By the time we reached the cabin, the temperature had risen to a heady minus 7 but the lakes all had just over 2 inches of ice on them. Personally the one draw I didn't want was on the main part of the top lake but that's exactly where I ended up on Peg 13 to be precise.
With the majority of anglers being caught out by the thickness of the ice, not many had ice breakers that could make any impact and with only a few suitable breakers about I put the start back until 11am.
After a quick bash in my peg with my 5lb ice breaker it was clear that I needed something more substantial and went to visit Don on Horseshoe lake to see how he was getting on. His breaker was probably twice the weight of mine so after he had finished breaking his peg I borrowed his.
With the ice being so thick, it wasn't easy to cut and the only way to clear a swim was to "nibble away at the edge". It took me probably 90 minutes but I eventually had a decent peg cut out to about 8 metres in front and an edge peg to fish just down the ledge to my left at about 6 metres along the bank.
With a limit to what you can do in iced over conditions, I set up two rigs, one 0.10/0.8 rig to fish maggot for roach and one corn rig on 0.14 as there is no point losing them if you hook one is there ! Anyway, I cupped in a couple of maggots, a bit of mushed up worm with a little red atomic cloud in it and left it to settle whilst I plundered my carp rig down the edge.
To be honest, the peg has been crap lately and although I did think I might be able to nick a roach or two, I ended the match still fishless, as did Joe Clark, Brian Green, Mark Goddard and Mick Seymour in my section !
Having cleared his peg of ice, see left, Terry Molloy went on to catch two carp for 10-4-0 to win the section followed by Gary Cliford who found a little shoal of roach hiding by his rushes and caught 10 of them for 1-0-0 to pick up £30 for second in section.
Arriving back at the cabin I was a little disappointed to find that Ian Covey had caught a few fish for our team, named MADGIK (it's the first initial of all our first names) as Keith Arthur, Mark Harrington Alan Harrington and the great Haisman himself all blanked ! Although Mak did pick up one of the three £30 section prizes that we drew for on Oak Tree lake as they all blanked !
Result
Shaun Barnett Allsorts Horseshoe 7 11-8-0
Derek White Foxy Five Top 22 10-12-0
Terry Molloy Molloy's Mob Top 2 10-4-0
Ged Cooper Willinghurst Muppetts Top 25 9-0-0
Teams
Foxy Five 34.5
Allsorts 28.5
Willinghurst Muppetts 23
Decca 22.5
Molesey 19.5
Willinghurst Cabin 18
Molloy's Mob 16
MADGIK 5
So, that's 2 blanks in two weeks and the prospects don't look a lot better for the near future, although if we go to Sumners Pond on wednesday I hope to catch a few silvers.
Just heard that fellow Leatherhead DAS member Spindle (Mark Nevins) has won the Leatherhead / Dorking club match on the River Mole at Dorking with 52lb of chub - what a lovely days fishing - Well Done mate.
