Morehouse Farm Fishery, 20th October 2013

It's been a month since I'd been on the bank and I was itching to get out.  Pikey organised a match at Morehouse Farm Fishery in East Sussex which proved too tempting to miss out despite the weather!  A 6am wake up call with it raining heavily didn't look fun, but I had to get out.

I arrived at the fishery with plenty of time to spare and met up with the lads.  Today would be a mix of MFS members and Morehouse Farm locals.  We would be fishing the Sidewinder lake which is a mix of a snake type lake and open water with a causeway and island to go at.

The Draw
It was quite a windy day and having never fished here I wasn't too worried about which peg I had.  I draw Peg 42 which had two margin swims and open water in front.  If I wanted to fish over I'd have to break out the bomb or method rod.

The Set-Up
I decided that I would only set up the pole and my swims were as follows:
  • Margin to my left and right
  • 6 metre line straight ahead at full depth and shallow
I spoke to Simon at Morehouse and also Pikey about baits etc and the advice was 4mm pellets, expanders, 4mm meat, some corn and a little bit of sweet F1 groundbait.

Morehouse Farm provides their own keepnets and landing nets which are very kindly delivered to your pegs.  There is a sensible 50lb net limit with leeway to 60lb, anything over knocked back to 60lb. 

The All-In
Ray on Peg 43
The match kicked off at 10:30am and would be 6 hours in total and I started by potting in a small ball of groundbait laced with 4mm pellets and a few kernels of sweetcorn on the 6 metre line and went straight over the top of it.  I could throw 4mm pellets to this line and threw a pinch of 4mm pellets every couple of minutes in order to attract the fish.  It took 10 minutes for the first fish which was a small skimmer.  In the first hour I had only put 5 fish in the net, meantime my neighbours, Ray on Peg 43 and Stuart on peg 39 where catching at a steady rate...

I noticed that Stuart who is a local to Morehouse Farm was fishing shallow on his 5 metre line and the rate of feed was a lot more than mine, so I up'd my feed rate and threw a pinch of pellets every 30 seconds.  this started to give me better results and the fish started to respond.  I was using sweetcorn on the hook combined with lifting and dropping the rig.

In the third hour it was clear the fish had come up in the water, so I tried the shallow rig.  It took about 20 minutes to find the right depth before I got into a rhythm.  All the time I had been throwing the luncheon meat into my margin swims.

I found that I was having to switch between my shallow and full depth rig in order to keep in touch with the fish but I was well behind Ray and Stuart.

The rain then started... it was a case of battening down the hatches as it absolutely bucketed it down.  At this stage I went in the margins as it was a lot easier to hold the pole in the wind and rain.  I took some good F1's from both margins.  The margin rig was set just down the shelf and using sweetcorn as bait I could judge when I was in the right position, to deep and the rig would sink, to shallow and the float would sit proud.

Heading into the final hour I switched between the 5 metre line and the margins but I knew that I wasn't in the race so just sat back and enjoyed the final hour's fishing.

The Result
58lb-8oz for nowhere... Chip shopped by Ray and Stuart, i.e. Battered on both sides!!!  Well fished guys.

 Peg 18.........Happy Dangler..............76-2-0
Peg 19.........Pikey..............................93-2-0........3rd
Peg 20.........Squeeky........................60-0-0
Peg 23.........Rob (Owner)..................51-14-0
Peg 28.........Charles (Foreign Chap) 60-12-0
Peg 33.........Colin...............................52-10-0
Peg 36.........Big Bloke........................68-2-0
Peg 37.........Jim Spurs.......................10-6-0
Peg 39.........Stuart (Local).................123-10-0.....1st
Peg 42.........Lewy...............................58-8-0
Peg 43.........Ray.................................96-6-0..........2nd
Peg 48.........Dilly................................53-0-0
Peg 49.........Matt (Local).................84-4-0.......4th
Peg 50........Jack.................................68-6-0

 Conclusion
The F1's at Morehouse Farm are of a good size and typical finicky biters, lifting on the slightest touch hooked the fish.  I only lost a couple of fish during the whole day, coupled with a few foul hookers I felt that I did the best I could on a new fishery.  Definitely an enjoyable fishery, well manicured and ample parking.  I look forward to the next match there Pikey! 
Location: Wivelsfield, East Sussex RH17 7RE, UK

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