Long Copse Ponds - Match Day !

Regular readers will know that I've recently had a couple of great afternoons fishing the Leatherhead DAS club ponds 200 yards from my house. I've had a great time fishing ponds where I've had loads of bites and although I was a little worried about the number of anglers fishing the match as they are both only small ponds, I was just praying that I'd draw one of the decent carp pegs - which on both lakes all have rushes in them.

Match day arrived and Hathers and Ross dropped in for a pre match Coffee and Bacon sandwich before leaving me to walk the short distance to the draw. After a quick walk round the lakes to check on the pegging, I told Ross that we wanted to draw either Pegs 1 and 2 on the Bottom Pond or 11-18 on the Top Pond.

After what seemed like an age, where The Major (Competition Secretary Peter Turnbull) counted and recounted those present to make sure we had the right number of pegs, we were finally ready for the moment of truth ! In went Hathers......out came Peg 14. In went Ross......out came Peg 17 and I needed to get in there quick as all our fancied pegs seemed to be going ! Having spent quite a bit of time at the ponds recently, both fishing and wandering, there were two pegs I really fancied, Peg 11 had already gone but I managed to draw Peg 15 and everyone was really pleased for me !

The peg, in one corner has a bed of rushes both sides but what makes it so good is that the next peg to the right is a good 25 metres away whilst most of the others are quite close together. I've learnt over the past few years that no matter what others say, THE bait at the ponds is Paste and I had loads with me. The water in the lake is quite clear and you really need to fish two lines in order to keep the fish coming, I therefore fished one line out in front of me to the edge of one rush bed and one line seven metres to my right along the other rushes. Rigs were my usual paste rigs, Maver Margin Paste floats to 0.18 G Line and a size 10 B911 hook.

I began by cupping in a small pot of micro pellets in front and left it to settle whilst fishing the other line. After 15 minutes without a sign of a bite I was beginning to wonder if it was all going to go horribly wrong, I knew it wouldn't fish as well as pleasure fishing with 3 or 4 anglers on the pond and we'd also had a couple of cold nights but I still expected to catch a fish or two !

Club matches on the club ponds are like no other matches I fish as you get such a cross section of anglers from regular match anglers to out and out carp anglers. Me and Hathers had a giggle at the carp angler on the end of our bank with his carp rod and buzzer (not being disrespectfull but you don't see many of them on matches I fish) but it was he who had the last laugh as he chucked out his lead first cast and his buzzer went off straight away !

Just as I was about to switch lines, I had my first bite and was pleased to net a mirror carp of about 4lb. Five more fish followed in the next 45 minutes and although they were all smaller, I was nevertheless happy with my start as although Ross was catching a few, nobody else seemed to be setting the world alight. Despite trying the other line in front of me on and off, I couldn't get a bite on it - which was really strange as it looked good and was the same depth as the other line. Whilst I was catching on fairly big bits of paste, the bites were minute and I had to shot the float right down to almost a pimple to get a fish. If I left more float out of the water the fish just seemed to play about with the bait and not take it properly. I continued to catch on and off for the next couple of hours, catching two or three fish before it went quiet and you had to wait for the fish to return to the peg. I kept trying the other line just to rest the swim but still couldn't get a bite from it and in the end found that the best method to keep catching was to go for a quick walk to see how others were doing and when I got back, I'd catch 2 or 3 quick fish each time ! The Major was in Peg 2 on the Bottom Lake and was catching well fishing along the rushes with corn and Martin Jackson was catching a few fish opposite me on Peg 23 or 24 but apart from that most were only catching the odd fish and I thought if I could just add a few more fish in the last couple of hours then I might just sneak a win.

I've had a brilliant club match season this year with some really good draws on venues that suit my style of fishing and have caught loads of fish at Willinghurst, Willow Park and Stub Pond but this match was likely to be my last club match for a while unless I can get down the River Mole for a few Leatherhead DAS / Dorking AC matches this winter as the coming months are all filled by various league matches.

Anyway, back to the match, whilst we were expecting to catch more fish in the last hour, with the clocks going back an hour it meant that it started to get cold quite early and with the rain falling all day and the pond coming up over an inch, my match sort of petered out with only 3 or 4 fish in the last 60 minutes.

Starting the weigh in on the opposite bank Martin Jackson weighed in an impressive 47lb, catching on paste at about 5 metres and with Hathers weighing 36lb, by the time they reached my peg I knew that The Major was likely to be the only challenger but I knew he'd have had to catch a lot of fish - as the average stamp of fish is smaller on the Bottom Lake to beat me.
After 4 weighs with the 20lb scales (no I don't know why they didn't use the 60lb ones either), my weight was finally recorded as 77-7-0 which as Peter's catch had been exagerated slightly and only went 39lb, was enough for a win.

Result

Dave Pearson Peg 15 77-7-0
Martin Jackson Peg 24 46-9-0
Peter Turnbull Peg 2 39-0-0
Graham Mac Peg 4 38-0-0
Hathers Peg 14 36-0-0

Next week is Round 3 of my Winter League at Gold Valley which I'm sort of looking forward to but the weather looks horrible for this week with minus temperatures forecast for most nights and I think my wednesdsay match at Willinghurst is supposed to have a high of only 5 degrees !
Come back Thursday where, if I've thawed out enough I will report on wednesday's match !