Sumners Pond - 14th November 2007

Hello all,

Until the problems with Southern Angler can be sorted one way or another, I will be posting my match reports on here


With my favourite Willinghurst venue fishing hard, ie only a few bites in a 6 hour match, we had been looking around for a venue to fish in the winter that would give everyone a chance of a few fish and more importantly be a place where everyone would be happy to fish. Sumners Pond near Horsham looked good and after a pleasure / fact finding trip one Wednesday, it looked like ticking the following boxes for me:-

1 It is only 22 miles from my house and is easily accessible.
2 They do a very nice breakfast.
3 The day ticket charge is reasonable
4 The Match Lake is full of feeding fish.
5 Despite there being better areas, those drawn away from them can still catch.
6 The lay out of the lake is good and with 20 anglers on it, you all have plenty of room.
7 There is a “road” all the way round the lake and you can drive round to drop your gear off – How civilised is that !

We therefore decided to run a few Wednesday matches on it, the first of which was 14th November, not an ideal time of year to fish a predominantly carp venue but I was sure we’d all still get a few bites.

Although the lake probably has thirty five pegs on it, we had 20 angler as fishing which meant we could peg it “sensibly” and give everyone a bit of room and a peg that wouldn’t be affected by anything others did.

Based on recent matches, and advice from the “Local Experts” (who think they know every peg inside out but they don’t really), the pegs you really wanted were 2-7 on the left hand bank as this had been the most consistent area – however, fish do have fins and hopefully everyone would catch a few wherever they drew. Typically, Steve Gardener (or God as he is known) drew Peg 6 and then with pegs 3,10 and 19 left in the bag, Leatherhead DAS team mate Mark Smith drew peg 19, much to mine a Ross’ amusement and then when I drew 10, Ross was more than happy to be left with Peg 3 as he’d come second with 170lb from Peg 2 the previous Saturday !

My peg was right down the far end of the lake and half way along an island that I could reach with 16 metres of pole – at least I could have done if I hadn’t left my “Long” pole at home and brought my 14.5 metre Power Legion instead ! What a Muppet ! There are probably only 4 pegs on the lake that you can reach an island with and the other three you can reach with 13 metres ! The rest of the pegs you can usually fish at 3, 6 and / or 13 metres.

Although being half way along an island I felt a bit limited into what I could do, I set up a couple of inside rigs – one to fish paste as I’d caught well on it the previous week, a “down the middle in the deep water rig” and a 14.5 metres towards the island rig. All rigs were 0.16 G Line – as I’d run out of 0.18 (and there appears to be a world shortage), hook sizes varied from size 10 for the paste rig to a size 18 B911 for the corn rigs. I began by cupping in some corn and hemp on all lines and then started off down the middle with a single piece of corn on the hook. Fifteen minutes later after a spot of lifting and dropping, my float still remained above the surface ! Squeeky (Stu Wilson) who had told me he’d drawn the worst peg in the world and would probably not get a bite (although as he’d only seen the lake once before, I don’t know how he knew that) had by this time already caught 3 carp and I would think he was probably wining the match !

I’d fed two lines across towards the island – one at 10 o clock and one at two o’clock both of which I could use the same rig for. I started on the left hand line and as I lowered the rig in slowly, just as the bait settled the float slid under and I soon had a 4lb fish in the net. This happened a couple more times before I swapped to the other line and the same thing happened there. I was starting to really enjoy this now as I now had 6 carp in the net with the prospect of a lot more to follow ! Next cast I hooked a fish which tore off up the lake to my right and eventually the hook came back much straighter than before – I like to try and convince myself that it was a foulhooker but I think it may just have been a big fish. Anyway, the bad news was that my recently adapted Carpa Porth float – which had sported a much longer luminous bristle had returned like a sling shot with the force of the elastic that was out and now had no bristle at all !

Try as I might, I couldn’t get the replacement rig to work properly – how often does that happen to you, the rig looks identical but you now can’t get a bite on it. I plodded away trying all the lines but it was almost as though the peg was now bereft of any fish. With half the match now gone and only a couple of small chub and a skimmer to add to my net, I refed both long lines and went for a wander up to see how Ross was doing. The anglers I passed all said they’d caught a few but it had now gone dead. Reaching Ross, he was fishing at 3 metres and still catching ! I sat on the bank to watch rather than stand as he was catching so close but had seen enough when he caught two fish in the 5 minutes I was sitting there ! Now I’d seen how it was done it was clearly a case of returning to my peg to bag up ! I wish !!!!!

In the last couple of hours I came in a section closer and caught another 7 carp but it may just have been that they had started to feed again. Being the organiser it was down to me to call time and looking at my phone at 3.14 ( we were fishing until 3.15) out of the corner of my eye I noticed my float dip. I then sat trying to watch the time and play a carp at the same time – it’s always good to shout “TIME” and “Fish on” at the same time cos it’s always good for a bit of abuse as everyone assumes you have waited to call “time” until you have hooked a fish !

I packed up as quickly as I could and left my gear ready for collection – I told you it was very civilised being able to drive round the lake ! I then grabbed the scales and went to weigh in the opposite side of the lake. Squeeky on the end peg had 46-8-0 and although I wasn’t sure, I thought I might just have pipped him with my 13 Carp and couple of pound of silvers. The far side was apparently where you didn’t want to draw but it looked ok to me as Alan Harrington, Gadget and Smiffy all weighed in over a ton but weren’t ever going to beat Mick Keeper and Ross on pegs 2 and 3 as they had been catching consistently all the way through. After a tense weigh in, Mick finally just came out on top with 162-2-0 to 160-10-0 !

So, on our first Wednesday match on a new venue the Top 10 places were as follows:-

Mick Keeper Peg 2 162-2-0
Ross Nursey Peg 3 160-10-0
Gadget Peg 17 118-10-0
Smiffy Peg 19 117-2-0
Alan Harrington Peg 15 100-12-0
Derek White Peg 5 95-6-0
Steve Gardener Peg 6 84-10-0
Glen Wills Peg 9 70-6-0
Don Garnish Peg 20 57-10-0
Dave Pearson Peg 10 56-12-0

We’re back there again on Saturday and I’ll let you know how we get on.
There have been several very hard frosts since Wednesday so I don’t expect such good weights but we’ll see !