As Pikey was on family duty he asked for a guest blogger and for one week only it’s me. Furnace Fishery opens its doors to match anglers from early October, for the summer months it’s carp, catfish and pleasure fishing only. In winter its a silver anglers paradise, predominately Skimmers to 2lbs, Roach and perch and if you are lucky the odd tinca. There are also some scatty hybrids that really pull your laccy. The first thing to do today was to fit into the Blue Moon café in Beare Green for some nose bag. This is a popular weekend for Fur & Feathers so at 7:15 I found myself in a queue outside. There must have been nearly 40 blokes trying to fit into a room that holds about 15. I did my normal by touring the inner sanctions of the café, nicking the odd sausage or slice of toast before I found Oggie at the front of queue ogling the blonde serving. A word in his ear and soon I had my well done bacon sarnie and two mugs of tea. Belly full it was off to the draw, where I was joined by South London’s best, Spindle, Rhino, Johnners, Boydie and Gadget.Today we had booked the small pond, it’s shallow at about 3’ and rammed with silvers as well as quite a few carp that whilst the water temperature remains warmish will always show. I didn’t really mind where I drew just so long as I had some room. I drew the halfway along house bank in between the two islands and yes I had some room and nobody opposite. There was little to no wind so I set-up a 2aaa drennan crystal insert waggler with 1 No.8 down the line to a .10 bottom and 18 drennan silver fish. I would fish this at 20 mtrs. I also set-up 3 rigs to fish two pole lines at 13 mtrs and 5 mtrs down the shelf, floats were Nick Gilberts Finesse No.3, .12 G line to an 18 Tubertini 808. One of the rigs had a .8 bottom just in case things were tough. This had been a cool week Darn Sarf with two frosts and finally some rain.At the off I potted 125grms of micro’s and a few maggots 1mtr short at 12 mtrs and began to flick maggots at 5mtrs. The intention today was to rotate all lines and spend about 30 minutes on each unless one line was solid, my experience here though is that you don’t seem to hold the fish for long. I’m sure this is because the water is so shallow. I started on the waggler feeding 4mms and maggot and fishing double red, 2nd cast and a plump 1lb skimmer was netted, 30 minutes in and I had two more 1lb fish and some small roach and skimmers. A look on the 13mtr line produced another quick burst of fish of the same stamp and that became the pattern for the day. I left the 5mtr line for 2 hours before looking, when I did it produced some 10oz hybrids but wasn’t solid and the rotation continued. All lines were regularly fed by a burst of feed 5 minutes before I visitedLooking around the pond I could see Oggie and Boydie catching well and over on the other bank Ray Tingley and Rob Drazey were fish for fish. I was up with the front runners and just needed to plod on, another look on the 5mtr line and a welcome 14oz perch showed itself. Then the inevitable and a long stream of blue hydro stretched across the pond and the first of 3 carp (that only counted as 1lb each) were landed. It surprises me how easy they are to land on such light gear. I felt like Will Raison I was that aggressive !! Then shock horror what I thought was foul hooked blade turned out to be a 10oz eel, December! I ask you. The surprise resulted in a lungful cry of SPIIIIIINDLE who was hidden from me today.
The match continued in the same vein but got harder in the last hour as the air chilled, Rob D had clearly won it however it would be close for the placing’s. With 2 minutes to go I had another look on the 5mtr line and bumped what I knew was a 1lb Perch as I caught it 3 minutes after the whistle sounded.The lads bounced the scales along, Boydie put 40lbs on the board before Oggie increased that to 44.6, he’d had a good run of large skimmers at the mid-point. Then there was 2x20lbs before I put 44.4 in the weigh sling, just 2 ounces in it or 3 minutes. On the other bank Rob weighed 60lbs for a good win and Ray T sneaked 2nd with 45.2, so I was left one out of the money and a section default. So, I had a great day but for the second time in two weeks finishing one fish short of 2nd place, maybe next time …………!
1st Rob Drazey 60.0 (skimmers, pole)
2nd Ray Tingley 45.2 (skimmers, pole and waggler)
3rd Keith Hogg 44.6 (skimmers, pole)
4th Hathers 44.2 (Skimmers, hybrids, carp, roach, rudd, perch eel, pole and waggler)
5th Dave Boyd 40.4 (skimmers, hybrids, pole and waggler)
Thanks Hathers for standing in and keeping the weekly update going. Next week I am fishing John's Lake at Willinghurst with some of the Match Fishing Scene lads. Pop back next Monday to see how I got on.
