Willinghurst Masters - Round 5

With the "Management" having moved some more fish into Old lake, rightly or wrongly, I thought it was time to move a section off of Cherrytree Lake - which had been fishing badly and try Old lake again. I actually quite fancied drawing it as pegging wise I just spread the nine pegs out over the whole of the 26 peg lake which meant that everyone had loads of room but there weren't any really big areas where the fish could go and hide to get away from the anglers.

As Alan Harrington did our team draw we had some decent looking pegs and as I looked down the list, against my name it said "OLD 22", so at least if it was crap I could blame myself for pegging it ! I spoke to Mick Seymour before I set off to my peg and he said he'd just fish maggott at 12 metres and would probably catch all day. So that is what I did, well the first bit anyway. I also set up a waggler to fish next to the airator and a rig to fish at the base of the near shelf (which isn't really a shelf, more of a big slope).

My mate and Foxy Five captain Don in the far corner moaned for England before the start, the usual "This is rubbish up this end, all the fish will be caught at the other end, I can't believe you pegged this bit etc etc" but did cheer up slightly when he had a carp first put in ! Tony Yianni - also drawn in the rubbish bit that I shouldn't have pegged also started to catch a few carp but the rest of us struggled for a few roach and the odd carp. Half way through with me having only caught a few roach and tiny skimmers I did have a chub of about a pound and judging by the amount of bait it had in it's mouth, I don't think that there were too many other fish about to compete for food. Although I then started to catch a few more roach, I really needed to catch a carp or two so decided to set up a small method feeder for the last hour as it has worked on the lake in the past. I spent the last hour plopping the feeder onto the shallower bar down the middle but despite doing the "Mick The Bookie packing up early game" - where his rod usually goes stright round when he is yards away from his rod packing something away, all I had were a few chewed maggotts from roach.

The only good news for me was that I'd had a pound with Pat Saward opposite and whilst my 3-2-0 put me second to last on the lake, it still beat Pat's 0-4-0, although I did have to hand Pat's pound to Haisman cos he beat me by 2 ounces from his flier on the Top Lake.

Tony Yianni won the Lake with 29lb followed by Sponge Bob - who could reach the central bar with a pole, with Don finshing third with 16lb.

Overall team mate Ian Covey had three big carp and 6 F1's for 45-2-0 to win the match - no we couldn't believe it either (only joking Ian) whilst Grumpy Collins drew the best peg in the south of England - Pittance 12 (even our mate Squeeky won the lake from it earlier in the season) to finish second with 43lb.

Result

Ian Covey Horseshoe 12 45-2-0
Steve Collins Pittance 12 43-8-0
Mark Goddard Horseshoe 2 38-8-0
Ben Emery Pittance 3 33-2-0
Joey Clarke Top 27 32-10-0
Shaun Barnett Pittance 18 29-15-0

Teams

Decca 37
Molloy's Mob 37
Allsorts 36
Foxy Five 33
Madgik 31
Willinghurst Muppets 31
Willinghurst Cabin 28
Molesey 26
Team Carbin 4

League with One Round to go.

Allsorts 11
Foxy Five 15
Molesey 20
Molloy's Mob 21
Decca 24
Willinghurst Muppetts 24
Willinghurst Cabin 29
Madgik 32

Wednesday sees me back on Sumners Silvers Lake for Round 5 of Steve Gardener's silvers league and as it worked well last time, please all cross your fingers for me to draw Peg 16 by the bush again !