After many weeks of league and pairs matches I finally had a weekend where I was looking forward to fishing a Leatherhead DAS club match on the River Mole. However, God had other ideas and when I rode across the river at Fetcham Splash on the way to the Wildlife centre on friday morning the river was already bank high and flowing across the footpath between the overflow channel and the main river. By the time I cycled back 5 hours later it had risen another 3 or 4 inches and was still coming up !
With the river match being a no no, it was likely to be moved to the ponds about 150 yards from my front door so a little reckie was in order. I'd had some lovely days fishing on the ponds in the summer but as the xmas match was only won with 17lb, I needed to see if I could still catch on paste as that is usually all I take there. Arriving home I quickly poured some boiling water over some pellets and made myself some lunch whilst the paste cooled down. Within 20 minutes I was taking the short walk to the ponds with 2 bait boxes full of paste mix, my trusty H10 pole, landing net and seat box. I picked a peg in the rushes with the wind behind me and by 2.02pm I was fishing. I 'd pushed some of the paste mix through a riddle and added some water to make it a lot softer and fished a small piece on a size 14 hook whilst also feeding some of the loose mix every other put in. After half an hour without as much as a sign, I was just beginning to think that I might need to take some other bait on sunday when I saw a few blows in the peg. A couple of seconds later I had my first bite and soon had a mirror carp of about 2lb in the net. Ninety minutes later when I ran out of soft paste, I'd had another 19 carp between 1 and 4lb and lost a few foulhookers as well. At one time the peg was solid and I was catching fish as soon as the bait hit the bottom and even had 2 on the drop ! Just as I was packing up, I had a text from Hathers saying "The river is horrible, are you coming to the ponds on sunday ?" I most certainly will and although the weather is supposed to be horrible, if I 'm not catching I can always walk home ! Come back monday to see if I manage to draw a carp peg or not !
