Sumners Pond 27th February 2008

Well there appears to be no room in the Angling Times for my article this week, so I may as well put it on here !


They say in life that a change is as good as a rest and match fishing is no exception. After a couple of weeks of struggling for a bite fishing “Carp Matches”, God (Steve Gardener) had booked a match on the “Silvers Lake” at Sumners Pond and as he was on duty with Dorking practicing for the Winter League Semi final at Monks Lake, I somehow got roped into organising it !

With 15 anglers fishing, local experts Terry Harrison and Dan Cooper were dispatched to peg the lake whilst I sorted out the money. The draw meant little to me as I had only fished the lake once before and as it isn’t permanently pegged, I wasn’t sure where the pegs were anyway. The funny thing was that the peg I drew, right outside the café was the same peg I drew the first time I fished there and had 16lb of roach on a very cold winter’s day.

This time with the skimmers likely to feed, I set up a 4x16 rig on 0.10 line and white hydro to fish at 13 metres and a hook in the loop rig on 0.12 to fish at 7 metres. I also set up a maggot rig to fish by the tree to my left as that is where I caught the majority of my roach last time. Although the match started slowly for me, those on the other side of the lake and Bubs on Peg 1 were catching well. With the water being quite a bit shallower on our side of the lake, it was just a question of waiting for the fish to arrive in your peg and hopefully stay there. After half an hour I began to start catching the odd skimmer between 6 ounces and 1lb and by switching between the two lines I was managing to keep adding a few fish to my net. I also had the odd drop in on the maggot rig and whilst I could catch the odd decent roach, but every time you caught one you had to wait ages for another.

I finished the match with a couple of bigger fish in the last 10 minutes and whilst I hadn’t exactly set the world on fire, I had enjoyed the day which was one of those where you had to keep changing your rigs about to keep in contact with the fish, I also found that when the 13 metre line died, I could nick a few more fish by adding another section and going out a bit further.

The main object of the day was to get some bites and regain the pound I had “lent” to Jeff Simmons the previous Sunday. At the weigh in I had succeeded on both counts as despite Jeff having 43lb one side and 34lb the other, only weighed 17-8-0 and when I placed my 28-4-0 on the scales my shiny pound returned to its rightful home.

Terry Harrison proved his class (and highlighted why I don’t want to fish fair silvers matches against Dorking anglers) with 54-14-0, followed by Don with 43-8-0 and Adam Lee with 34-8-0. Bubs pinched my section 3lb ahead of me with 31-2-0 and whilst my fishing had gone a bit stale with me not preparing for matches properly and just turning up hoping to draw a good peg, I’m now really looking forward to next weeks match. I’ve got my enthusiasm back and am already looking at ways to improve my performance next time.

My target for next week is 30lb and / or to finish in the money.