Despite the threat of freezing weather for the weekend, a quick glimpse at the BBC weather for the Willinghurst area before I went to bed on saturday night cheered me up no end as zero degrees was the lowest temperature forecast. However, I was somewhat dubious as our car in the drive was already white with frost !
Sure enough as Don and I drove to Willinghurst at 7.30am on sunday morning, the outside temperature in Don's car read a balmy..............................MINUS 6 !
How do these people get jobs as weather forecasters as I'm sure in any other job, if you got things wrong as many times as they do then you'd be sacked.
Anyway we arrived at Willinghurst to find all the lakes frozen solid and with most people not bringing ice breakers it was a question of waiting until one was available to break out your peg. Don did the draw for us and drew himself Top 6 and me Horseshoe 12 both decent winter pegs but maybe not when the lakes are frozen.
Unfortuntely I hadn't got either my own ice breaker or Marcus Page (who usually does my ice breaking) with me. I therefore borrowed a breaker off of Malc Fowler and whilst I don't want to appear ungrateful, it was rubbish ! The chain was too thick and short and did not cut the ice at all which meant that rather than cut the ice into big sheets and just push it under or over the ice, I had to break the whole lot up into smaller pieces, which was much harder work. Despite having a bad shoulder and a crap ice breaker I had soon cleared my peg out to 10 metres and also down the edge as it was a noted edge peg although I didn't expect to catch there today with the weather being so cold. I set up two rigs to fish long in the 8 foot deep peg, one with 0.10 hooklength and one a 0.12 Hook in the loop rig, along with an edge rig and one to fish at 5 metres just down the shelf.
By this time the sun had got up and without a cloud in the sky and no wind at all, the weather was gorgeous and I actually took of my fleece as I was so hot - however, this wasn't the case for everyone as Mick (Wicket) Keeper and Brian (Plummet) Wharton on Pegs 5 and 7 in the shade were likely to remain frozen all day.
Whilst the weather was superb for me, the fishing wasn't as I sat biteless for hours whilst everyone else seemed to be catching the odd F1 or roach. I'd get an update by phone from Don every hour and with him blanking as well, I didn't feel so guilty about letting him down.
The one highlight of the day was a visit from my old team mate Nigel Marchington or his Lordship as he is also know, I've fished with Nigel for probably 35 years since we were both juniors with Leatherhead DAS and really love his company as we have the same sense of humour. He moved up to the midlands a while ago but pops down south occasionally to visit his parents (he says to check that his dad hasn't changed his will !) and pops into Willinghurst to remind him waht superb fishing he is missing !!!!!!
Whilst Nigel was sititng with me at 2.15 the float dipped for the first time during the match and a swift upward movement of the pole resulted in a missed bite ! With the match slipping away I decided to spend the last hour fishing in the edge as with Don still blanking, the only chance of a pick up was to win the lake and for that I needed a BIG carp. I did have one little indication in the edge which I think was a fish swimming into the line but I ended the match still fishless along with Steve Sanders, Terry and Marcus Harrison, Don, Ross etc etc, so at least I was in good company !..
Barry Goddard on Peg 10 won the lake with 13lb (6 F1's and a few silvers) with Malc Fowler on Peg 9 finishing second with 10lb (2 F1's and a load of small roach).
Result
Reg the Edge New 10 2 4-6-0 3 Carp
Alan Wood New 6 16-4-0 2 Carp
Barry Goddard Horseshoe 10 13-0-0
Terry Molloy New 16 11-0-0 1 Carp
Mick Farrington who won Pittance lake with 7lb won the pairs again, this time with Terry Molloy as his regular "Partner" Brian Green was in bed with Man flu. And with me and Don both blanking I think this may be the result in the league that we drop !
Wednesday sees us back at Sumners Pond on the silvers lake where we will hopefully all get a few bites but with the weather remaining cold for the next few days I'm expecting another tough match. Next sunday I'm back at Willinghurst for the final round of my winter league and if it fishes like yesterday then we could well have an interesting result. Fortunately "Pikey's Six" are one point ahead of Don's "Foxy Five" and we are both well clear of the third placed Willinghurst Cabin team, so one of us in Don's car is going to be happy come next Monday !
