Willinghurst - 30th January 2008

Eleven brave souls turned up at Willinghurst for our “Skivers, unemployed, old gits and general layabouts” match and with the main lakes having been hard going for a while, we decided to split the match between the inform Oaktree Lake and Pittance Lake. I was happy to draw Oaktree as I’ve fished it a couple of times lately and the swims we pegged had all been producing a few fish. My peg was on the opposite end of the island to the peg I had 36lb from the previous week but I could still reach the island with my new 17metre extension in place so I was happy. I don’t find it easy or much fun fishing that long but in winter, the fish sometimes wont come away from the features and even if you are just two feet short, you might not catch.

With Don drawing Pittance lake, we convinced fishery manager Paul White to give me a lift to my lake in his buggy to save Don driving miles around the estate to drop me off. This was a brave decision on my part as Paul knows I don’t feel particularly safe in his buggy and deliberately tries to scare me by driving at speeds and going to places where a buggy is really not designed to go !

As we arrived at the lake I could see that Paul had been hard at work as the island which used to be covered in over hanging trees and branches, had now had a severe “Haircut” which to be fair it was due as the offending vegetation was festooned in tackle.

The funny thing was that when completing the work, Paul rowed over to the island in his little boat, worked tirelessly tidying up the island and burning the resulting rubbish, only to look round and find that the wind had blown his boat up the other end of the lake ! He was then stuck on the island for about THREE HOURS as both his mobile phones had no signal and the multitude of walkers that are usually around the estate were nowhere to be seen. Luckily for Paul, just as he was contemplating stripping down to his pants and swimming across to the bank, a chap from the lodge came past walking his dogs and rescued the boat for him. We hardly laughed about it at all, and I promised faithfully not to tell anyone else – Whoops !

I did expect to catch straightaway against the island but after an hour without a sign of a fish, I decided to go and see how Pittance was fishing.
Before leaving, I fed 10 or 12 pieces of corn and left it to settle. On Pittance it was clear that it was going to be between Don on Peg 1 and Dave Bacon opposite him on Peg 16 for the money (they were paying the top 2 on each lake) as they both already had 4 carp each, Dave catching on pellet and Don on corn. Having completed my tour of the lake, I returned to my peg and caught a carp first put in ! I’ve found that this often happens in winter as if you are away from your peg the fish either move in to the quiet area or move over your feed if you are not constantly fishing it. I find it difficult to sit at my peg and not fish, so a short walk is perfect cos you can find out what is happening elsewhere as well. You must however be careful that it isn’t against the match rules to leave your peg before doing so !

In the last couple of hours, nothing I could do to try and get a run of fish seemed to work and I just picked up the odd small carp every now and then to finish with 5 carp for 17-12-0. Angling reporter extraordinaire Andy Ford finished with 9 skimmers a carp and a few minute perch – oh yes and a nice roach that he did get quite excited about, for 15-0-0 and second place on the lake.

On Pittance things were much better with Dave Bacon including some right lumps in his 76lb net, followed by Don with 56lb and Derek White on 46lb, most of which he caught in the final hour when after watching Dave and Don bag up on the pole all match, finally set one up !

With them paying the first two on each lake, Don seemed quite upset that he had THREE times my weight yet I still picked up £30 more than him !
Of course I hardly mentioned it at all at the post match “Huddle” in the cabin or on the way home !

Sunday it is Round 3 of the Willinghurst Masters and I really really hope that the weather forecasters have made a terrible mistake as I really don’t fancy “Heavy Rain and 25 MPH winds” !