Willinghurst like many other carp venues has a little spell at the end of the matches where the fish start to feed properly and nearly everyone starts to catch a few fish -our esteemed friend, Mr Keith Arthur calls it "Carp o'clock" and it's very aptly named. At Willinghurst this is usually from about 3ish but depending on conditions etc can be as late as 4 or 4.30 with a 5pm match finish time.Willinghurst regular "Teabag"decided that to make the best of this time we could fish a "Double Header" match, fishing 10am - 2pm then having a break before fishing the bit that everyone wanted, 4pm - 8pm ! So, 19 of us turned up to fish (you always get one that lets you down don't you) and the format was to be 4 sections of 5 anglers with sections being paid out in both halves but with just the Top three being paid out on overall weight.
I drew Peg 8 which in recent years was one of the best pegs on the lake but this year has not really produced at all. However, I do like the Peg and with lots of room, I thought I had a decent chance of catching a few fish and hopefully framing. My section consisted of Reg The Edge on Peg 1, Adrian Westgate on Peg 2, Andy Ford - The man on the Telly on Peg 4 and Tony "The Cat" Plumbridge, regular donator of £1 to me on Peg 5.
For bait I had enough paste to sink a battleship, some pelletts, plus some hemp (scrounged off Ross as the cabin had none) and luncheon meat for fishing the margins.
We all expected the first match to be hard but not as hard as it was - especially at our end of the lake as with an hour of the first half to go, I was still fishless as were Fordy and Plummers and a few others on the lake including Gedge Cooper - or Laser as he is also known due to his accurate casting - Yeh right ! By this time I was already on Plan Z and had fished and fed about twenty different parts of the peg ! I eventually started to get a few fish blowing over a long paste line and had three fish in the last 45 minutes for 17-8-0, which I was amazed to find had won the section with Reg being second with 12-12-0.
First Half Result
Don Garnish.......Peg 16........41-8-0
Hayden Woods....Peg 15......35-8-0
Jim Long..............Peg 20......32-0-0
Ian Covey............Peg 13......30-0-0
Hall of Shame
Fordy................Peg 4.............DNW
Plumbridge......Peg 5.............DNW
Gedge Cooper...(Despite his new pole) Peg 24....DNW
Mick The Bookie......Peg 22 (Where Will Raison had over 400lb from)....3-0-0
Despite a crap morning, over burgers and tea everyone agreed that as it took a lot less time to weigh in, rather that sit around twiddling our fingers, we should start again at 3.30 instead of 4pm. This suited me and I just hoped that the fish that had settled over my long paste line were still there when we restarted.
On the whistle (actually it was a shout cos we haven't got a whistle), I fed a couple of handfulls of hemp / luncheon meat in the edge against the rushes and went out on the long paste line whilst I left it to settle for a while. I soon had the fish blowing again and had a couple of decent fish before having a go in the edge. It wasn't easy fishing in the marins as I was fishing against the rushes in quite deep water on a flat bottom. Usually when fishing in the edge you can put your float against the bank and lay your bait on the slope which seems to reduce the number of foul hookers as the fish can only be coming at your bait from one direction and just pick it up off the slope. However, with no slope to fish I did foul hook a couple of fish before deciding to try paste a couple of feet further out. This was an inspired decision as I then had 3 or 4 fish straight off before the fish disappeared and I had to wait for them to return. Whilst still feeding the margin I went back out on the long paste line and nicked a few more fish as a decent evenings sport seemed to be coming together and thoughts of winning started to enter my head !
However, it all went a bit "Tits Up" from then onwards as I could only get a bite on my Tiger Nut paste and was quickly running out ! I did try using both my catfood paste and Green IM5 paste on both lines that I knew fish were feeding on but never had a bite on either - so for those who say it doesn't matter what paste you use, he is an example where it clearly did ! I did have some Tiger Nut pellets with me which I soaked and pushed through a riddle but I couldn't get the texture right with the mixture and it just came off the hook after a few seconds.
For me, the match just sort of petered out but when Reg came round with the weigh sheet it appeared that the rest of the section had all had about two fish each and had already gone home - this included Plumbridge who seemed to have forgotten to give me his £1 for the second half of the match ! My 12 fish went 62-12-0 as I was left thinking what might have been if I hadn't run out of paste !
Evening Result
Teabag.........Peg 23............108-10-0
Russ Evans...Peg 10.............79-8-0
Jim McDowell.....Peg 26......70-14-0
Dave Pearson......Peg 8........62-12-0
Final Result
Teabag...................119-8-0
Jim McDowell........95-2-0
Russ Evans.............92-4-0
Donald Garnish.......89-0-0
Dave Pearson..........80-4-0
Alan Harrington .....79-8-0
Ross Nursey............79-6-0
So, all in all a very frustrating match once again, the fish still haven't settled down after spawing and whilst you have loads of fish in the peg, they just wont feed a lot of the time. Thanks to Mark (Teabag) for organising the match, hopefully we can have another one in a couple of weeks.
Sunday sees me back on the Top Lake fishing the Molesey "Old Boys" League as a guest, so I should pick up a few quid there ! Next time I'll certainly make sure I have enough bait with me.
Message for PlumbridgeThis is what they look like, make sure you bring at least two next time !
