There was good and bad news for the final round of my winter league at Willinghurst on sunday. The good news was that the weather had turned mild and the lakes wouldn't be frozen. The bad news was that it started raining when I cycled home from Wildlife Aid on Friday afternoon and it was still raining when I arrived home from an evening out at 11pm on Saturday night !
Whilst we were driving about on saturday we popped in to Willinghurst so I could check out the pegging and they seemed to have put in a number of new waterfalls as the drainage on some of the lakes couldn't cope with the amount of water running in to them and were already over flowing.
This picture shows Peg 2 on the Top lake and for those who don't know it, the peg is by the tuft of grass in the middle of the picture and it is usually dry land behind it !
Arriving on sunday morning, thankfully the levels had dropped slightly and I just had to swap round a couple of pegs that were underwater.
With my Pikey's Six team being just one point ahead of Don's Foxy Five, the last thing we wanted them to do was to draw Peg 3 as in normal conditions it gives you 4 of the best pegs on the complex. However, they did draw it and Marcus Page (who couldn't draw a pair of curtains at the moment) hung around at the end of the draw queue and we were left with Peg 5. Looking at our list of draws, there were only two I would have fancied for as few fish, Peg 10 on New - which Haisman had (jammy bugger) and Peg 10 on Horseshoe Lake.
I didn't really fancy any pegs on Top lake as it was chocolate brown and full of an extra 8 inches of cold rainwater. Nevertheless, Top 10 was where I was destined to spend the next 5 hours so I'd just have to get on with it !
Arriving at my peg, not only was the wind slightly from behind me, making fishing a lot easier but I also had Jeff Simmons at the next peg so at least we'd have a laugh if nothing else. I set up a lead and a waggler plus a couple of long pole rigs and one to fish for roach just over the shelf at 3 metres. I started on the lead but after 15 minutes with no signs at all, I then had a quick go on all the long pole lines just to get the rigs working properly more than anything else. I'd been flicking a few maggots on the "Roach" line from the start and when I impaled a red maggott on the size twenty hook and lowered the rig in I expected the float to sail away.....as if ! I was just thinking that maybe there weren't any silvers about when the float dipped and after a quick lift of the pole a suprising amount of white hydro emerged from my pole tip and I soon netted a decent roach of about a pound ! In our section Lee Smith on peg 4 had caught a carp and lost another but apart from that and my roach, there had been no other fish caught. I went back in on the short line expecting to catch a few more roach but it was not to be so I rotated all the other pole lines and had another couple of chucks on the lead before returning to my inside line again with no further indications at all.
This time I spent 5 minutes or so without a bite then the float slid away and I was soon attached to an unseen fish that was certainly no roach. Five minutes later I finally managed to slip the net under a carp of about 5lb that was hooked just under the chin. From here on, the wind changed direction, it seemed to get a few degrees colder and bites almost ceased completely. Jeff had one carp next to me and lost a foulhooker and whilst I'm not one to start rumours about fellow competitors, I think Mr Simmons maybe a secret flasher ! I've never known anyone go for a wee so many times in a match, everytime I looked round he seemed to have his little chap out and all I can say is that it must have been very very cold in his peg !
As the match came to it's conclusion, I managed to nick a few more late roach as the light started to fade and finished with the one carp, two decent roach and 5 smaller ones. I was fairly confident about winning the section, even when Lee's carp went 8-10-0 (although it looked about 6lb to me), Dave Bacon's 2 carp went 9-8-0 and then Jeff the flashers one carp went 8-8-0. Reaching my peg I pulled the net from the water and emptied the contents on the scales, watching the needle swing round to...............................8-2-0 ! I WAS GUTTED. I really needed the points for the team and with the rest of the section blanking, I could have caught just one small roach and still got the same 5 points.
You actually get nothing for winning the league, apart from a Willinghurst cap but I still really wanted to win if only to get the bragging rights over Don until next years league. I knew we'd struggle to beat them on the day with the draw they had but Keith Arthur winning his section and Haisman coming second in his gave us hope but the deciding lake was Pittance where John Clifford drew one of the best pegs (Peg 5 on the island) and was third on the lake with 4 carp whilst Woody for us drew Peg 10, which has been one of the worst pegs lately and blanked.
Arriving back at the cabin Marcus had a quick check through the boards and announced that they'd beaten us by one point on the day, meaning that they would finish one place in front of us and tie at the top of the league. With no "Tie Break" in place it meant we'd have to share the spoils and Terry in the Cabin would have to get 12 caps instead of 6 !
Thanks to everyone who fished and made the League a pleasure to run as always.
Result
Mark Goddard Pittance 16 57-8-0
Bubs New 13 23-0-0
Rob Dowsen Old 23 21-0-0
Reg The Edge Pittance 3 15-0-0
Brian Wharton Horseshoe 16 13-14-0
Gary Haisman New 10 13-4-0
Teams on the Day
Decca 28
Willinghurst Muppets 28
Molesey 26
Willinghurst Cabin 25
Molloy's Mob 23
Foxy Five 22
Pikey's Six 21
Missfits 20
Final Table
Pikey's Six 18
Foxy Five 18
Decca 22
Willinghurst Cabin 24
Willinghurst Muppets 27
Molesey 31
Molloy's Mob 34
Missfits 36
So that's it for one league, we now get a couple of weeks rest then at the start of January we start another 6 match series, the Willinghurst Masters. Before that I have another couple of pairs matches with Don, where we need to get our gfingers out after both blanking in the last round and a Total Fishing Xmas match at Bury Hill Lakes.
On wednesday I am helping to organise a Carol Concert for Rainbow Trust Children's Charity (Yes, I know it is a silly day to pick but someone else chose it before I got involved) so I wont be blogging on Thursday unless you want a report on the concert !
One last thing before I go, I found this photo in my holiday snaps from Florida, it shows the cover of an American fishing magazine and I wondered why we can't have pictures like that on the front of our magazines rather than a smelly carp !
