree while Dave and I set up on Nicks.
Vince appeared to give us a pep talk,but things at the start were a shade slow,so Vince was dispatched to the Bakery at the farm shop for the pies.With these consumed Vince bid us farewell as he had to collect some people from Gatwick.
Dave and I redoubled our efforts ringing the changes to get an idea of what would and wouldn't work. At times the drizzle seemed to be falling horizontally instead of vertically,but we ploughed on for the good of the team, putting together bags including Tench, Skimmers, Carp and Barbel until about 3·30pm when Daves joints decided they had had enough of the cold and wet.
As a taster these are a few pics of some of the stock in Nicks.........
GHOSTIES.....
KOI.....
BARBEL.....
All in all a worthwhile day,with some methods sorted and filed away for use on the day, and the promise of more to come before the big day.
Lavender Farm. Match Lake.
Sunday 16th May 2004.
Well, the 1st match of the season for Hawthorne AC saw me driving down the M2 on the way to Lavender Farm on a bright warm sunny morning.
In the car-park all the usual suspects and a few new members were assembled for the draw, and with 25 members taking part peg18 stuck to my hand.
Now the match lake has what you might term a profusion of reeds,not just in the margins, but also on a number of sunken islands giving nearly every peg a feature to fish to.
Peg 18.......
The problem today however was that the recent spell of warm weather had encouraged the carp to play Mums & Dads. They were soon thrashing the water to foam all over the fishery and those that weren't were cruising aimlessly in the upper layers sunning themselves.
With the match half way through I hadn't had so much as a bite despite ringing the changes with Pellet, Corn & Maggot in both the margins and the island at 11mtrs in front of me.
Then at 1pm a small group of carp started to cruise the reeds by the island so on went a foot of line with a 16 hook and 3 maggots and out came the catapult to spray a steady stream of maggots in their direction.
Reeds Everywhere.......
Now the fact that the islands are sunk means that if you're not quick, any carp that are hooked can swim straight through the reeds and out the other side, and 4 managed to do just that 
however 11 didn't manage it and when the scales arrived they totalled 23lbs exactly.
This gave me 7th place overall, which given the outlook half way through the match was i felt a fairly decent result.
Hartleylands Farm. Finches Pond.
Sunday 30th May 2004.
Well today was one of those "Just got to go fishing" days.
No real forward planning, no saturday trip to the tackle shop, didn't even set the alarm, just woke up and looked out of the window, load up the car and off.
Destination Harleylands, There were bound to be matches booked on the main lakes,but you always seem to be able to find a swim on one of the smaller ponds on the complex,unlike neighbouring Elphicks which is normally full with the gates shut by 7·30am at the weekends.
I got there at just after 8am to find all the main lakes booked as I thought, but was pleasantly surprised to find a newly installed Burger Van.
Breakfast taken care of,(Very nice it was too) I had a wander and found peg 22 on Finches was free, which would do for me.
A comfortable 13mtrs to the far side and with the odd patch of fizzing bubbles, I was soon set up and ready to go.
Bait wise I only had some corn and some 4 & 6mm expander pellets, so that would have to do.
Peg 22...
Idealy I would have liked some meat,as i find that it works well here once the weather starts to warm up, but i didn't have any with me.
Anyway a couple of large pots of 4mm pellets with some corn were deposited along the front of the Irises on the far bank and a 6mm was impaled on the hook and offered up.
After about 30 mins of the float dipping and dancing around as the silvers nibbled away at the pellets it stopped. Back out with a fresh pellet and a couple of minutes later it buried and the 1st carp of the day was on its way to the net.
1st of the day....
A fin perfect fully scaled mirror of about 4lbs.
Sport was never fast and furious, but by sticking at it sport was at least regular. One of the delights of Hartleylands is the condition of the fish, No ripped mouths and every one fin perfect and such is the stock mix that you're never sure what the next fish will be.
Common, Mirror, Ghost, Koi? they are all there to be caught.
As the afternoon became more overcast with rain threatening, the obligatory "One Last Cast" produced this lovely Linear Ghost carp of around 3lbs.......
A nice end to the session which produced a total of 15 carp for a weight of around 50lbs. Definately worth the 90 mile round trip. 
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