For anyone who is vaguelly interested in my approach, I set up a "Hook in the loop" rig to fish corn at 13 metres, a rig to fish small pieces of paste at 6 metres, another long pole rig to fish into the bay to my right and an edge rig to fish by a big clump of grass to my right.
The SP at Willinghurst is that you usually catch a few "Mug" fish at the start, then it dies for a couple of hours (unless your peg is solid with fish) then you all start to catch a few fish in the last couple of hours. Unfortunately just lately I have been missing out on the mug fish and haven't caught anything until late. Yesterday was no exception, Jason Morgan or Net Dip as he is now apparently known had two early fish to my left and Plummet (Brian Wharton the Willinghurst diving champion) also had two but I was still biteless. I then foul hooked a carp on both the long and short lines and much to everyones amusement, los them both. With three hours to go and still no fish in the net, I decided to fish down the bank into the corner to my right as the depth was the same as it was 10 metres out. After cupping in a few grains of corn in went the rig and under went the float, The top kit I'd hooked the fish on was Preston 13H and without a pull bung it seemed to take an age to get the fish in but eventually I put the net under a nice "Barney Rubble" ! After slipping the fish into a previously empty keepnet I switched the top kit over to one with a pull bung which helped tremendously when I hooked another big fish about twenty minutes later - this one was no problem, ship back to top three (which is really a top 2 as the number one section isn't in) pull out some elastic wind it round my wrist, lift the fish up in the water and net it.......simple !
I managed to catch another 2 carp and a few roach but lost another foul hooker and finished up with 4 carp and a few roach for 33lb. Jason at the next peg had just 4 fish for his 39lb. As the result came in, it became obvious that we'd drawn the wrong lake as Mick Keeper won New Lake with 52lb being beaten by 4 anglers on top.
Paul Taylor finished top dog from Peg 18 with 105lb, followed by Shaun Barnett with 89lb from Peg 8, S Lee Peg 2 78lb and Donald on Peg 10 with 56lb.
Sunday sees us back at Willinghurst for Round 2 of my winter league and following our win at Gold Valley in Round 1, Pikey's Six will be doing our best to hang on to our lead.
