Willinghurst - John's Lake

Sorry this weekends report is a bit late, (my brother has already complained) but I was busy at work yesterday lunchtime and had no time to type it.

Anyway, with not many options for the weekend, I ended up fishing the open match on John's Lake at Willinghurst, which even before I fished I knew was going to be a Dorking benevolent match ! With the lake being full of little carp (2-6 ounces) with a few skimmers and the odd tench and big carp, it was playing into the better anglers hands but at least the weather was nice and it was still better than sitting around at home !

With only 12 anglers fishing, as the"Molesey League" was on New and Horseshoe Lakes as well, I drew Peg 1 which is right out side the cabin but with the pegs well spread out over the lake, I don't think the draw really made any difference. The only draw back to the pegs by the cabin is that they are cooking all day and keep blowing the smell of bacon and onions over the lake which I have to say was very tempting !

Having never fished the lake before I thought I'd try to compete by trying something different so rather than feed with the usual micro pellets in a kinder cup, I thought I'd feed little hard balls of GB with dead maggots in as hopefully the "plop" of the GB would attract the fish. My rigs were my usual silvers rigs, 4x16 Drennan Lake floats on 0.12 with an 0.10 hooklength. I fished one line at 6 metres and one at 11 and although I started slowly, it seemed as though everyone else did as well as I looked round the lake I didn't see much being caught, mind you, it had been minus 2 at night.

As it warmed up, I started to catch a few little carp on the 6 metre line and I could tell when there were fish in the peg as they fizzed over the GB. Having seen a couple of weigh ins on previous matches on the lake I thought that 20lb would be a decent weight and after a couple of hours I thought If I could keep catching then I might just make that. However, rather than getting better, as the match progressed, my peg seemed to be dying. Half way through after 10 minutes without a bite the float dipped and as I lifted the pole, the elastic came out but the the float remained under the surface ! It was as though I'd just lifted into a snag on the bottom but then the snag began to move and after a scary couple of minutes I netted a bonus tench of about 3lb. The 6 metre line seemed to be almost devoid of fish after that and despite switching to the 11 metre line, that was very slow as well and I finished the match with 13-12-0 which although giving me a few bites, was a bit disappointing. I did however duff up club mate Tony Plumbridge at the next peg and take his £1 as he only had 7lb - although he did come up with some feeble excuse about leaving all his light elastics at home and had to fish with black hydro !

Now, although the final result wasn't really a suprise to me, Paul Holland was opposite me on the far bank and I hardly saw him catch a fish all match and actually felt quite sorry for him, however, it turned out that he had actually won the match with 35lb ! It isn't the first time he has done that to me though as I remember a match the other year on Top Lake where I had drawn Peg 20 and he was on Peg 22 behind me on the back spit. At the end of the match I thought it was going to be close between us and when I told him that, he looked at me as though I was some sort of idiot - I eventually found out why as I weighed in 145lb and I think he had 248lb ! I've now come to the conclusion that he is just a sneaky little git !

Result

Paul Holland 35lb
Mark Goddard 29lb
Steve Gardener 24lb
Paul Hiller 20lb

I think I'll stick to fishing with anglers of my own ability in future !

I have managed to wangle my way into the 40 peg Bury Hill fishery open on the Main Lake on wednesday so expect to read about another beating from the big boys on Thursday !
The good news is that on Sunday I am appearing as a guest in the "Molesey League" and having helped them weigh in on the first two matches, I expect to pick up a few quid as the standard really isn't that high !