Fortunately for me, Willinghurst regular Brian Wharton lives just up the road from me and after a swift phone call, I managed to secure a lift to Willinghurst the following morning - Thanks Brian.
With a few of the regulars at Bury Hill we had just 13 of us fishing so everyone could be well spread out and only the better pegs put in, although we did have to leave a few pegs out due to the work they are doing on the Lake "extension".
With three pegs remaining in the draw bag the only pegs left were all on the back spit (which apparently didn't fish too well at the weekend), Pegs 22,25 and 26. Personally, although it has probably won more matches than any other peg on the lake, I actually don't like Peg 22 as you sometimes have to fish long to catch (15-16 metres) and you also have to break your pole down a couple of times when unshipping.
However, Peg 22 it was for me and with only paste and pellett with me I purchased some hemp as I intended to mix it with a tin of luncheon meat I'd had in my net bag for a while and fish it in the margins. Most of the weights that come off th epeg have been caught tight to the far bank with a long pole or small method feeder but as I don't really enjoy that, I decided to fish two paste lines, one at 8 metres straight out in front of me and one in the middle towards Peg 23 which wasn't pegged. I also set up two rigs to fish in the margins either side.I started by feeding a small pot of pellets on both paste lines and two small pots of hemp / cubed luncheon meat on in the margins. As usual at Willinghurst, the match started well with 5 quick fish on the paste but then the peg died and I had to switch things about to try and induce a bite. I started up a couple of different lines, one at 5 metres towards Peg 23 and had a coupl eof big fish there, including one that must have gone 13 or 14lb and I also had a frustrating time fishing right by the bridge as I had a carp first put in there but then missed a load of bites before catching another carp - I wasn't convinced that they were carp bites and did eventually catch a roach of about 6 ounces !
When I drew Peg 23 the othere week Woody "The Leatherhead Miser" was on Peg 22 and although he struggled during the early part of the match, he did catch a load of fish in the edge towards the bridge late in the match, so I was confident of catching a few there. With a couple of hours to go, I impaled two cubes of Luncheon meat on the size 14 B911 hook and lowered the float into the right hand margin swim. The float sat there for a minute or so then disappeared from view and I soon had a fish of about 8lb in the net. Feeding a toss pot of hemp / meat every put in, I then had a little purple patch where I had 6 fish in 6 put ins, then depite slowling down a bit I was still catching the odd fish. At Willinghurst on the Top Lake, I set myself a target of 20 fish to finish in the frame as that will usually give you over 100lb and this time I'd finished with 25 with most of them being bigger than average fish.
Result
Dave Pearson.........Peg 22 ....................155-0-0
Shaun Sylvester.....Peg 18.....................113-14-0
Jim Long.................Peg 21......................112-8-0
Steve Sanders........Peg 20.....................109-4-0
Gedge Cooper........Peg 12......................105-12-0
John Clifford..........Peg 24........................89-0-0
Mick Seymour.......Peg 25.......................88-0-0
Ian Covey...............Peg 6.........................82-0-0
So, all in all, a lovely day and I didn't miss Bury Hill and it's bream at all ! I'm back on Top lake on Sunday on the first Leatherhead DAS match of the season but with twice the numbe rof people on it, you will certainly need a decent draw - I think I'll settle for anywhere on the back spit or in the bomb hole.
